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PROCEEDINGS AT THE
fiuo Sjuntireti anli jTifttetf) ;ilnnti3er0arp
OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE
TOWN OF DEDHAM.

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772« Covenant here photographed was ^'- with one accord agreed
upon" af the first recorded meeting of the Dedham Proprietors,
Aug. 1 8, 1636. // is in the hand-writing of Edward Alleyn, the first
Town Clerk, and the leader of the Cojnpany, who was, without doubt,
the author.
July I, 1887.
PROCEEDI NGS
AT THE
CELEBRATION OF THE
OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE
TOWN OF DEDHAM,
MASSACHUSETTS, September 21, 1886.

CAMBRIDGE :
JOHN WILSON AND SON.

1887.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Extract from Records of the Colony of the Massa
chusetts Bay in New England  ix

IPreliminarg Jlction ol tlje ^oroxt.
Town-Meeting, April 6, 1885, and Appointment of Com
mittee  9
Action of the Dedham Historical Society:
Preliminary Meeting, June 3, 1885  9
Adjourned Meeting, Sept. 2, 1885  10
Public Meeting, Sept. 14, 1885  10
Annual Town-Meeting, March i, 1886, and Report of
Committee  10
Meeting of Committee of Arrangements appointed by
THE Town  15
List of Sub- Committees  16
Invited Guests  x8
Wjt €eUbratton.
Morning Concerts  22
The Procession  23

VI

CONTENTS.

Page
SERVICES IN THE CHURCH.
Original Ode and Verses. By Frederic J. Stimson . 32
Prayer, by Rev. Joseph B. Seabury  34
Address of the Presiding Officer, Hon. Thomas L.
Wakefield  36
Original Hymn, by Rev. Seth C. Beach . . • • 39
Historical Address, by Erastus Worthington . . .40
Forty-Fourth Psalm  104
Benediction, by Rev. Seth C. Beach  104

THE DINNER.
Address of the President of the Day  107
Invocation, by Rev. George W. Cooke  108
Address of Hon. Frederick D. Ely  108
Governor Robinson  112
Hon. Hugh O'Brien, Mayor of Boston . . 121
Dr. George E. Ellis  123
Dr. William Everett  128
Dr. Dwight  131
Erastus Worthington, Esq  132
Colonel Ellis  135
WiNSLOw Warren, Esq  139
Rev. Robert J. Johnson  141
Alonzo B. Wentworth, Esq  149
Closing Exercises at the Tent  151

Evening Concerts, Fireworks, etc 
Final Meeting of Committee of Arrangements

132

CONTENTS. vii
Page
The Historical Collection  153
Report of Committee on Historic Tablets and Monu
ments  155
The Burial-place  157
The Training-field  163
The First Dam and Mill  165
The Pillar of Liberty  170
The Powder House  177
Historic Houses and Places  185
The Avery Oak  185
The Fairbanks House  185
Houses of the Ministers of the Dedham Churches . . . 186
The Dexter House  187
House of Dr. Nathaniel Ames  188
House of Fisher Ames  189
The Haven House  190
The Dowse House  191
The Shuttleworth House  193
The Woodward Tavern  193
Site of other Historic Places  194
Final Action of the Town  196
APPENDIX.
I. Ode and Verses. Music by Arthur W. Thayer . 199
II. Anniversary Poem, by Charles A. Mackintosh . 205
III-IX. Notes  208-214

EXTRACT FROM THE RECORDS OF THE COLONY OF THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY IN NEW ENGLAND.

At the Generall Court houlden at Boston, September
8'^ @ 1636.
Ordered, that the plantation to bee setled above the
falls of Charles Ryver, shall have three yeares imunity fro
pubhke charges, as Concord had, to bee accounted from
the first of May next, & the name of the said plantation is
to bee Deddam to enioy all that land on the southerly &
easterly side of Charles Ryver not formerly graunted to
any towne, or pticuler psons, & also to have five miles
square on the other side of the ryver./
Shurtleff, Vol. I. pp. 179, 180.

PRELIMINARY ACTION OF THE TOWN.

A

T a Town Meeting held April 6, 1885, the sub
ject of celebrating the Two Hundred and
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the
Town of Dedham was referred to a Committee
consisting of
Waldo Colburn. Benjamin Weatherbee.
Erastus Worthington. Daniel A. Lynch.
Henry O. Hildreth. Alonzo B. Wentworth.
Don Gleason Hill. John W. Chase.
Henry SraxH. John Crowley.
Erastus E. Gay. Stephen M. AVeld.
Calvin S. Locke. Julius H. Tuttle.
Chauncey C. Churchill.
Pending the action of this committee, a meeting
of the Dedham Historical Society was held June 3,
1885, at which it was unanimously voted that the
Society celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anni
versary of the settlement of Dedham ; and Messrs.
Erastus Worthington, Carlos Slafter, and Don
Gleason Hill were appointed a committee to con-

IO the town OF DEDHAM.
sider the subject, and report at an adjourned meeting,
June 17. At this meeting the following gentlemen
were appointed a Committee of Arrangements : —
Alfred Hewins. Cornelius A. Taft.
John H. Burdakin. Joseph Guild.
Julius H. Tuttle. Arthur M. Backus.
At an adjourned meeting held September 2, it
was voted, in accordance with the recommendation
of the Committee of Arrangements, that a public
meeting of the Society should be held at the Uni
tarian Vestry on Monday evening, September 14,
and the Committee were instructed to give a general
invitation to all residents of Dedham, and to others
interested in the history of Dedham, to attend.
In accordance with this vote the meeting was
held Monday evening, Sept. 14, 1885, at the Uni
tarian Vestry, which was filled with a large and
attentive audience. The meeting was called to order
by Henry O. Hildreth, President of the Society ;
and interesting papers were read by Erastus
Worthington upon " Indian Titles and the In
dian Village of Natick;" by Carlos Slafter upon
" The Ancient Burying Place of Dedham ; " by Rev.
Calvin S. Locke upon " Incidents in the History
of West Dedham;" and by Henry O. Hildreth
upon " Some of the Old Dedham Houses."
At the Annual Town Meeting, March i, 1886,
the Committee appointed April 6, 1885, submitted

250TH anniversary. II
the following report through their chairman, Eras
tus Worthington, Esq. : —
The Committee appointed at the last April Town Meet
ing, to whom was referred the article in the warrant for
said meeting respecting the celebration of the two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town,
with power to procure any necessary authority from the
General Court respecting the same, do now respectfully
report as follows : —
Having assumed it to be the will of the people of Ded
ham that there should be some appropriate observance of
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorpo
ration of the town, the only questions remaining to be
considered relate to the manner of such observance. For
tunately we find a good precedent to guide us in the second
centennial celebration of 1836. The most substantial de
parture from the observances of that occasion which we
would recommend is the expenditure of a moderate sum
in restoring and preserving a few historical monuments,
now in danger of decay, — such as the Powder House,
erected by a vote of the town in 1766, which needs re
pairs, and the stone erected by citizens in the same year
to commemorate the repeal of the Stamp Act, which should
be replaced and suitably protected, — and marking them by
tablets giving their history, and also placing similar historic
tablets upon the Avery Oak, the old cemetery, and the
training-field, and perhaps a few other historic spots. We
shall thus leave permanent marks of our interest in their
preservation for the example of future generations.
The expense of i centennial celebration in many of the
towns has been met by an appropriation from the town
treasury. It was so done in this town, either wholly or
in part, in 1836, although not then authorized by law.

12 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Such celebrations have been generally regarded as events
of a deeper and wider significance than mere holiday
entertainments. They interest all the citizens of the town,
and so the practice has been nearly uniform to provide for
them at the common expense. For several years such
appropriations have been authorized by general laws, now
incorporated with the Public Statutes. But in order to avoid
the possible question that a centennial anniversary is not a
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and also to obtain
the needful authority to raise money for historic tablets
and monuments, in pursuance of the authority given us,
we applied to the General Court, and a special law has
been passed giving to the town full power to raise money
for these purposes.
The provisions of the act are very similar to those of an
act passed in 1885 relating to the two hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of the town of Concord. It authorizes the
town of Dedham to raise by taxation a sum of money not
exceeding one tenth of one per cent of its assessed valua
tion in 1885, — being the same Hmit fixed in the Public
Statutes, for the purpose of celebrating the two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town
of Dedham, and of erecting tablets or monuments to mark
places and objects of historic interest, and of restoring and
preserving any such existing monuments in said town.
The maximum limit fixed by this act is very much larger
than we shall need to raise, and of course it may be any
sum below that limit.
Following the plan of a similar committee in 1836, we
have agreed upon a general plan of the celebration, which
we recommend for adoption by the town.
We recommend that Tuesday, the 21st day of Septem
ber, be observed as the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anni
versary of the incorporation of the town, — Sept. 21, 1836,

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 13
having been celebrated as the two hundredth anniversary, —
it being a convenient day therefor.
We further recommend that the exercises of the day
be substantially as follows : —
I. That the bells of the town be rung and a salute of fifty guns
fired at sunrise.
2. That there be a concert in the morning by the children of
the public schools on the green of the First Parish Church.
3. That there be a procession with an escort, which shall move
with the invited guests to one of the churches in Dedham village,
where there shall be appropriate exercises, including an historical
address and vocal music.
4. That the citizens be invited to decorate their houses.
5. That at the conclusion of the exercises the procession be
re-formed and march to Memorial Hall, where a dinner shall be
provided for the invited guests and holders of tickets.
6. That his Excellency the Governor, the member of Congress
from this district, members of the General Court from Norfolk
County, the judge of the Probate Court and other county officers,
the selectmen of the respective towns that once formed a part of
Dedham, the presidents of the Massachusetts Historical Society
and New England Historic Genealogical Society, and of other
historical societies in Norfolk County, and such other persons as
the Committee of Arrangements may decide to be entitled to such
invitation, be invited to attend the exercises in the church, and also
the dinner, as guests of the town.
7. That the bells be rung and a salute fired at sunset.
We also recommend that a committee of arrangements,
to consist of seven members, be chosen at this meeting,
with full power to carry out such arrangements, and also
any further arrangements that may be found necessary by
them, including the selection of an orator, president of the
day, and chief marshal, and the appointment of any special

14 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
committees they may deem expedient, and the filling of
any vacancies occurring in their own number.
We further recommend that a committee to consist of
three members be appointed at this meeting to erect
tablets or monuments to mark places of historic interest,
and to do what may be necessary to restore and preserve
existing monuments.
We recommend that the sum of fifteen hundred dol
lars be raised and appropriated to carry into effect all the
foregoing recommendations, from which a sum not ex
ceeding five hundred dollars may be expended for tablets
and monuments.
We would respectfully recommend that the following
named gentlemen serve as the Committee of Arrange
ments : —
WnsrsLow Warren. John R. Bullard.
Henry Smith. George Fred. Williams.
Erastus E. Gay. John Crowley.
Charles A. Mackintosh.
We also recommend that the following named gentle
men serve as the • Committee on Tablets and Monu
ments : —
Erastus Worthington. Henry O. Hildreth.
Don Gleason Hill. ,
Respectfully submitted.
Dedham, March i, 1886.

It was voted that this report be accepted and
its recommendations adopted, and that the sum of

250TH anniversary. 15
fifteen hundred dollars be raised and appropriated
for the purposes set forth in said report.
At an adjourned Town Meeting held April 19,
1886, the Committee of Arrangements having asked
for an additional appropriation of one thousand
dollars, the town voted the sum asked for, coupled
with the condition that no part of said sum, or of
any sum heretofore appropriated by the town for
the celebration, should be expended for alcoholic
liquors, or for wines, ale, or beer.
The Committee of Arrangements appointed by
the Town for the celebration, Sept. 21, 1886, —
Messrs. Winslow Warren, Henry Smith, Erastus
E. Gay, John R. Bullard, George Fred. Williams,
John Crowley, and Charles A. Mackintosh, — met
March 8, 1886, at the Town Clerk's office, and
organized by the choice of
Winslow Warren  Chairman.
Charles A. Mackintosh  Secretary.
John R. Bullard  Treasurer.
At a subsequent meeting, Mr. Mackintosh hav
ing, on account of necessary absence from the town,
resigned as a member of the Committee, Julius H.
Tuttle was chosen in his place as a member of the
Committee and as Secretary.
The Committee invited Erastus Worthington
to deliver the oration, Thomas L. Wakefield to
preside at the exercises in the church, Frederick
D. Ely to preside at the dinner, Gen. Stephen M.

1 6 the town OF dedham.
Weld to act as chief-marshal, Rev. Seth C. Beach
to write a hymn for the occasion, Arthur W.
Thayer to conduct the musical exercises, and
Charles J. Capen to act as organist. These gen
tlemen having accepted, other committees were
chosen as follows : —
Hweptton QDommtttce.
Lusher G. Baker, Jr., chairman. Charles M. Boyd.
John L. Wakefield. Albert F. Fisher.
Harry B. Alden. Lewis D. Smith.
Edward Capen. Harry E. French.

SSfiJers for t^e ^y.vctv&t^ at tlie C|&urt6, iDtnner, anU (Eiienins
©ntectaiitment at JiUmortal ^all.
Lusher G. Baker, Jr., chairman. Lewis D. Smith.
John L. Wakefield. Harry E. French.
Edward Capen. Fred. E. Smith.
Harry B. Alden. Moses E. Baker.
Charles E. Conant. Alfred B. Page.
John W. Boyd. Gardner Perry.
Charles M. Boyd. Benjamin Fisher.
Albert F. Fisher. Theodore T. Marsh.
Frank M. Wakefield. Bernard T. Schermerhorn.
Fred. W. Rice.

^Dinner Committee.
Charles W. Wolcott, chairman. Harry B. Alden.
Charles E. Conant. Edward Capen.
Edward T. Baker. John L. Wakefield.
Fred. A. Cormerais. Lewis D. Smith.
Albert F. Fisher. Fred. E. Smith.

250TH anniversary.

17

Committee on ariccorationji.

John H. Burdakin, chairman.
Henry Hitchings.
Cornelius A. Taft.
Edward Capen.

Frank M. Bailey.
Philander S. Young.
J. Varnum Abbott.
Carl L. T. Markward.

Committee on iFtretoocikft.
George R. Johnstone.
Committee on ^Sell^rinsinff.
Erastus E. Gay. George W. Phillips.

Committee on J^tstorit Collcctton.

Henry O. Hildreth, Chairman.
Henry G. Guild, Secretary.
Edward Capen, Treasurer.
Mrs. George F. Fisher.
Miss Sadie B. Baker.
Miss Helen A. Browne.
Miss Anna F. Colburn.
Miss Ellen H. Crehore.
Miss Susan D. Ellis.
Miss Annie R. Fisher.
George F. Fisher.
Mrs. Joseph Fisher.
Erastus E. Gay.

Miss Abby E. Guild.
Mrs. Alfred Hewins.
Henry Hitchings.
George W. Humphrey.
Elmer P. Morse.
Thomas Murphy.
Miss Delia W. Southgate.
Mrs. Cornelius A. Taft.
Miss Mary L. Talbot.
Mrs. Julius H. Tuttle.
John L. Wakefield.
Mrs. George E. Whiting.
Miss C. M. Worthington.

The following gentlemen were invited to the
celebration : —

i8

the town of dedham.

His Excellency Gov. George D.
RoBBsrsoN and Staff.
Lieut.-Gov. Ames.
Hon. Henry B. Pierce.
Hon. A. W. Beard.
Hon. E. J. Sherman.
Hon. Charles R. Ladd.
Hon. Marcus Morton.
Hon. Lincoln F. Brigham.
Hon. George F. Hoar.
Hon. Henry L. Dawes.
Hon. Horace Gray.
Hon. L. B. Colt.
Hon. Robert C. Winthrop.
Hon. John D. Long.
Hon. Leverett Saltonstall.
Hon. George M. Stearns.
Hon. A. E. Pillsbury.
Hon. John E. Fitzgerald.
Hon. J. Q. A. Brackett.
Hon. Hugh O'Brien.
Hon. George White.
Hon. William Gaston.
Dr. William Everett.
President Charles W. Eliot.
President Timothy Dwight.
Hon. Warren E. Locke.
Hon. John H. Gould.
Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis.
Hon. Marshall P. Wilder.
Hon. Thomas Russell.
Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge.
Hon. Robert R. Bishop.
Hon. S. C. Cobb.
John Quincy Adams, Esq..
EvERETi' C. Bumpus, Esq.
Henry A. Whitney, Esq.
Albert A. Folsom, Esq.
Hon. F. W. Bird.

Hon. M. M. Fisher.
Fisher Ames, Esq.
Hon. Horace Fairbanks.
Hon. George H. Monroe.
Fisher A. Baker, Esq.
Hon. John J. Clarke.
Hon. George Sheldon.
Samuel B. Noyes, Esq.
Rev. Edward G. Porter.
Thomas Dunbar, Esq.
Charles H. Walcott, Esq.
B. B. ToRREY, Esq.
Joseph W. Clark, Esq.
Albert W. Nickerson, Esq.
John J. Loud, Esq.
W. C. Burrage, Esq.
Henry W. Dwight, Esq.
The County Commissioners and
other Officials of Norfolk
County.
The Town Officers of Dedham.
The President of the Dedham
Historical Society.
The President of the Dedham
Public Library.
The Chairman of the Select-
MFJsr of . . . Medfield. Wrentham.
Needham. Bellingham.
Walpole. Canton.
Franklin.
Dover. Hyde Park.
Norwood.
Norfolk.
Wellesley.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 19
And also Ira Cleveland, Esq., surviving member
of the Committee of Arrangements, and the follow
ing gentlemen, surviving marshals of the procession
at the Two Hundredth Anniversary : —
Ira Russell. John D. Colburn.
Benjamin Boyden. Theodore Metcalf.

(E^t Committee on STailctB,
Erastus Worthington. Henry O. Hildreth.
Don Gleason Hill.
This Committee removed the Pitts Head monu
ment to the Church Green, renewed its inscriptions,
and placed upon it a bronze tablet ; repaired the Old
Powder House ; appropriately designated by stone
monuments the Old Training Field, the Old Burial
Place, and the First Dam built in the town; and
upon the day of the celebration designated by con'
spicuous inscriptions the sites of the old houses and
other points of interest. A full report of the work
of the Committee will be found in another part of
this volume.

THE CELEBRATION.

*' I ^UESDAY, Sept. 21, 1886, was one of the most
beautiful of our autumnal days. Through
the efficiency of the Committee on Decorations,
aided by the enthusiasm of the citizens generally,
the town was elaborately decorated, and presented
a most attractive holiday appearance. The Uni
tarian Church, where the address was delivered, —
the same building in which the exercises at the
bi-centennial celebration in 1836 had been held, —
was tastefully decorated with flowers and evergreen ;
the vestry, near by, was filled with a most interest
ing collection of historical relics ; a large tent had
been erected for the dinner upon the Richards Field
on High Street; band-stands had been placed at
prominent points ; and the public buildings and
residences were gay with flags and bunting. At
sunrise a national salute was fired from the hill
opposite the Dye House at East Dedham, and
the bells of the various churches were rung. At
an early hour crowds of people poured into the

22 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
town, and at least fifteen thousand persons witnessed
the celebration.
From 7.30 a. m. to 8 A. m. a concert was given by
the Norwood Band at Boyden & Bailey's Square at
East Dedham ; from 8 to 9 a concert was given on
the Church Green by the Cadet Band of Boston ;
and the children of the public schools, gathered in
front of the church, sang national airs under the
direction of Mr. Arthur W. Thayer. This was one
of the most attractive and interesting features of
the celebration.
At 10 o'clock an express train arrived from Bos
ton, bringing the Independent Corps of Cadets
escorting the Governor and staff and invited guests,
who were at once assigned carriages, and a long
procession, which had been promptly formed under
the marshalship of Gen. Stephen M. Weld, moved
over the designated route, a governor's salute being
fired from the hill as the procession started.
The procession was formed in the following
order: The first division on Church Street, with
the right resting on High ; the second division on
Washington and Bryant streets, with right at
School ; the third division on Washington Street,
with right at Bryant ; the fourth division on School
Street, with right on Washington Street ; the fifth
division on Washington, north side of High Street,
with right resting on High. Each division was
ordered to be in line at 9.30 a. m., at which time
they were inspected by the chief marshal. The

250TH anniversary. 23
route was as follows, starting at Memorial Hall :
High to Eastern Avenue, Eastern Avenue to East,
East to Walnnt, Walnut to High, High to Wash
ington, Washington to School, School to Court,
Court to Village Avenue, Village Avenue to High,
High to Court. The parade was dismissed at
Memorial Hall Square.

THE PROCESSION,
The formation of the procession was as follows :
Platoon of Police, mounted.
Chief Marshal.
Gen. STEPHEN M. WELD.
Color Yellow.

EXECUTIVE STAFF.
Chief of Staff  Amas A Guild.
Adjutant-General .... Joseph H. Lathrop.
Quartermaster  E. Scott Morse.
Surgeon  Dr. John W. Chase.
Chaplain  Rev. E. A. Howard.
Bugler  Theodore Colburn
Special Aids.
Col. James M. Ellis. Charles E. Conant.
Fred. J. Baker. Henry P. Quincy.
Horatio G. Turner. Owen J. Reynolds.
John B. Fisher. George W. Weatherbee.

24 the town of dedham.
General Staff.
Franklin Copeland. James Y. Noyes.
Daniel A. Lynch. Herbert French.
Philander S. Young. Frank E. Morse.
William H. Lord. Charles H. Ellis.
Joseph Colburn. Charles Warren.
John L. Wakefield. Gardner Perry.
Henry Fuller. John R. Bullard, Jr.
William B. Gould. A. R. Weld.
Joseph L. Fisher. F. F. Norris.
Henry E. Weatherbee. E. M. Weld.
Theron B. Ames. Edgar Murphy.
Creighton Colburn. H. T. McClearn, Jr.
Joseph H. Walley. Joseph C. Hoppin.
Fred. E. Smith, Color-Bearer.

FIRST DIVISION.
Color Blue.
Chief of Division, Gen. Thomas Sherwin.
Staff.
Col. Joseph Stedman. Edward Sherwin.
David L. Hodges. Joseph Guild.
Post 144, G. A. R., Dedham, Henry W. Weeks, Commander.
Post 117, G. A. R., Medfield, John H. Pember, Commander.
Norwood National Band.
Post 121, G. A. R., Hyde Park, E. S. Churchill, Commander.
Post 157, G. A. R., Walpole, J. C. Madigan, Commander.
Post 169, G. A. R., Norwood, Albert G. Webb, Commander.
Post 181, G. A. R., Needham, A. D. Kingsbury, Commander.
Boston Cadet Band.
First Corps of Cadets, Lt.-Col. Thomas F. Edmands commanding,
escorting
His Excellency, Governor George D. Robinson and Staff.
Invited Guests and Town Officials, in carriages.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 25

SECOND DIVISION.
Color Red.
Waldo Weatherbee, Color-Bearer.
Dedham Fire Department.
George A. Guild, Chief Engineer.
Ebenezer Gould, Francis Soule, Assistants.
Norwood Band. 27 pieces.
Steamer Relief and Hose Co. No. i , Dedham, H. A. Phipps, Foreman.
15 men ; with Steamer and Hose Carriage.
Hero Hose Co. 2, with Carriage, J. Keehn, Foreman. 12 men.
Niagara Hose Co. No. 3, East Dedham, with Carriage,
James Finn, Foreman. 14 men.

F. H. Walker and F. W. Turner, Assistant Engineers of Nor
wood Fire Department.
Norwood Hook and Ladder Truck No. i, Edward Moore, Fore
man. 15 men.
George A. Morse, Chief Engineer of Medfield Fire Department.
Excelsior Hook and Ladder Truck, Medfield, E. Bullard, Foreman.
20 men.
Hyde Park Fife and Drum Corps. 20 men.
H. G. Balkam, Chief Engineer of Hyde Park Fire Department.
R. Williams, R. Corson, Assistants.
Hose I, A. R. Williams, Foreman.
Hose 2, M. Rogers, Foreman.
Hook and Ladder Truck No. i, R. Scott, Jr., Foreman.
(Three companies. 30 men in line.)
Apparatus, Steamer 2, Truck i. Hose i.

26 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Lion Engine No. 2, West Dedham, W. C. Fuller, Foreman.
12 men.
Norfolk Engine No. 6, West Dedham, J. Hannon, Jr., Foreman.
12 men.
Franklin Engine No. 8, West Dedham, George G. Bonney,
Foreman. 20 men.
Rescue Hook and Ladder No. i, Dedham Village, George Hogan,
Foreman. 10 men.
Supply Wagon.

THIRD DIVISION.
Color White.
Baldwin's Cadet Band.
Chief of Division, Henry E. Crocker.
Staff.
Guy C. Channell, J. H. Burdett.
D. F. Howard. E. J. Cox.
WiLLARD E. Jones.
Arthur Whitman, Color-Bearer.
School Children of Dedham.
Boys of the several schools, 275 in number, marching in line, 4 abreast.
Girls of the several schools in barges, 9 in number.
Barge containing inmates of the Boys' Home, Dedham.

FOURTH DIVISION.
Color Purple.
Drum and Fife.
Chief of Division, F. F. Favor.
Staff.
B. F. White. J. B. Smith.
E. A. Chase. C. A. Cotton.
E. P. Cassell, Jr., Color-Bearer.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 27
Company of Continentals, 50 strong, under command of Captain
Daniel R. Beckford, Lieuts. Smith and Partridge.
Honorary Staff Officers of Continentals.
J. H. Griggs, Adjutant ; S. G. Bent, Ensign, 73 years old, carrying
the old Pine- Tree Standard ; Richard Mackintosh, Henry
T. McClearn, Frank M. Bailey. Samuel J. J.
Watson, F. J. Bingham, C. L. Cotton.
First Float. — First Inhabitants. 1630. Wigwam surrounded by
pine branches and shocks of Indian corn. Original inhabitants,
savages, personated by Chauncey S. Churchill, as Big Chief;
H. L. Wardle, C. F. Foss, E. E. Norris, F. E. Clapp, Henry
S. Baker.
Second Float. — The coming of the First Settlers from Water-
town to Dedham in 1635, represented as coming by boat. The
first settlers were correctly personated by Martin Hanson and
his son John, two daughters, Misses Maria and Delia, and
Misses Annie and Bertha Kiessling, Miss Annie McGee, and
Herman Weber.
Third Float. — A House in 1636. Log-cabin, covered with spoils
of the early backwoods days in shape of fox, raccoon, skunk, and
other skins. Characters : Settler, personated by Henry Cham
berlain ; his wife, at spinning-wheel. Miss Dolly Wale.
Fourth Float. — Capture of Indian Chief Pomham in Dedham
Woods, July 25, 1676. Pomham personated by Daniel R. Beck-
ford, Jr. ; Indians, by R. J. Fitzgerald, C. E. Luce, Joseph C.
McManus, W. M. Matta ; Puritans, by Fred. E. Robinson, as
Captain, Frank Green, George Cartwright, James Keltie,
Victor Reeve.
Fifth Float. — Capture of a Royal Governor by a Dedham man,
April 19, 1689. Royal Governor, Sir Edmund Andros, person
ated by Charles H. J. Kimball ; his page, by R. W. Walker ;
Daniel Fisher, who captured him, by H. K. White, Jr. ; and his
men by A. H. and E. A. Watson, R. Cartwright, F. H.
Wright, Daniel McDonald.
Sixth Float. — Guarding Wife and Children to Church in 1690.
Scene, winter ; place, woodland. Characters : Settler, Irving
Donley, armed with old flintlock ; his son, George Paul, also
armed ; his wife, Miss Mary C. Ellis ; his daughter, little Miss
Emma Donley.

28 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Seventh Float. — Minute-man, 1775. Personated by Edward J.
Keelan, who, with one hand on the plough and the other on his
musket, presented a correct and striking picture of New England's
hardy and courageous sons, ready at a moment's notice to hasten
forth to do and die for American Liberty, — witness Concord, Lex
ington, Bunker Hill. The musket Mr. Keelan carried is a his
torical relic, an old flintlock of 1779. This tableau was awarded
much applause along the line of march.
Eighth Float. — Husking-party in 1826. A merry party busily at
work husking the golden ears of corn. Personated by Andrew
Wheeler, as grandfather; Jake, his son, William Parker;
Mrs. M. A. Nichols, as grandmother; Misses Liney Wheeler,
Millie Kreis, Gussie Graydon, Minnie Fitzgerald, and
Masters Edward Willcutt, Herbert Crosby, Harry Cham
berlain, Eddie Welch, and little Willie Wheeler, as grand
children.
Ninth Float. — Old Father Time and the Seasons. Characters :
Old Father Time, Philip J. Wieland; Spring, Miss Lottie
Wieland ; Summer, Julius Delmuth ; Autumn, Karl Wag
ner ; Winter, Miss Minnie Zikendrath.
Tenth. — Old Stage-coach.
Eleventh. — Modern Tally-ho. The Boston and Providence Citi
zens' Stage-coach Company ; Timothy Gay, President ; Thomas
P. Brown, Agent. Personated by members of the Boston Cham
ber of Commerce.
Twelfth. — J. E. Smith riding a fat Ox. Mr. Smith's oxmanship
was much admired by the spectators along the route.

FIFTH DIVISION.
Color Green.
Chief of Staff, John Wardle, Jr.
Staff.
B. F. Copeland. Charles W. Tucker.
R. S. Clisby. Samuel C. French.
Lawrence W. Feeney, Color-Bearer.
This Division was composed of the Trade exhibits of the town and
was in line as follows : —

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 29
West Dedham Grange, No. 133, four-horse team driven by John
Rogers, containing old-fashioned farming implements as used by
the hardy toilers of Dedham in 1636, and those now in use in
1886 ; over and among which were arranged grains in sheaves, and
vegetables.
B. F. Copeland, a team loaded down with the products of plant,
vine, and tree, with John Sullivan as driver.
Merchants' Woollen Mills — Harding, Colby, & Co., owners ; Timo
thy O'Callaghan, Agent — made a very fine display in two teams.
First team, four horses, Edgar Dean, driver, contained a loom,
with August Danner, who has had an experience of thirty-three
years at the loom, — a weaver at the mills in East Dedham since
1853. On the front seat with its owner, Samuel Robinson, was
a live sheep, and arranged about the team were the products made
from the fleecy coat of that most useful animal, from the time it
leaves its back until it becomes cloth. The second team, P. Howe,
driver, contained cloth cased ready for the market.
Nathaniel Morse, two teams : one loaded with the several kinds
of fertilizers of which he is agent, John McGee, driver ; the
other filled with bales of pressed hay and bags of grain, W. Nel
son, driver.
Charles French, a four-horse team, load of wood decorated with
American flags, R. J. Buchanan, driver.
Amory Fisher, three teams, representing his business of coal, grain,
and ice-dealer ; established in 1854.
Franklin Square Market made an excellent showing of meats, vege
tables, and firuits.
T. F. O'Neil made a handsome display of groceries, tastefully
arranged.
S. A. Tuttle made a display of his business as veterinary surgeon.
W. C. Fuller, a team-load of house-moving implements. Team
neatly decorated with flowers ; H. T. Place, driver.
G. W. French, load of wood, decorated with National colors, with a
horse and saw on top as a suggestive hint ; William Ellsworth,
driver.
Philander Allen exhibited a four-horse load of marble monuments
and gravestones ; while in the rear of the team workman Thomas
Donnelly showed how marble-cutting was done.

30 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
J. Lynas made a fine display of horse-blankets and harnesses.
Carl P. E. Ziegler made an excellent showing, in a handsomely
decorated team, of carriage mats and robes, harnesses, and up
holstery articles.
William Baker exhibited his business of whip-manufacturer in a
team uniquely arranged ; A. W. Finney, driver.
G. A. French made an exhibit of his business as a grocer ; G. E.
Bonney, driver.
M. Keelan, hardware-dealer, made a good showing of stoves.
F. C. Weeks exhibited a load of provisions.
Marshall, the expressman, with horse and team decorated with
magenta plumes, and Lewis J. Houghton, the veteran, twenty-one
years in the business, as driver, made a good showing of how
business is done in modern times.
Wallis Whiting, assisted by Thomas Proctor, Jr., and Master
WiTHiNGTON, as Puritans, showed how cider was made in 1636.
W. S. Macomber exhibited a wagon-load of furniture and carpets.
J. E. Smith represented his business of provision-dealer.
C. F. Macomber exhibited a neatly arranged load of carpenter's
tools, paints, etc.
Charles Winschman, in a prettily decorated team, showed how
cigars were made. Frank Thiel assisted him.
Coding Brothers made a good display of grain in bags in two
teams. Each pyramid of bags was surmounted by a small ever
green tree.
C, S. Churchill had two teams in line; one with a load of bricks
in barrels, the other with coal.
Moris Greenhood, in a neatly decorated team, advertised his busi
ness as a clothing-dealer.
P. B. Gaffney ended the division with a team-load of live-stock,
representing his business as a butcher and marketman. The team
was separated into three pens, containing respectively a big hog,
a calf, and a pair of lambs, of which J. F. Moran had charge.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 31
At precisely 12 o'clock the procession arrived on
the Church Green, where the Governor and staff
and invited guests reviewed it from the band-stand
on the Green, the marshals being drawn up near
the stand. At this hour the chimes were runs:
upon the Episcopal Church, and a national salute
was fired.
At 1 2.30, the review being over, the procession
was dismissed, and the Governor and guests entered
the church.
At 11.30 the galleries of the church had been
opened to ladies, and upon the arrival of the pro
cession and the entry of the Governor and guests to
the church the building was crowded to its utmost
capacity, and presented a most brilliant appearance.
The pulpit had been elaborately decorated with
plants, flowers, and evergreen, and upon a platform
in front sat the Governor and staff ; the Orator of
the Day, Erastus Worthington; the President,
Thomas L. Wakefield; President Timothy Dwight,
of Yale College, Hon. Iohn D. Long, Dr. George
E. Ellis, and other invited guests.

SERVICES IN THE CHURCH.

I.
ORGAN VOLUNTARY.
By Charles J. Capen.

IL
ORIGINAL ODE AND VERSES.
By Frederic J. Stimson.
Music copiposed by Arthur W. Thayer.i
Athwart the way our fathers laid
The summer sunlight falls ;
The elms our fathers set still shade
The road, 'twixt church and pasture made ;
The stones their ploughshares first uplaid
Still lie in mossy walls.
Down from the western hiUs our own
Still, roaming river runs.
Content in Dedham's arms alone
To lie, and mirror spire and stone j
The robin to our fathers known,
Still sings for us, their sons.
1 For the music, see pages 199-204.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 33
Strophe.
For the fulness of earth,
For the light of the sky,
For their death, for our birth,
For the heritage high
Born of the word of light.
Won by the deed of might,
Saved by the sowing of sight ;
For the light in the eyes and the love in the hearts of men that brings
Men to be brave in war and true in the love of all things ;
Glory of deed that is past.
Safety of State that is fast,
Hope that is now and shall last ;
For the flower and the fruit,
For the eye and the word.
For the tree and its root,
For the sleep of the sword, —
We praise thee, our Lord.
The harvest falls from broader fields,
The waning woods are few ;
Food for the world their homestead yields,
All earth's oppressed their shelter shields,
A nation's nerved arm now wields
The truth that first they knew.
Be not alone a harvest won
Of gold, from labored hours ;
Undo not what their hands have done,
Nor bind with wealth they sought to shun ;
Still ring the bells at set of sun, —
Our fathers' God, and ours.
Antistrophe.
From sins of the few,
From crimes of the many,
From prophets untrue,
From rule of the penny ;

34 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Crime, that ignorance frees ;
Lust, that is born of ease ;
Hate, that is born of these ;
From the curse of false lights, and worship of earth, and then
Doubt, and forgetting of God, and death of the soul in men ;
Wealth, that is easy won,
Freedom, too soon undone.
Malice, that masks the sun ;
From conflict of class,
From rage falsely stirred.
From greed of who has.
From death of thy word, —
Deliver us, Lord.

HI.
PRAYER.
By Rev. Joseph B. Seabury.
/^ LORD God of Hosts, Ruler of nations and
^^ of men, we adore Thee as our father's God.
Obedient to Thy voice, we " remember the days
of old." With devout gratitude for Thy present
favor, '' we ask for the old paths."
We bless Thee for our honored heritage, for the
simple virtues, the ripe wisdom, the kindly graces,
the spiritual fortitude that distinguished our fathers.
We would not be unmindful of the trials through
which they passed, loyal to an unerring conscience.
Grant that we may have power to discern the deep
principles for which they suffered banishment from
native land, that they might rear on a free soil the
enduring monument of justice to personal convic-

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 35
tion, liberty to fellow-men, and "the honor that is
due unto Thy name."
We remember with self-distrust their fealty to
the cause of education, that the school and the
church were made to grow together, the pledge
and promise of an intelligent Christian common
wealth. We give Thee thanks for their valiant rebuke
of injustice at the hands of the mother-country, for
that patriotic response which met the appeal to
arms for the assertion of independence, when the
white-haired veteran and the youthful volunteer
stood side by side in the heat of battle. We
thank Thee for that holy impulse which suddenly
transformed the patriot civilian into the patriot
soldier. We bless Thee for the unrecorded fidelity of
our ancestors, for the faithful but tranquil labor
of the husbandman, who, from year to year sowed
the seed in springtime and reaped the harvest in
autumn, — they whose memory is chronicled in
simple epitaph ; for the industrious mother who
taught her sons and daughters with tender and
patient affection, that she might present them in
mature life, an honor to their station, "meet for
the Master's use."
We devoutly recall that this rich patrimony of
sterling worth has come down to us in unbroken
continuity, that we are closely and intimately re
lated to the early past. Thou hast taught us in

36 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Thy servants, our fathers, that " The Lord's portion
is His people."
We would not seek to patronize their virtues.
We sit humbly at their feet. We cherish the soil
that tabernacles their dust. We would memorialize
their deeds in lives of filial devotion to humanity,
truth, and God. May the joyous commemorations
of this day inspire us to strengthen the things that
remain, bind us more closely together in charity
and hope, that we may grow thereby into the like
ness of Him who died and rose again, their Saviour
and ours, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Mr. Seabury concluded with the Lord's prayer,
in which many of those present joined.

rv.
ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDING OFFICER.
Hon. Thomas L. Wakefield.
Fellow- Citizens, — We have assembled in com
memoration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth
Anniversary of the incorporation of the Dedham
of 1636. This ancient town was not Hmited to
the boundaries of this our present municipality,
but included within its limits the present towns of
Dedham, Medfield, Wrentham, Medway, Needham,
Bellingham, Walpole, Franklin, Dover, Norwood,
Norfolk, Wellesley, Millis, and parts of Sherborn,

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 37
Natick, Foxborough, Hyde Park, and the city of
Boston. We, who are honored by retaining the
old name, welcome you all, sons and daughters of
the ancient Dedham, back to the old hearthstone,
to join with us in this celebration. We unitedly
bid a hearty welcome to your Excellency, the Chief
Magistrate of the Commonwealth, and to all others
in authority ; to all invited guests ; to all veterans
of the several Grand Army Corps ; to all military
and civil organizations ; and to all other good citi
zens who have come up hither to honor us with
their presence and participate with us in the cele
bration of this interesting anniversary.
On Sept. 10 (old style), 1636, the General Court
granted to nineteen persons the land forming ancient
Dedham for the purpose of making a settlement, —
a common plantation. These nineteen persons were
the sole proprietors of these common lands, subject
to any claims of the Indians who inhabited them,
until they admitted associates.
They adopted a town covenant, or constitution,
as we might call it, by which they were governed,
and under which others, upon strict examination as
to fitness, were admitted as inhabitants of the town,
by signing the covenant binding them to fulfil its
provisions. Subsequently the Indian titles were
extinguished by equitable contract with Philip, the
Sagamore, and the Sachems Chicatabot, Josias,
Nehoiden, and Magus, whereupon their title became
absolute.

38 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
The proprietors of this then infant township
increased in numbers by constant additions from
without; defended their rude but happy homes
from the attacks of the hostile and treacherous
Indians by whom they were surrounded; intro
duced the arts of industry and civilization; and
with sturdy hands, year by year, turned the forests
into fruitful fields, and caused the wilderness to
blossom as the rose.
When these first inhabitants came to this place,
there were no general laws in the colony to regulate
their intercourse and protect their lives and in
terests. They were a law unto themselves. As
was said by a worthy historian of the town : " They
formed a civil society out of its first simple ele
ments." This society originated in a compact;
the laws derived their force from the consent of
the people. This, with other similar settlements,
"was the beginning of the American system of
government." These little communities of Pilgrims, imbued with
the idea of religious liberty in their native country,
thus began in this then wilderness land to lay the
foundations of a democratic civil government, upon
which has been reared this grand superstructure of
a free and independent republic. With pious care
in establishing schools for the education of the
children, and churches with devoted teachers and
ministers of the gospel for their spiritual instruc
tion, under the fostering care of the Colonial and

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 39
subsequently the State governments, this little com
munity has grown from infancy to mature age.
We meet on this occasion to celebrate its birth
day with mutual congratulations, and to recount the
virtues and heroic deeds of the fathers. In the
felicitous language of the orator upon the two hun
dredth birthday of the town, which may well be
repeated as often as this birthday celebration occurs,
permit me to say : " Citizens of Dedham, you will
find in your history much to gratify your just
pride, much to excite honorable emulation. By
intelligent and godly ancestors was this town
planted ; by a manly and virtuous race has it been
nourished and sustained. Its sons have fought the
battles of their country; they have led in its coun
cils. At no time, in no manner, have they failed to
contribute an honorable share of the talent, the
patriotism, the domestic virtues, which created and
have- built up this great Republic."

V.
ORIGINAL HYMN.
By Rev. Seth C. Beach.
Tune— "Dedham."
To Him who formed the rolling spheres
And guides them on their way,
The circle of a thousand years
Is but as yesterday.

40 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Secure in His eternal might
Our fathers braved the sea,
And founded here in truth and right
An empire of the free.
He made the few and weak His care,
And gave their seed increase ;
He listened to His children's prayer.
And led them on to peace.
As unto them, thou God of grace.
Still be from age to age ;
Still grant the favor of Thy face,
And bless our heritage.

VI.
HISTORICAL ADDRESS.
By Erastus Worthington.
We mark to-day the lapse of two hundred and
fifty years since the name of Dedham was given to
the plantation begun here in 1635. It is the name-
day of the town, rather than its birthday, that we
celebrate. The actual settlement was gradually
made by successive steps, which may be distinctly
traced by existing records. In May, 1635, leave
was given by the General Court for the inhabitants
of Watertown to remove whither they pleased, pro
vided they continued under the government.^ On
the 3d of September, 1635, the Court ordered a
plantation to be settled about two miles above the
1 Mass. Col, Rec, vol. i. p. 148.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 41
falls of Charles River, on the northeast side, with
land on both sides of the river, to be laid out as
the Court should appoint thereafter.^ The language
of this order clearly implies that an exploration
had already been made. According to Governor
Winthrop, the town was begun in September, 1635.^
The town record of births began in the same year.
In the succeeding March the Court appointed com
missioners to set out the bounds of the new planta
tion,' who made a report April 13, 1636.* There is
no existing record of any meeting of the settlers
here until Aug. 18, 1636. Finally, on the fifth day
of September, 1636, at a meeting of nineteen per
sons, the petition was signed for the enlargement
and confirmation of the grant of the previous year.
The Town Covenant had already been drawn up, and
had been signed by the petitioners. On the Sth of
September, according to the General Court records,^
or on the loth of September, according to our town
records, the order was passed which gave to the
plantation the name of Dedham, with lands not
before granted to any town or person, on the east
erly and southerly side of the river, and an addi
tional grant of five miles square on the other side
of the river. In this brief and informal order are
comprised all the corporate powers with which the
town was ever specially invested. To borrow the
1 Mass. Col. Rec, vol. i. p. 159. ^ Winthrop, vol. i. p. 167.
8 Mass. Col. Rec, vol. i. p. 169. * Ibid., p. 175.
6 Ibid., vol. i. p. 180.

42 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
words of an old legal definition, the " invisible and
immortal " corporation then created under the name
of Dedham has now existed for two hundred and
fifty years, without any essential change in its civil
constitution. The old town still preserves its cor
porate identity and its name. In outward conditions
great changes have been wrought. Fifteen other
towns now occupy territory included within the
original grants, beside that portion within the limits
of Boston. Political revolutions have changed the
Colony to the Province, and the Province to the
Commonwealth. The union between church and
town, for two hundred years an inherent part of its
legal constitution, has been dissolved. Eight gen
erations of men have been born, have lived and died
here. But the town government, protected by the
just limitations of legislative authority on the one
hand, and giving to the people the right to manage
and direct its civil administration on the other, has
retained its hold of life with a wonderful tenacity.
The Dedham of 1636 and of 1886 are one and the
same by historic continuity, however they may be sep
arated by time. Let us then first congratulate the
old town that two hundred and fifty years have not
so diminished the vigor of her corporate life, that she
may not look hopefully forward to another century ;
and may we not appropriately ascribe to her the
words of the refrain in Tennyson's familiar song, —
" For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever."

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 43
Dedham was not among the more conspicuous
towns of the Massachusetts Colony. It never
gained the prestige of the college town, nor the
importance of the maritime towns. No dramatic
event is associated with its name. It never expe
rienced the horrors of an Indian attack, nor was it
a battle-field in the opening scenes of the Revolu
tion ; but it was one of the first two inland towns,
— the other being Concord, — and they were coeval
in their settlement.^ It was a Puritan town of the
best type, founded by men of intelligence, foresight,
and enterprise, admirably organized, and favored by
a wise administration of its affairs from its very
beginning. In its full, continuous, and well-pre
served records we find clearly exhibited the leading
ideas of the Colonists, as well as a rare aptitude for
public affairs. In the great crises of colonial his
tory its quotas of men and money were not far
behind the leading towns, and there was scarcely
a period for two hundred years when Dedham did
not furnish some man of more than a local renown
for the public service. While therefore its history
may be wanting in those thrilling events which
arrest the attention of the world, yet it is one
which must command the respect and admiration
of thoughtful men ; and for us who are " native
here, and to the manner born," it has an unceasing
interest, even in its repetition. Surely' on such a
commemorative occasion as this, we cannot forbear
1 Mass. Col. Rec, vol. i. p. 148.

44 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM
to review some chapters of that history, and per
chance we may find some new grounds to cherish
the memory of the men who have lived here
before us.
The Colony of Massachusetts Bay had a distinct
and independent origin, differing in many respects
from that of the Plymouth Colony, although the two
are frequently confounded by popular writers, and
even by some historians. They were planted by
men of different antecedents, holding different rela
tions to the Established Church ; and before coming
to New England, there was no agreement or con
nection between them. The Pilgrim was a Sepa
ratist ; the Puritan was a Non-conformist. Here
in New England the two Colonies were frequently
united for their common defence, and by their simi
larity and proximity the people were gradually
drawn together ; yet there continued to be some
essential differences between them until the con
solidation under the provincial charter in 1692.
The Massachusetts Company, formed in England
in 1623, was at first a stock company, organized
only for commercial ventures. The Massachusetts
coast was then well known to navigators. Before
Columbus saw the mainland of America, the Cabots
had discovered the continent, and had sailed along
the coast from Newfoundland to North Carolina.
In 1614 Captain John Smith had explored the coast,
and made his well-known map on which the name
of New England first appeared, and our river re-

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 45
ceived the name of Charles, for Prince Charles,
afterwards Charles I. of England. It was an era
of commercial activity, and the Massachusetts Com
pany embarked in the fur trade and cod fisheries.
They obtained their franchise under the Great Patent
of New England, which was granted by the Crown
in 1620, just about a month before the "casual
landing" of the Pilgrims.^ In 1624 the Company
sent over fifty vessels to engage in the fisheries ;
but these enterprises proving unprofitable, they were
soon abandoned. The father of the Massachusetts
Colony was the Rev. John White, of Dorchester,
England, a Puritan divine, though a Conformist.
It was he who first conceived the idea of planting
a colony here for commercial purposes. When these
were abandoned, he turned his attention to colonists
of another sort. He succeeded in enlisting in his
plan the co-operation of certain Puritan Non-con
formists, men of character and intelligence, who
saw in the project of a new colony the way opened
for relief from their distressing position as non
conformists to the liturgy of the Anglican Church.
Among the six new patentees, representing the body
of one hundred and ten other members of the com
pany, was Captain John Endicott, a stanch Puritan,
who was sent over to Salem with a small colony in
1628. This was the first impulse of the new emi
gration. On the 4th of March, 1629, a new charter
was obtained directly from the Crown, which granted
1 Archaeologia Americana, p. 15.

46 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
to the company the territory lying between the
Merrimack and three miles north of it, and the
Charles and three miles south of it ; and what was
of greater import to the future colony, besides the
territorial grants and some commercial privileges, it
also conferred the powers of government. This was
the colony charter under which Massachusetts "grew
and waxed strong in spirit " for more than sixty
years. John Winthrop was chosen governor, and
active preparations were immediately begun for
colonization in force, with a scrupulous care to the
wants and contingencies of a new plantation. It
was now decided to remove the seat of government,
which had hitherto been in England, and to transfer
the charter to New England. Governor Winthrop,
accompanied by about twenty members of the com
pany, bearing the charter, arrived on the " Arbella "
in Salem harbor, April ii, 1630. It was the "Ar
bella," and not the " Mayflower," that first brought
to Massachusetts Bay a royal charter which gave
the guaranties of local self-government, and which
may be said to have foreshadowed the future inde
pendence of the people of Massachusetts.
These events were the beginning of a coloniza
tion which, regarding both the numbers and charac
ter of the colonists, is without a parallel in history.
In the next fifteen years nearly three hundred ships
brought more than twenty-one thousand people to
the shores of Massachusetts Bay.^ These colonists
1 Johnson's Wonder-Working Providence (Poole's ed.), p. 31.

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 47
had come with a common, well-defined purpose,
under the ample protection of a royal charter ; they
had brought all their worldly substance, and they
had come to stay. These were the men who moulded
the civil government and ecclesiastical system which
were peculiar to Massachusetts. But they were not
only the unconscious builders of a great Common
wealth ; they were the progenitors of a race now
numbered by millions, scattered through this broad
land, whose pronounced religious character and
opinions were distinctly impressed upon their de
scendants to the third generation, and which have
not yet wholly ceased to exert their power.^
History does not justify the conclusion that all
this great company of settlers were impelled by
exclusively religious considerations. The same
powerful impulse towards colonization was felt in
England by Churchman, Romanist, and Quaker, as
well as by Pilgrim and Puritan ; and not only in
England, but in France and Spain, Holland and
Sweden. It seems like a prophecy of our com
posite American civilization that, at not long inter-
»vals of time, along the coast from Maine to Florida,
settlements were made by Europeans of different
tongues and creeds. Doubtless not a few of the
passengers in the ships of the Massachusetts Com
pany had in their minds the fur trade and the
fisheries. Perhaps more were allured by the dream
of proprietorship in broad acres, which has always
1 See Preface to Dr. Palfrey's History of New England.

48 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
made America seem a promised land to the Euro
pean. But after all that can be justly said of these
diversities in the purposes of the Massachusetts
colonists, still the historical fact remains unaffected,
that the leading idea of the controlling minds of
the company, not distinctly avowed in' England for
prudential reasons, but none the less profoundly
entertained and acted upon, was to plant a colony
here, where they might worship God in their own
way, in the company exclusively of those having
the same mind and faith, without let or hindrance
from any external civil or ecclesiastical authority, or
molestation from any person whatsoever.
The Puritans have been frequently misunderstood,
and so they have been the subjects both of indis
criminate eulogy and undeserved censure. They
were not religious enthusiasts or political dreamers.
They did not seek to divorce the Church from the
State. They did not mean to provide here a refuge
for men of any creed who might come to them
through discontent or fly to them from persecution.
Toleration was an unknown word in their time, and
they are to be judged by the standards of thought
in their own time. At home in England they had
belonged to the Established Church, and they never
renounced its communion. Before coming here, they
had never become a sect under a distinctive name.
But they were members of a powerful and growing
party in the Anglican Church, which sought to carry
out the Reformation according to the principles and

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 49
practice of the continental reformers. Almost a
hundred and fifty years before Luther, nearly the
same doctrines that he taught had been maintained
in England by Wycliffe.^ But the English reforma
tion had progressed slowly, with serious reverses,
under different dynasties. The continental refor
mation had been more rapid and complete. During
the persecutions many of the Puritan clergy in the
reign of Queen Mary had taken refuge in Germany
and Switzerland. In the city of Geneva they had be
come disciples in the school of John Calvin, and had
embraced not only his theological dogmas, but his
church polity and simple forms of worship. The
powerful influence of Calvin's teachings had been
widely felt in England. From the middle of the six
teenth century, the controversy about ceremonies and
vestments had proceeded. But when finally the arm
of the civil power of the kingdom was stretched
forth to enforce conformity to the liturgy under
heavy penalties, and the non-conforming clergy were
deprived of their livings, their position became dis
tressing and insupportable. With them compromise
was impossible ; their alternative was either conform
ity or voluntary expatriation, and they reluctantly
chose the latter. They parted with sorrow from the
land and homes they loved, so that they might freely
enjoy their simple forms of worship beyond the sea.'^
* Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i. p. 57.
* The authorities for the view of the character and purposes of the
Massachusetts Colonies here presented, are the " Planter's Plea," by
Rev. John White, London, 1630, partly reprinted in Young's " Chroni-

50 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Of such men as these were the founders of Ded
ham. Their English homes were chiefly in the
eastern counties of England, — Suffolk, Essex, and
Norfolk. Few, if any of them, were known to each
other before coming here. They found at Water-
town a temporary resting-place, but there was no
room for them in that crowded settlement. They
were forced to find homes elsewhere. Robert Feake,
a relative of Governor Winthrop, and a prominent
man at Watertown, was the first signer of the Cov
enant, and had an allotment of land ; but he never
removed here. The leader of the pioneers was
Edward Alleyn, a man of capacity and education.
The authorship of the Town Covenant, to which at
different times the signatures of one hundred and
twenty-five men were affixed, is to be attributed to
him. It is a document which embodies the general
purposes of the plantation, which are expressed with
dignity, simplicity, and brevity. The names of all
the pioneers who actually came here cannot be pre
cisely stated ; but among them, besides Mr. Edward
Alleyn, were John Dwight, Richard Everard, Abra
ham Shaw, Samuel Morse, Philemon Dalton, Lam
bert Genere, John Gay, and John Ellis. All these
were signers of the petition, and removed here from
cles of Massachusetts ; " Palfrey's " History of New England,'' vol. i.
chap. iii. ; the learned monograph on the Massachusetts Company, by
Samuel F. Haven, in the " Archaeologia Americana ; " and the chapter
on the Puritan Commonwealth in the " Memorial History of Boston,"
by Dr. George E. Ellis, where the authorities are collated, and the whole
subject is comprehensively and judicially treated.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 51
Watertown. The prayer of the petition to the
General Court was that the town be distinguished
by the name of Contentment, or otherwise as the
Court should please. The Court inserted the name
of Dedham. While we have no definite historical
evidence why this name was given, we may draw
the obvious but satisfactory inference that there
were some of the settlers who had lived in Dedham,
England. It is supposed that John Dwight, John
Page, and John Rogers were of this number.^ It is
not improbable that there were others, as little is
now known concerning the places of their nativity.
That it was a favorite idea with the Colonists thus to
perpetuate the names of their English homes, is well
known. A glance at the map of Essex and Suffolk,
England, will show how many names were repeated
in Essex and Suffolk in the Massachusetts Colony.
Dedham in England is a delightful, but quiet
town, in the valley of the Stour, a small river which
divides Essex from Suffolk. It lies about fifty-seven
miles northeast from London, and some four miles
from Manningtree station. It is rarely found on
the maps. It lies in the midst of a sheep-grazing
country ; and, formerly, a source of prosperity to its
people was the manufacture of wool on hand-looms.
It is a quiet, picturesque place now, where artists go
for sketches ; and the scene of a recent English mag
azine story was laid there.^ In the description there
1 Worthington's History of Dedham, p. 31.
* The Deadleigh Sweep, Cornhill Magazine, 1886.

52 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
given, one may easily find points of resemblance
between our Dedham and its English prototype.
It consists of one broad street of old houses, some
plaster and timber with acute gables toward the
street, and of brick mansions erected between the
reigns of Queen Anne and George IV. ; of a stone
church of the fifteenth century, with a stately tower,
and encrusted with mural tablets ; of an assembly-
room with a Doric portico, and of a red brick gram
mar-school with moulded brick pediments, cornices,
and picturesque windows, and a cricket-ground be
hind, shadowed by giant elms.
Although the signers of the petition may be re
garded as the nominal founders of the town, yet out
of the nineteen, only eight were long identified with
it, or had any permanent influence in its organiza
tion. The rest either removed or died soon after
the beginning of the town. But in 1637 the com
pany received new and important accessions to its
principal men, who came here directly from Eng
land. Among these were John Allin, Eleazer
Lusher, Michael Metcalf, Anthony Fisher, Daniel
Fisher, and Francis Chickering. These, with those
already here and others who followed soon after, are
to be regarded as the efficient founders of the town.
We find, in the records, surprising evidence of the
energy and foresight of these men in organizing the
settlement. They went about the work of forming
a civil society with the certainty of instinct. It
must be remembered that as yet there were no

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 53
general laws of the Colony to regulate their interests
or to direct them in their affairs. The first code
of colony laws, known as the Body of Liberties, was
not passed until 1641. But they had brought with
them a strong endowment of that common-sense
which has been said to be the source of the com
mon law of England. They had been trained to a
knowledge of the great underlying principles of
civil society. They had only to transplant here in
the wilderness such laws and customs as would
serve their purpose, but these were derived from a
civilization which had been the growth of centuries.
They knew the difference between organic law and
municipal regulations. The Town Covenant was
their constitution. It declares that none were to be
received unless they were probably of one heart
with them. It provides for a settlement of differ-
ence by reference to two or three others. It im
poses the duty of every man owning land to pay his
share of taxes, ratably with other men. It an
nounces the purposes of the settlement to be "a
loving and comfortable society." This was sub
scribed by every townsman as he was admitted, dur
ing many years. But they also passed many muni
cipal regulations in the beginning. Great care was
taken that no unfit person should be admitted. One
ordinance declared that every man should give in
formation of what he knew concerning any man in
town, before he should be admitted " into the soci
ety of such as seek peace and ensue it." No propri-

54 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
etor could sell his lands without the leave of the
company. The purpose of these ordinances was to
keep off " the contrary-minded." In the division of
lands, they granted each married man a home lot of
twelve acres, and each unmarried man eight acres.
These were all surveyed, and an instrument of title
given, which was duly recorded. They reserved a
common tillage -field in which every man's share
was defined. They laid out herd-walks or common
pastures where all cattle might feed. They pro
vided for the maintenance of fences and the keep
ing of swine, horses, and cattle. As early as 1637, a
long ordinance was passed for the establishment of
highways. All rivers and ponds, except those en
closed by lands of one owner, were to be kept from
being appropriated, and for the use of the inhabi
tants for " fishing or otherwise as occasion may
require." It will be observed, in these ordinances,
how the common \vea.\ was made paramount to
every private interest. In 1644 they granted lands
for a school fund, and they raised ;^20 to pay the
school-master. They set apart the training-field,
and organized the train-band, which had a weekly
exercise in the beginning. At first they were em
ployed the greater portion of their time in public
business, and after three years they delegated to
seven men all powers except granting lands and
admitting townsmen. These were the first Select-
men of Dedham. In all these ways they showed
how much more they thought of building up a com-

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 55
fortable society than of building comfortable cot
tages for themselves. No sooner had they reared
their rude cabins in the forest than their thoughts
were turned to converting it into a settlement where
all might enjoy the blessings of civilized life.
The subject uppermost in their thoughts was the
gathering of a church. At first they worshipped
under one of the large trees east of Dwight's Brook,
or Little River.^ They began to build a meeting
house in 1638, but it was not finished until 1646.
It was placed on this spot, after some difference of
opinion, as the record runs, " in loving satisfaction to
some neighbors on the East side of Little River."
Mr. Allin has left a minute and graphic history of
the formation of the church, now preserved on the
church records, written by his own hand. To the
founders it was a great and solemn work, to be under
taken with the utmost care and deliberation. They
spent a whole winter in conferences, that they might
become acquainted with "each other's gifts and
graces." It was first proposed that the members of
the Watertown church of their own number should
lay the foundation, but this was declined. Then they
began the delicate and trying duty of determining
who among themselves " were meet for the work."
After a day of fasting and prayer, " every one laying
aside all ambitious desires of being taken into the
work, and overmuch bashfulness in refusing the
same, they should willingly submit themselves to
1 Lamson's Historical Discourses, 1838, p. 7.

56 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
the judgment of the whole company to be taken or
left as ordered by the rule of the Gospel," six were
agreed upon by common consent. But they could
not so easily agree upon the others. There was no
shrinking in their scrutiny. They were no respect
ers of persons. It was " judgment laid to the line
and righteousness to the plummet." Edward Al
leyn himself had given some offence, and he was
required to wait for further testimonies from friends
in England. Anthony Fisher had a false confi
dence. Joseph Kingsbury was too much addicted
to the world, and Thomas Morse was dark and un
satisfying in his religious experience, though his
life was innocent. Finally, Edward Alleyn and
John Hunting were accepted; and on the Sth of
November, 1638, having obtained the consent of the
Governor and Magistrates and sent a letter to the
elders of the neighboring churches, and after spend
ing the previous day in fasting and prayer, the first
church of Dedham and the fourteenth in the Colony,
in the words of Mr. Allin, "was made a spiritual
house." Another severe trial awaited them in the
choice of a pastor. Mr. Thomas Carter, a signer
of the Covenant, was thought of ; but he was called
to Woburn. Mr. John Phillips, an eminent divine,
formerly rector at Wrentham, England, was much
desired; but he declined. The choice finally fell
on Mr. John Allin as pastor and John Hunting as
ruling elder. At the ordination, although the el
ders of the other churches were present, they took

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 57
no further part than to extend the right hand of
fellowship. The laying on of hands was done by
members of the church, and in this service they
followed the usage of other churches in the Colony.
These proceedings had an intense and absorbing
interest for these earnest-minded men, and give us
a good insight into their characters. Beneath their
quaint forms of speech, it is easy to see how tena
ciously they held to their rule of discipline and
faith, and how rigidly they applied to themselves
the same rule that they did to others, in determin
ing fitness for church-membership.
The planters in their petition had desired that
the name of Contentment should be given to the
town, but to them this did not signify the content
ment of repose or inaction; on the contrary, they
exhibited a remarkable energy in forwarding public
enterprises. In their need of a corn-mill, they sought
for an eligible site where they might build a dam for
water-power. Some quick eye discovered that East
Brook, which ran to the Neponset, would give the
needed fall, but not sufficient water. The sources
of this brook were about three fourths of a mile from
Charles River, and lower than the bed of the river.
The problem then was to unite the waters of the
Charles and of East Brook. No sooner was the
plan conceived than it was determined to execute
it. On the twenty-fifth day of March, 1639, the
town ordered that the channel be dug at the com
mon charge, " that it may form a suitable creek unto

58 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
a water-mill, that it shall be found fitting to set a
mill upon, in the opinion of a workman to be em
ployed for that purpose." This required the cut
ting of a channel twenty feet wide for three fourths
of a mile, and a further widening of the channel of
East Brook. Who were employed in this work
cannot be discovered, but the canal was dug and a
dam and mill built upon it as early as 1640. It was
undertaken without any aid. or authority from the
General Court ; and so far as is known, it was their
own right arms that accomplished the work. This
was an enterprise of no small proportions, and its
benefits to the town have been far reaching. For
two centuries it furnished power for a saw-mill and a
grist-mill. Since the beginning of the present cen
tury there have been five mill-dams on the stream,
and extensive cotton and woollen mills, with other
manufactories. To-day it is the source of the great
est industrial enterprise of the town, and is the best
existing monument of the energy and foresight of
the settlers.
Another work showing their practical forethought
was undertaken in 1652. At the beginning of the
settlement, what is now called " Dedham Island "
was a neck of land containing about twelve hundred
acres, around which Charles River flowed with a
slight fall in its course, a distance of nearly five
miles in an irregular horse-shoe bend. There was
a distance of only two thirds of a mile across the
meadows at the heel of this bend, and here the

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 59
upper and lower channels of the river are distinctly
visible. On this neck was a herd-walk, and perhaps
some houses. The damage to the meadows by the
waters remaining upon them was felt by the settlers
to be serious, as it has been by every succeeding
generation of riparian owners. Accordingly they
conceived and executed the plan of cutting a creek
or ditch through " Broad Meadows," thus uniting
the upper and lower channels of the river. The
purpose of this creek was to permit the overflow
of water in times of freshets through this artificial
channel, instead of allowing it to accumulate along
its natural and circuitous course below. This chan
nel still exists ; and though much obstructed, if it
were cleared there is no reason to doubt it would
fulfil the purpose of its projectors.
But the enterprise of the Dedham settlers was not
confined to the immediate neighborhood of the vil
lage. Almost at the beginning their attention had
been drawn to the beautiful and extensive mead
ows at Bogastow, afterwards Medfield. Edward
Alleyn had a grant of three hundred and fifty
acres there before his death in 1642. In 165 1
Medfield was made a new town, with Mr. Wheelock,
of the Dedham church, as its church teacher. It
was therefore an offshoot from the Dedham set
tlement. They had also found the fine ponds and
lands at Wollomonopoag, afterwards Wrentham.
In 167 1 it was voted that a plantation be set up
there. They had some negotiations with Philip of

60 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Mount Hope as to his claims of title ; but the settle
ment went forward, and hither went their sons and
sons-in-law to find their new homes. The affairs of
the new plantation for a time were directed by Ded
ham men, and so it may be regarded as peculiarly
a child of Dedham ; but in 1673 it was made a sep
arate town under the name of Wrentham, given, no
doubt, by reason of Mr. Allin's connection with
Wrentham, England.
These new settlements had been planted within
the territory of the original grants to the Dedham
proprietors. They planted another settlement, a
hundred miles away in the wilderness. In 1651
the Gjeneral Court, with the assent of the Dedham
proprietors, had granted two thousand acres of land
for the Indian town at Natick. A dispute after
wards arose respecting the boundaries of this grant,
which was the subject of a lawsuit that resulted
substantially in favor of Natick. To compensate
Dedham, the Court granted to the proprietors eight
thousand acres of unlocated lands, wherever in the
colony they might select them. Accordingly they
sent out messengers to make explorations. The
" chestnut country," near Lancaster, was reported
to have good land, but hard to cultivate, and there
were not enough meadows. John Fairbanks, an
enterprising explorer, informed the Selectmen of
some good land twelve miles from Hadley ; and he,
with Lieutenant Daniel Fisher, was sent out to find
it, and they returned with the report of a good land.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 6 1
This was Pocumtuck, the present town of Deerfield.
Whoever has seen the lovely valley where old Deer-
field lies, with the broad interval and the graceful
sweep of the river around it, must applaud with
enthusiasm the choice of the Dedham explorers.
In 1670 the proprietors assembled at Dedham, laid
out the town in lots, and selected a site for the
meeting-house. All the proprietors were Dedham
men, excepting Captain Pynchon, of Springfield,
and four others. In 1672 further orders were passed
for organizing the settlement. But the remoteness
of Pocumtuck rendered its becoming a separate
town inevitable. The shares of the proprietors
were finally sold, and Deerfield became a separate
town in 1682.
Edward Johnson, in his history entitled "Wonder
Working Providence of Zion's Saviour," writing
about 165 1, thus describes the Dedham settle
ment : —
" Dedham is an inland town about ten miles from Bos
ton, well watered with many pleasant streams, abounding
with garden fruits, fitly to supply the market of the most
populous town, whose coyne and commodities allure the
inhabitants of this town to make many a long walk. They
consist of about a hundred families, generally given to
husbandry, and through the blessing of God are much
increased, ready to swarm and settle on the building of
another town more to the inland. They gathered into a
church at their first settling ; for, indeed, as this was their
chief errand, so it was the first thing they ordinarily minded
to pitch their tabernacles near the Lord's tent. . . . They

62 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
have continued in much love and unity from their first
foundation, hitherto translating the close clouded woods
into goodly cornfields, and adding much comfort to the
lonesome travellers in their solitary journey to Canectico,
by eyeing the habitations of God's people in their way,
ready to administer refreshing to the weary."
Such was the work accomplished by the emigrant
settlers during a period of a quarter of a century.
When we add to these achievements the hand-to-
hand contest with the forest and the soil, the care
of the herds upon which their subsistence de
pended, the monthly assembly for military training
and the weekly lecture, the settlement of boundary
lines and of Indian claims, we are able to form
some estimate of the variety and magnitude of their
labors. Lord Bacon says that in "the true marshal
ling of the degrees of honor, the first place is to be
given to the founders of States and Common
wealths." Let then the highest tribute of this day
be paid to the men who planted here in the wilder
ness the best civilization of their time, illumined
by a simple and genuine religious faith.
We naturally desire to know something of the
personal history and character of these men. First
in order of precedence should be named Edward
Alleyn, the leader of the pioneers. Of his English
history we know nothing. He was the first Town
Clerk and the first Deputy to the General Court ;
and he died suddenly while attending the Court in
1642. He apparently was a layman, and his brief

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 63
career was sufficient to stamp his name indelibly
upon our history.
John Dwight was an active citizen, and was a
Selectman for sixteen years. He brought with him
from England his son Timothy, a child of five years,
who, when he reached manhood, became more promi
nent than his father. He was the Town Clerk for
ten years, and a Selectman for twenty-four years.
He died in 1718, and was the last survivor of the
first settlers. The name of Dwight has long since
disappeared in Dedham. But Timothy Dwight
was the progenitor of a numerous family, some of
whom intermarried with Dedham families, while
others bearing the name made their homes in
the Connecticut valley, whose descendants have
been eminent in many professions and callings.
Each succeeding generation down to the present
one has added a new lustre to the name of Timothy
Dwight.1 The Rev. John Allin, the pastor, was born in
1596, but the place of his nativity has not yet been
ascertained. He was educated at Caius College,
Cambridge, where he took his Master's degree in
1 619. He was instituted rector at the Church of
St. Mary at the Quay, in Ipswich, in 1620. He was
married at Wrentham, Oct. 10, 1622, where his
eldest son was born. He was probably deprived of
1 Dr. Timothy Dwight, the distinguished President of Yale College,
1795-1817, and his grandson Dr. Timothy Dwight, chosen to the same
office in 1886, are descendants of Timothy Dwight, of Dedham.

64 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
his living in 1637.^ While there is doubt concern
ing some facts of his English history, there can be
no doubt concerning his character and influence
here. As a divine he was eminent for his learning,
ability, and graces of character. With Shepard, he
was a champion of the Puritan churches, and with
Eliot he was a co-laborer in the conversion of the
Indians. He also bore a prominent part in direct
ing the civil affairs and public enterprises of the
town. He was possessed of a large landed estate,
and his second marriage with the widow of Gov
ernor Thomas Dudley added to his woridly sub
stance. Joseph Dudley, who afterwards was high
in office but obnoxious to the people, was educated
in the family of Mr. Allin.
Major Eleazer Lusher was without doubt the
ablest and most efficient man among the settlers.
He was a founder of the church, the Town Clerk for
twenty-three years, and a Selectman for twenty-nine
years. He was Captain of the train-band, and Ma
jor of the Suffolk Regiment. He was one of the
original founders of the Ancient and Honorable
Artillery Company. He was a Deputy from the
town to the General Court, and afterwards one of
the Assistants of the Colony for eleven years. He
was also often employed in the affairs of the Colony
by special appointment, and in 1671 was the chair-
1 Some new facts of interest concerning the English history of Rev.
John Allin have been brought to light by Professor William F. Allen,
of Madison, Wisconsin. These will be found in the N. E. Historical
and Genealogical Register for January, 1887.

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 65
man of a committee to collate the laws of the
Colony. Edward Johnson describes him "as a
man of the right stamp, of pure mettle, a gracious,
humble, heavenly-minded man."^
Captain Daniel Fisher was admitted to the church
in 1639. He was a Selectman for thirty-two years,
a Deputy to the General Court, and Speaker of the
House of Deputies for three years; afterwards he
was one of the Assistants, in which office he died
in 1683. He was a man of high patriotic spirit, and
is said to have been learned in the law.'^ Toward the
close of the long struggle for the preservation of the
Colonial Charter, Daniel Fisher became prominent.
He was one of the four whom Randolph accused of
high crimes and misdemeanors.^ His children were
imbued with the same indomitable spirit. It was his
son Daniel of whom the familiar story has been told
of leading Sir Edmund Andros through the streets
of Boston, April 19, 1689. This dramatic incident
rests upon a tradition in his family for authority, but
it also corresponds with the historic account of the
events of that day, and may be accepted as authen
tic* He was the great-grandfather of Fisher Ames.
Lydia Fisher, the sister of the second Daniel, when
1 Wonder Working Providence (Poole's ed.), p. i lo.
^ Dexter's Centennial Sermon, p. 26, note.
' Palfrey's History of New England, vol. iii. p. 365.
* This fact was first stated in Worthington's History, 1827, p. 51.
It rests upon the authority of a family tradition, communicated to the
author by Hon. Ebenezer Fisher, a great-grandson of the Daniel
Fisher referred to. The statement has since been often quoted, and
its truth has never been questioned.

66 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
a young woman of nineteen, went to Hadley to
become the confidential attendant of Goffe and
Whalley, the Regicides, who were then concealed
in the house of Rev. Mr. Russell. This was in
1671 ; and she was probably selected for this some
what perilous mission through the intervention of
her brother Daniel, who had occasion to pass
through Hadley on his way to Deerfield. The
place where the Regicides were then concealed was
known to but few persons in the whole Colony, and
Lydia Fisher deserves to be remembered as a wo
man who kept not only a simple secret, but a great
colonial secret, on which the lives of the Regicides
themselves and perhaps other lives depended.^
There were other men worthy of special mention :
Michael Metcalf, at one time the schoolmaster;
Lieutenant Joshua Fisher, the keeper of the ordi
nary, and town surveyor; and Francis Chickering,
Deputy to the General Court. But this was a
* Lydia Fisher was born in Dedham, July 14, 1652 ; was married to
Nathaniel Chickering Dec. 3, 1674, and died in Needham, July 17, 1737.
The fact of her attendance upon the Regicides at Hadley in 1671, for
about a year, is attested by the family papers. It has been asserted
that her father. Captain Daniel Fisher, concealed the Regicides near
his house in Dedham for a time, and that Lydia here ministered to
them and rode behind one of them on a pillion to Hadley. The Regi
cides left Boston Feb. 26, 1661, and arrived in New Haven March 7.
They remained in concealment in that vicinity until they went to
Hadley Oct. 13, 1664. It is very probable that on their nine days'
journey to New Haven they rested at Dedham, but they did not tarry
long. Lydia at that time was less than nine years of age, and Goffe
and Whalley did not go from Dedham to Hadley, but from New
Haven, and more than three years afterwards. — Palfrey's History
of New England, vol. ii. chap. xiii.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 67
society in which no distinction was recognized, save
that founded upon service rendered to the Colony,
the town, or the church. The elders, the deacons,
and the officers of the train-band were the only
title-bearers. The pastor himself was only desig
nated as Mr. Allin, though the prefix implied some
social distinction. In the village of 1664 we find
all the names of the well-known Dedham families
now represented among us: Avery, Bullard, Ba
ker, Bacon, Colburn, Eaton, Everett, Ellis, Fales,
Fairbanks, Farrington, Fuller, Guild, Gay, Kings
bury, Morse, Onion, Richards, Wright, Wilson,
Whiting, — all had houses here in 1664.
But the time came when the leaders of the first
generation were to rest from their labors. In 1675
all save Captain Daniel Fisher, Timothy Dwight,
and Richard Everard had passed away. Another
generation had succeeded, and the rule of peaceful
life was about to be broken.
In 1673 the Selectmen were summoned by the
General Court to prepare the town for defence
against the Indians, who were then incited to hos
tilities by Philip of Mount Hope. The train-band
was called out for frequent exercise. The great
gun, called a "drake," given to the town by the
General Court in 1650, was mounted. A barrel of
gunpowder and ammunition were procured. A gar
rison was maintained and a watch set. Many fled to
Boston for safety. The Wrentham settlers packed
their goods and brought their families to Dedham.

68 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
All Indians in the town were ordered to depart.
Dedham had some natural advantages for purposes
of defence, but these precautions saved the settle
ment from attack. Philip had met the Dedham
men in the negotiation of treaties, and perhaps saw
good reason to avoid them. But Dedham soldiers
did good service in the war. Near its close a party
of Dedham and Medfield men captured Pomham,
a Narragansett sachem, with fifty followers, in Ded
ham woods, which was considered an achievement
of material importance to the final issue. Nor did
those nearly connected with Dedham wholly es
cape the bloody horrors of that war. Besides the
burning of Medfield and the deserted houses at
Wrentham, in the fearful massacre at Bloody Brook,
Robert Hinsdale, one of the founders of the Ded
ham church who had removed to Hadley, perished
with his three sons while moving their crops from
Deerfield. The close of Philip's War marked the beginning
of great changes. There had long existed a desire
to extend the area of the settlement to the west
and south. In 1682 a vote was passed that no one
should move more than two miles from the meet
ing-house. This was an attempt to repress the
disposition to leave the village. It was not un
til fifty years afterwards that new parishes were
formed. But when the fear of the Indians had been
quieted, the young men could no longer be re
strained from leaving the settlement. Gradually

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 69
the first rude houses which constituted the first
compact village gave way, and in their places here
and there the plain was dotted with more sub
stantial farm-houses. All were farmers, and there
was no village settlement again for more than a
century.^ Great political changes also were now occurring
in the Colony. The charter brought over by
Winthrop, for the preservation of which Daniel
Fisher had striven, was dissolved by a judgment in
the English Court of Chancery. The colonies of
Plymouth and Massachusetts were united in the
Province under a royal Governor. The autonomy
of the Puritans, so strictly maintained under the
first Charter, received its first serious shock in the
guaranties to Protestants of every name given by
the Provincial Charter. Dedham was now entering
upon a long period of great depression. The men
who had succeeded to the management of affairs
were by no means the equals of the founders in
education or capacity for public affairs. In spite
of the care the fathers had taken to educate their
children, the wilderness had proved to be a rough
training-school. Their youth had been spent in
clearing and subduing the soil, in planting orchards,
and in building roads and fences over a wide extent
of territory. There was an indifference to the
means of education. The town was indicted in
1674, and again in 1691, for its neglect to support a
1 Worthington's History, p. 15.

70 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
school. Mr. Dexter, in his Century Sermon of 1 738,
laments the " disesteem of learning too evident in a
prevailing temper to be wholly without a grammar-
school, and the negligence of the parents to send
their children when they have one." He makes the
significant assertion : " I think it is beyond dispute
a rare thing to find among us men of common char
acter that can use a pen as many, many of our fa
thers could." ^ But this low state of education was
perhaps due to circumstances which could not be
controlled. The dispersion of the compact settle
ment caused the maintenance and attendance of
a school to be attended with serious difficulties.
Before 1730 there was but one church and but one
schoolmaster, who was employed but a few weeks
in one place. There were many hardships in the
general condition of the people. They were all de
scendants of the first settlers. There were no new
comers, and a strong jealousy existed towards them,
— a natural outcome of the policy of the founders.
They saw little of other people, and there were
but few marriages except among themselves. The
road to Boston was rough and circuitous ; over it
they carried the produce of their farms in panniers.
They also carried to Boston oak-bark, hoop poles,
oak and pine timber for building purposes, oak
staves, ship timber, charcoal and wood for fuel to
some extent.^ In this way they gained a subsist-
1 Dexter's Century Sermon (1738).
" Worthington's History, p. 39.

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 7 1
ence for themselves and their families. As a nat
ural consequence from such a condition of society,
they had warm controversies among themselves
upon town and parish matters. But it must also
be said that this hard school of self-denial and
sacrifice did not efface from the character of this
generation their strong religious faith and their
firm attachment to the church and town. If their
views of life were narrowed by circumstances, they
were still jealous of their civil rights, and kept them
selves informed in public affairs. They had no
Lusher, whose memory as a wise counsellor was
long cherished, to direct their affairs ; yet they had
good men in Samuel Guild, John Metcalf, and
Joseph Wight, who filled long terms of office as
Selectmen. Between 1671, when Mr. Allin died, and 1723,
when Mr. Dexter came, there had been two minis
ters of the Dedham church, — Adams and Belcher.
A new meeting-house had been built in 1673, and
repaired in 1702. The South Parish was incorpo
rated in 1730, and the West Parish in 1736. In 1748
a fourth parish was incorporated under the name of
Springfield, which is the present town of Dover.
All persons were taxed for parochial purposes, and
all were required to attend public worship under
penalties. Under the Statute of 1727-28, however,
persons attending divine service according to the
Church of England might have their taxes paid
to a minister of that church, if such service was

72 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
performed within five miles of their residence. In
1 734 the ministerial taxes of six persons in Dedham
were remitted because they carried on the worship
of God in the way of the Established Church of
England. In 1731 Dr. Timothy Cutler, rector of
Christ's Church, Boston, began the service of the
English Church, and preached in a private house
in the westerly part of the town. He sometimes
had congregations of fifty persons, and there were
eight or nine communicants. From this time until
the Revolution, these services were held at irregular
intervals in different places in the town ; and finally
a church was built in Dedham village, and opened
for service in 1761. Thus it will be seen, that, in
about a century from the founding of the town, the
English liturgy, the great rock of offence to the
fathers, and so carefully excluded in the time of
the Colony, was publicly used in Dedham under
the protection of law, and accepted by some
of the descendants of the settlers in the third
generation. In the various military expeditions during the
French wars, Dedham men were called to bear a
part. In the West Indies, at Ticonderoga, Fort
Edward, Fort William Henry, at the memorable
siege of Louisburg, and at the Bay of Fundy they
performed military service, and many never re
turned.^ Among the names of soldiers who served
in these companies will be found those of old Ded-
1 Haven's Centennial Address, Appendix, pp. 66, 67.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 73
ham families. It must be remembered that at this
period the military spirit was maintained in full
vigor, and that all able-bodied men were trained in
the manual of arms. In 1757 it has been estimated
that one third of all the effective men of the Prov
ince were in the field in some form or other.^ In
these French wars the men of Massachusetts became
accustomed to actual service in arduous campaigns,
and so acquired a knowledge of the art of war
which well prepared them for the great conflict of
the Revolution, twenty years later.
While the eighteenth century prior to the Revo
lution was a period of depression, hardship, and
sacrifice in Dedham, and, excepting the military
expeditions of the French wars, was not fruitful of
events, yet it was during this period that two of the
most notable men in its history came here to make
their residence, and at a time when they were much
needed. These were Dr. Nathaniel Ames and Sam
uel Dexter, — men of pronounced character, and in
different ways destined to exert a strong influence
in succeeding times.
Dr. Ames came from Bridgewater, when a young
man, in 1732. He inherited from his father a love
of the science of astronomy as it had then been
developed, and in 1726, when less than sixteen
years of age, had published his first almanac, on the
titlepage of which he styled himself a " Student in
Physic and Astronomy." He continued to publish
1 Minot's History, vol. ii. p. 37.

74 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
these almanacs for forty years, and his son Nathaniel,
for ten years more. Dr. Ames was a man of an
acute and vigorous mind, and his almanacs abound
in quaint verses and scientific essays.^ His first
wife was Mary, the daughter of Joshua Fisher ; but
she died, leaving an infant son, Fisher, who also
died in less than a year after his mother. It was
from this infant son that Dr. Ames inherited his
landed estate in Dedham. He then married Deb
orah, the daughter of Jeremiah Fisher, who was the
mother of five children. At the decease of Dr.
Ames, in 1 764, his two eldest sons, Nathaniel and
Seth, had just been graduated at Harvard College,
and Fisher, the youngest, was only six years of age.
The younger children were left to the care of their
mother, a woman of great energy and force of char
acter. Fisher Ames was fitted for college .under
the instructions of Mr. Haven, the minister of the
church, and was graduated in 1774, at the age of
sixteen. Such was the beginning of a family and a
name in Dedham which afterwards became the most
conspicuous and illustrious of any in its annals.
Samuel Dexter was a son of the fourth minister
of the Dedham church. He had been bred to
business, and having acquired a fortune as a mer
chant in Boston, he returned to his native town to
live in November, 1762. He soon built a fine
mansion on land adjoining the parsonage, which
1 An elaborate notice of these almanacs may be found in Tyler's
"History of American Literature," vol. ii. pp. 122-130.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 75
is Still standing, in admirable preservation; and
though it has been much improved, it has not
been radically changed in form or arrangement.
Mr. Dexter immediately assumed a leading place
in the local affairs of Dedham. He gave liberally
for the support of schools, and for the new meeting
house erected about the time of his coming. He
was usually the moderator of town-meetings just
previous to the Revolution, and the resolutions
then adopted were drawn by his hand. He was
for several years a Deputy to the General Court,
and was several times negatived as a Councillor
by the royal Governor. In the beginning of the
Revolution he was for five years in the Provincial
Congress, and a member of the Supreme Executive
Council of State, which assisted and supported the
military operations in the vicinity of Boston.
The decade which preceded the first conflict of
arms in the Revolution was one of intense excite
ment, deep anxiety, and popular indignation. These
found expression in town-meetings and through
committees of correspondence, and finally in prep
arations for actual war. In all this period the men
of Dedham, true to the" traditions of their fathers,
were thoroughly aroused. They had suffered much
from provincial taxes levied on account of the
French wars, in which they had fought the battles
of England ; but they were ready to make greater
sacrifices in resisting those parliamentary measures
especially contrived to reduce the free-spirited people

76 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
of Massachusetts to the condition of mere subjects
to the Crown. The town raised its voice against
the passage of the Stamp Act, and joined in the
short-lived joy over its repeal, of which event the
Sons of Liberty have left a permanent memorial to
this day.^ It voted to discourage the use of foreign
superfluities and to encourage domestic manufac
tures. It abjured the use of tea, and resolved to
unite with other towns for the redress of grievances.
In 1774 it resolved not to supply the British troops
with any articles but provisions. In September of
the same year the delegates from the Suffolk towns
assembled here, and organized the convention which
made the first declaration of armed resistance to
Great Britain. The people opened a subscription
for the distressed poor in Boston, " cruelly suffering
in the common cause of America." But they did
not entirely rely upon resolutions and declarations.
In March, 1775, they raised a company of sixty min
ute men, to be drilled three days and a half in each
week, to be ready to march on the shortest notice
in case of an alarm, and to serve nine months. In
all these stirring movements the town was acting in
co-operation with the other country towns in the com
mon cause. Such was the preparation made by the
men of Dedham for the conflict which they clearly
foresaw was about to open. Knowing as we do
the spirit that animated them, their complete readi
ness for any emergency, and informed by subsequent
1 " The Pillar of Liberty."

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 77
events, we may feel assured that if, on the morning
of April 19, 1775, a detachment of British grenadiers
had marched up the High Street of Dedham with
a hostile purpose, the minute men of Dedham would
have been found on yonder Common, to make their
stand for the common cause of home-rule and self-
government. But, as has been aptly said, the " lot
of glory fell to Lexington."
A little after nine o'clock in the morning, there
came a horseman down the Needham road to bring
the Lexington alarm. The minute men were ready
for the expected summons, and knew just what to
do. There are traditions still kept of the plough
being left in the furrow and the cart upon the
highway, and the drivers mounting their horses and
galloping for their muskets and accoutrements.
They did not wait for more than a platoon to as
semble before they started. Captain Joseph Guild,
of the minute men, gagged some croaker who had
said that the alarm was false. As the day wore on,
the militia companies mustered under their respec
tive captains. The first company of the first parish,
sixty-seven officers and men, was commanded by Cap
tain Aaron Fuller. A smaller company of seventeen
men marched under Lieutenant George Gould. The
company of the South Parish, under Captain William
Bullard, had sixty officers and men ; and the com
pany of the West Parish, thirty-one officers and men,
was under Captain William Ellis. The Fourth Parish
company, under Captain Ebenezer Battle, marched

78 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
with sixty-seven officers and men. In all, including
the minute men and the militia, three hundred
men under arms must have marched from Dedham
on that historic day. Nor were these all. The
gray-haired veterans of the French wars, whose
blood was stirred anew by the sights and sounds
of war, resolved to follow their sons to the battle.
Assembled on the Common before this meeting
house, they met Rev. Mr. Gordon, of Roxbury, who
had just come to Dedham ; and he, from the steps
of the eastern porch, offered a prayer, and then
they also marched, under the lead of Hezekiah
Fuller and Nathaniel Sumner. Well may we be
lieve, as we are told, that the town was left " almost
literally without a male inhabitant below the age
of seventy and above that of sixteen."^ Where
our soldiers met the enemy is not precisely known,
but probably in Cambridge. We only know that
among the casualties of the day it is recorded that
Elias Haven was killed, and Israel Everett wounded,
and that these men belonged to different Dedham
companies. While the glory of the eventful morn
ing justly belongs to Lexington and Concord, yet
after noon, when the British began their retreat,
the battle was maintained by men from all the
surrounding towns ; and among these, the men of
Dedham were at the front. Dr. Nathaniel Ames
made this significant entry in his diary for that
day, which seems to describe it with historic accu-
' Haven's Centennial Address, p. 46.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 79
racy : " Grand battle from Concord to Charlestown.
I went and dressed the wounded."
This quiet hamlet now became the scene of war
like operations. Provincial cannon were brought '
here, and Ebenezer Brackett was chosen to guard
them. Committees were appointed to procure guns
and ammunition, and to establish a night watch.
The old gun of King Philip's War was ordered to
be swung. The town voted to raise one hundred
and twenty men to be ready to march on an alarm.
Samuel Dexter announced that he would give
his services in attending the Provincial Congress.
Troops from Rhode Island passed through. Our
people heard the booming of the guns at Bunker's
Hill and saw the smoke of Charlestown, but our
soldiers had no part in the battle. They, however,
formed a part of the force that invested Boston the
succeeding winter. After the evacuation, when the
army was moving to New York, General Washing
ton spent a night here, and was entertained by
Mr. Dexter.
At the session of the General Court in November,
1775, Dedham was made the shire town of Suffolk
County. The reason of this act, as recited in its
preamble, was that Boston was " a garrison of the
ministerial army, and had become the receptacle of
the enemies of America." The books and papers
of the Registry of Deeds were removed here ; and
although the act was repealed in 1776, yet at the
same time a resolve directed that these should be

8o THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
kept in Dedham during the unsettled state of public
affairs, until the further order of the General Court.
In May, 1776, the town held a meeting to know
the minds of the people about coming into a state
of independency. The subject was fully discussed
and considered at several adjournments of the
meeting; and finally, May 27, 1776, the inhabi
tants unanimously voted, " that if the Honorable
Congress should declare the Colonies independent
of Great Britain, they would solemnly engage to
support it in that measure with their lives and
fortunes." The whole story of how the town redeemed this
pledge cannot be told here. The exact number
of men raised for the service has never been
stated, but the published list must fall short of
the real number. Bounties were paid, committees
of correspondence and safety were maintained, and
a committee for the care of soldiers' families in
distress was appointed. The demands for horses
and beef were supplied. The fluctuation of the
currency gave to everything a factitious price. The
burden of taxation became very heavy as time went
on. It has been estimated that the annual expenses
of the war, met by taxation, assessed upon the in
habitants by the town and parishes, were eight
thousand dollars, federal currency.^ When we con
sider that all this expense was maintained by a
town of less than two thousand inhabitants, all
1 Worthington's History, p. 69.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 8 1
farmers, having little or no means beyond what
their farms yielded, we may gain some idea of the
trials and sacrifices of the people during the eight
long years of the Revolutionary War. Their en
durance did not fail, though the limit was ne3,rly
reached. Their indomitable spirit bore them up,
and they maintained the common cause with great
unanimity. They had the leadership of able men
like Samuel Dexter in the beginning, who aided
them by donations of money as well as by his
personal influence. Mr. Haven, the minister, was
an active leader; and Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the
younger, was an ardent supporter of the popular
cause. Fisher Ames was but seventeen years old
in 1775, but he did some military service dur
ing the war. The town, therefore, made good
its pledge, solemnly given at the beginning, to
support independency.
In the brief but serious insurrection led by
Daniel Shays, which followed the Revolution, and
which threatened the supremacy of law in Massa
chusetts, Dedham furnished a quota of forty-five
men, showing that her people, though suffering
from impoverishing taxes, were ready to suppress
lawlessness under the guise of relief from oppres
sive laws.
Between the close of the Revolution and 1790,
no marked changes occurred in the affairs of the
town; but during the last decade of the eigh
teenth century, there began an era of improve

82 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
ments in Dedham village. It was about to shake
off its rural aspect and to take on a more imposing
appearance. Since the first little compact village
of the settlers had disappeared, a century before,
here and there, scattered over the plain, had stood
the farm-houses. The meeting-house, the school-
house, and the tavern made the only centre of
Dedham life. The mansion of Dr. Sprague, pur
chased of Mr. Dexter, the parsonage of Mr. Haven,
and the house of Dr. Nathaniel Ames the younger,
were the only conspicuous houses in the village.
Besides the minister, the two physicians, and per
haps the schoolmaster, all were farmers. The
change was a gradual one, and proceeded from
a variety of causes.
In 1793 the County of Norfolk was incorpor
ated, formed by a division of Suffolk County.
This project had long been agitated among the
farmers of the country towns, and the subject of
many resolutions. Dedham, in 1786, had declared,
as a reason for the division of the county, " that
if the courts of justice should be held in some
country town within the county, we expect (at
least for a while) that the wheels of justice would
move on without the clogs and embarrassments
of a numerous train of lawyers. The scenes of
gayety and amusements which are now prevalent
in Boston, we expect, would so allure them that
we should be rid of their perplexing officiousness."
Dedham, chiefly on account of its central position.

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 83
was made the shire town of the new county, and
this at once gave it a new importance. Despite
the public deprecation of the "order of lawyers,"
two natives of Dedham, Samuel Haven and Fisher
Ames, both lawyers, almost immediately opened
their law offices here, and began to build their fine
mansions. In 1796 Captain Edward Dowse, a
retired merchant, and a liberal-spirited and chari
table gentleman, afterwards a member of Congress,
came here, and soon erected another mansion on
High Street. The spacious and imposing resi
dence, first known as the Lovell house, on the
corner of Court and Highland Streets, was built
soon after. All these houses are now standing,
much enlarged and enriched by their subsequent
owners. In 1795 about twenty acres of land in
the heart of the village, which had been devised
to the Episcopal Church by Samuel Colburn in
1756, was divided and leased in village lots, and
houses began to be built on them. Not many
years after, the land of the First Church on the
west side of Court Street was also leased. A new
interest began to be manifested in public schools,
and a new brick school-house was finished in 1800.
A wooden court-house, fronting on the Meeting
house Common, was finished in 1795. The courts
before had been held in the meeting-house, and
they continued to be held there afterwards on
special occasions. On the fourth day of April,
1792, the stage-coach began to make its regular

84 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
trips of two hours from Dedham to Boston, for five
days in the week.^ In 1797 the old Episcopal
Church, opened in 1761, was removed and recon
structed. The town began to increase in popula
tion, and mechanics and tradesmen to come from
elsewhere. In 1804 the turnpike from Boston to Providence
was opened, which gave to Dedham the advantage
of a direct and well-graded road to Boston. In 1797
water was brought to the village by an aqueduct.
A still more significant mark of the new order of
things was the establishment of the Norfolk Cotton
Factory in 1807. Its corporators were citizens of
Dedham, and its water-power was furnished by the
canal of the early settlers. This factory was a source
of much pride to our citizens ; and though a dozen
years later it met with financial disaster, it attracted
to Dedham men of enterprise and skill, who subse
quently were among its most reliable citizens. In
this way began the village of Dedham as we see it
to-day ; and with the exception of a very few houses,
none are now standing which were built earlier
than 1795.
All these things were the outward signs of social
changes. In 1792 Fisher Ames wrote to Thomas
Dwight : " Dedham will never become more than a
village, but it is growing up to be a smart one."
And in the same letter he added : " Is there not
a cold hard spot in the heart which is indifferent
* Nathaniel Ames's Diary.

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 85
to the natale solum? The growth of the place I
live in concerns my profit and my pleasure, and
it seems to me there is reason, if not philosophy,
in my taking an interest in that event." These
were noble words, and in the few years of life that
remained for him he nobly endeavored to carry
them into action.
Having studied law with William Tudor in Boston,
Fisher Ames was admitted to the bar in 1781. He
had a small practice in Dedham for a few years, but
employed his leisure in writing a series of articles
for the " Independent Chronicle " upon questions
then agitating the public mind growing out of
Shays' Rebellion. The vigor of thought and style
in these essays attracted attention, and they may be
regarded as the beginning of his public career. He
was a delegate from Dedham in the Constitutional
Convention of 1788, where he made his maiden
speech in favor of biennial elections. He was
elected to the Legislature from Dedham in the
same year. In 1789 he took his seat in Congress,
and served eight years, during Washington's ad
ministration. It is beyond the scope of this address
to speak of his public life further than to say that
in a period of a national history remarkable for
its statesmen and political writers, no one produced
a more profound impression than Fisher Ames.
But as a private citizen living here on his native
soil and identified with the interests of this town,
something should be said to-day. After his marriage

86 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
and a brief residence in Boston, while he was still
a member of Congress, Mr. Ames returned to Ded
ham to make his home upon the patrimonial estate.
The old house where he was born was still standing,
and it was not taken down until after his mother's
death in 1S17. He built a law office on the corner
of what is now the Court-House Yard, on High
and Court streets, which he occupied until his death
in 1808. He immediately entered upon local enter
prises with great earnestness. He took pride and
satisfaction in his farm. He makes frequent allu
sions in his letters to his large stock of cattle, to the
productiveness of his cows, to his breed of sheep, to
his desire to get the best seeds, and to his belief that
his farm is approaching the period when it would
be profitable ; adding, " if he did not think it would
be, it would not be an amusement, it would be a
mere piece of ostentation on any other prospect,
an expensive folly, a toilsome disappointment." But
Mr. Ames was specially active in plans for the im
provement of the appearance of the village. He
engaged in the fierce debates of a Dedham town-
meeting to urge that the roads be repaired by con
tract, instead of by the old plan of working out the
highway taxes, and that the district school should be
kept for a longer time. He was interested in the
drainage of the Charles River meadows; in the estab
lishment of a manufactory ; in the founding of a li
brary and an academy; in the building of a new town-
house, and the safe-keeping of the records ; in a new

2 50TH ANNIVERSARY. 87
meeting-house, and in making a public square in the
centre of the village. He was the first president of
the turnpike corporation, and personally supervised
the building of the road. He was hospitable, and
gave parties, and strove to cultivate social relations
with his neighbors. During all this time Mr. Ames's
health was extremely precarious, and he was occu
pied more or less in the trial of causes. In all these
ways, animated by the highest and most disinterested
motives, he strove to elevate and improve the condi
tion of affairs around him. He was doubtless far in
advance of his time, and many of his plans were little
heeded. He encountered a strong opposition from
the sturdy farmers in the parishes who did not favor
any project for the improvement of the village.
Beyond the remaining elms on High Street, there
are no existing memorials of the enlightened public
spirit of Fisher Ames. His efforts, however, are
not to be estimated by the degree of success which
attended them, but rather by the spirit that inspired
them ; and they should always meet with a grateful
recognition whenever our local history is told.
The period beginning with the present century
and ending with the War of 1812 was characterized
by an intense political feeling. Probably never was
partisan controversy so bitter, or carried so far into
the relations of social life. It was then that the
name of Federalist became so offensive to the pop
ular party as to be handed down in history with
unpleasant associations, while the Republicans were

88 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
denounced as "Jacobins" by their political adver
saries. These political animosities had full play in
Dedham. Dedham supported the administrations
of Jefferson and Madison, and the War of 1812.
Soldiers for the army were recruited and drilled
here, and the Dedham Light Infantry performed
service at South Boston. In August, 181 2, a con
vention of five hundred delegates assembled here to
express their approbation of the war. Fisher Ames
was a Federalist. Doubtless much of the opposi
tion to his plans for the improvement of the village
was due to politics. Between him and his eldest
brother. Dr. Nathaniel Ames, who was a Repub
lican, there were many sharp political conflicts, as
there are apt to be between strong men of the same
blood. The administration of James Monroe was charac
terized as the " era of good feeling," in contradis
tinction to the intense bitterness of political strife
during the administrations of Jefferson and Mad
ison. This was illustrated in Dedham upon the
occasion of the visit of President Monroe. On the
first day of July, 181 7, there was a great military
parade here to receive him. The first division of
the Massachusetts militia was ordered out, includ
ing the cavalry and artillery as well as infantry, and
mustered at Dedham. The President was escorted
by a detachment of cavalry from the southerly line
of the county in Wrentham. Upon his arrival at
Dedham, near sunset, he reviewed the troops on the

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 89
Great Common. He then retired to the hospitable
mansion of Mr. Dowse, where he was entertained
for the night. In the morning he walked through
throngs of people to Policy's Tavern, where he re
ceived the salutations of the citizens, and "shook
hands until near exhausted with the tedious cere
mony." ^ General Crane finally requested the mul
titude to pay their respects by simply bowing and
passing on. Then, escorted by the cavalry and
carriages, the President went on his journey to
Boston. Such was the manner of receiving a Re
publican President in Dedham in 1817.
The most memorable event, in the history of the
town was the division of the church, which occurred
in 1S18. In these days when theological dogmas
have so relaxed their hold even upon religious men,
it is difficult to put ourselves into a position to
understand the full meaning of this event to the
men and women of the First Parish nearly seventy
years ago. The church and the parish then in
cluded nearly all the people of the village, and all
were required by law to attend public worship.
The church was supported by general taxation, and
it was bound by inseparable ties to the civil admin
istration of the town. To the church-members the
church was an object of unspeakable solicitude, and
the subject of constant prayers. It was the ark of
the covenant placed here by the fathers. The time
has now come when we may speak of the division
1 Nathaniel Ames's Diary.

go THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
as an important fact of history, though there was
a time when our people alluded to it with bated
breath, and it was not deemed to be a proper sub
ject for public discussion. It was the result of no
common local quarrel over a question of transient
importance. Briefly stated, the issue was made
upon the right of a territorial parish to elect a
religious teacher without the concurrence of the
church connected with it. The usage of the Puri
tan churches had always required such a concur
rence. But in the Constitutional Convention of
1780, without much serious discussion, there had
been inserted in the Bill of Rights a provision
which gave to towns and parishes the exclusive
right to choose their public teacher. The First
Parish of Dedham in 18 18 elected a "public teacher
of morality .and religion," but in this election a
majority of the church refused to concur. Upon
the ordination of the teacher-elect, a majority of
the church with the deacons, and a minority of
the parish, withdrew and formed a separate reli
gious body. Then the right to the property and
records of the church became the subject of a suit
at law, and the court held that under the provision
of the Bill of Rights, made in 17S0, the parish
might elect a teacher with or without the consent
of the church, and without regard to ecclesiastical
usage ; that a church could have no legal existence
apart from the parish, and that those members of
the church who remained with the First Parish

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 91
of Dedham were entitled to the property of the
church. Such were the legal questions involved
in this celebrated case. But the real underlying
causes of the controversy must be sought for in
the theological historj'- of that time. It must be
ascribed to the powerful reaction from the dogmas
of Calvinism, which may be traced back for many
years before, and which culminated in 1816 with a
great religious upheaval that rent asunder the par
ish churches in half the towns of eastern Massa
chusetts. The decision of the Dedham case was
the most far-reaching in its results perhaps of any
decision of our courts; for under it the church
property in a majority of those towns passed into
the exclusive control of the parishes, while the
church members who adhered to the Orthodox
Puritan faith were relegated to the position of dis
senters from the established parish churches. This
was an ecclesiastical revolution which the union of
churches and territorial parishes could not with
stand ; and in 1834 the parochial system of the
Puritans, which had been so carefully framed and
steadily maintained for two hundred years, by an
amendment to the Bill of Rights, was dissolved
forever. It is a privilege to be able to add a peaceful
sequel to this story of strife and division here in
Dedham. Since 1819, in separate churches and
congregations and confessing different rules of faith,
the descendants and successors of the Puritan found-

92 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
ers have worshipped here. Though widely separ
rated by differences of administration, they have
worshipped so near each other that sometimes the
passer-by might hear the songs of praise borne on
the same harmonies going up together from both
congregations. The venerated pastors, who were
both ordained in the hour of great tribulation, for
forty years afterwards led the devotions of their
hearers. They were both representative men of
their diverse schools of theology, but they both bore
themselves with a dignity becoming their sacred
office, and both labored for peace. If there were
heart-burnings and some bitterness in the beginning,
these found no encouragement from the pulpits.
There was a calm on the surface of the troubled
waters, though there might have been whirlpools
and eddies below ; and long before the faithful pas
tors were borne to their final rest, through no diplo
macy but the silent force of their example, a treaty
of amity had been concluded which has been well
kept and, as we trust, is never to be broken.
In 1830 the population of the town was upwards
of three thousand. There had been a slow but
steady advance in population and prosperity. The
formation of a bank, an insurance company, and an
institution for savings, were further evidence of its
growth. The manufacture of woollen goods at the
mills had been put upon a firm basis by the capital
and capacity of Benjamin Bussey and his efficient
agent, Thomas Barrows. Two cotton-mills had

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 93
been built, and they were operated by Frederick
A. Taft and Ezra W. Taft, skilful and experienced
manufacturers. In the South Parish, George Wins
low, Willard Everett, Lyman Smith, and Joseph
Day had begun those enterprises which afterwards
transformed that farming neighborhood into a pros
perous village. In Dedham village there was a silk-
factory and shops for making stage-coaches. The
Citizens' Stage Company, owning three hundred
horses, with coaches and equipments, had its head
quarters here. This line ran from Boston to Provi
dence, leaving Boston at five o'clock in the morning,
and connecting at Providence with the New York
steamer at half-past eleven. Subsequently the time
was reduced one hour. It has been stated that ex
press riders once carried a message of President
Jackson from Providence to Boston in two hours
and forty-five minutes. Sometimes a procession of
twelve coaches filled with passengers, heralded by
the horn, would draw up here for breakfast or a re
lay of horses. At the sessions of the courts the
county lawyers brought their satchels with their
papers, and tarried at the taverns until their cases
were disposed of. Sometimes a leader of the Suf
folk bar would appear, to electrify the jury and the
spectators. In the winter, balls and sleighing-parties
made the two taverns centres of life and gayety. In
the summer, families from Boston found Dedham a
pleasant place of sojourn. Mrs. Kemble and Mrs.
Hawthorne in their published diaries give us some

94 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
glimpses of Dedham life at this period. Books and
pamphlets were printed here. There was a young
men's lyceum, which produced original plays. Each
political party had a county newspaper. Of the
dreaded order of lawyers there were not less than
five in practice. Theron Metcalf, who came in 1809,
delivered law lectures to students in 1S28. Horace
Mann began his brief professional career in 1S26.
In the same year Lafayette was received here at
nearly midnight by a concourse of people who had
waited all day to see him, amid the ringing of bells,
the firing of a salute, and an illumination of the
houses. In 1833 President Jackson with his cabinet
rode through long lines of men, who received him
with uncovered heads, as he made his journey to
wards Boston. Such was Dedham village in 1834.
The prediction made by Fisher Ames forty years
before had been fulfilled. It had grown to be " a
smart village."
Fifty years ago to-day the town observed its two
hundredth anniversary. It was entered into with
spirit, and was a memorable occasion. The town
had then attained the height of its local importance,
and the arrangements made were quite imposing.
The Governor of the Commonwealth, Edward
Everett, and his brother, Alexander H. Everett,
both descendants of Richard Everard, were present.
The felicitous speech of the Governor added much
to the impressiveness of the occasion. A senti
ment to the memory of Rev. Samuel Dexter was

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 95
spoken to by Franklin Dexter, his great-grandson,
an eminent lawyer. There were also present a few
surviving soldiers of the Revolution ; and among
these the venerable Ebenezer Fisher, then in his
eighty-sixth year, who had filled high political offices,
and who was the great-grandson of Daniel Fisher,
— the same who had the affair with Sir Edmund
Andros in 1689. The orator of the day, Mr. Haven,
was a son of Dedham, and the lineal descendant of
two ministers of the Dedham church, — Dexter and
Haven. He was then a critical student of Massa
chusetts history, and afterwards during a long life
he held a position which enabled him to attain a
wide reputation as an historical scholar. His cen
tennial address was a learned, concise, and accurate
survey of our history. Thus was the memory of Ded
ham men of nearly every generation honored here by
their distinguished descendants fifty years ago.
Two notable church anniversaries also occurred
in the bi-centennial year of the town. By a some
what remarkable coincidence, on the tenth day of
January the Third Parish completed the first cen
tury of its corporate existence, and on the twenty-
third day of June the church of the Second Parish
had been formed for a century.^ Both of these oc
casions were appropriately observed by historical
discourses from the pastors, which were printed.^
* No allowance is made here for the difference between old and
new style.
s Centennial Discourse, by Rev. John White, Jan. 17, 1836. Cen^
tennial Discourse, by Rev. Calvin Durfee, June 26, 1836.

96 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
They were prepared with great care and fidelity,
and were complete and succinct histories of the
churches in those parishes. The two hundredth
anniversary of the church of the First Parish came
two years later, Nov. i8, 1838, making allowance
for difference of style. For this occasion Rev. Dr.
Lamson prepared and delivered three historical dis
courses, which embodied a full and comprehensive
history of the church down to his own time. These
were afterwards printed with copious notes, in
which were collected many historical facts from
original sources by the patient investigation of the
learned pastor. These sermons have an especial
value, since they cover a period of two hundred
years, when the history of the town was so largely
merged in the history of the church. Rev. Dr.
Burgess also delivered a concise and accurate his
torical discourse upon the history of the church,
which he afterwards printed in a unique volume,
containing a sermon of every minister of the church
to his own time, collected with much difficulty, that
they might serve as a memorial of the event for the
generation living at the end of the third century.
Certainly on this anniversary we must all recognize
the pious reverence for the memory of the fathers,
which prompted all the pastors of the Puritan
churches of the town thus to perpetuate its ecclesi
astical history in discourses which together form
the best memorials we have of the close of the
second century.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 97
The opening of the railroad in 1834 was the
prelude to another period of change in Dedham
village. The people made contributions of lands
and money to build the branch to Readville. They
thought it would be like a turnpike over which
any line of coaches might run upon the payment
of tolls. They were pleased with its novelty, but
failed to comprehend its great possibilities. For
a time a two-horse compartment car was drawn to
Boston. Then a connection was made with the
Providence trains, but it was some time before a
locomotive drew a train of cars from Dedham to
Boston. The stage-coaches for a time competed
with the railroad, and as late as 1841 an omnibus
was driven regularly from Dedham to Boston. But
the day for stage-coaches was soon over, and with
them went out the busy shops and the old-time
tavern life. Nothing ever took their places. But
the railroad doubtless led to the removal from Bos
ton to Dedham of some valued citizens. In 1839
the Dowse estate came into the hands of Edmund
Quincy, known to the world as an accomplished
author, and to us who knew him here as an ideal
gentleman. The Riverdale estate about the same
time was purchased by Thomas Motley, Sr., and
here his son the historian dwelt for a time. The
fine houses on East Street were built soon after,
and occupied by gentlemen who became honored
citizens of the town. While the local industries
had declined, the town still maintained its position

98 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
as a centre for the interests of the county. The
great political procession of July 4, 1840, estimated
to include seventy-five hundred persons, was a no
table event among the boys of that day. In the
days of the anti-slavery agitation, all its leaders
whose names have become historical were accus
tomed to attend their annual county conventions
here, and there were some excited sessions in the
old Town House. In 1849 the Norfolk Agricul
tural Society, organized and directed by its efficient
president, Marshall P. Wilder, held its first exhibi
tion, at which Daniel Webster and a rare company
of distinguished men made addresses. The exhi
bitions of this society for many years were great
events, and are among the pleasantest memories of
thirty years ago.
In the autumn of 1848, during the presidential
campaign, there was a political meeting which de
serves to be commemorated. It was held by the
friends of General Taylor in the old hall now stand
ing on Court Street. It was an ordinary political
meeting, but held in the afternoon and during the
session of the court. The hall was but half filled.
The speaker was a Western member of Congress,
who had come to Boston to make campaign
speeches. Probably few of his audience had ever
heard his name. He spoke but a half-hour, as he
was obliged to take the train. He was a tall, gaunt
man, whose free manner and careless disposition of
attire bespoke the Western stump-speaker. His

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 99
speech was enlivened by a peculiar humor, and it
went directly home to the understanding and appre
ciation of his audience. Probably all recollection
of the speech and the speaker soon faded from the
memory of many of his hearers. But there was
one of them^ who in after years loved to recall the
fact that the plain man whom he heard that day
was a man who will be remembered while Ameri
can liberty shall last. It was Abraham Lincoln of
Illinois. In the spring of 1861 Dedham was enjoying a
good degree of prosperity, partly from local indus
tries and partly from being the residence of business
men from Boston. No event had occurred during
the preceding decade to disturb its harmony, and
the outlook ahead disclosed no reason for apprehen
sion. There had been no military company here
since 1842. Few of our young men had been
drilled in the manual of arms, or knew anything of
military tactics. They were looking forward to a
peaceful career in their respective callings. Even
the fuast-military organizations of the presiden
tial campaign in the preceding autumn had not in
spired in them any thought or desire of becoming
real soldiers. For a number of years the military
1 Hon. George H. Monroe, of Roxbury, a native of Dedham and
a resident here in 1848. He escorted Mr. Lincoln to Dedham, and
gave an interesting narrative of his visit and speech in the " Boston
Herald," April 22, 1885. Mr. Lincoln was entertained during his
brief stay in the mansion of Freeman Fisher, now the residence of
John R. Bullard.

lOO THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
spirit had to some extent been under the ban of
public sentiment in Massachusetts. Many good
people indulged the belief that wars had ceased
to be necessary for the arbitrament of difficulties.
The coming shadows of a possible conflict after the
presidential election did not arouse them from the
dream of peace. Even when the clouds began to
thicken, and the sky to grow dark, and the rumbling
of the distant thunder to be heard, they did not real
ize that the tempest was at hand. It was only when
the bolt of war fell that they were startled into
action ; but then they sprang to their feet, ready to
do battle for Union and Liberty.
It was my great privilege eighteen years ago
this month, on a public occasion,-' while yet the
memories of the war were fresh, though the mate
rials of authentic history were meagre, to give an
historical account of what Dedham and Dedham
men did in the Civil War. It was such a story as
might be told in many a Massachusetts town, but
it had a peculiar pathos and interest for us. Year
by year, ever since, the comrades of the Grand
Army have called us to refresh our memories over
the grave of the soldier. We need not linger over
them to-day. The events of those years were too
deeply impressed upon all who in any way par
ticipated in them to be soon forgotten.
But it would be an unpardonable omission not
to say of old Dedham, on her two hundred and
1 Dedication of Memorial Hall, Sept. 29, 1868.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. lOI
fiftieth anniversary, that in the Civil War she was
thoroughly, nobly true to her traditions. In una
nimity of action, without regard to political affilia
tions ; in the alacrity and steadfastness of her sup-
port to the National Government in every call for
men ; in the tenderness and interest with which she
followed her soldiers to the field and cared for their
families at home ; in the readiness of her citizens
to make any required contributions of money, —
and, above all, in the precious sacrifice of her sons
on a score of battle-fields, she paid the full tribute
of patriotism, " in good measure, pressed down and
shaken together and running over." She was as
faithful and true in 1S61 to 1865, as in 1675 ^^^
1775' The centuries had not abated her spirit,
though they had changed her habits and opinions.
When the day of trial came, she was the same town
still. We have already reached the boundary-line be
tween the domain of history and the memory of
the present generation. Perhaps the greatest social
revolution in the history of the American people
began with the close of the Civil War. But no
man living can now foresee its issue, or rightly
estimate the true proportions of its events. As
the soldier amidst the din and smoke of battle
knows little or nothing of the grand movements
in which he is bearing a part, so we cannot un
derstand the real meaning of what transpires in
our own time. The accomplished historical scholar

I02 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
who stood in this place fifty years ago, closed his
retrospect of the history of Dedham with the War
of the Revolution, and so we will close ours with
the War of the Rebellion.
Surely we cannot leave the contemplation of this
honorable and inspiring history without being in
some measure touched with a sense that we who
have succeeded to the heritage have a weight of
obligation resting upon us. We have seen to
day, in the light of authentic history, how, in the
two hundred and fifty years since civilization and
Christianity were first planted here, one period has
been evolved from another; and though great
changes have been wrought in habits, opinions,
and systems, yet, after all, as a community, we
bear the family likeness. The most striking im
pression one gets from a close study of the history
of any old Massachusetts town is of the wonder
ful stability of its people. If we sometimes com
placently reflect, in the pride of our material
prosperity, that the early days were days of small
things, we have seen that they really were days
of great achievement. If we regard ourselves as
more tolerant in our forms of religious faith, let
us never forget that the Puritan fathers believed
what they professed, and practised what they be
lieved. If we think ourselves emancipated from
the restraints of their narrow and provincial views
of life, still we must acknowledge that they knew.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 103
better than we, how to lay strong and deep the
foundations of civil society. But let us forbear to
draw parallels to our own advantage. Let us rather
prove our fidelity to the sacred trust committed to
our hands, by striving to see how far we can excel
the fathers in public spirit, in devotion to the
common interests of society, and, if need be, in
heroic self-sacrifice in the day of trial. As we
step forward to-morrow into another half-century
of our history, we can find no better formula to
embody our best aspirations than those simple
words, written for all time, that Edward Alleyn
put into the Town Covenant two hundred and fifty
years ago, and to which the townsmen of the first
century subscribed.
Let us " become freely subject to all such orders
and constitutions as shall be necessarily had or
made, now or at any time hereafter, from this day
forward, as well for loving and comfortable society
in our said town, as also for the prosperous and
thriving condition of our said fellowship, especially
respecting the fear of God, in which we desire to
begin and continue whatever we shall by His loving
favor take in hand."

I04 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
VII.
FORTY-FOURTH PSALM.
(Bay Psalm Book, 1650.)
Tune — " St. Martin's."
( The audience are requested to rise and join in the singing.)
We, with our ears have heard, O God,
Our fathers have us told.
What works Thou wroughtest in their days
Ev'n in ye days of old.
How Thy hand drave ye heathen out,
Displanted them Thou hast ;
How Thou ye people did'st afflict,
And out them Thou did'st cast.
For by their sword they did not get
The land's possession.
Nor was it their own arm that did
Work their salvation.
But Thy right hand. Thine arm also,
Thy countenance of light ;
Because that of Thine own good will
Thou did'st in them delight.

VIIL
BENEDICTION.
By Rev. Seth C. Beach.
Rev. Arthur M. Backus, to whom this part had been assigned, was
detained by illness.

THE DINNER.

THE DINNER.

A T the conclusion of the exercises in the church
^ the procession re-formed and marched to the
large tent on Richards Field, which was filled with
eleven hundred ladies and gentlemen. Upon the
platform were seated the presiding officer, Hon.
Frederick D. Ely, Gov. George D. Robinson,
Mayor O'Brien, President Dwight, Hon. John D.
Long, Dr. George E. Ellis, Dr. William Everett,
Lieut.-Gov. Ames, Hon. George White, Hon. A.
W. Beard, Hon. R. R. Bishop, Ex-Governor Fair
banks, of Vermont, Hon. J. Q. A. Brackett, Hon.
George W. Wiggin, and many others.
After the company was seated, the President
rose and said : —
Ladies and Gentlemen, — At the dinner given in
honor of the two hundredth anniversary of the in
corporation of this town in 1836, Rev. John White,
then a settled minister at West Dedham, invoked
the divine blessing. I now invite you to join with
his successor, Rev. George W. Cooke, in invoking
the divine blessing on this occasion.

io8 the town of dedham.

THE INVOCATION,

Our Father's God, we invoke Thy blessing on this
occasion. Bless us as Thou hast blest our fathers, with
high thoughts and pure motives and noble purposes.
Bless, our Father, in the future, this town, as Thou dost
bless it on this occasion. We thank Thee for these
blessings Thou hast given us; help us to be worthy of
those Thou wilt give to us in the future. Amen.
After an hour spent at dinner, the President
addressed the audience as follows : —
address of HON. FREDERICK D. ELY.
Ladies and Gentlemen, — By the courtesy of the
Committee who have this celebration in charge, it becomes
my delightful privilege to speak the word of welcome on
this occasion. To the Honorable Representative of the
National Administration ; to His Excellency the Governor,
and His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor of the Common
wealth ; to His Honor the Mayor of the city of Boston ;
to the President of the Massachusetts Historical Society;
to the distinguished principals and teachers of institutions
of learning; to the respected officers and citizens of this
county and of neighboring cities and towns ; and especially
and supremely to the sons and daughters of Dedham
who to-day return to the old homestead from their chosen
abodes in other parts of the country, — I tender, in the
name of our town, a cordial and hearty greeting. We
appreciate the honor of your presence; we shall treasure
the words of wisdom and good cheer that you will speak ;
we trust that you will carry away with you favorable
impressions of our ancient but vigorous municipahty;

250TH anniversary. 109
and when this day shall be numbered with the days that
are past, may its recollections inspire us all with a more
deep and lasting appreciation of the character and strug
gles of those plain but thoughtful men who two hundred
and fifty years ago cut a pathway through the forest, and
first planted the seeds of civil government on the spot
where we now stand.
Frequent as celebrations similar in character to the
present have been in recent years, they have never failed
to awaken a lively interest in the minds and hearts of
the people. Their novelty has indeed disappeared, but
their significance remains undiminished and unobscured.
The lapse of time consigns the ordinary transactions of
human life to the realm of oblivion; it brings into clear
perspective the great achievements of valor, of endurance,
of masterly common-sense. The former are buried out
of sight by the ever-busy processes of Nature ; the latter
stand out more and more in insulated grandeur, and
become memorial columns in the majestic progress of
human society. To them the people look back as plen
teous sources of present prosperity and happiness, and at
stated periods imprint them on the memory of succeed
ing generations by fitting and appropriate ceremonies.
Perhaps few events in the public life of the American
people are more worthy of commemoration than the
founding of a New England municipality. In our com
plex system of government the town is the unit which
lies at the foundation of the entire fabric. In theory
indeed it is the creature of the State; practically it is
the safeguard and support of the sovereignty to which it
owes allegiance. United by proximity of residence, asso
ciated in the school, the church, and the town-meeting,
the inhabitants of a town readily and effectively meet any
emergency to which the State may be exposed. In peace,
these pure democracies furnish to the Commonwealth its

no THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
revenues ; and when war comes, its revenues and fighting
men. It is the achievements of men leagued by the ties
of town associations and town government which have
enkindled the pride of our beloved Commonwealth, and
crowned her name with glory and honor. It was the men
of Lexington who with heroic and fervid patriotism stood
on the village green, and received the fire of the British
soldiery. It was the minute men of Concord and Lincoln
and Acton who " Fired the shot heard round the world."
It was the men of Dedham who swiftly responded to the
cry of alarm, " in such numbers," says Bancroft, " that
scarce one male between sixteen and seventy was left at
home." This admirable frame of local administration is only one
of many conspicuous monuments of the wisdom and pru
dence of the colonists of New England. Scarcely was
" A clearing cut
From the walled shadows round it shut,"
when the meeting-house and the school-house arose at the
side of the humble dwelling of the settler. From these
rude, unpretentious buildings piety and education went
forth hand in hand to Christianize and civilize the land.
Beneath their benign influence an active, brave, resolute,
intelligent, and moral population, imbued with independ
ence and enterprise, sprang up, subdued the wilderness,
wrung bountiful harvests from the stubborn soil, and laid
deep and sure the foundations of a State whose abundant
and abounding blessings it is our happy privilege to enjoy.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, on the banks of yon
der river bordered by meadows of waving grasses and
fragrant flowers, the founders of Dedham planted these
beneficent institutions. Their deeds of valor, of wisdom,

250TH ANNIVERSARY. Ill
of prudence, of enterprise, of devotion to liberty have this
day been recounted by more eloquent lips than mine.
Around you on every hand behold their monuments.
They breathe in the rippled waters of the Charles, flowing
through strange channels to unaccustomed labors; they
live, not in obelisk or pyramid, but in vast cathedrals of
industry, whose busy shuttles, singing songs of praise and
rejoicing as they fly, bear plenty and comfort and con
tentment to hundreds of peaceful homes ; they greet the
eye in time-worn memorials of a sagacious, discrimina
tive, but fearless patriotism ; " they stand immutable and
immortal in the social, moral, and intellectual condition
of their descendants ; they exist in the spirit which their
precepts, instilled and their example implanted.''
The President: Fellow-citizens, although the
honorable gentleman who was to respond to the
first toast (the Hon. John E. Fitzgerald) is ab
sent, I will read it to you : —
The President of the United States I Vested with the executive
power of a nation of sixty millions of people, occupying a domain
continental in extent, who can measure his responsibilities or weigh
in a balance the burden of cares and anxieties inseparable from
his supreme office ? May he be blessed with wisdom, with strength,
with courage, and with abundant success !
Having paid our respects to the President of the
United States, it is our next duty, as well as the next
impulse of our hearts, to pay our respects to the
Governor of the Commonwealth, both officially and
personally. I will read a toast to which I will in
vite him to respond : —

112 the town of dedham.
" The Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1 The protection, safety,
prosperity, and happiness of her people have been conserved and
promoted by a long line of wise, devoted, and far-seeing supreme
executive magistrates."
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the very high
honor of introducing to you the Hon. George D.
Robinson, Governor of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
ADDRESS of GOVERNOR ROBINSON.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — When,
after many years of wandering, the traveller turns his
steps homeward and traces back the familiar paths to
the old homestead that rests on the hills that were so
well known to him in his boyhood, he stops by the way
side as he nears the dear old place, and drinks again at
the spring that delighted his youth and slaked his thirst,
and finds there the water sweeter and brighter and
fresher than all the land elsewhere brings forth ; and be
neath the grateful shade of the old trees that he loved so
well he sits, and drops the tear and breathes the sigh for
the past. All through him run the warmth of recollec
tion and the deepness of inspiration that thrill him again
with the scenes and delights of his early life. Coming
back here to-day, travelling down over a quarter of a
thousand years, we sit again at the origin of this settle
ment, at the beginning of its power; and though we
drew not the natural breath at the beginning of its ex
istence, we shall find, and do find, in its history and
growth abundance of thought and recollection that
strengthen and encourage and cheer.
All over this land that is now occupied by your busy
people, where on every hand, not in name as was hoped

250TH anniversary. 113
for as of yore, but in reality " contentment " is found;
here where these streets are now formed from the once
untrodden plain, by the river that yet as then flows on to
the sea, — we find these associations attaching us to the
past that is abundantly dear. And so too, when all Na
ture smiles bountifully, when never was it brighter before
than it is to-day, when we have an abundant harvest ready
to enrich the husbandman, and over the head of it all
Nature's resplendent glories to be enjoyed freely by every
person, — in the midst of this wealth of experience we
come back here to revive the past, and to renew our
devotion to the associations of the great men and women
that made that past and rendered their future and our
present possible. Taking it altogether, it seems as if the
poet wrote of this time when he said : —
" It is a bright September morn.
The earth is beautiful, as if new born ;
There is that nameless splendor everywhere.
That wild exhilaration in the air.
That makes the passers in the busy street
Congratulate each other as they meet."
How true it is of what has been seen by every one to
day in the associations of this happy occasion. And yet
the change strikes us with wonderful power. Then, the
sounds of the forest, — it might be the threatening of
the hostile savage; now, the abundant harmonies of
peace, and, instead of the war-whoop, the cheerful strains
of hundreds of children standing before the sanctuary of
God, and chanting the national anthem of free America.
And all this comes to us not through any dim tradi
tion ; fortunately the youth of the present time find their
early history written out of well authenticated records, if
not perpetuated even in the testimony of the living.
The admirable address we listened to this morning,
abounding in fact and rich in suggestion, comes down to

114 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
US with the testimony of very truth, stripped of all doubt
and uncertainty, and presented before us as the fact of
life; and we never tire in this Commonwealth of this
old, old story of the beginning of our towns. How grati
fying, indeed, it must have been to the eloquent speaker
this morning to see with what care and attention and
respectful hearing every utterance of his was listened to !
It seemed as if this story had never before been told,
as if he alone had it within his power to acquaint us
with this marvellous fact; and yet it has been written
and restated and rehearsed time after time, not only here
but everywhere, in all the old towns and settlements of
Massachusetts and New England. It is the same tale
over again, more wonderful than ever before each time
in its repetition ; and as the years come and go, and men
pass on and off the stage, they love to look with in
creasing interest and yearning to the times that were
wrought out in so much tribulation and trial.
There is no grander sight than a collection of our own
people. Massachusetts presents no better spectacle than
the concourse of her free-thinking, broad-minded, clean
handed, and pure-hearted men, women, and children in our
various communities ; and this assemblage could nowhere
else be so possible as it is in our own beloved New
England. That is the secret of her power. In that, so
long as it be maintained, shall we find that element of
strength which shall enable us not only to enjoy but sa
credly to perpetuate the great institutions of the past.
Look at any such gathering of our people, consider the
power that is bound up in one town of our Commonwealth,
and you will find the secret that underlies the strength of
the American republic. The little drop among millions
that fall in the shower sheds only a sparkle, but in the sun
light it carries within its bosom all the richness of color ;
its companions, as they fall, may combine with it to make

250TH anniversary. 115
a greater expanse of beauty, but each one in itself is entire
and glorious. And so the little town in New England, clad
in all her panoply of power, exemplifies in the greatest and
grandest and completest degree the true democracy of
America. Bring these little towns together one after an
other; make up a State, and out of the States a nation,
so that you will illumine the whole heavens for the en
lightenment of the world; for the glorification of men and
the uplifting of those in other lands that are oppressed, — '¦
and you have but the testimony of what began in the little
settlement in one town.
It is undoubtedly true, in the language of the senti
ment that the President has read to you to-day, that
Massachusetts has in times past had good executive
magistrates in her highest positions. There is no doubt
of that in the minds of all her people, and no one more
than the present speaker delights to accord that high
praise and commendation. And why is it? You will
point in your recollection to some who seem to have
excelled all the rest; you will find here and there one
that in your judgment outstrips those that preceded or
those that followed him. But look over the illustrious
group, and tell me why it was that those men so sig
nalized their control of power. Great, were they? Yes.
Patriots indeed? Yes. And loyal and true men? Most
certainly. But that is not all. No ; you might take that
greatness alone and plant it on some distant island of the
sea, and it would there go unsought and unused. No,
rather it would be unknown if it were there. But here
in this old State of Massachusetts the citizen is always
greater than the Governor; the power is back of the
man who for a short time only holds the great elements
that guard the interests of the State. For a time he ex
ercises that control which is put in his hands for the
safety of all; and sometimes it may be he is delighted

II 6 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
with his prominence, and thinks he sways the destiny
of the State. But it is only a brief assumption on his
part; correction soon follows; and if he reads history
and keeps up with current events, in the very near future
he finds that while he thought when in office there could
be nobody else as great and grand as he, others came
after that seemed to him almost to outstrip him, — and
it is because the people push to the front the man that
is wanted and demanded, the one required for the emer
gency. Possibly men may have thought for a little while,
before 1 860, that the age of great governors was gone by ;
that if any time of great peril came upon us, no man
would be able to take the burdens of the hour. But
John A. Andrew was equal to any time ; it was a crisis
that placed him upon the platform of power and authority,
and it was a crisis to which he was abundantly equal.
So long as the men that we trust with our affairs in public
are more devoted to liberty and to the safety of the
people than they are to themselves and their own eleva
tion or continuance in power, we shall have men in our
first places that are to be trusted and in the future to be
honored. So long as they, like the men of the past, are
found sober and firm in Christian virtue and truth, — in
what makes for the substantial security of home and church
and town and State, — so long it will lie in the mouth of
no one to say that Massachusetts has not honored the true
men in her high places ; and I put it to you, ladies and
gentlemen, that if the time shall ever come that Massachu
setts shall be ashamed of her rulers, it will be because her
people fail to do their own duty. It should not be for
gotten to-day that when this town was granted its act of
incorporation. Sir Harry Vane was Governor of Massachu
setts, being then but twenty-five years of age, less than a
year in America, scholarly, bright, accomplished. Christian,
earnest, liberty-loving, uncompromising, full of blood and

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. II7
spirit, and devoted to the freedom of all men. What he
attempted to estabhsh at that time was not secured in
success, as we know, because defeat before the people fol
lowed ; and though he returned early to his home country
and there later in life met his death in sacrifice to the
principle that he had lived for, yet we to-day, rejoicing in
our entire liberty, allowing to all men the right to worship
God according to the dictates of their own consciences,
recognizing any and all sects of faith for the free adoption
of every man and woman, — we cannot but turn back with
gratitude and pride to the record of Harry Vane in 1636,
when he stood up even before the majority in Massachu
setts, and declared that he would live for the rights of
the people to civil and religious liberty.
Having the right to demand the best service, shall the
people seek it? Do the people of the town of Dedham
insist upon it always? Are they sometimes lax in the per
formance of their duties as citizens? If some foreign
potentate should issue a proclamation declaring that on
and after the first day of October next no man in the
town of Dedham should have the right to cast his vote or
to attend the town-meeting, every man would be as valiant
and as ready for the sacrifice as the grand old heroes
of the past were ; every man would stand at the corner
of the streets with his musket, ready to meet the power
that sought to put in force that infamous proclamation.
And yet there are men in the town of Dedham who sloth-
fully lay down their privileges every year and let them go
into the dust, as if they were not worth the sacrifices of the
past or the enjoyment of the present. You heard about
the grand old men this forenoon, — how they sacrificed,
how they stood ; how they marched, not only in Dedham,
but over into Lexington, in order to meet the enemy. Do
you read in the annals of Dedham in 1886 of all the men
shouldering the ballot when the time comes, and marching

Tl8 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
to that Strife ? Are there any in the old records who are
recorded as having been so busy in the cornfield that
they could not go home to attend to the affairs of the
town or the church? Perchance there maybe men that
go to Boston and find occupation in counting-rooms;
possibly lawyers that have clients in court ; possibly min
isters who have the idea that the whole matter of politics
is too vile and foul for them to touch, — possibly there are
many people who think that somehow or other the assem
blage of the freemen of America in our own time, clad in
the rights of citizenship by the power that secures us all,
that that union and concourse is not honorable and good
for them. I tell you such people as that would not have
had enough in them to have made a decent Puritan. That
kind of people stayed across the water, and never came
here; or, if they did, they took the first ship back. Why,
Dedham has fifteen hundred voters upon her voting-list;
fifteen hundred men that have the right to vote, — and I say
more, that had the duty to vote, that have not any right
to be excused except for insuperable reasons; and only
seven hundred and sixty-one out of that whole number
voted at the last election. Shame on us to come up here
to-day and sit down with unblushing faces, and listen to
the glory of the past and the greatness of our ancestors
and the sacrifices they made and of the stuff that was in
them, — and we weak, puny, insignificant, out of compari
son ! Perhaps this is the way that the Commonwealth
should not talk ; perhaps the Governor ought to rise here
and deliver some highflown oration. But this is the only
time, at a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, that I can
possibly have the opportunity to free my mind and soul.
Oh, no ! some men after they have heard a splendid ex
altation of the idea of the Massachusetts town-meeting,
what a grand theatre it is for the operations of freemen,
say, " Oh, yes," as they walk along the street and button up

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. II9
their coats for fear of contamination, — " Oh, yes, that would
do in times past, when they had good town-meetings ! "
Ah ! if there are in that seven hundred and fifty men who
stayed away from the polls in Dedham any who think that
affairs ought to be better than they are, any believing that
in the town there are fellow-citizens that do not appreciate
to the full their rights and their duties, there is abundant
call for them to go in and stimulate, elevate, encourage,
and strengthen. You think the citadel of power is in dan
ger? You think that the enemies of good government are
storming our strong places at the present time? Well,
then, the business for you is to rush into the breach, and
to stay there until security is assured.
I hear from time to time a good deal said about how this
republic of ours and how our State is to go to ruin ; that it
is to go down through the path of luxury, it may be ; that
it will go down through some contest between labor and cap
ital ; that it will go down to destruction in one or another
of many different ways. But I tell you no such thing. If
it goes down at all, it will go down over men that have
become corpses before there was any struggle at all ; if it
goes down, it will be because our people will talk of the
greatness of the town system, will extol the record of the
past, will boast of their Puritan ancestry, and will elevate
themselves in the estimation of the world, but will not do
one single thing if it interrupts their leisure, or go one step
aside from their course or their pleasures, to keep in power
the principles that the grand old Puritans established.
When I stood before the humble monument on the
Green at Lexington; when in my boyhood I read the
record of that inscription for the first time ; when I saw
the old house in which the heroes lived, and out of which
some of them went for the last time on that eventful
morning, and talked with the men that survived that
onset, — I received an impulse into my very nature that

I20 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
has made me ever stand for the exercise of that power
which under the blessing of God our patriotic fathers.
made possible for this generation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have far exceeded any reason
able limit of time that could be set me ; but my only excuse
shall be that I can by no possibility be with you all again
two hundred and fifty years hence. So, for this time and
this occasion only, I bid you in behalf of our mother-State
the most cordial greeting, the best wishes for the future, —
that you shall have all these privileges that you have a
right to ask for and that you are fit to enjoy, because you
show your purpose to use them. If we do that, if you in
this town will take hold of that responsibility and work out
that result, the coming historian two hundred and fifty
years hence will not be compelled to stop his recital as he
approaches the year 1886, but will go on with his glowing
periods of power and influence, telling what his ancestors
— we of this day — did to secure and perpetuate America's
liberty and greatness ; and he will recite all that, and present
our great future, as the abundant fruition of the still more
glorious past.
The President then read the following toast : —
" The City of Boston / Distinguished not more for its literary,
educational, and scientific institutions, than for the honor, integrity,
and magnificent generosity of its inhabitants."
I have the very great pleasure and distinguished
honor of introducing to you the Honorable Hugh
O'Brien, Mayor of the city of Boston.

250TH anniversary. 121

ADDRESS OF HON. HUGH O'BRIEN.
Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen, — After
listening to the very eloquent speech of His Excellency
the Governor, I have no hesitation in saying, and I know
that you will indorse every word I say, that he is a worthy
successor of the distinguished men who have hitherto
filled the executive chair of the State.
The city of Boston greets the town of Dedham on her
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. Four hundred thou
sand people, your neighbors, rejoice in your prosperity and
the happy auspices under which you celebrate this memo
rial. What a remarkable history is that of the nation of
which you are a part ! Two hundred and fifty years ago
this country a wilderness, now a nation of sixty millions
inhabitants ! What marvellous growth ! what astonishing
prosperity! The city of Boston, your neighbor, is fast
enlarging her limits; her boundaries now reach the Ded
ham line. Who knows what may take place in the next
two hundred and fifty years ? The city of Boston, the great
metropolis of New England, two hundred and fifty years
hence, with five millions or six millions of inhabitants, the
great city of the North, may then include Dedham within
its limits.
You refer in your sentiment, Mr. President, to the city of
Boston as promoting and establishing literary, educational,
and scientific institutions. Boston is a large, prosperous,
and wealthy city ; during the past fifty years her population
has increased seven-fold, her valuation twelve-fold. Fifty
years ago the entire valuation of the city was about
sixty million dollars ; now it is upward of seven hundred
million dollars. Our citizens feel that liberal expendi
ture for educational purposes is a good investment. In
our public schools we have from sixty-five thousand to

122 the town of DEDHAM.
seventy thousand scholars, and we expend every year
about two million dollars for schoolhouses and school main
tenance, — an average of thirty dollars for each pupil. We
consider this an investment that brings about good re
sults. It seems a large expenditure when we consider that
it costs thirty dollars a year for each scholar ; but it gives
our boys and girls a good start in life, and plants a foun
dation for good citizenship. We do not stop here ; with
schools of technology and our public library, we place in
the hands of our children the means of perfecting them
selves in any branch of learning. Next to our public
schools, the public library is the great educator of our
people; it contains a wealth of literature and science
and practical knowledge that tempts the ambition of the
young and old, and is a source of pleasure to all classes
of readers. The best facilities should be extended to
young men desirous of perfecting themselves in any
branch of knowledge, and Boston has always felt it to be
her duty to extend these facilities. If by a liberal pol
icy we produce a man in our day and generation so
pre-eminent in any branch of knowledge that he will be
considered a public benefactor, it will more than repay
us for the expense.
The city of Boston has grown and prospered in part on
account of her institutions of learning, for which her ex
penditures are so liberal, but more particularly on account
of the energy and business integrity of her citizens. We
have no mineral wealth, no agricultural wealth, but we
have energy and push ; and with intelligence and educa
tional advantages we stand to-day second only to the
great city of New York. As for our benevolence and
generosity, we have only to point to what has been done
during the past two weeks for the distressed city of
Charleston. Upward of sixty-six thousand dollars of
voluntary subscriptions have already been received, and

250TH anniversary. 123
the fund will probably reach one hundred thousand
dollars. I conclude with the hope that Boston and Dedham
may long continue good neighbors ; and that at some time
in the distant future Boston may have incorporated the
smaller community within her boundaries.
The President : I have now this toast to pro
pose : —
" The Fathers of New England ! Surrendering with reluctance
a proud and exclusive individuality in the interest of the common
defence and the general welfare, these plain and sober but brave
masters of a commanding common-sense constructed a frame of
civil government unsurpassed in strength and endurance."
I have the high honor of inviting Dr. George E.
Ellis, President of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, to respond to this toast.
address of dr. GEORGE E. ELLIS.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, — I have
reason to believe that seven generations of my ancestry, in
cluding my parents, lie in the soil of this town. My library
fire is kept cheerful by wood grown on the paternal acres
here ; and as I saw Mr. French with a load of excellent
wood passing in your procession, I hoped that he might
leave that at my house. From my earliest years I have been
familiar with the names of localities which I suppose are
known only to the residents of Dedham. Singular words
they are, — " Cutham," " Tiot," " Clapboardtrees," " Purga
tory " (I hope that is a figurative expression), and " Fox-
hill." My own habits and taste of reading have led me to
interest myself very much in the characters and institutions
of those who founded these country towns, the original

124 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Puritan stock of Massachusetts. The scenes all around us
of thrift and prosperity, of beauty and neatness, — these
delightful homes and tidy farms and autumn fields, — are all
legacies, results, effects. They certify to us the toil, the
self-sacrifice, the wisdom, the virtues, the thought for their
posterity of those who first entered this wilderness. More
safe, more sure to yield their steady returns, than the de
posits in all our banks and the investments in all bonds,
are the hard labors and the simple virtues of ancestral gen
erations in securing varied and permanent advantages to
those who succeeded them.
Many of you must have taken note of the usage which
has steadily and rapidly advanced among us in New England
in recent years in the preparation of most elaborate town
histories, with extended genealogical tables of our New Eng
land families in all their ramifications. This usage, if not
peculiar and confined to New England and to those who
have adopted it from us, is strikingly characteristic of our
own people, and is not known in any other part of Christen
dom, — certainly not to such a marked extent as regards
common, social classes of plain people, comprehensive of the
whole population. Nobles and gentry in foreign countries
are concerned about pedigrees, even though the bar-sinister
often obtrudes itself; but our town histories give us long rolls
of genealogies of people of an ordinary range, in nowise
individually distinguished, — husbandmen, mechanics, arti
sans, — excellent but commonplace people, the staple crops
of generations of floating humanity, matured and gathered
in the annual harvestings. Hard work, domestic comfort,
frugality, useful and blameless lives and neighborly satis
factions must have filled out their experience; the emer
gencies of peril or war have drawn out their energies and
proved their nobleness and valor. Interspersed among
the pages of these volumes we may mark occasionally a
member of the Great and General Court ; a physician self-

250TH anniversary. 125
taught, acquiring his skill at the cost of his patients ; an
ingenious and thrifty craftsman or manufacturer, with an
occasional character of tragedy, as in this town, — hardly
many of romance. A vast deal of capacity, pluck, and
enterprise has smouldered in young persons in our quiet
towns, and they have generally had to remove to wider
spheres to exercise their latent abilities. Many of them
are in the habit — and a blessed habit if is — of sending
back to their early rural homes magnificent gifts and pub
lic libraries. These town histories — and I have looked
over a vast number of them — are abundantly illustrated
with the portraits of the heads and members of fami
lies. These counterfeit presentments, I am bound to say,
are not generally prepossessing visages. They are not of
classic, Grecian, or intellectual mould ; their type is pecu
liar to New England, and not found in any other part of
the globe. They even suggest some of Darwin's " missing
hnks," stronger in feature and fibre than in the graces;
the faces are generally hard and resolute, indicating a
contracted and careworn existence. Of course the por
traits of ministers of long and faithful pastorates are found
in these volumes ; these are varied in benignity and stern
ness, occasionally marked by stolidity, but very rarely by
stupidity. Now, my friends, what is it that prompts the
labor and expense, the hearty local appreciation of these
volumes of town history? It is rather curiosity, I think,
than admiration, rather interest than pride, in the descend
ants of the good sound stock from which they sprang;
honest, laborious, self-governed. God-fearing men, and
feminine, rather than male, women, — those who held and
transmitted title-deeds of land, who cleared the forests
and caught the falling waters and tamed the wilderness ;
opened highways, beautified the pastures and the mead
ows, built the schoolhouses and the meeting-house, and
could account for all their paternal and filial relations in

126 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
the records of their family Bibles as incidents of legal mat
rimony, which the Old World people cannot always do.
These plain people, keenly set upon their own individual
rights, sharp, but always ready and generous in serving
the common weal, figure in our town histories.
Now, there is one suggestion of a most just and grateful
character which not only warrants, but demands, our high
est appreciation of our Puritan ancestry. It is this : we
are enjoying in full measure, in the heritage which they
have left to us, the fruits of all their virtues, but are really
in no whit harmed by the peculiar qualities in them which
we cannot love and approve. Only what was good in
them, in their principles and institutions, has left its effects
for us. Their severities and limitations, after giving them
a great deal of vexation, have all died with them; their
superstitions and prejudices we have given up, if only to
give place for others of our own. We find it very easy to
rid ourselves of all their scruples and to antiquate their
observances. Their Fast Day has become for us a sort of
out-of-door thanksgiving festival ; and if henceforth there
should be a failure of mince-pies for Christmas, it will not
be chargeable upon the Puritans, but upon the Prohibi
tionists who have ^aid an interdict upon some of the in
gredients of that savory viand. While thus we relieve
ourselves from the yoke of our fathers, and are in nowise
losers or sufferers by any incumbrance which they have left
on their heritage, how is it with those principles and insti
tutions, those habits and usages of the fathers which we
all commend and approve as the security of public virtue
and happiness? It will be a serious subject for some
future orator of a most impartial and generous mind to
discuss, if he will do it candidly, as to what our New Eng'
land would have been if left to the development of its own
original indigenous stock by its own traditions and meth
ods, and what it is likely to be from the swarming into it

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 12/
of foreign peoples so unlike our own. On which side the
balance of the difference, for loss or gain, for good or evil,
as the alternative may be, it is enough to know that those
who come from our old stock have been moved to make a
stand for their own institutions and their own way of man
aging them, against alien methods and influences.
This, however, cannot be done by party or race strifes
or animosities, but by calm demonstration of the better
way. On at least four occasions citizens of Boston have
successfully engaged the restraining power of the legisla
ture to interpose in keeping their municipal administration
in its old paths of economy and responsibility; for pro
tecting ancient burial-grounds and commons ; for limiting
taxation and indebtedness, and for providing a police not
appointed by those of whom they are to keep a sharp
oversight. There need be no variance or conflict between
those who have succeeded native-born, through their gen
erations, to this fair heritage of the Puritans and those who
find it so attractive, so free, so prosperous as to seek here
for what they could not have or enjoy on the other side of
the ocean.
The President : The next toast which I have to
present is as follows : —
" The Sons and Daughters of Dedham, and their Descendants
7vherever dispersed I God bless them ! We welcome them with
open arms to the hospitalities of this occasion."
It has always been a pleasant and attractive recol
lection of the celebration of 1836, the one more
frequently mentioned than any other, that the town
was then honored with the presence of the Hon.
Edward Everett. It will be to us one of the most
pleasing recollections of this occasion that his son

128 the town of dedham.
is to reply to the toast which I have just read ; and
I have the very great pleasure and honor of intro
ducing to you Dr. William Everett, of Quincy.
ADDRESS OF DR. WILLIAM EVERETT.
Mr. President, Fellow-Citizens, — I think I have
a right to call you by that name, because one of my
ancestors was one of the nineteen men that helped draw
up the town covenant to which Mr. WORTHINGTON re
ferred in his address this morning. In the true Puritan
fashion, he and his associates settled what a town ought
to be in advance, and then admitted every one who
would agree to do exactly as they said ; much as I once
heard a Californian describe the process of getting up
a new mining company: "Three fellows get up a con
stitution, and then assess the rest." In the next genera
tion my ancestor attained the modest town honors of
which we were told to-day. He was Captain John Everett,
— of course a distinguished man ; and he was one of five
who got the right to the town lands confirmed by Jo
sias, the grandson of Chickatabut. You see the honest
men of Dedham had shrunk from nineteen to five, yet
there was an Everett among them ; and I suppose that
entitles me to claim one fifth of the territory of Old Ded
ham whenever I ask for it. Then, in the next generation,
we rose a step further; we had had a founder, we had
had a captain, — now we were real good boys, and they
made one of us Deacon John Everett, and beyond that
town honors do not go.
The last of my own race born in this town was my grand
father Oliver ; and as this is a family matter, I should like
to take up a little time with his life. His father was a poor
farmer with nine sons, and only one of them could receive

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 29
a college education. Oliver, though by no means strong,
was apprenticed to his brother as a carpenter, and forced
to renounce all thought of a professional life. One con
solation only he had, — a taste for music ; and had by
some means scraped together money enough to buy
a violin. But my great-grandfather's rigid Puritanism
thought all music a waste of time, and that instrument
in particular an abomination; so the violin was confis
cated and burned. The discipline had its effect; music
died out in the blood for three generations. He worked
on in his drudgery till twenty-one ; and the moment he
became his own master resolved in spite of his poverty
to force his way to college, which he did at the age
of twenty-three. When I think of the sacrifice such a
process demanded, I am ashamed to think of our boys,
brought up in every luxury, whose parents cannot per
suade them to stay at school after fifteen or sixteen
years of age, because they must be in a store making
money, which they will not know how to spend when
made. The labor bore its fruit. My grandfather, after
graduating in 1779, became the honored pastor of the
New South Church in 1781. He there carried out a
character which has belonged to the whole race of Ever-
etts in history or in fiction so far as I know, — a some
what rebellious nature. Sir Walter Scott has an Everett
in one of his novels, and a very unmanageable person he is.
We have all a streak of revolt. When my grandfather
was a candidate, there was a knot of old ladies, mothers
in Israel, who used to meet with their knitting in the
tower of the Old South and catechise all the young min
isters. Oliver Everett was the first to raise the standard of
revolt ; he would not be catechised by the old ladies, and
his rebellion stopped the practice. He was pastor ten
years; his health broke down; he retired to his native
county (we all have to get back to Norfolk), though to

130 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
another town ; he lived an honored life, was one of the
first eulogists of Washington in February, 1800, and was
voted for for Congress in November, 1802. But it killed
him, and he died in December at fifty, having made the
name of an old Dedham race loved and honored by dis
tinguished men all over the country. His son's manu
script, which I have in my pocket, says he was the kindest
of parents, revered and honored by his children as a sec
ond Providence, to whom they looked for every impulse
in the home circle.
Now, I have told this audience details, because I believe
it is the story of every Dedham man who has gone out
to do honor to the town. It illustrates the necessity of
" contentment," as Mr. Worthington so well gave it to us.
It does not mean repose or inaction. It means making
the very best and utmost of home ; never leaving home
till you are sure it has no more for you, and then leav
ing it only to carry its principles abroad, and make new
Dedhams and Concords, new Plymouths and Bostons,
everywhere. I suppose the Dedham settlers were think
ing of the discontented people at Cambridge and Dor
chester, who hurried to Connecticut before they knew
the value of Massachusetts. They and the others who
stayed, determined to make the most of her. In this our
birth-year they founded the College, the original New
Towne college, before Harvard came.
The principle of contentment was to stay at home as
long as home had anything to give, — as long as parents
and kindred, the house walls, the home fields, the home
school, the home college, could give anything, and then
go out to spread home wider wherever they went. Ded
ham men and their children will always keep the thought
of her. I am glad that is her name ; it shows whence
we came and what we have to give. I have no sym
pathy with those who are trying to revive what they

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 31
call the beautiful Indian names, which are mostly un
couth and to us unpronounceable and meaningless. I
am glad we are Dedham and not Chickatabut or Quino-
bequin; it shows that we belong to the great imperial
race which subdued the wilderness here to itself, and
having raised Massachusetts to her present perfection
is leaving her, not yet exhausted, to spread her freedom
and her principles over yet undeveloped lands. I hail
it as the race of my ancestor, who tradition says was
a soldier in the Low Countries before he came here, —
a fighter in the old battleground of freedom and culture
in Europe, a pioneer in the battle of freedom and culture
here. The President : The next regular toast is two
fold in its nature : —
" The Common School, the best birthright of every child in Puri
tan New England 1 Collegiate education, the noblest gift that the
parent can bestow on her children 1 In the two, fostered and en
couraged by the law from the beginning, 'lies the secret of the
success and character of New England.' "
I have the honor of introducing to you to re
ply. Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale
College. ADDRESS OF DR. DWIGHT.
Mr. President, — I shall be unable to reply to the
toast you have given, because I have to take the train
leaving Dedham at twenty minutes after five. I Will only
say, sir, that I came here to worship my ancestors ; and
I find that in the rejoicing in his ancestry which Mr.
Everett has exhibited so strikingly in the remarks which
he has made, he has forgotten one point of history here

132 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
recorded in the annals of Dedham; namely, that the
inhabitants felt a disposition to move to the southward.
That disposition, sir, followed in the Dwight family, and
they moved southward into Connecticut, and there they
found the place which you seem to have failed to find
here, although you tried for it; namely, the town where
" contentment " dwells. That is the town of New Haven,
Connecticut. And, as I am obliged to follow my ances
try this afternoon in their migration southward, and am
sure of finding contentment when I arrive there, with
thanks to you, sir, for your kindness in asking me to say
a word, I bid you farewell.
The President: — The next toast which I have
to propose is, The Orator of the Day! to which
Mr. Worthington will respond.

ADDRESS of ERASTUS WORTHINGTON, ESQ.
Mr. President, — There used to be a very salutary
rule which it was found necessary to adopt in the old vil
lage debating-societies, — that no man should speak twice
on the same subject. Perhaps at this late hour it would
be a good time to enforce such a rule. I recognize the
fact that I have had my hour to-day, and I have no heart
longer to detain this company. But I suppose that con
ventional usage prescribes that the orator of the day shall
be tendered the compliment of a post-prandial opportunity
to speak, with the implication that his speech must be
a short one.
I was reminded by the speech of Mr. Everett of a little
story which I recently found in one of those bright news
paper paragraphs that appear in the columns of a good
newspaper, and which ran somewhat in this manner : " An

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 33
eminent master of the violin was performing on his won
derful instrument at a private musical party. In the com
pany were two ladies, one presumably older than the other,
who behind her fan quietly imparted to her younger neigh
bor the important fact that the violin of the master was
two hundred and fifty years old. ' Ah,' responded the
younger lady, ' if I could make such music as that upon
an instrument two hundred and fifty years old, I would try
to raise money enough to buy a new one." This story,
among other things, well illustrates the difference between
the two kinds of people we meet in the world, — those who
think anything is valuable because it is old, and those
who value anything' because it is new.
There are some of us in Dedham who realize that there
is much in the history of the old town which is worthy
of being preserved and perpetuated. We agree with the
elder lady in the story, that an instrument two hundred and
fifty years old has a peculiar capacity for music in it. In
1862 the Dedham Historical Society was incorporated.
Quietly and unobtrusively during all these years it has
been making a collection which while not extensive is
nevertheless unique and valuable. It has never had any
proper place where this collection could be arranged, clas
sified, and made accessible ; it has been obliged to depend
upon the permission of the County Commissioners for a
place in the Court House, where it might store that
collection. But notwithstanding these disadvantages the
Society has kept up its organization and meetings, until
now it has the opportunity of taking the position of influ
ence to which it is justly entitled.
In February last, by the will of the late Miss Hannah
Shuttleworth, the Society came into the possession of an
eligible lot of land in a central location, with the munifi
cent bequest of ten thousand dollars, expressly designated
by the testator for the purpose of erecting a suitable build-

134 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
ing for the Society. Our plans are matured and the con
tracts made, and to-morrow morning we propose to begin
the new half-century by breaking ground for the new
building. What is quite significant of the deep and genuine in
terest taken by many of the people of Dedham in the work
of this Society is their readiness to respond to our recent
request for an additional sum of money. It was found
necessary to supplement the amount of the legacy by a
considerable sum in order to complete the building ac
cording to the plans and specifications. Three weeks ago
yesterday we opened a subscription paper for this purpose.
Without any extraordinary effort, and asking, besides the
members of the Society, those only whom we supposed to
be specially interested in Dedham history, we have now ob
tained pledges amounting to nearly fifteen hundred dollars ;
and, what gives us a peculiar satisfaction, these pledges
have been given heartily and generously, and with many
words of encouragement.
In this way those of us who realize that not only what
remains of our local history of two hundred and fifty years
should be gathered up, treasured, and perpetuated, but
also those things which must form a part of present and
future history, rejoice in beginning a new half-century
with an appropriate building to be devoted to those
purposes. The President : I have now the pleasant duty to
propose a toast which must elicit a warm response
from every heart: —
The Patriot Soldiers of Dedham I Brave and true men, they
fought not for ambition or titles or fame, but for their country,
for freedom, for humanity.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 135
I have the honor of introducing to you to re
spond to this toast Colonel James M. Ellis, of
West Dedham : —

address of colonel ELLIS.
Mr. Chairman, — I thank you, sir, for calling upon
me to respond to this toast, because as an humble agri
culturist I did not expect so much honor, and chiefly
because I wish our honored guests from different parts
of the State and country to know that this town here by
the banks of the Charles, with its many spots of historic
interest, its beautiful streets, its Court House and con
venient jail, is but a small part of the town of Dedham ;
that the sesthetic and agricultural part lies to the west
among the hills, from whose summits one may look on a
panorama of exquisite beauty, with Wachusett and Mo-
nadnock on the one side, and Blue Hill and the waters of
Boston Harbor on the other. On these health-giving hills
we raise a sturdy stock, a fair specimen of which sits by
your side, Mr. Chairman, — our youthful Joseph Colburn,
who at eighty-one has to-day been one of General Weld's
chief aids, riding at the head of the column, and I doubt
not expects to do like service fifty years hence. At one
time we thought of establishing a town of our own, to be
called " Contentment; " but the doctrine of secession hav
ing been settled by the war, we have decided to stay with
our old mother, who has stood by us so well.
Responding more especially to the sentiment proposed,
it seems to me, sir, eminently fitting that you should honor
the patriot soldiers of Dedham by giving them a place in
the records of this day ; for I believe that the citizens of
Dedham have ever been prompt to respond to the country's
call, and to defend their hearths and homes, from the days

136 the town of dedham.
when the first settlers shouldered the old "King's Arms,"
a specimen of which still hangs in the old Fairbanks
kitchen, and the days when Captain Joseph Guild led his
minute-men to Concord, down to the dark days of 1861
and the war for the Union.
The orator of the day, in his address at the dedication
of Memorial Hall, has so well and fully told the story of
the services of Dedham soldiers that I need only to state
briefly a few facts. While there were those from Dedham
serving in various commands on land and sea during the
Civil War, the chief enlistments from this town were in
Company F of the Eighteenth, Company I of the Thirty-
fifth, and Company D of the Forty-third Regiments of
Massachusetts Volunteers. The Forty-third, a nine-months
regiment, served only in North Carolina, taking part in
the battles of Kinston and White Hall. The Eighteenth
served chiefly in the Virginia campaigns, in the Army of
the Potomac, under General Fitz-John Porter, — a brave
and gallant officer, whose recent restoration to the army
rolls gives great satisfaction to his soldiers. In the second
battle of Bull Run the Eighteenth received its first baptism
of blood, and suffered severe loss, more than sixty per cent
of those engaged being either killed or wounded. Here
fell Captain Charles W. Carroll, in whose honor our Post is
named, whose patriotic ardor, bravery in action, and sol
dier's death will ever give him a tender place in the memo
ries of his townsmen. The Thirty-fifth Regiment left in
the second year of the war, and formed a part of the Ninth
Corps, under General Burnside. When only a month in
service it took part in the terrible battles of South Moun
tain and Antietam, and suffered heavy loss, more than two
thirds of its officers and one third of its men being killed
or disabled. The Dedham soldiers fought and fell at
Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, in the battles of the Wil
derness, in the siege of Knoxville, in crossing the bridge

250TH anniversary. 137
under Burnside at Antietam, in facing the fierce fusillade
of fire from the stone-wall on Marye's Heights, in charging
over the ramparts and into the crater at Petersburg, and in
the closing campaign of the war under Grant. Wherever
placed, these Dedham men showed their bravery in action
and their heroism in death.
And now, sir, this anniversary which we celebrate to
day, — this decorated town, these flying colors, this flag
of our Union over all, — what would it have been had
these men died in vain, and we to-day a part of a divided
country? Many of you here recall the march of the first
Massachusetts soldiers from the front of Boylston Hall in
Boston, and through the streets of Baltimore. The flag on
Sumter had been fired upon from the city of Charleston;
and in bitter hatred South Carolina and Massachusetts
were face to face in the beginning of a bloody war. To
day we are indeed at peace, and instead of sending thou
sands of men to destroy our Southern brethren, we are
sending thousands of dollars to help and comfort them, and
to build up again their shattered and fallen homes. We
can well believe that we are united in brotherhood again
when the editor of the leading Charleston paper can say to
his readers : " What I want to bring up to you now is this
glorious fact, that this city of Charleston, so symbolic of
all that stood for disunion and civil strife in the days of
the past, is in the poignancy of her grief furnishing to-day
to the civilized world and to the Republic proof of the fact
that all Americans are kin, and that this is indeed and in
truth one people and one country;" and Mayor Courtenay
of that city can say in his despatch, "What a great thing
it is to be a part of this magnificent Union of States,
surrounded by those who sympathize with us in our
distress ! "
Two hundred and fifty thousand men form the Grand
Army pf the Republic. " Fraternity, Charity, Loyalty,"

138 the town of dedham.
are the watchwords emblazoned on their banners. Their
duty to-day is to see that the Union, preserved on the field
of battle, shall be maintained for all time ; and they mean
to do this, not by force of arms, but by fraternity which
embraces all their countrymen, by a charity which sends
their commar^der-in-chief to Charleston to see that our
old enemies shall not suffer, and by a loyalty that is
unconditional. In behalf of my comrades I desire, in closing, to thank
the Committee for giving them a place of honor in the
festivities of this day, and to express the hope that all the
celebrations of the future which this town shall see may
be like this of to-day, with its procession and pomp and
parade, under a bright sun and under the flag of the united
nation in a victory of peace.
The President : I will now read two toasts, to
which I will ask my friend Winslow Warren, Esq.,
to respond. First, ¦^-
The Committee of Arrangements / We recognize with thanks
their zeal and efficiency in the performance of their duties on
this occasion.
Second, —
The Pilgrim Fathers !
" Ay, call it holy ground.
The soil where first they trod !
They have left unstained what there they found, —
Freedom to worship God."

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 39

ADDRESS OF WINSLOW WARREN, Esq.
Mr. President, my Neighbors and Friends, — We
are now coming down to the official toasts, when a man has
to do double duty ; but ray speech, I can assure you, will be
very brief. On behalf of the Committee of Arrangements
I desire to say, that if our efforts to make this day a
success have been in any measure rewarded, that reward
has come from your enjoyment of the occasion and from
the many evidences of satisfaction throughout the town.
But our speech has been made. Ours was the hand
that struck the rock from which has gushed forth the
wisdom, the wit, and the eloquence you have heard to
day. No, not our hand, but the hands of all those ladies
and gentlemen who have labored day and night to make
this celebration a worthy one ; and I take the liberty now
on your behalf of tendering the thanks of the people of
Dedham to all the sub-committees and all those who have
worked so faithfully for you.
But I cannot stand here as an adopted son of this town
of Dedham without recalling that it has been my rare
good fortune within the short space of sixteen years to
celebrate two two hundred and fiftieth anniversaries of
towns near and dear to me, — one, of my native town of
Plymouth; and now again, of my adopted town of Ded
ham. And the connection between those two events is
not so distant as many of you may think ; for I find on
reading the records of the old Pilgrim Colony that in
1627, when the first division of land was made by lot
among the settlers, after providing for the metes and
bounds of the various lots, the Court added as follows :
" That whatsoever the surveyors judge sufficient shall
stand without contradiction or opposition, and every man

140 the town of dedham.
shall rest contented with his lot." This, I believe, is the
first and only Pilgrim pun on record.
Now, turning to your records, I find that after your
Pilgrim Fathers made their perilous voyage up the
stormy Charles from Watertown, and landed on these
shores, mindful of the Pilgrim injunction of Plymouth
they "rested contented with their lot;" and more than
that, they named their town " Contentment," and there it
remains on your town-seal to-day, — a bond of union be
tween the oldest town of Plymouth County and the oldest
town (save one) of Norfolk County. And I cannot forget
as I look round this hall that here are the descendants of
those men. When I see a Fairbanks, a Fisher, and an Ellis,
a Guild and a Baker, the old names of your settlers come
up before me, and I recognize the names of honorable
families honorably borne down the years since that early
settlement. And so it is, my friends, with the peculiar
characteristics of this town of Dedham. No town in New
England has to-day the characteristics of those early times
more plainly marked than yours. What else was it that
carried to the front in the Revolutionary War nearly every
able-bodied man in Dedham? What else that inspired
the patriotic fervor and devotion of a Carroll, a Lathrop,
and of many others who now remain among us? What
else put that man, whose name is upon every one's lips
to-day, your distinguished townsman Fisher Ames, easily
at the forefront of post-Revolutionary orators, and carried
his eminent son, Seth Ames, to the supreme judgeship of
Massachusetts, — the most lovable of judges, whose smile
was truly a benediction, and whose words of wisdom made
their impress on the judicial reports of Massachusetts ?
What else gave to you the learning of a Dwight, the elo
quence of an Everett, the culture and refinement of him
whom we knew and never will forget, — our friend and
once our neighbor, Edmund Quincy? What else gave to

250TH anniversary. 141
us the sturdy, incorruptible character of that foremost of
our citizens, — whose place, alas ! is vacant here to-day, —
Judge Waldo Colburn, whom all of us respected, and whose
name will forever remain in the annals of Dedham?
I might go on, but I am reminded that the time is
drawing near when these exercises should close, and I will
conclude by quoting to you a reply that the Committee
of Arrangements received from one of our distinguished
guests, who, unable to be here, wrote us that he regretted
his " inability to attend the Five Hundred and Twentieth
Anniversary of the Incorporation of Dedham." We too
regret his inability, and we regret the possibility that some
of us also may not be able to attend ; but we can all join
in the hope that when the Five Hundred and Twentieth
Anniversary of the Incorporation of Dedham shall arrive,
it may find this town no less prosperous and contented
than the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary leaves it.
The President : Ladies and Gentlemen, the
next toast is, —
Our Naturalized Fellow-Citizens ! Loyal to every duty of
peace or war. Happy, proud America knows no distinction
between her children by birth and her children by adoption.
I had invited Rev. Robert J. Johnson, my
friend and a friend of Dedham, to respond, but he
is unavoidably absent. He however sent his reply,
which is as follows : —
ADDRESS OF REV. ROBERT J. JOHNSON.
Mr. President, and Fellow-Citizens, — The invi
tation to speak to the sentiment which has just been
offered, reached me only yesterday. My words there-

142 the town of dedham.
fore must of course be of a hastily-considered character,
and far from doing justice to the broad field of patriotic
survey and reflection which it opens out.
The naturalized citizens of Dedham join as heartily as
their native-born neighbors in celebrating this anniversary
of its settlement as a town. They feel an equal pride in its
history, and an equal pride in its future.
You have well said that America " knows no distinction
between her children by birth and her children by adop
tion ; " and indeed it is the distinctive glory of our land
that she welcomes to the support and the shelter of her
flag all the honest manhood of the world, no matter under
what skies it was born. Our orators may descant upon the
glories of America through all the centuries to come with
out finding any nobler thing to say of her than has been
already said in two famous and familiar lines, —
" For her free latch-string never was drawn in
Against the poorest child of Adam's kin."
The great and far-seeing men who founded the Republic
which thus opens its arms to all the children of men, had
the prescience to perceive that its destiny and mission
was to be the home of a more comprehensive nationality
than any that the world had yet seen, in which all civilized
races should merge to form the mightiest people of all
time. We look back to their work, and say that they
builded better than they knew ; yet after all, they but fol
lowed the instinct of their situation. For we must remem
ber that Hamilton, Gallatin, Gates, Steuben, Montgomery,
Witherspoon, and many other of the Revolutionary states
men and soldiers, and several of the signers of the Dec
laration of Independence, were themselves emigrants to
this country, foreigners by birth and Americans by adop
tion. What, therefore, could be more natural than that
they should have laid the foundations of our government

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 43
broad enough to sustain a national life whose blood should
be enriched by continual drafts from the original sources
of its being? The wisdom of the fathers has been grandly
justified by a century of marvellous growth and progress.
The benign spirit which framed a political and social order
to which all the sons of Adam were freely bidden to come
in, has resulted in building a nation of three millions up
to a nation of sixty millions of people. The census of
1880 shows that since the year 1820 over ten millions of
people have come into this country from foreign lands,
and of this number three millions came here from the land
of Emmet, O'Connell, and Parnell. They have brought
here stout hearts and willing hands; and, more than this,
they have brought with them a valuable element in our
citizenship, and a tower of strength to the institutions
which they have made their own.
The sentiment you have proposed, Mr. President, recog
nizes the naturalized citizen as loyal to every duty of
peace or war. History justifies this recognition. In every
crisis which the country has been called to face, the citizen
of foreign birth has been found faithful and devoted. On
every battlefield of the Revolution, from Bunker Hill to
Yorktown ; in the war that carried our flag to the capital
of Mexico and gave us the Californias ; and still more con
spicuously in the war for the preservation of the Union, —
the adopted American proved himself a brave soldier and
a true citizen.
Readers of Revolutionary history know how large and
honorable a share Irishmen had in the sacrifices and vic
tories of that birth-struggle of the Republic. It has been
said of the gallant Richard Montgomery, who joined the
army of Washington in the gloomy winter of 1775, that
" a detailed history of his military career would form an
epitome of our early Revolutionary struggle." The name
of John Stark, the hero of the battle of Bennington, is

144 the town of dedham.
closely associated with the same epoch. Major Andrew
McCleary was not the only Irishman who fought on Bunker
Hill, though his giant form is one of the most striking
figures in that famous battle. The name of Carroll, of
Carrollton, lives forever as one of the signers of the great
Declaration, of Irish blood and lineage ; and we may recall
that the first printer and publisher of that immortal docu
ment was John Dunlap, a native of Ireland and a brave
officer under Washington. In the same line of Revolu
tionary memories we are proud to recount the names of
Edward Hand, Washington's favorite adjutant-general; of
Henry Knox, Washington's chief-of-artillery and afterwards
a member of his cabinet; of Stephen Moylan, another
of Washington's favorite generals ; of Ephraim Blaine, one
of Washington's quartermasters, and from whom James
G. Blaine is descended ; of George Ewing, who shared the
terrible winter of 1777 with Washington at Valley Forge,
and whose son was the distinguished Senator Thomas
Ewing, of Ohio ; of Daniel Morgan, whose skill and valor
won the battle of the Cowpens, and later helped to defeat
Burgoyne; of John Sullivan, another of Washington's
trusty generals, afterwards Governor of New Hampshire,
and whose brother, James Sullivan, was one of the early
Governors of Massachusetts ; of James Graham, who com
manded in fifteen battles against the King's troops before
he was twenty-three years of age; and of John Gibson,
who fought in all our battles with England, from Trenton
to Yorktown.
In the naval combats of the war for Independence Irish
bravery was not less conspicuous. It was Jerry O'Brien
who fought and won our first battle on the seas with the
British John Rogers. The first commodore of the Amer
ican navy commissioned by Washington was John Barry,
the son of a Wexford farmer, who in answer to Lord
Howe's offer of a bribe of twenty thousand guineas said :

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 145
" I am a poor man, but the King of England has not money
enough to buy me." David Porter was another Irish
naval officer of distinction in the same struggle, father
of another David Porter, who was one of the foremost
heroes of 1812, and grandfather of the Admiral David
D. Porter of our own day. And when we come down
to the second war with Britain, the names of Andrew
Jackson and Alexander Macomb in our army, and of
Decatur, Porter, Blakeley, Rodgers, McDonough, Perry,
and Stewart in our navy, all bear historic testimony to
the signal services which men of Irish birth or parent
age rendered to the early cause of American liberty.
This does not exhaust the list by any means; I have
merely enumerated a few of the more shining names.
George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of
General Washington, says: "Of the operatives in war —
the soldiers I mean — up to the coming of the French,
Ireland furnished in the ratio of one hundred for one of
any foreign nation whatever." Well, indeed, may the Irish-
born citizen of America feel that his patriotism has its
roots deep down in the deeds of his forefathers, and
proudly claim that the American flag is his, not merely
by the right of his own sworn allegiance, but by all the
sacred associations that cluster around more than a cen
tury of partnership in the sacrifices and successes that
have made America the first nation of the earth. The
Irishman who could do aught else but love America
would, in the light of this history, be an unaccountable
phenomenon. We all know how, at the call of Lincoln in a later crisis,
the ranks of the great armies that poured Southward to
defend the flag were swollen by thousands upon thousands
of these men who had learned to love America with a love
as deep as any that was borne towards her by her native
sons. The generals of the great war included many a gal-

146 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
lant man of Irish birth or blood, — Sheridan, Shields, Cor
coran, Meagher, and a hundred others whose names I do
not need to rehearse, because the history of that struggle
is still fresh in the general recollection. The roll-calls of
the regiments that followed Grant through the Wilderness,
marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan
down the valley of the Shenandoah, or stood with Meade
and Hancock at Gettysburg, bear eloquent testimony to
the profound and fervent patriotism of the foreign-born
citizen-soldier. We have the authority of Holy Writ for
saying that greater love hath no man for another than that
he lay down his life for him. Nor can there be any greater
love of country than that which offers itself a willing sac
rifice on the altar of her necessity. The good old town of
Dedham knows how well her adopted citizens kept faith
with the flag in the nation's hour of need. The monument
on which she preserves the record of her contribution to
the long list of heroes who perished that the Republic
might live, includes the names of many gallant sons of
Erin, who, loving their adopted land with all the ardor
with which they loved their own, went forth from the
workshops, the factories, and the farms of this peaceful
town and returned no more.
Speaking now, as I may be permitted to do, more
especially of our citizens of Irish birth and descent, who
form about one third of the present population of Dedham,
I can say for them without boasting that they not only love
their chosen country, but are deeply attached to the State
and to this historic town. Their homes are here and all
their treasures ; and " where the treasure is, there will the
heart be also."
It is, perhaps, not sufficiently borne in mind that the
Irish-American has special and peculiar incentives to the
love of his adopted country. We appreciate our blessings
largely by contrast; the boon of liberty is more valued

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 47
by those who have lived and suffered where liberty was
not ; the blessings of free government are estimated more
nearly at their true value by those who have endured
the curse of tyranny and oppression. The citizen of Irish
birth comes here with just such an appreciation of liberty
and free government; he knows, by bitter experience,
what it is to be denied the inalienable rights of " life, lib
erty, and the pursuit of happiness." Finding here what
was denied to him in the land of his birth, he naturally
and rapidly acquires a sincere and ardent attachment to
the institutions of his adopted land, which in depth and
intensity far exceeds that of his more favored fellow-citi
zens, who never felt the weight of despotic rule.
It is well that we should not forget that patriotism is
the child of religion. Love of God involves love of man
and love of country. Cardinal Manning says : " It is a part
of our Catholic theology that a man is bound by the gift
of piety to love his country. . . . Our countrymen are our
kindred. Their welfare, their peace, their defence, their
prosperity, ought to be an object of our most hearty, res
olute, self-denying, and self-sacrificing devotion. We are
like men on board ship, — all that are together have one
common interest; they are all alike in peril or in safety."
This conception of the moral obligations of the individual
citizen to the whole community of which he is a part, which
I quote from the great Catholic prelate of England, is the
conception which Irishmen carry with them into all lands,
wherever their lot may be cast. In this spirit I am glad
to join these commemorative exercises.
Two centuries and a half is a long period in the annals
of American civilization. It carries us back to the very
beginnings of our Continental story. Age gives character
to communities as well as to individuals. Our town is one
of the oldest places of settled habitation in New England,
and the town-meeting — which Adams, I think, calls "the

148 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
miniature republic" — has given to it a continuous career of
orderly self-government. It has partaken of the growth
of the State as a whole, and shared in the changes which
that growth has brought about. Nevertheless, it has pre
served much that was well worth keeping from former
generations, — a reputation for honesty, integrity, and or
der as a community, — and it has successfully blended the
old with the new; so that we may to-day not only look
back to the past with satisfaction, but forward to its fu
ture with hope. The naturalized citizen will be, as he
has already been, an important and a valuable factor in
that future. I venture the prophecy that he will never
be found wanting in the performance of his whole duty
to the township or to the grand old Commonwealth of
Massachusetts. He realizes fully that whatever makes
for the welfare and prosperity of either, makes also for his
welfare and prosperity.
In behalf, then, of your naturalized fellow-citizens, claim
ing with you an equal pride in its honorable past, and
an equal share with you in the honorable and happy future
which, if it please God, is yet in store for it, I join you,
with all my heart, in wishing all good wishes for the
prosperity of the town of Dedham.

The President: There is one more toast, and
only one, —

The Town of Dedham I Stable in character, prudent and
conservative in conduct, she points with pride to two hundred
and fifty years of steady and unbroken progress; to every obli
gation promptly met ; to her ample treasury and her freedom
from debt ; to her liberal appropriations for public education ;
and to her happy, contented, and prosperous inhabitants.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 149
I have the honor of introducing to you, to re
spond to this toast, A. B. Wentworth, Esq., of
Dedham, one of our board of Selectmen.

ADDRESS OF ALONZO B. WENTWORTH, ESQ.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, — I should
prefer at this late hour to follow the example of Father
Johnson, and submit my speech to the reporters ; but as
the representative of the present town government, a few
words will be pardoned with which to conclude the highly
satisfactory exercises of this occasion.
Although Dedham has been shorn of the ample terri
torial proportions of 1636, when she extended from Cam
bridge to the Providence Plantation, she has preserved
unsullied the essential elements of the grant to the original
proprietors. To the adjoining city on the north, and to
the towns on the east, south, and west, she has given of
her territory, and contributed to make new municipalities,
some of which to-day excel her in wealth and population ;
but she has, none the less, maintained in all its fulness her
character as a well-ordered and progressive community.
Her duty to the Colony, the Commonwealth, and the
Republic has been faithfully performed throughout her
history. The men of Dedham were with Captain Church
at Mt. Hope, with Sir William Pepperrell at Louisburg,
among the " embattled farmers " at Lexington and Con
cord, with Washington at Valley Forge and Yorktown, with
McClellan at Antietam, and with Grant at Appomattox.
She contributed the illustrious name of Horace Mann to
the cause of education, the eminent services of Haven,
Metcalf, Colburn, and Wilkinson to the judiciary, and to
the councils of the Republic Dexter and Dowse and Fisher
Ames. Through all the changes of two and a half cen-

150 the town OF DEDHAM.
turies her simple town government, with its Selectmen and
other town officers, has been maintained. Town-meetings
have been regularly held, where town business is trans
acted, appropriations made, town officers elected, and men
and measures discussed. Indeed, the town government
alone remains in its original form.
The Province, Confederation, and Colony are gone ; the
church, which was the counterpart of the old town, has
been divided ; but the town government remains, a monu
ment to the good sense and free spirit of its founders.
Their brightest anticipations are excelled in the comfor
table houses of her thrifty farmers, the extent and variety
of her industrial pursuits, the beauty of her suburban
residences, her imposing public buildings, and the material
prosperity of all her citizens.
In receiving the congratulations and good wishes of her
children and grandchildren on this occasion, Dedham,
without boasting, can say that the purposes of her original
settlers in organizing popular government have been
faithfully pursued. If she has been conservative and
prudent, she has not been obstructive or prudish. Her
obligations have been faithfully kept; her appropriations
for schools, highways, and the poor have been ample;
her devotions to deserving charity have been liberal;
and no debt with its weight of accumulating interest has
been allowed to burden her citizens. Her growth has
been natural and healthy; and, pursuing the simplicity
of the fathers, she presents to-day the rich fruition of
the conceptions and hopes of the good and brave men
who first penetrated the forests and established here a
settlement. It cannot be expected, in the course of nature, that
many of us will be present at the third centennial, in 1936;
but I can express no better wish for those who may be
than that a more abundant measure of prosperity may

250TH anniversary. 151
attend their increasing numbers, — and for the town, that
her affairs may in the mean time be administered with a
like fidelity and sense of public responsibility.
The exercises at the tent closed at 5.30 o'clock,
.the lateness of the hour forbidding other speeches
which had been expected. The Schubert Club,
under the direction of Mr. Arthur W. Thayer,
furnished appropriate music for the afternoon,
which added much to the enjoyment of the occa
sion.

At two o'clock, p. M., a concert was given by the
Norwood Band on the Church Green.
A collation was furnished by the Committee of
'Arrangements to the Cadets, upon Mr. Warren's
grounds on High Street, during the afternoon, and
their band gave a complimentary concert to a large
company of ladies and gentlemen there assembled.
At four o'clock, p.m., the Cadet Band gave a
concert on the Church Green.
At sunset a national salute was fired and the
church bells rung, and a concert was given by the
Norwood Band on the Common.
At seven o'clock, p. m., a very elaborate display of
fireworks, under the direction of Mr. George R.
Johnstone, was made on the Common, followed by
a general illumination of the town, the burning of

152 the town of dedham.
tar-barrels, etc. A reception and dance at Memo
rial Hall, with music by Baldwin's string band,
closed the festivities of the day.

A final meeting of the Committee of Arrange
ments was held on Saturday, September 25, when
the thanks of the Committee were tendered the
Secretary for his efficient and valuable services, and
the Chairman was requested to extend the cordial
thanks of the Committee to the Chief-Marshal,
Orator, and Presidents of the Day, and to the vari
ous committees and others who had assisted in the
very successful celebration.

THE HISTORICAL COLLECTION.

' I "HE collection of articles of local and historic
"^ interest which was displayed in the Unitarian
Vestry attracted much attention, and proved to be
one of the most interesting features of the celebra
tion. Notwithstanding the short time allowed for
preparat'on, the Committee were able to present a
collection of rare merit and value. The response
to the appeal of the Committee was prompt and
enthusiastic, and the extent and variety of the col
lection was a genuine surprise and a source of
gratification to a very large number of visitors.
A prominent feature of the exhibition was the
representation of an old-fashioned New England
kitchen, the tasteful and intelligent handiwork of
some of the young ladies of the Committee, illus
trating the primitive habits and simple life of those
who dwelt in the Dedham of a century ago.
The Picture Room contained more than forty
portraits, many of them of rare artistic merit, of
persons identified with Dedham families. The
collection of miniatures, photographs, engravings,
and small paintings in oils and water-colors was
also large and valuable.

154 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
The main hall of the building was almost entirely
filled with a collection of more than a thousand
specimens of ancient articles, embracing very valu
able contributions of Indian and Colonial relics,
silver, glass, china, plated and wooden ware, chairs,
furniture, household utensils, embroidery, fancy-
work, wearing apparel, etc., tastefully arranged and
displayed, the mere enumeration of which would
fill many pages of this volume.
It had been the intention of the Committee in
charge of the Historic Collection to further mark
the day of the celebration by planting two trees in
the rear of the Unitarian Church ; but the season
proving too early for their safe transplanting, that
interesting ceremony was necessarily postponed.
Hon. Theodore Lyman, of Brookline, having gen
erously given the Committee two beautiful Norway
maple-trees, taken from his nursery, they were set
out under the direction of the Chairman of the
Committee on the 5th of November. May the
three hundredth anniversary of the town's incorpo
ration find them flourishing in vigor and beauty !

REPORT OF THE
COMMITTEE ON HISTORIC TABLETS AND
MONUMENTS.

' I "HE Committee appointed by the town, to whom was
assigned the agreeable duty of erecting tablets or
monuments to mark places and objects of historic inter
est, and of restoring and preserving any such existing
monuments in the town, in the discharge of that duty
aimed to use the sum placed at their disposal for the
preservation and perpetuation of such historic objects and
places as have public and permanent interest. While such
localities may not be numerous in Dedham, the number
might with propriety have been extended further, had the
appropriation been more ample.
Two historic monuments are dear to the memory of all
who were either born or reared in Dedham. The old
brick Powder House " on the great rock in Aaron Fuller's
land " is a place where several generations of Dedham
boys and girls have delighted to resort, and whither they
turn after years of absence to view again the charming
landscape. The plain unfinished stone which has stood
in the corner of the court-house yard during the memory
of those now living has had a mystery about it which
few could solve, if it has not escaped the observation of
many who have passed it daily for years. It did not re-

156 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
quire much deliberation to determine that these monu
ments of ante-Revolutionary times were worthy of especial
attention. The ancient burial-place where reposes the
dust of all the first generation of Dedham settlers also
called for some permanent designation. The original
training-field, known in later times as the "Great Com
mon," for the preservation of whose boundaries there has
been in former times a singular indifference, although it
is perhaps the only ground in Dedham to which the pub
lic have an indisputable right, certainly deserved to be
marked in such a manner that its original purpose should
not be wholly forgotten. And finally, the location of the
first mill and dam has a great interest, since in their
erection was signally shown the great enterprise and fore
sight of the founders of the town.
To these five places and monuments the Committee
have been obliged to confine their attention. Bronze tab
lets bearing simple historic inscriptions in polished raised
letters, made by M. H. Mossman, of Chicopee, Mass., have
been placed on the Powder House and "The Pillar of
Liberty ; " and a third has been inserted in a stone specially
selected for the purpose, and placed in the wall of the old
Parish Burial-Ground.
The Committee also on the day of the anniversary
celebration, with a moderate sum drawn from the gen
eral appropriation by the authority of the Committee of
Arrangements, were enabled to designate by temporary in
scriptions a number of interesting places where old houses
and buildings formerly stood, and to give the dates of the
erection of some prominent houses now standing. A list
of these will be found at the end of this report.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 57

THE BURIAL-PLACE.
At the first recorded meeting of the proprietors, Aug.
18, 1636, before the settlement had been named Dedham
by the General Court of the Colony, while it was yet called
by the settlers themselves Contentment, lots were set out
and measured by Thomas Bartlet to seven persons named,
each lot containing twelve acres, — all of which was con
firmed at this meeting ; and from the description of these
lots in the Book of Grants it appears that the lot of Nicho
las Phillips, one of the seven men, was abutted upon
Charles River towards the north, and the swamp and
burying-place towards the south, the high street running
through the same.
From this record it seems that a lot was set apart as a
resting-place of the dead before even the homes of the
living were provided for. Under date of " 6 of y" 2 Mo.
1638 " in the first Book of Town Records, —
" Nicholas Philips and Joseph Kingsbery upon
other satisfaction in Lands layed out from
the Towne unto each of them doe laye downe
each of them to the Towne one p'cell of y°
south end of their house Lotts and betwixt
the same and the swamp thereby as it is
at p'sent set out for the use of a public
Buriall place for y= Towne forever."
The lot of Joseph Kingsbury was that originally granted
to Ezekiel Holliman, and by him sold to Joseph Kings
bury, and was described in the original grant as

158 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
"Twelve acres more or lesse as lyeth betweene
the way (Court St.) leading from the Keye to
y' Pond towards the East and Nicholas
Phillips towards the west and butts vpon
y° said way wynding towards y" North
and the waye leading to -f burying place
(east end of Village Avenue) towards the South,
the high Street through the same."

In 1638 Joseph Kingsbury sold to the town a part of
this lot " for a Seat for a publique Meetinge House," the
very lot on which the first church now stands.
The ancient burial-ground is that part of the old ceme
tery bounded by Village Avenue on the north, by the
Episcopal Church land on the east, by what is known as
the new part added by the late Dr. Edward Stimson on the
south, while the west line is within or very near the pres
ent main driveway from Village Avenue, and contains
about one acre.
In 1813, '14, '15, about an acre was added on the west
by purchases from the estate of John Bullard and from
Timothy Gay. In 1859 and i860 an important addi
tion was made by Dr. Edward Stimson, who purchased
lands south of the ancient grounds, which he divided into
lots and conveyed to different persons for burial-lots. After
the death of Dr. Stimson, his son Frederic J. Stimson, Esq.,
conveyed in 1880 to the town the avenues and paths and
other open spaces not occupied for burial-lots upon the
land which his father had purchased and laid out ; and in
1885 a small corner was added by purchase from Mrs.
Elizabeth S. Adams, not for burial purposes, but for use
in the care of the grounds.
The way from the Meeting House to the burial-ground
(Bullard St.) was laid out in 1664, under the following
vote : —

25OTH ANNIVERSARY.

159

" It is ordered and granted that a sufficient
Beere waye one Rodd broade shall be layed
out upon the West side of the Church Lott
on that side next M'- Allins house Lott from
the Meeteing house to the Buriall place and
that the said buriall place and waye be
clered from shrufife. 2-1 1-64."
In 1 67 1 a committee consisting of Leift. Fisher and
Elea' Lusher " are deputed to enforme themselves so far
as they well can where the fence should be set about the
burial-place, and direct Cornellius Fisher to set it up ac
cordingly, or who else are concerned in that work."
The first death recorded in Dedham is that of John
Fisher, deceased the " is^of y= 5""° 1637." The gravestone
of the earliest date now standing is that of Hannah Dyar.
It is a fine specimen of imported dark-blue slate two inches
and a half thick, and there is also a footstope of the same
material, with the initials H. D. thereon. The inscription
on the headstone is as follows : —

l6o THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
This unfortunate young wife, the daughter of William
and Margaret Avery, was born 27-7-1660, and married
Benjamin Dyar, 22-3-1677.
A few years ago the superintendent of the old Copp's
Hill Burial Ground in Boston discovered beneath the sur
face (where, he says, it had doubtless been covered for
more than a century) a double stone containing an in
scription six months older than any other original inscrip
tion in the ground. It was erected in memory of the
grandchildren of William Copp. One inscription bears
date of 1 66 1, but the other of July 25, 1678, the very
year of the inscription on the headstone of Hannah
Dyar above given; but more remarkable still is the
marked similarity in the form of the letters and figures
on these two stones, which are very pecuhar, as though
cut by the same hand. The character and shape of
the two stones are also similar, except that the Copp's
Hill stone, being a double stone, is wider; the design
also is the same.
The late Dr. Danforth P. Wight, in a very interesting
paper read before the Dedham Historical Society a few
years ago, stated that for a long time but four tombs were
built here, and these at different times. The first was by
Timothy Dwight, about the year 1700; the second, that
of Daniel Fisher. The third tomb was built by Samuel
Dexter after the death of his father, the Rev. Samuel Dex
ter, in 17SS ; and the fourth is of Edward Dowse, who died
in 1828. The parish tomb was built in 18 16, and since that
time the range of tombs connected with it and those on
the west side have been added.
The matters concerning the cemetery were recorded on
the Town Records until the formation of the Second Parish.
After that time, 1730-31, they were recorded in the Rec
ords of the First Parish ; but for the past twenty years or
more the town has made appropriations to keep this and

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 16 1
the other cemeteries in town in repair, and has taken the
whole care thereof.
In September, 1881, after Brookdale Cemetery had been
laid out, the Board of Health, under the General Statutes,
upon the application of the Cemetery Commissioners,
passed the following regulation : —
" No interments hereafter shall be made within the limits of the
Old Parish Burial Ground, or of the grounds added thereto, and
enclosed therewith, outside the boundary lines of lots, the legal
tide to which is held by individuals, or which are now enclosed or
marked by bounds and reserved for the exclusive use of families
for burial purposes."
This regulation was made because portions of this ceme
tery were so over-crowded, and also on account of the impos
sibility of providing for the burial of persons outside of lots
enclosed or reserved in some way for the use of families,
and for the further reason that in Brookdale Cemetery ample
provision had been made for all the needs of the town.
The number of persons buried in this old burial-ground
is unknown. Here rest the bones of the founders of this
town, and of the men in the generations following, — citi
zens of the town who have been distinguished for their
acts of charity and devotion to their fellow-men, and for
love of and labors for the town and for the whole country,
a record of whose deeds would fill volumes.
Over the Dwight tomb in the cemetery there had been
for many years a stone bearing this inscription : —
Here lyes Intombd the Body of
Timothy Dwight, Esq' who
Departed this Life JanT the 31.
Anno Domini 17 18.
Aged 88 years.
This stone, as the inscription indicates, marks the last
resting-place of Timothy Dwight, who, when a lad of but

1 62 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
five years of age, came to Dedham with his father, John
Dwight, among the first settlers, in 1636. Both father and
son were conspicuous and honored men in their day, and
their descendants have been in every succeeding genera
tion prominent in public affairs and especially identified
with the educational institutions of the country.
In the judgment of some of the officers of the Dedham
Historical Society it seemed desirable that the fact of the
direct descent of this distinguished family from the first
settlers of Dedham should be inscribed on this memorial
stone ; and in compliance with their request the following
appropriate and felicitous inscription, prepared by a mem
ber of the family, was cut thereon : —
The Ancestor
Of the Dwight family in America :
A family like himself.
Truly serious and godly
Of an excellent spirit ;
Faithful and upright;
Among men of renown
In Church and State,
In Halls of Learning
And in War.
The line of descent from John Dwight to Rev. Dr.
Timothy Dwight, now President of Yale University, is as
follows : —
I. John Dwight, the settler, of Dedham, Mass.
2. Capt. Timothy Dwight, of Dedham, Mass.
3. Justice Nathaniel Dwight, of Northampton, Mass.
4. Col. Timothy Dwight, of Northampton, Mass.
5. Maj. Timothy Dwight, of Northampton, Mass.
6. President Timothy Dwight, of New Haven, Conn.
7. James Dwight, of New Haven, Conn.
8. President Timothy Dwight, of New Haven, Conn.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 63
In the wall at the left of the main gate at the entrance
of the cemetery from Village Avenue, and in front of the
ancient grounds, the Committee have caused to be placed
a neat block of Dedham stone unhammered, in which
has been inserted a bronze tablet with the following
inscription : —

THE BURIAL PLACE.
THIS PORTION SET APART IN 1636.
ENLARGED IN 1 638. IT WAS
THE ONLY BURIAL PLACE FOR
NEARLY A CENTURY. HERE
WERE BURIED ALLIN ADAMS
BELCHER DEXTER AND HAVEN
MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH
AND ALLEYNE LUSHER DWIGHT
AND FISHER WITH OTHER
FOUNDERS OF THE TOWN.

THE TRAINING-FIELD.
Several years before the settlement of Dedham, in the
very infancy of the Colony, the General Court passed an
order " that every Captaine shall traine his Compaine on
Saterday in everie weeke ; " and from time to time there
after other similar laws were made requiring the settlers to
become familiar with military practice and discipline, and
but few were excused from this duty ; and so frequently
were the men called upon to " traynee " that the proprie
tors of towns set apart grounds therefor.
The land set apart in Dedham for that purpose included
what is now known as the Great Common at the upper
village. Although the exact date when this lot was first
used as a training-ground cannot be determined from the

164 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
record, yet as the law no less than the necessities of the
situation required them to train, it seems reasonable to in
fer that it was at the very beginning of the settlement, and
that the place first designated continued to be used ; for
the records show that in 1637 there was a " trayned band
organized with Clerk and other officers." In 1644 a grant
was made to the military company of " two acres more as
it lyeth on the westerly end of the trayning ground ; " and
in 1648 a confirmatory grant was made to the company,
its officers and successors, of the free use of all that parcel
of land commonly called the training-ground; and this
grant provided that the same could not be sold except by
the consent of the company and the selectmen. In 1677
a portion was sold off, and in 1687 the town being short of
funds proposed to sell the training-ground ; but no one
seemed disposed to pay the price fixed. From 1773 to
1836 a part of the grounds was used for the almshouse,
and in the latter year the house and a portion of the land
were sold by order of the town. Since that time the
remainder has been improved as a common.
There is much cause to regret that the town should
have suffered a street to be laid out directly through this
lot, thus dividing it into two small lots, instead of allow
ing the same to remain as one entire common ; but so it
is that the people of one generation seem to have widely
different tastes and views from those of another generation.
There are but few landmarks left so intimately connected
with the early settlement of an ancient town, and so sug
gestive of the trials and dangers which the first settlers
endured, as the old training-field.
That coming generations may not forget the location
of the training-ground, nor the dangers and hardships
endured and overcome by the founders of this town
even from the very beginning, and as a simple memorial
thereof, the Committee have erected upon the east cor-

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 65
ner of the field, at the junction of High Street and Com
mon Street, a plain block of Dedham stone, bearing the
simple inscription, — THE
TRAINING FIELD
IN
1636
THE FIRST DAM AND MILL.
The first public enterprise of vital importance to the
original settlers of Dedham was to provide for a corn-mill.
Abraham Shaw, one of the original proprietors, undertook
the work ; and for his aid and encouragement the town as
early as Feb. 21, 1636-7, passed the following order: —
" Whereas Abraham Shawe is Resolved to erect a
ComemiU in our towne of Dedham, we doe grante
vnto him free liberty soe to doe. And for that
purpose we have nowe assigned Edward Alleyn,
Samuell Morse, Ezechiell Holliman, Thomas Bartlet
& Nicholas Phillips, or any 4 or 3. of them to accom
pany him & his workmen to find out a con
venient place : And viewe what fitting (timber)
is about y' place soe found for y' purpose :
As also to order every thing concerning y° per
fecting of y'= same."
We have only to call to mind that the new settlement
was a considerable distance from the older ones, without
roads thereto ; that the people had their own houses to
build, their lands to prepare for cultivation, with the count
less other difficulties necessarily incident to such a settle
ment, — to understand that the erection of a corn-mill was
no small undertaking, even with all the encouragement the
town could give. A month later, March 23, 1636-37, the
following vote was passed : —

1 66 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
" Whereas ther hath ben made some proposition by
Abraham Shawe for y= erecting of a Come Mill in
our Towne We doe nowe graunte vnto y' sayd
Abraham Sixty Acres of land to belong vnto y°
sayd Mill soe erected provided allwayes y' the
same be a Water Mill, els not We order also
y' every man y' hath lott w* vs, shall assist
to breng the Milstones, from Watertowne Mill by
land vnto y° boateing place near M' Haynes his
farme. It is alsoe further graunted vnto y°
sayd Abraham y' the sayd grownd & miU soe
to be builte shal be at his owne disposeing in
case of sale or other alienation at his pleasure.
Saveing y' our Towne shall have y^ first
Refusall of it, at such a price as an other man
wold Realy give for any such alienation accordingly."
Before Abraham Shaw had accomplished his work he
died ; but considerable progress had been made, and a plan
devised by which the mill could be run by water. It was
a bold enterprise ; but boldness of enterprise was one of
the leading virtues of the early settlers. They undertook
a work which would be considered almost impossible now,
and that was literally to create a water-power by the fol
lowing vote passed March 25, 1639, only ten years after
the settlement at Boston of Governor Winthrop and his
company : —
" Ordered y' a Ditch shal be made at a Com'on
Charge through purchased medowe unto y" East
brooke, y' may both be a partition fence in y"
same : as also may serve for a Course unto a
water mill : yf it shalbe fownd fitting to set a
mill upon y" sayd brooke by y= Judgement of
a workeman for y' purpose."
This is the origin of Mother Brook, or Mill Creek as it
is sometimes called ; and the result accomplished thereby

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 167
was to turn a portion of the water of Charles River into
Neponset River, down a fall sufficient to accommodate
several large mill privileges.
On the same day the above vote was passed, the pro
prietors made the following proposition to any one who
would undertake to complete the work which Shaw had
begun : —
" Ordered y' yf any man or men will undertake
& erect a water ComemiU shall have given unto
him soe much grownd as was formerly
granted unto Abraham Shawe for y' same
end & purpose with such other benefitts and priv-
elidges as he shold have had in all Respects
accordingly. Provided y' y' sayd Mill doth
grinde Corne before y° first of y" tenth month
as it is Jntended."
In order, then, for any one to avail himself of this
offer it was necessary to have the mill constructed by
Dec. 10, 1639.
The person to avail himself of this offer was John Elder-
kin. The exact date of the completion of the dam and
mill is unknown, but it was certainly before July 14, 1641 ;
for on that day a committee of three, consisting of Francis
Chickering, John Dwight, and Jonathan Fairbanks, was
appointed to " search out, appoint, determine, and lay out
a cart-way to our water-mill for a common leading way,
where they shall by the^r discretion judge most convenient
for the town."
A grant was made to Elderkin of eight acres on the
south side of the mill-pond, jointly with Nathaniel Whiting,
for a house-lot. At the same time twenty acres more of
upland and ten acres of meadow were laid out to him.
There is no date of this grant, but the next entry on
the same page of the record is the sale by Elderkin to
Nathaniel Whiting of half of the mill : —

1 68 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
" John Elderkin alienateth & selleth to Nathaniell
Whiteing & his assignes forever his part in the
land granted for a house Lot to the mill
with the house and buildings thereon & the
part of the Dams & ditchings belonging
to halfe the Mill as appeares by a deed
dated the 22 of the 9 month 1642."
The next entry in the record is the sale of the other half
as follows : —
" John Elderkin allienateth and selleth to Mr.
Jn? Allin pastor & Nathan Aldus and John
Dwight and to their assignes for ever all
his rights & interest in the Water Mill
standing upon the East Brooke in Dedham
w* the Mill house dams & workes thereunto
belonging viz : the one halfe of the sd premises
And Twenty acres of upland yet to be
layd out and Ten acres of Meadow not
yet layd out all which sd premises are
alienated as followeth : viz : the one halfe
to M' Jn° Allin one fourth part to Nathan
Aldus the other fourth part to John Dwight."
This sale was made also in 1642, as appears by a reference
in the deed from these grantees to Nathaniel Whiting.
John Elderkin, according to Savage, soon after left
Dedham, and after residing in Reading and Providence
he removed in 1648 to New London, Conn., where he built
the church and the first mill, and from thence in 1664 to
Norwich, where he also built the first church and mill.
By deed dated " 29* 7 Mo. 1649," and recorded in the
Suffolk Registry of Deeds, Lib. 4, fol. 285, Nathaniel Whit
ing acquired from John Allin Pastor, Nathan Aldus, and John
Dwight all the rights to the mill which they purchased of
Elderkin ; and Whiting thus became the sole owner.

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 1 69
The town took pains to see that the mill was worked so
as to accommodate the people, for in 1650 the following
entry appears on the records : —
" Severall complaints being made of the
insufficient p'formance of the worke of y° Mille
Nathaniell Whiteing the Miller being present &
tendering a refference to issue the grievances by
twoo men to be chosen by the Towne ; and twoo
by himselfe. The Towne accepting thereof make
choice as followeth :
Eleazer Lusher ) chosen by John Kingsbery ) chosen by
Nathaniell Coalburne ) y= Towne Geo. Barber ) Nath. Whiteing."
Upon the death of Nathaniel Whiting, under his will,
proved in 1683, the mill passed to his wife Hannah; and
under her will, proved in 1714, to their son Samuel; and
under the will of Samuel, proved in 1728, to his son Zacha-
riah Whiting, who in 1732 conveyed it to Nathaniel Whit
ing his cousin (son of Timothy and grandson of the original
Nathaniel). Nathaniel in 1756 conveyed it to his son
Joseph Whiting, who in 1804 conveyed the same to his
son Hezekiah. In the partition of Hezekiah Whiting's
estate in 1821 this mill privilege was set off to his three
sons, Joseph, Hezekiah, and Charles, and in 1823 Joseph
Whiting and the guardian of Hezekiah and Charles, then
minors, conveyed the same to Jabez Chickering; and here
it leaves the Whiting family, in which for so many years it
had remained. Chickering the same year conveyed to the
Dedham Worsted Factory, which the following year con
veyed to Benjamin Bussey, and in 1843 the executors of
Bussey's will conveyed the same to John Wiley Edmands,
and in 1863 Edmands and Colby conveyed this privilege to
the Merchants' Woollen Company, the present owners.
At this privilege now stands the large brick mill on
Bussey Street, the largest in the town. At the time the

170 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Merchants' Woollen Company purchased the privilege, the
dam was nearly under the bridge on Bussey Street, across
the brook, but below the site of the original dam ; for as
dams are renewed, or rebuilt, it has generally been the cus
tom, when it can be done, to build each new dam a little
below the old one, so that the position of the dam has
been several times slightly changed; and in 1874, at the
time of the change in the line of Bussey Street, the present
dam was placed a few rods below the old dam, and the
bridge carried a short distance up stream. All evidence
upon the land of the site of the original dam has disap
peared ; but, fortunately, at the time these recent changes
were made the foundation of the original dam was discov
ered. It extended across the brook from near the west end
of the south abutment of the present bridge to a point a
short distance west of the west end of its north abutment
In order to mark permanently this very interesting his
toric spot, the Committee have, with the consent and hearty
co-operation of the Merchants' Woollen Company, erected
upon the company's land on the east side of Bussey Street,
near the south bank of the brook, a stone, upon which the
following inscription has been cut : —
NEAR THIS SPOT
THE FIRST
DAM AND MILL
WERE BUILT
IN
1640.
"THE PILLAR OF LIBERTY."
It was ascertained, upon careful inquiry, by a tradi
tion resting upon the concurrent statements of several per
sons of known accuracy and reliability not now living,
whose memory extended back into the last century, that

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 171
the Pillar of Liberty was first placed on the corner of
the Meeting-House Common, at the junction of High
and Court streets. It is not known when and by whom it
was removed across Court Street, but it is reasonable to
infer that it was done in 1828, as the inscription upon
the northerly face contains the recital, " Replaced by the
Citizens, July 4, 1828." For this reason the Committee,
with the assent of the Parish Committee of the Unitarian
Church, determined to remove the stone to this spot.
The stone itself, though differing in color and character
from our Dedham ledge-stone, was no doubt originally
obtained somewhere between Dedham Village and West
Dedham, as similar stone can now be found there. Both
faces bearing the original inscriptions were probably ham
mered and smoothed in 1766, although they now present
uneven surfaces. But on the easterly face there were ob
vious tool-marks, showing that an attempt at some time had
been made to sink a panel, which perhaps was abandoned
by reason of the hardness of the stone. The Committee
decided not to touch the sides bearing the inscriptions,
except to bring out the letters by painting them. It would
have been practically impossible to recut the letters with
out sacrificing their form, which was peculiar to Colonial
times ; the hardness of the stone would prevent any suc
cessful result from such an attempt. At the celebration of
1836 the letters were made legible by renewing them with
black paint, which will explain the allusion in Mr. Haven's
address ; ^ but this was washed out by the storms of a quar
ter of a century. The Committee are assured that the
brown paint now used will last much longer ; it was obtained
from Concord, where it has been used for a similar pur
pose. Following the suggestion of a panel on the east
erly face, a bronze tablet has been inserted, bearing the in
scription hereafter given. The stone has been set upon
1 Haven's Centennial Address, 1836, p. 43.

172 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
a deep foundation and surrounded by a curb of blue stone
firmly bedded.
The story of this monumental stone is interesting and
instructive, and can be told with historic certainty. It is
the memorial of so brief a period in the years just preced
ing the American Revolution, that it is easy to miss its
full significance. The Stamp Act, the first of the oppres
sive parliamentary measures, was passed March 22, 1765.
The news of its passage fired the hearts of the people of
Boston and the surrounding towns with intense indignation.
It was the subject of frequent town-meetings. The Stamp
Commissioner was forced to resign, and a mob sacked the
house of Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson. The act was
to take effect Nov. i, 1765. That day in Boston was ush
ered in by the tolling of bells and the display at half-mast
of the flags of the vessels in port ; the English ministers
were hung in effigy ; business was practically suspended ;
the courts were compelled to proceed without stamped
paper as the act required, because none was permitted to
be sold ; and all the officers of the Province were obliged
to disregard the requirements of the act.
Meantime the friends of America in the English Parlia
ment had been constantly laboring for the repeal of the
Stamp Act. Foremost among these was William Pitt,
afterward the Earl of Chatham. It was he who main
tained that "America being neither really nor virtually
represented in Westminster, cannot be held legally or con
stitutionally or reasonably subject to obedience to any
money bill of the kingdom." The Stamp Act was repealed
March 18, 1766, and the news was received in Boston
on the i6th of the following May. The repeal was hailed
with the greatest demonstrations of joy. A day (May 19)
was set apart for general rejoicing, in which the booming
of cannon, the ringing of bells, the decoration of houses
and steeples with flags and streamers, and the release of

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 173
prisoners confined for debt, testified the popular feeling.
In the evening there was an illumination of the houses, and
a display of fireworks on the Common, excelling anything
of the kind before seen in New England. A wooden obelisk
was erected under the Liberty Tree, on the four sides of
which were allegorical representations designed and exe
cuted by Paul Revere. This unfortunately took fire from
the lanterns upon it the same night, and was consumed.
In all these stirring events the towns around Boston
were in full sympathy. In Dedham, the Sons of Liberty
prepared to mark the event by a permanent memorial.
Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the younger, was an ardent patriot
and a leader. He records in his diary that May 21, five
days after the news of the repeal arrived, the stone-cutter
was at work on the Pillar of Liberty. From entries in
the same diary it appears that for eleven or twelve days
in May, June, and July stone-cutters were thus employed.
On June 30 he records, " Daniel Gookin turns the Pillar
of Liberty." This was a wooden column about ten or
twelve feet high, which rested upon the stone as a pedestal.
On the 14th of July the Sons of Liberty voted to raise
the Pillar on July 22. It was raised on that day, in the
words of Dr. Ames, " in the presence of a vast concourse
of people." The Pillar was painted on the 28th of the
same month.
Before the Pillar was raised an effort was made to sur
mount it with a bust of William Pitt, as appears by the
following entry in Dr. Ames's diary of 1766: —
"July 2. Went to Boston. Bespoke Pitt's Head for Pillar
of Liberty."
But the bust was not procured upon this request. For
another entry in the same year is as follows : —
"Dec. 15. Sons of Liberty met. Agree to have Pitt's
Head."

174 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Dr. Ames writes Feb. 15, 1767, that he "went to Boston
with Mr. Haven and Battle. Spoke Pitt's bust of Mr.
Skilling." This Mr. Skilling was a well-known wood-carver of that
day, who executed similar busts and figures to adorn the
entrances of some fine houses in Boston. Finally, Feb
ruary 26, Dr. Ames again went to Boston, and " brought
the bust of Pitt for the Pillar of Liberty."
The original inscriptions in Latin and English were un
doubtedly composed by Dr. Ames. He was accustomed
to make entries in Latin in his diary, and the style of the
English is characteristic. He writes: "Aug. 6. Howard
altered erepsit into evulsit," traces of which alteration are
now discernible.
It strikes one strangely, perhaps, to find on this stone,
erected by the Sons of Liberty, an expression of satis
faction that their loyalty to King George III. had been
confirmed by the repeal of the Stamp Act. But it must
not be forgotten that it was then ten years before the
Declaration of Independence, and if any entertained the
thought of independence as a contingency which might
occur, certainly no one avowed it. The patriots fondly
indulged the hope, rather, that in the repeal of the Stamp
Act all their trials were ended, and that the oppressive
policy of the British ministers toward America had been
reversed. But their joy was short-lived, and by the pas
sage of the act imposing a duty upon tea and other articles
passed in June, 1767, the series of measures was continued
which brought on the Revolution.
As the conflict approached, the Pillar of Liberty nat
urally ceased to be an object of interest. Dr. Ames
records, "May 11, 1769. The Pillar of Liberty was over
thrown last night." Perhaps this was due to the revulsion
in popular feeling. It is not certain that it was afterward
replaced. But there were those living not many years

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. I 75
since who remembered in the last decade of the eighteenth
century both pillar and bust lying upon the ground, and
the latter being kicked about by the boys of that period.
It is certain that no one took pains to preserve them, and
they are now irrecoverably lost.
We may, however, now feel assured that this historic
stone which stands to-day as the memorial of ante-Revolu
tionary times is so securely placed that on the ter-cente-
nary of the incorporation of Dedham it will still remain in
good preservation to testify to the patriotism of 1766, and
to its grateful appreciation in 1886.
The following are the inscriptions now upon the stone,
given in the chronological order of their being placed
upon it: —

T he Tillar of Liberty
Erecid ByiJie Sons of IdLcrty
Laus DEO RccFi^etlmimindair
autoribusq-maximeiatifono
Pitt, cpiRenipTili-ndKnacvalJ&t Faucjlsus Orel

Inscription of 1766
[WESTEKLY FACE.]

l?^ THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.

Tke Pillar of Liberty
To Ke Honor of WiuirPirrEfc)?
<w- oHier RvTMOTS wko faved
AMEIRICAtVomimpcncling Slave
r)r,vcoTifirm'<l our moil: loyal
AfPecJion^K^GEORGB Iff Jjypro
cunung aKepealof the iS'tampj^^

Inscription of 1766
[northerly face.]

Elected lici-e July 22,1766,
byBoctr HatK^Ames 2^;^
CoL EbenT Battle, Maj Abrjali
iJj^aper^ o^eKpAlrioitfiiendly
^oilieJiigKlsofflieColflmea at
ihsiii day
HepLsiced ByiKe Citizens
JmIj- 4. ISaS.

Inscription of 1828
[northerly face.]

25OTH ANNIVERSARY.

177

THIS STONE WAS FIRST
PLACED NEAR THIS SPOT
JULY 22, 1766. IT SUPPOR
TED A WOODEN COLUMN
SURMOUNTED BY A BUST
OF WILLIAM PITT.
BOTH COLUMN AND BUST
DISAPPEARED ABOUT THE
CLOSE OF THE LAST CEN
TURY. THE STONE WAS
REMOVED FROM THE OP^
POSITE CORNER IN 1886.

Inscription on Tablet of 1886
[easterly face.]

THE POWDER HOUSE.
The Powder House upon examination was found to be
in a state of partial dilapidation, though its walls and curved
oaken rafters were in a sound condition. In repairing and
restoring it, the original design has been adhered to as
closely as possible. The shingles have been replaced by
new-ones of the best quality, painted on both sides and laid
when dry ; a new solid door, having strap hinges and a
padlock, has been put in; the oak threshold has been
replaced ; all the wood exposed to the weather has been
painted; the brick walls have been pointed anew where
practicable, and well oiled ; a bronze tablet has been in
serted in the front wall bearing the following inscription :
THE POWDER HOUSE
BUILT BY THE TOWN
1766.

178 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
The Powder House, as the quaint little brick structure
which crowns the great rock near Charles River has been
called since its erection in 1766, is better known to the
people of Dedham than any other spot within her borders.
It is not the " stern round tower of other days " from which
bards in classic lands have drawn inspiration ; neither has
it been the scene of any great historic event. It is a plain
building, erected by plain people, for a practical purpose,
but little more than a hundred years ago ; yet so thor
oughly is it identified with the social life of this community
that it has come to be regarded as almost a sacred spot,
dear not only to the present dwellers in the village, but to
the sons and daughters of Dedham now scattered through
out the length and breadth of the land.
The Powder House was not built, as many have sup
posed, with any reference to its use during the Revolution
ary War, though doubtless it well answered the purpose
of keeping the Provincial powder dry in those days when
ammunition was well-nigh worth its weight in gold. But
in 1766 there was no expectation of independence of the
mother country, and but little desire for separation ex
pressed on the part of the Colonists. The public sentiment
that produced the violent disruption of the ties that had so
long existed between Great Britain and her American Col
onies was the quick growth of the following years. It,
too, may well be doubted whether the natural beauty of
the location entered at all into the calculations of the
builders. The Powder Hoqse was constructed in those
days when everything was sacrificed to convenience and
utility, in compliance with a long-felt desire that the public
ammunition should be stored in some public place, and not
subjected to the risk and inconvenience of being kept on
private premises.
But a few years after the settlement of the town, in mak
ing provision for the common defence the storage of the

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 179
town's ammunition became a question of much importance.
The first mention of the matter which we find in the Town
Records is contained in the following entry : —
"3 of II mo. 1652.
" At a general meeting of the Towne the Selectmen are desired
to issue the case conceming the barrell of powlder delivered to
Ensign Phillips."
The next entry on the subject is as follows : —
"Assemb. 28, 12 Mt. 1661.
" Timothy Dwight is requested to procure a barrill of Powder to
Exchange that barrel that nowe is in the Town Store ; & what it
doe a mount to more than the ould powder is really wourth to
him, the Towne is to make good to him."
Nearly a century later we find the following entries on
the Town Records : —
"May 15, 1745.
" Voted, if it be the mind of the Town to choose a Committee
to procure a Stock of Ammunition by Calling in what is lent out
and procuring what is wanting.
"Voted in ye affirmative.
" Mr. Isaac Bullard, Mr. Samuel Richards, Maj. Eliphalet Pond,
Committee." "Feb. 24* 1746-7.
"The Committee chosen to procure a stock of Ammunition for
ye Town make retum. That they have laid out one hundred and
twenty five pounds old Tenor and have Procured two barrells of
Powder and Six Duzon of Flints & about one hundred and a quar
ter of Bullets."
The following entries in the Town Records afford the
only information we possess as to who was the custodian
of this important item of town property : —
"May 27, 1755.
" Paid to Mr. Isaac Bullard for his care and labor about the
Town Stock of Powder, 6 shillings.
"May 22, 1759. To Isaac Bullard for Taking Care of the
Powder, 5 s. 4d."

I So THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
The first vote on the subject of building a house for the
storage of ammunition which we find on the Town Records
is as follows : —
"March ist, 1762.
" It was put to the Town to see if the Town will build a Powder
house. Voted in the affirmative, and then the Town voted to refer
the further consideration of said powder house to next May
meeting." At the May meeting it was voted upon, as the following
extract from the Record will show : —
"May 18, 1762.
" Voted to have the Powder house builded on a great Rock in
Aaron Fuller's land near Charles River. Also The Town made
Choice of Capt. Eliphalet Fales, Mr. Daniel Gay, & Mr. Ebenr
Kingberry a Committee to Build Said House."
It is evident that this committee took no action in the
matter intrusted to them, as in the warrant for the May
meeting in 1764 appears the following article: —
"Sixthly, To Know the Mind of the Inhabitants, where the
Town's Stock of Powder &c. Shall be lodged."
At the town-meeting it was "Voted to refer the Sixth
article in the Warrant respecting the Town's Stock of
Powder &c. to next March Meeting."
But it was not until the next May meeting that the town
voted on the question, as will be seen by the following
record : —
"May 20, 1765.
"The -town having at their meeting on the 18* day of May,
1762, voted to build a Powder House on a Great Rock in Aaron
Fuller's Land near Charles River and appointed a Committee for
that purpose, and said Committee not having complied with the
Request of the Town respecting that Business, the Town did at
this Meeting Vote to join Two more Persons to said Committee,
and did direct them to get Said House erected — To be Eight

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 181
Feet Square on the outside and Six Feet high under the Plates,
the Materials to be Brick and Lime Mortar. Then Deacon Na
thaniel Kingsbury and Capt. David Fuller were chose for the other
Two Committee Men."
But the work proceeded slowly, as the first evidence of
any action taken on the part of the committee is found in
the following entry in the town books : —
"Nov. 12, 1765.
" To Capt. David Fuller, three pounds four shillings to purchase
materials for building a Powder House."
Although the Town Records afford no direct evidence
as to the beginning of the erection of the Powder House,
the recently discovered diary of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, the
younger, contains the following entry, it being the only
allusion to the matter which can be found in its ample
pages : —
" June 7* 1 766. Powder House begun in Dedham."
From this record of Dr. Ames, and the fact that the
builders began to receive pay for their work early in
1767, we infer that the building was begun and finished
in 1766.
In the town treasurer's books we find the following
entries : —
"March 2, 1767.
"To Ebenezer Kingsbury for Timber & Boards & Carting
Bricks for the Powder House, ;£i. 14s. 8d."
"March 20, 1767.
"To Ebenezer Shepard, one pound. Eighteen Shillings & four
pence three farthings, for Work done on the Powder House."
"April 6, 1767.
" To Capt. David Fuller, Three pounds. Eight Shillings Eleven
Pence & three Farthings in part of acct. for Materials & work for
the Powder House and Boarding the Workmen."

1 82 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
"May 28, 1767.
" To Capt. David Fuller, Two pounds and three pence three
farthings in full for Materials and Work for the Powder House &
Boarding Workmen."
The last entry concerning the erection and use of the
Powder House in the town books is the following : —
"Feb. 26, 1768.
"To Capt. David Fuller, one Shilling and Two Pence half
penny for removing the powder &c. to the Powder House Last
Spring." This order, which was drawn Nov. 16, 1767, taken in
connection with the entries before quoted, proves conclu
sively that the Powder House was erected in 1766, and
was first used in the spring of 1767.
In these days of costly public and private buildings it
is an interesting fact to know that the total expense in
volved in the construction of this historic edifice amounted
to ;^I2. 6s. 4d. if., from which it may be safely inferred
that neither architect nor contractor had any part in its
erection. Only once since its erection has the old house
been threatened with destruction. In 1859, the building
being sadly out of repair, an attempt was made to secure its
removal by the town ; but the opposition to this measure
was so strong that it resulted in the insertion of the follow
ing articles in the warrant for the April town-meeting : —
" 8'^ To see if the town will appropriate a sum not exceeding
fifty dollars, to repair and preserve the Powder House, on Powder
House Rock.
" 9* To see if the town will sell or otherwise dispose of the
Powder House, on Powder House Rock."
At this meeting, the town having refused to expend any
money in repairs. Article 9 in the warrant was dismissed,
with the understanding that the necessary work involved
in repairing the house would be done by private subscrip-

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 183
tion, which in the course of a few weeks was satisfactorily
accomplished. This picturesque relic of Colonial times, with more than
a century of sacred associations clustering thickly about
it, and overlooking one of the loveliest of landscapes, is
warmly commended to the watchful and fostering care of
those who in the years to come shall fill our places and
improve upon our work. ERASTUS WORTHINGTON,
HENRY O. HILDRETH,
DON GLEASON HILL,
Committee,
Dedham, Sept. 21, 1886.

HISTORIC HOUSES AND PLACES
DESIGNATED BY TEMPORARY INSCRIPTIONS, SEPT. 21, 1886.

THE AVERY OAK.
"" I ""HIS ancient white-oak tree is doubtless older than the
¦^ settlement of the town. It is still a vigorous tree, and
it was chosen as an emblem of the age and vigor of the
town, to be placed upon its corporate seal. It stands on
East Street, in front of the site of the Avery House, one
of the oldest houses of the town, which was taken down
in 1885. An offer of seventy dollars was made for its
timber in building the old frigate " Constitution." This
tree was given by Mr. Joseph W. Clark to the Dedham
Historical Society, by a deed of conveyance, June 29, 1886,
with the purpose and on the condition that it be carefully
preserved in the years to come.

THE FAIRBANKS HOUSE.
This picturesque old house with its antique furniture is
an object of great interest to its many visitors. The date
of its erection is not known from any historic record. For
many reasons, however, which might be adduced, it is
believed not to have been one of the rude houses of the
first settlers; for all these disappeared in the first cen-

1 86 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
tury. This house probably was not built earlier than 1664,
though it may have been built before Philip's War. The
land, however, on which it stands, from the time of its
allotment to Jonathan Fairbanks in 1637, has remained in
the hands of his descendants. Jonathan Fairbanks the
progenitor died Dec. 5, 1668.
Mr. Fairbanks came to Boston in 1633 from Sowerby,
in Yorkshire, England. He was admitted and subscribed
to the Covenant, March 23, 1637. Through John, Joseph,
Ebenezer, Ebenezer 2d, and his three daughters — Prudence,
Sally, and Nancy — the house has come into the possession
of its present owner and occupant, Miss Rebecca Fair
banks, who is of the seventh generation in direct descent
from Jonathan.
The small wing with a gambrel-roof on the side toward
East Street was added to the house when Ebenezer Fair
banks, born Jan. 5, 1758, and married March 3, 1777,
became of age, or at the time of his marriage. Though
additions have from time to time been made to the house,
the main structure is perhaps the same that Jonathan Fair
banks, the first of the name in Dedham, built for the use
of his family.
HOUSES OF THE MINISTERS OF THE DEDHAM
CHURCHES.
Tradition assigns to a spot near the present Orthodox
Congregational Church the site of the house of John Allin,
the revered first minister of the church; and that Mr.
Adams afterwards occupied the same house is a well-
known fact. The house built by Rev. Mr. Belcher, the
third minister of Dedham, and afterwards occupied suc
cessively by Dexter and Haven, the fourth and fifth
ministers, and in which they all died, stood near the
site of the church ; it was taken down about the time

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 87
the new church was built in 1819. It is an interesting
fact that we are thus able to identify, with a reasonable
degree of certainty, the dwelling-places of the first five
ministers of the Dedham Church, covering a period of
more than one hundred and sixty years.
THE HOUSE OF TIMOTHY DWIGHT, THE ANCESTOR
OF THE DWIGHT FAMILY IN AMERICA.
This house stood on the east side of East Street, a few
feet northwest of the northerly abutment of the railroad
bridge, on land granted by the proprietors in the first allot
ments made to John Dwight, the father of the first Timothy,
who erected the house. Both father and son were for many
years prominent in Dedham affairs. Timothy Dwight died
in 1 71 8, at the age of eighty-eight.
In 1664 a valuation of the houses in town was recorded,
in which the house of Timothy Dwight appeared by far
the most valuable in the town at that time. The house
was taken down about 1849, when the West Roxbury
Branch of the Boston and Providence Railroad was built.
It was once owned and occupied as a place of business by
Benjamin Bussey. THE DEXTER HOUSE.
This fine mansion was built about the year 1765 by
Samuel Dexter. He was the son of Rev. Samuel Dexter,
fourth minister of the Dedham Church, and was born in
Dedham in 1726. He entered mercantile life at an early
age, and having acquired considerable property came
Nov. 4, 1762, to reside in his native town, where for many
years he exercised great influence, and held many impor
tant offices in the church and the town. Mr. Dexter was
a representative in the General Court for several years.

1 88 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
was five years a delegate to the Provincial Congress, was
a member of the Supreme Executive Council of the State,
and was active in directing military operations at the
beginning of the Revolutionary War. He was deeply in
terested in the cause of education, and was a frequent
benefactor of the schools of Dedham, and in recognition
of the service which he had rendered, his name was given
to the school at the Upper Village. On the death of his
wife in 1784 he removed to Mendon, where he died
June 10, 1810, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. In his
will he bequeathed five thousand dollars to found the
Dexter Professorship in Harvard College.
Mr. Dexter was the father of Samuel Dexter, the third of
the name, and the distinguished lawyer and statesman, who
was born during his father's residence' in Boston, but who
came to Dedham when but a year old, where he remained
during his boyhood and until his entrance to Harvard Col
lege in 1777, from which institution he was graduated in
1781. Until his sudden death in 1816 he was one of the
most distinguished men in public life, having been a Sena
tor and Representative in Congress, Secretary of War and
Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of the
elder Adams.
After the removal of Samuel Dexter, 2d, from Dedham
in 1784, the house was successively occupied by Dr. John
Sprague, Samuel Swett, and others, and for several years
past has been owned and occupied by the family of the
late Dr. Ebenezer G. Burgess.

HOUSE OF DR. NATHANIEL AMES.
This house was built in 1772 by Dr. Nathaniel Ames, 2d,
and was occupied by him until his death, July 21, 1822, at
the age of eighty-one years. It is now owned and occu
pied by Dr. J. P. Maynard. Dr. Ames was the elder

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 89
brother of Fisher Ames, of whom he was in politics a vio
lent opponent. He was first clerk of the courts of Nor
folk County, and a physician in large practice. Dr. Ames
was a son of Dr. Nathaniel Ames, known as the almanac
maker, who removed from Bridgewater to Dedham in 1732,
and published almanacs from 1726 to 1765. His son. Dr.
Nathaniel Ames, 2d, continued the same some ten years
afterward. He was a brother of Fisher Ames, and brother-
in-law of Jeremiah Shuttleworth, the first postmaster, hav
ing married Meletiah Shuttleworth. By his will his estate
passed to his niece, Hannah Shuttleworth, and by her will
many interesting documents pass to the Dedham Histori
cal Society, including a diary kept by Dr. Ames from
the time he was in college, 1758, to the time of his death
in 1822.

HOUSE OF FISHER AMES.
This house, now owned by Mr. F. J. Stimson, has been
so enlarged and reconstructed that it bears no resemblance
to the mansion completed by Fisher Ames in 1795. Still,
the frame of that house is in the main portion of the pres
ent structure, and the form of the drawing-rooms remains.
The Ames mansion was a square house, having a hip roof
with a balustrade. It had capacious outbuildings, and a
carriage-house with a high-arched doorway. Here Fisher
Ames lived until his death, July 4, 1808. His widow and
family continued to live in it for many years ; but after the
death of John Worthington Ames, the eldest son, in 1833,
several of the children having died previously, Mrs. Ames
went to reside with her son, the late Judge Seth Ames,
then a practising lawyer in Lowell. The house was
afterward owned and occupied for a short time by Gen.
William Gibbs McNeill, who was the chief engineer in
the construction of the Boston and Providence Railroad.

igO THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
It was next owned and occupied by Elisha Turner, but
after his death it was sold to John Gardner, who occupied
it for many years, and in his hands the estate under
went many changes, the houses on both sides having
been built by him. Finally, in 1868 it came into the hands
of Edward Stimson, who so remodelled, enlarged, and
enriched the house by costly improvements as completely
to transform its appearance. THE HAVEN HOUSE.
Samuel Haven, who in 1795 built the stately mansion
now owned by Mr. John R. Bullard, was born in Dedham,
April 3, 1 77 1. He was the son of Rev. Jason and Cath
erine Haven, was graduated at Harvard College in 1789,
and studied law with Fisher Ames, of Dedham, and with
his cousin, Samuel Dexter, in Boston. On the formation
of Norfolk County in 1793, he was appointed Register of
Probate. In 1802 he was commissioned as a Justice of the
Court of Common Pleas, and in 1804 was appointed Chief
Justice, which office he held until 18 11, when the court was
abolished. Mr. Haven continued in the office of Register
of Probate until 1833, ^ period of forty years, but retired
almost wholly from legal practice when he resigned, and
not long after removed to Roxbury, where he continued
to reside with his daughter until his death, which occurred
Sept. 4, 1847, at the age of seventy-six years. Judge
Haven's intellectual tastes were for theology rather than
law ; but the chief occupations of practical interest to him
were horticulture and architecture. He spent much time
and money in the construction of his house, and the laying^
out and embellishment of the grounds, making it one of
the most beautiful estates in Norfolk County. The vener
able and beautiful English elms standing in front of the
house were set out by Judge Haven in 1789, the year in

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 191
which he was graduated from college. In 1844 he sold
the house to the late Freeman Fisher, who occupied it
until 1854, when it passed into the possession of the late
John Bullard, and thence into the hands of the present
owner, who has done much still further to beautify and
adorn it.

THE DOWSE HOUSE.
This beautiful estate, now owned and occupied by Dr.
Henry P. Quincy, was probably built very early in the
present century by Edward Dowse, who was born in
Charlestown in 1756, and who during his- early life was
engaged in commerce in China and the East Indies. He
married Sarah, daughter of Hon. William Phillips, of Boston.
Mr. and Mrs. Dowse left Boston at the time of the yellow
fever in 1 797, and went for a few weeks' residence to the
old house on the Sprague Farm at Dedham Low Plain.
The owner having occasion to use the house, Mr. Dowse
came to the village, and purchasing land on both sides of
High Street, built this house, — living, until it was ready
for occupancy, in a smaller one standing near the present
front gate, and which was afterward removed to the upper
village. These narrow quarters did not limit the hospi
tality in which he delighted, and he used to entertain the
principal members of Boston society there at dinner,
though the company had to sit on the stairs and on the
bed in one of the rooms while the table was laid in the
other. The clock on the steeple of the meeting-house of the
First Parish was the gift of Mr. Dowse and his wife and
her sister, in giving which they said that they wished to
give something to the town which would benefit all sects
and parties alike.
The late Edmund Quincy, the grand-nephew of Mr.

192 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
Dowse, and who subsequently became the owner of the
property, in his admirable biography of his father, Josiah
Quincy, gives the following interesting reminiscences of
Mr. Dowse and his family : —
" Mrs. Dowse and her sister, Mrs. Shaw, were twins, and so
closely resembled each other as to be undistinguishable, the one
from the other, by their nearest friends, excepting by a slight dif
ference of dress. The country people around were accustomed to
speak of the three as ' Mr. Dowse and his two wives.' Yet they
never spoke of them but with love and gratitude ; for their bounty
was only limited by their means, and their charity neither begun
nor stayed at home. Any Life of my father would be imperfect with
out a tribute of affectionate remembrance to those beloved rela
tives, and, least of all, any written by me, who am daily reminded
of them by the roof that shelters me, by the trees they planted, and
by the river that they loved. . . . Mrs. Dowse and Mrs. Shaw did
not change to the end of their lives the fashion of the dress of
their prime ; and they remained until long into this century in
look and manner examples of the gentlewomen of the pre-Revolu-
tionary period."
Mr. Dowse was elected to Congress from this district as
a Democrat in 18 19, but disliking life at Washington, he
resigned at the close of the long session and returned to
Dedham. He died here in 1828, in the seventy-third year
of his age. Mrs. Shaw died in 1833 and Mrs. Dowse in
1839, when the estate passed into the possession of their
nephew, Hon. Josiah Quincy, and thence into that of his
son, the late Edmund Quincy. Mr. and Mrs. Dowse and
Mrs. Shaw were buried in the Dowse tomb in the village
cemetery, and on the monument covering their remains
Mr. Quincy, the elder, inscribed a touching tribute to their
worth. Mr. Edmund Quincy came with his family from Boston
to reside in this house in 1840, and remained here until his
death, which took place May 17, 1877, in the seventieth
year of his age. Mr. Quincy was an accomplished and

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 93
elegant scholar, a brilliant writer, an earnest advocate of
the abolition of slavery, a good neighbor and citizen. His
memory will long be cherished in our midst.
THE SHUTTLEWORTH HOUSE.
This house stood at the junction of High and Church
streets. It was built by Jeremiah Shuttleworth, the first
postmaster of Dedham, and here the post-office was kept
for more than forty years. For many years afterward it
was owned and occupied by his daughter Hannah. At
her decease, in the early part of the present year, she be
queathed the house, land, and ten thousand dollars to the
Dedham Historical Society. The house has been removed,
and upon the lot a substantial fire-proof brick building will
soon be erected by the Society.
THE WOODWARD TAVERN.
On the estate formerly owned by Fisher Ames, near the
corner of High and Ames streets, formerly stood the Ordi
nary, or Tavern, first kept by Joshua Fisher and his descen
dants from 1658 to 1730; by Dr. Nathaniel Ames, Sr., " the
Almanack maker," from 1735 to 1764; known as Ames's
Tavern to 1772, afterward as Woodward's Tavern. Here
the Suffolk Convention assembled Sept. 6, 1774. Here
Fisher Ames was born, 1758. The house was demolished
in 1817.
From the early settlement and until a very recent period
the Tavern was a recognized and, it may be said, an
Ordinary institution of Dedham. But Woodward's Tav
ern became historic, not merely as having been the birth
place of Fisher Ames and the dispensary of good cheer,
but as having been the place where the famous Suffolk
Convention was organized Sept. 6, 1774, to which Dedham
sent five delegates. A large committee was chosen to

194 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
prepare resolutions, and the convention then adjourned to
meet at the house of Daniel Vose, in Milton, where on
Friday, Sept. 9, 1774, Gen. Joseph Warren reported to the
convention the Suffolk resolutions which he had drafted.
They were read several times and unanimously adopted.
" Those who now or in after times shall examine the journal of
the earliest Continental Congress in search of the first recorded
resolution to try the issue with Great Britain, if need be at the point
of the sword, will find the doings of this convention entered at
length upon its pages, appearing as the medium through which the
object of their assembling was first presented to their deliberations,
and serving as the basis of their subsequent proceedings. The
house of Richard Woodward most of us remember. In it was
born Fisher Ames. Was it not the birthplace of the American
Revolution ? " *
Site of the First Meeting-House, built in 1638 on or near
the site of the present Unitarian Church.
Site of the First Episcopal Church, on Church Street,
near the grain store of Amory Fisher. Built in 1761.
Site of the First Court House, built in 1795, and occupied
until the dedication of the new Court House, in 1827, on
Court Street, fronting Meeting-House Common.
Site of the First Schoolhouse, built in 1648, and standing
near the site of the Unitarian Vestry.
Site of the First Jail, built in 1795, and standing near
the junction of Court and Highland streets.
Site of the Law Office of Horace Mann, standing at the
junction of Court and Church streets, now the dwelling-
house of Mrs. L. C. Weeks. Mr. Mann began the practice
of law in Dedham in 1828, where he remained until his re
moval to Boston in 1835. He represented Dedham in the
General Court during five of the seven years in which he
resided here. 1 Haven's Centennial Address, 1836, p. 45.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 1 95
Site of the Law Office of Fisher Ames, built in 1794, on
the corner of Court and High streets, near the Pitt's Head.
The building was afterward remodelled and reconstructed
as a dwelling-house. It was removed when the new Court
House was built, and again when the Dedham Bank build
ing was erected. It was a perfect sample of the old time
country lawyer's office. After the death of Fisher Ames
it was occupied by his son, John Worthington Ames, and
then by James Richardson ; and subsequently by Theron
Metcalf, afterward Judge of the Supreme Court. The late
Ex-Governor Clifford, Judge Seth Ames, and many other
lawyers of eminence in this and other States there read
law with Judge Metcalf.

196 the town of dedham.

FINAL ACTION OF THE TOWN.
At a Meeting of the inhabitants of the town of Dedham
held at Memorial Hall, April 4, 1887, —
Under Article 30, it was " Voted to raise and appropriate
the sum of $1090.29 to cover expenditures made under
the direction of the Committee in celebrating the Two
Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary."
Under Article 34, it was " Voted that a committee,
consisting of John R. Bullard, Henry O. Hildreth,
Julius H. Tuttle, Erastus Worthington, Winslow
Warren, and Don Gleason Hill be appointed to take
charge of the printing of the proceedings of the Two
Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary, with instructions to
print an edition of one thousand copies to be sold at cost,
and that the sum of $750.00 be raised and appropriated
therefor." At a meeting of the Committee appointed under the
foregoing vote of the town, held on Friday, June 3, 1887,
Henry O. Hildreth and Winslow Warren were
chosen a sub-committee to prepare and print a suitable
volume of the Proceedings at the Two Hundred and
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Incorporation of Dedham.

APPENDIX.

Frederic J. Stimson.
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25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 205
II.
ANNIVERSARY POEM.
Among other contributions which the unexpected
length of the programme prevented utilizing on the
occasion, was the following poem, written, at the request
of the Committee of Arrangements, by Charles A. Mackin
tosh, a member and Secretary of the Committee until a
few weeks before the celebration, when sickness enforced
his resignation and absence from the proceedings.
Mother of towns ! Thy children bow
In filial reverence here to-day.
The years lie lightly on thy brow,
Thy locks but show the trace of gray ;
And never sweeter were than now
The smiles that o'er thy features play.
To us of later, busier days
A thought old-fashioned seems thy dress ;
Thy mien sedate, thy cautious ways,
Thy standard of fastidiousness,
Thy calm content if matters each
Glide softly in the accustomed groove.
Little accord with those who preach :
" No matter where you move — but move ! "
And yet, as when we turn our eyes
From chromo-lithographic art
To where, in fading lines, there lies
Some work where truth alone had part ;
Or when upon the wearied ear.
Tortured with songs made to be sold,
Deafened by cacophonic seer,
Falls some grand harmony of old, —

206 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
We learn the lesson, needed sore
In this our feverish modern time, —
Leave not the foothold gained before
Till surely, higher, may we climb !
So, Mother Town, thine honored age
The more endears thee to each heart ;
We would not blot a single page.
We love thee better as thou art.

I love not the historian's trade,
In antiquarian dry-as-dust.
Each spade need not be proved a spade.
Some things we safely take on trust.
The distant star, the sunset skies.
The turbulent sea's sublime unrest.
Have charms one may not analyze
By any microscopic test.

What triumph for historic truth
To make the ennobling facts appear, —
This sage was flighty in his youth ;
That hero partial to his beer;
This orator took snuff, and that
Wofully shabby was in dress ;
While yon, the great divine, waxed fat
And fancied onions to excess ?

We gaze upon the far-off height, '
Robed in its own ethereal blue ;
How vastly more sublime the sight,
If at the time we only knew
The northeast half was owned by Shaw,
The other moiety was Bense's,
And Shaw was threatening Bense with law
Because he would n't mend his fences !

250TH ANNIVERSARY. 207
A larger brush, a hand more bold.
Should paint the picture of the past,
That when the story once is told.
Each tale, unperishing, may last.
Perchance my sympathies may err,
Yet must I rank as one of those
Who study Cromwell's character.
And not the wart upon his nose.

Therefore, although some other hand
Might many a blemish find, and flaw.
From when thou craved'st the Indian's land
And choused him under form of law,
I see alone the purpose high.
The courage stern, the steadfast aim.
Which strengthening as the years rolled by
Gave us a country and a name.

I see the spirit that awoke
A George's petty tyranny.
Till time was ripe, then snapped the yoke
And made the infant nation free ;
That moved resistless as the flood,
To keep that sacred flame alive,
Unsparing of its dearest blood
From Sixty-one to Sixty-five.

Mother of Towns and Men ! We bow
In filial reverence here to-day.
May years lie lightly on thy brow,
May health and peace be thine alway ;
Be honot'ed centuries hence as now.
We proudly hope, we humbly pray.

208 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.

III. — Page 12.
CHAPTER XXX.
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.
In the Year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty-six.
An Act to authorize the Town of Dedham to raise money for the Celebra
tion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of its Incorporation.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in
General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same,
as follows: —
Section i. The Town of Dedham is authorized to raise by
taxation a sum of money not exceeding one tenth of one per
centum of the assessed valuation of said town in the year one
thousand eight hundred and eighty-five, for the purpose of cele
brating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incor
poration of said town, and for publishing the proceedings of
such celebration, erecting tablets or monuments to mark places
and objects of historic interest, and restoring and preserving
any such existing monuments therein.
Section 2. This Act shall take effect upon its passage.
House of Representatives, Feb. 25, 1886.
Passed to be enacted. J. Q. A. Brackett, Speaker.
In Senate, Feb. 25, 1886.
A. E. Pillsbury, President.

Passed to be enacted.
February 26, i885.

Approved.

Geo. D. Robinson.

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 2O9
IV. — Page 36.
Dedham has been well styled a mother town. From her ample
territory at various times have been formed the following named
towns : —
Medfield, incorporated May 23, 165 1 ; Wrentham, incorporated
October 15, 1673; Needham, incorporated November 5, 1711;
Medway, incorporated October 24, 1713; Bellingham, incorpo
rated November 27,1719; Walpole, incorporated December 10,
1724; Franklin, incorporated March 2, 1778; Dover, incorpo
rated July 7, 1784; Norfolk, incorporated February 23, 1870;
Norwood, incorporated February 23, 1872 ; Wellesley, incorpo
rated April 6, 1881 ; Millis, incorporated February 24, 1885.
Foxborough, incorporated June 10, 1778, and Hyde Park, in
corporated April 22, 1868, contain a portion of the original
territory of Dedham. Portions of Dedham were annexed to
Dorchester and West Roxbury, and subsequently included within
the limits of Boston. A considerable portion of the present towns
of Natick and Sherbom was included in the original grant to
Dedham. A subsequent grant of land to Dedham in the
Pocumtuck valley was the beginning of the present town of
Deerfield.
v.— Page 66.
In the "Dedham Gazette" of March 26, 1864, appeared the
following article written by Mr. Charles C. Greenwood, of Need
ham, then, as now, a reliable authority in matters of local
history : —
Mr. Editor, — The following interesting scrap of personal history
is copied from a small slip of paper, yellow with age, which has been
preserved in the family of a descendant of Mrs. Chickering for a cen
tury and a quarter. Although the author's name does not appear,
there is no mistaking the peculiarly minute and elegant hand of Rev.
Jonathan Townsend, the first minister of this town. It reads thus : —
Needham, July 17, 1737-
This day died here Mrs. Lydia Chickering, in the Eighty-sixth year of her
age. She was born at Dedham, in New England, on July 14, 1652, and
about the year 1671 went up from thence to Hadley, where for the space of

2IO THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
about a year she waited upon Colonel Whalley and Colonel Goffe (two of
King Charles ists Judges) who had fied thither from the men who had
sought their life. She was the daughter of Capt. Daniel Fisher of Dedham,
one of the Magistrates of this Colony under the Old Charter. Having lived
a virtuous life, she died universally respected, and came to her grave in a
full age, as a shock of corn cometh in in his season.

VL — Page ;8.
The following item is copied from page lo of Dr. Ames's
Ledger A : —
Israel Everett to Dr. Nath'l Ames, Dr. 1775, April 19th. To
extracting a Bullet from the Cubitus of Israel Everett, Jr.,
which he received at the Battle of Lexington, the first of the
War with Great Britain. 3s
To sundry visits and dressings of the wound. I2i
VIL — Page 182.
The movement for the preservation of the Powder House in
1859 originated with the members of The Club, — an association
then existing in Dedham, and organized for social and literary
purposes. At that time The Club was composed of the following
members : Dr. Ebenezer P. Burgess, Alfred Hewins, Henry
O. Hildreth, John L.\throp, Dr. Joseph P. Paine, Henry W.
Richards, John D. Runkle, Frank H. Shorey, John C. Shorey,
Carlos Slafter, Josephus G. Taft, Erastus Worthington.
A committee consisting of Henry O. Hildreth, Henry W.
Richards, and John C. Shorey was appointed to make the neces
sary repairs, which were promptly done at an expense to The
Club of about thirty dollars. VIII.
Of the men who were prominent in the celebration of the Two
Hundredth Anniversary of the town's incorporation, almost all
have passed away.
Samuel F. Haven, the orator of the occasion, was bom in
Dedham, May 7, 1806. He was admitted to Harvard College

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 211
in the class of 1826, and subsequently took his first degree at
Amherst in that year. He was admitted to the bar in Middlesex
County, and began the practice of the law in Lowell. He was
appointed Librarian of the Antiquarian Society at Worcester,
Sept. 23, 1837, and at once removed to that city, where he
ever afterward resided. He received from Amherst College the
degree of LL.D., and that of A.M. from Harvard College. He
was a valued member of many learned societies. He died at
Worcester on the sth of September, i88i, at the age of seventy-
five years, four months. Mr. Haven had long been regarded as
one of the most eminent antiquarian and archaeological scholars
in the country.
Hon. Edward Everett, at that time Governor of the State, and
the most eminent of the guests, was of Dedham ancestry, he being
of the sixth generation in direct descent from Richard Evered,
one of the original settlers, who died in 1682. Governor Everett's
father, the Hon. Oliver Everett, was born in Dedham, but his dis
tinguished son was a native of Dorchester. Edward Everett was
Govemor from 1836 to 1840, member of both Houses of Congress,
Minister to England, and President of Harvard College. He died
in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865, at the age of seventy years.
Hon. James Richardson, President of the day, prominent for
many years in legal and pohtical circles, died in Dedham, June 7,
1858, aged eighty-seven.
Hon. Theron Metcalf, one of the Vice-presidents, after
a long and distinguished career as a lawyer and judge, died
in Boston, Nov. 13, 1875, aged ninety-one years and twenty-
eight days.
Hon. William Ellis, Chairman of the Committee of Arrange
ments, was born in Dedham in 1780, and was for many years the
leading land-surveyor in the county of Norfolk. He was much
occupied in public affairs, having been a Selectman, Representa
tive eight years, and a member of the Senate for Norfolk County
for three years. He was two years Assistant Justice of the Court
of Sessions, and from 1828 to 1835 a member of the first Board
of County Commissioners for Norfolk County. He died in
Dedham, November 28, 1852, aged seventy-two years.
General Nathaniel Guild, the Chief Marshal, was a native

212 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
of Dedham, and for many years prominent in town and mili
tary affairs. He died in Dedham, August 26, 1845, aged
seventy years.
Of the prominent actors in the events of that day, only five
survive, namely : Ira Cleveland, Esq., one of the Committee of
Arrangements, and for many years a leading and respected citizen,
now in his eighty-sixth year ; and four of the Aids to the Chief
Marshal, — Ira Russell, in his eighty-second year j Benjamin
Boyden, in his eighty-first year; John D. Colburn of West
Roxbury, in his eighty-fourth year ; and Theodore Metcalf of
Boston, now in his seventy-sixth year. All these gentlemen par
ticipated in the celebration as the invited guests of the town.

IX.

As frequent allusions have been made in preceding
pages of this volume to Worthington's " History of
Dedham," the following sketch of the hfe of the author
is herewith given : —
Erastus Worthington, the first of the name in Dedham,
was born in Belchertown, Mass., Oct. 8, 1779. He was gradu
ated at Williams College in the class of 1804. Among his
classmates were Luther Bradish and Henry Dwight Sedgwick of
New York, Judge Samuel Howe of Northampton, and Nathan
Hale of Boston. After his graduation Mr. Worthington was
employed for a time in teaching, and then began the study of
law, which he completed in the office of John Heard, Esq., of
Boston. He was first admitted as an attorney in Boston, but
came to Dedham to reside in 1809. Here he began the practice
of his profession, and was admitted as a Counsellor of the
Supreme Judicial Court in 18 13. He devoted himself exclu
sively to legal practice until 1825, when the Norfolk Mutual
Fire Insurance Company was organized mainly by his efforts,
and he became its first Secretary. From this time he gradually
withdrew from practice, although as Justice of the Peace he was
the magistrate of the town afterward during his life. In the

25OTH ANNIVERSARY. 213
spring of 1840, by reason of ill health, he was compelled to
resign his office as Secretary, and in the autumn of the same
year he removed with his family to Dayton, Ohio. In the
following spring, however, he returned to De'dham, where he
continued to reside until his death, which occurred from chronic
bronchitis, June 27, 1842. He left a widow and three sons, of
whom Erastus Worthington, now of Dedham, is the youngest.
Mr. Worthington was actively interested in politics as a
Republican during the War of 1812, and as a Democrat during
the administrations of Jackson and Van Buren. He delivered
an oration in Dedham, July 4, 1809, on "The Recent Measures
of the American Government," which was printed. He was a
member of the General Court from Dedham in 1814 and 1815.
He was also interested in the temperance reform, and was iden
tified with the anti-slavery movement in its beginning.
In 18 10, Mr. Worthington wrote and published anonymously
an elaborate pamphlet, entitled " An Essay on the Establish
ment of a Chancery Jurisdiction in Massachusetts." This was
a brief legal treatise, comprehending a general view of the
whole subject; and upon the excellent authority of the late
Judge Metcalf, who was contemporary in Dedham with Mr.
Worthington, it was the first essay published in the Common
wealth in favor of the establishment of an equity jurisdiction,
which for a long time was viewed with disfavor by the legal pro
fession, and which was not fully adopted until i860.
In 1827, Mr. Worthington wrote and published "The History
of Dedham from the Beginning of its Settlement in 1635 to
May, 1827." This History was written at a period when but few
town histories had been published, and besides some brief notes
to historical sermons which related to church matters, nothing
had been pubhshed concerning the history of Dedham. Mr.
Worthington was the first carefully and intelligently to study the
records of the town and of the churches and parishes in search
of materials for history, and he gathered and preserved such tra
ditions as were well authenticated sixty years ago. Moreover,
he endeavored to exhibit a faithful view of society in Dedham
in a retrospect of one hundred and ninety years. His History
is not merely a chronicle of events, but these are connected

214 THE TOWN OF DEDHAM.
and treated in the spirit and method of a true historian. The
narrative is concise, comprehensive, and accurate, though not so
exhaustive and minute as in town histories written in more re
cent times. Mr. Haven, in a note to his centennial address of i
1836, accords to Mr. Worthington the credit of first undertaking
to develop the history of the town.

University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambeidgb.

YALE UNIVERSITY

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