Westfield City (part 2 of 4)

The Passing Of Old Westfield

The Bicentennial came at a time that marked the passing of old Westfield. The old tradition was still strong. Men who incarnated its spirit were still alive. But they appear to have remained largely oblivious to what was happening. Some old customs of neighborliness and some old ways of trade still persisted. The atmosphere of a simple, hearty, democratic social life had not entirely disappeared. But the end of a period had come. It had been a good period, rich in the things that strengthened the mind and informed the heart. Its simplicities, its lack of modern conveniences, its homely ways are apparent enough now. We may not regret their loss but those of us who knew something of that period treasure our memories. We like to recall the park with its fence and bandstand and the town pump then still an institution. A real stagecoach carried us to the trains and drew up in front of the Woronoco House with becoming flourish. The yeastman rang his bell from door to door. The hulled corn and hominy man made his rounds. In season a kind soul brought us oysters weekly from the Sound. We played ball on the unkempt green in summer, often men and boys together. We skated on the old canal in winter. We were entertained by Cattle Shows on Moseley's Park and by fairs, held for worthy objects, in Whitman's Hall. Every fire was an opportunity for community co-operation, and always held an element of joy because of the rivalry between the "Bay State" and the "Rough and Ready" engines. We were expectant when Major Taylor's fat ox was to be killed. We waited at the gate once a week for Mr. Buell's News Letter, or later for the Hampden Times, papers which recorded incidents of the countryside and interpreted the community life. It was literature not to be replaced by more ambitious publications. Elm Street as yet did not belie its name and houses still stood in open yards telling of the street's earlier day. We drew our water from wells or cisterns and we heated our rooms with stoves. On dark nights we steered our courses by the aid of dim and infrequent gas lights. We were without many things which this age deems necessary, but many lived glad and contented days, and even the life of a town consisteth not in the things a town possesseth.

The Last Half Century

The last half century has seen a growth and expansion grateful to all who care for the town's material prosperity. The old center gradually changing remains the center of a new town. Elm Street has found its destiny, and its side streets yield themselves to trade. On miles of new streets and the highlands beyond are built the attractive homes of a prosperous people. An adequate water and sewer system, electric lights, paved streets and new bridges are features of the new Westfield. Electric cars run along the old streets while the steam cars on elevated tracks no longer endanger life. On two parts of the old plow land extensive manufactories have been built, and about one of these has grown up a Slovak village. On the North or "Cellar Side " other industrial plants have been erected in the old fields. On the old canal and under Prospect Hill the business founded by H. B. and Edwin Smith in 1854, an<^ developed by John

Westf1Eld, Massachusetts

Reed, has greatly enlarged its borders. The Atheneum has changed its home, having outgrown its earlier benefactors, and now a large library waits to be housed by the Whitney bequest. The hospital bearing the ancient name of Noble stands as a house of mercy on yonder hill, while the Gillett home and the Shurtleff home have opened doors to the homeless. Decade to decade has shown a steady increase in population, which was 12,310 in 1900, 16,400 in 1910. In this, the 25Oth year, approximately 20,000 people make up the town.

It is the character of this population that presents us with the most important facts of the town's growth, and more than any other thing leads us to speak of the "New Westfield." At least one half of the present population is of other than Anglo-Saxon stock. Some 6,300 persons are not of the English-speaking races. There are estimated to be in the town some 80 Hebrews having a synagogue, a few Greeks and 800 Italians. There are 200 Spaniards, and a group of 650 Lithuanians with their own church. The new Czecho-Slovakia is represented by 500 Czechs or Bohemians, beside 500 Slovaks forming a community of their own about their church, 3,500 Poles with their large religious establishment comprise the largest element of the new population. A prosperous Lutheran Church serves the religious needs of a group of that denomination. Many of these people are employed in the factories of the town. Some on the land as farmers, and some in other ways bear much of the heat and burden of the present day.

But other men and other races have labored and these newcomers have entered into their labors. They find here fields cleared, roads built, railroads constructed, many public works completed. They find provided conveniences of life which the immigrants of other periods could not enjoy. They find here the foundations of a free govern- ment, laid at great cost of blood and treasure. They find here the delicate fabric of a democratic order built thereon. These people have come of their own will. They have come to better their conditions. Many of them have come to escape the tyranny of old autocracies. These people have reason to appreciate the purpose of the founders of this town and to cherish a like spirit. We welcome them at this time as sons and daughters of Westfield by a spiritual adoption, asking them in their day to make their primal offering of labor, laying some good material foundation, and with us to develop and maintain the institutions of civic and religious liberty.

The Spirit Of Old Westfield

It was the purpose of the founders of this town to lay some good foundation in the name of the God of liberty upon which a better future might be built. The story of the passing years has proved beyond a peradventure that the purpose of the early days was so loyally held, so practically expressed, so surely handed on, so truly developed, that here the principle of democracy has always had a vital existence and has prevailed to such a degree as to mark Westfield as peculiarly a democratic community.

Here all facts have been given consideration and all forces have had their opportunity. Here competent leadership has always been available and wisely accepted; but here no individual has dominated and no aristocracy has established itself. Here no family has been established in great wealth with its group of dependents ; but here not a few families have accumulated comfortable livings and many have shared in a becoming prosperity.

a community of well-to-do, independent, self-respecting people, incapable of subserviency and able, in spite of strongly held opinions, to so co-operate as to maintain a public spirit and to ensure the common weal. May we not add that Westfield has so practically entered into the good will of the Gospel that what the Fathers of Springfield hoped for us has been true, namely: "That they through the favor of God may grow up into a comfortable society and be a happy neighborhood to us and our friends and theirs."

And now, Mr. Chairman, I venture to speak for those sons and daughters of Westfield who have left the old home and are rarely privileged to cross old thresholds and commune with old friends. In fancy we often walk these streets, oblivious to much outwardly and materially new that is matter of the town's just pride. We behold things that are not as though they were. The associations and adventures of childhood again refresh our spirits. We yield ourselves once more to the instructors and guides of our youth. We look upon the faces of men and women whose example, beyond any knowledge of their own, influenced our ideals. We take part again in those community events of long ago that awakened in us social insight and civic purpose. We seek out every spring that made glad the mind and heart of youth, thus refreshing our tried and burdened spirits so that faith and hope and love may still endure. With reverent steps we visit the places where we had our Godgiven visions that in the later days, having done all, we may stand. Perhaps, to us who thus often dwell here in imagination, rather than to you who in reality abide here, it has been given to realize the full significance of such a community life as Westfield has achieved and to be thankful that our youth was nurtured in this valley, where the Great Spirit once made revelations to the youthful Alquat, and where so often since mercy and truth have met together and righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

We have made place for other and we may hope better servants of the old town's later day. We have served in other and perhaps less pleasant surroundings, but baptised in the spirit of old Westfield we have sought to keep the faith. In the instructor's chair, in halls of legislation, in the pulpit, in the laboratory and office, amid the whirling wheels of industry and in the marts of trade, in some places of eminence and many places of obscurity, we have sought to be true to our heritage. More than this, we have sought to hand on the tradition. Our sons empowered by the same spirit have fought with your sons in the Great War for the right. Some, bearing names honored in the last generation and carrying the high hopes of many old time families, have laid down their very precious lives that democracy might prevail in all the earth.

This spirit will endure in the new Westfield and will empower it for future adventures in the field of human freedom. For there press upon us the very difficult, dangerous and yet necessary problems of democracy seeking its logical development in the field of industry. The spirit will endure though we have carried out to burial the men of the past in whom it lived, developed and expressed itself. For it is the spirit of liberty that can never die. It is that urge at the heart of life whereby men seek to come into fellowship with the eternal Spirit, seeking the freedom of the Sons of God. Through much weakness and weariness, through mistakes and failures, through new ways of prejudice, injustice and violence, which arrogance and tyranny have evoked, by the highway of public service and the lowway of private devotion, the race moves on to its goal. The movement is necessary and the goal is sure. The purpose that characterized old Westfield is part of an eternal purpose, a part of the constant struggle of the human soul to answer the call, "Son of man stand upon thy feet and I will speak with thee." Speak with thee! Not with an-

Judge Michael H. Sullivan

I deem it a great honor to be here this evening, and to be invited to say a word ; because, in the first place, I am not a native of Westfield, and, of course, to be invited to a birthday party is to be admitted to the bosom of the family; and, secondly, because I have a great affection for Westfield.

Born in a little town to the west - Granville - I very early in life yearned to come down into this beautiful valley and see what Westfield was like. Thirty-five years ago Westfield to me was a huge city. I recall now the pungent odor from the tar sidewalks as I came to the head of Court Street. The drive down through Court Street, with the Soldiers' Monument at the end, was almost enough for one day.

I recall, better than I do what is there now, the view on Elm Street as I turned from Court Street by the monument. The old mortar and pestle sign pointing out Holland's drug store and the great clock that indicated the place of J. A. Lakin, the optician. I never could quite tell by that clock whether it was twenty minutes of four or twenty minutes past eight. Then, immediately across the Green, that cameo of the town, were the old feed troughs, where the country horses took their lunch. In the center of the roadway part of the Green was the old watering tub, where the horses of this and adjoining towns quenched their thirst. The view down Elm Street, looking north, with the rows of hitching posts on either side, nearly always tenanted, sometimes by horses that proclaimed humane and conscientious owners, and sometimes - I fear oftener - by horses that proclaimed inhumane owners.

Finally the trip across Great River, over the bridge that was then nearly new. It was a long time before I associated Great River with Little River. I thought that Great River meant that it was among the great rivers of the world.

Then, after crossing Great River bridge, to come to the Boston & Albany Railroad, with its huge gates, that to the country youngster seemed lifted and lowered in some mysterious way. To view all these things once or twice a year were great events for a boy who lived where the whistle of a steam engine could not be heard and where there was not water enough in one spot to drown in.

Decoration Day in Westfield was the event of the year! To hear the band play; to see the Soldiers' Monument beautifully decorated by the high school boys ; to march with the veterans, - or at least to go along on the sidewalk beside the marching veterans, - with the band playing, to the cemetery, and to see and to hear the exercises, - that day did for a full twelve months.

And later on, when the educational opportunities in the hilltop town had been exhausted, - or an indulgent teacher said so, - to come down to the Westfield High School! The thing, I suppose, that will stay with me longest as an impression about the High School was the fact that there were men teachers there. Men dressed up, working but four or five hours a day, teaching boys and girls, was something new to me. All the men that I had theretofore known did no such work, - not one of them. Usual as it may seem to us now, yet it was a very outstanding fact to me my first year in High School. The principal was some wonderful man ! The superintendent, of course, was only to be looked upon from a distance!

My first week in the High School was the longest week mentally that I have ever known, - even to this day. When Friday came and school closed for the week I could not wait until the next day, when the team was to come for me, but went the nine miles home, all uphill, a rise of eleven hundred feet, as you know, in less time than it was many times made by a horse. Because I was going home!

And that is the thing about this meeting that makes it intimate and serious. It concerns itself with home, with the days of youth, the days of small things, and the days of impressions that are most deep and most lasting.

But I was asked by your committee to say something of the future, and so I must not digress further. As the speaker intimated, it would be only a very courageous man who would attempt to forecast for more than a day what is before us. I doubt if, in the mad race which we are all engaged in, we ever think more than a week ahead. At any rate, very few of us do. A decade seems like an age, as we look forward to it, and when we realize what has been achieved in the world since you had your last celebration we are amazed. Indeed, the race has traveled very far! It becomes all the more astounding when we realize that most of the wonderful material progress has come in the last half of that fifty-year period.

Your committee should have selected a man with imagination - great imagination - I have none - to tell you simply a little about what the next fifty years will bring forth. But before I attempt to give you the slightest suggestion of what I believe will happen I would like to recall to your minds briefly what wonderful things came out of the last fifty years.

To speak alone of one thing, - electricity. What wonders have come out of that one thing! I was not born when you had your last celebration, but I was four years old when the first electric light was made, - the very first one; and that was long before the electric light became commercialized ; yet we find ourselves thinking now that electricity has always been with us.

think of the telephone now, any more than we do of the air that we breathe ; it is so common. We were reminded of its part in our lives, however, a short while ago in Boston, when a week's strike almost disrupted many lines of business and about one-half of our homes.

Out of electricity have come the telephone, electric light and power, and from the power came electric cars. The explosive engine was not possible without electricity. And so the automobile and aeroplane would not have come to us were it not for the explosive engine. The graphophone is another result of electricity, the X-ray, that has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars, and the moving pictures, perhaps the youngest member of electricity's family.

What tremendous things have come out of electricity! What a tremendous difference electricity has made in our lives! - just those few children of electricity!

And there should be added two other things, - not children of electricity, but just as wonderful as any of them, and perhaps more useful, for it is perhaps due to their discovery that many of us are here tonight and thousands of others are living. I refer to the antiseptic method of surgery and antitoxins.

Most of the above named inventions and discoveries have been developed and put into practical use in the last half of the fifty years that we are concerned with. That is, in the last twenty-five years. But even more astounding, perhaps, is what has taken place in the last five years, which is only a tenth part of the period we are concerned with.

A great World War has been fought, and, we hope, the world purged of much of its evil thereby. One of the greatest handicaps, perhaps, that the human race has ever had has been abolished in this country, we believe, - namely, intoxicating liquor. Finally, one half of the population for me, but went the nine miles home, all uphill, a rise of eleven hundred feet, as you know, in less time than it was many times made by a horse. Because I was going home!

And that is the thing about this meeting that makes it intimate and serious. It concerns itself with home, with the days of youth, the days of small things, and the days of impressions that are most deep and most lasting.

But I was asked by your committee to say something of the future, and so I must not digress further. As the speaker intimated, it would be only a very courageous man who would attempt to forecast for more than a day what is before us. I doubt if, in the mad race which we are all engaged in, we ever think more than a week ahead. At any rate, very few of us do. A decade seems like an age, as we look forward to it, and when we realize what has been achieved in the world since you had your last celebration we are amazed. Indeed, the race has traveled very far! It becomes all the more astounding when we realize that most of the wonderful material progress has come in the last half of that fifty-year period.

Your committee should have selected a man with imagination - great imagination - I have none - to tell you simply a little about what the next fifty years will bring forth. But before I attempt to give you the slightest suggestion of what I believe will happen I would like to recall to your minds briefly what wonderful things came out of the last fifty years.

To speak alone of one thing, - electricity. What wonders have come out of that one thing! I was not born when you had your last celebration, but I was four years old when the first electric light was made, - the very first one; and that was long before the electric light became commercialized ; yet we find ourselves thinking now that electricity has always been with us.

think of the telephone now, any more than we do of the air that we breathe ; it is so common. We were reminded of its part in our lives, however, a short while ago in Boston, when a week's strike almost disrupted many lines of business and about one-half of our homes.

Out of electricity have come the telephone, electric light and power, and from the power came electric cars. The explosive engine was not possible without electricity. And so the automobile and aeroplane would not have come to us were it not for the explosive engine. The graphophone is another result of electricity, the X-ray, that has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars, and the moving pictures, perhaps the youngest member of electricity's family.

What tremendous things have come out of electricity! What a tremendous difference electricity has made in our lives! - just those few children of electricity!

And there should be added two other things, - not children of electricity, but just as wonderful as any of them, and perhaps more useful, for it is perhaps due to their discovery that many of us are here tonight and thousands of others are living. I refer to the antiseptic method of surgery and antitoxins.

Most of the above named inventions and discoveries have been developed and put into practical use in the last half of the fifty years that we are concerned with. That is, in the last twenty-five years. But even more astounding, perhaps, is what has taken place in the last five years, which is only a tenth part of the period we are concerned with.

A great World War has been fought, and, we hope, the world purged of much of its evil thereby. One of the greatest handicaps, perhaps, that the human race has ever had has been abolished in this country, we believe, - namely, intoxicating liquor. Finally, one half of the population heretofore disqualified from taking part in our government is now to be admitted to full partnership in government. Women are about to come into full suffrage. Therefore, with these three tremendous happenings in the last five years, who can say what five years more will unfold, to say nothing of what the next fifty years will reveal!

But, my friends, I venture that in the next fifty years - and whether in the first twenty-five or the last twenty-five I do not say, but in the next fifty years - we will have turned our attention to art, to the finer side of nature, to a greater extent than we have in the past. I think the coarse, material age is about ready to stop for a breathing spell. And what will it mean?

First, it will mean wonderful things in education. We will educate to live and for life, both. Schools will combine living and life, and I hope those two will be combined so that neither one will run away with the other.

Have you ever considered what we have done with the most beautiful things that Nature has given to us, - our rivers? We have settled upon them. We have harnessed them. We have made them unsightly, instead of using them for what I think some day we will come to see was their real and most important function.

We have allowed the railroads to run through the parlors of our houses, - right through the center of the towns. We have built our guest houses - the hotels - in congested districts and upon railroads. We have not tried to show strangers the place where we live and to make them comfortable and happy while with us, so that they would talk pleasantly of us when they went away; but we have been more concerned in putting them where we could commercialize them.

Now, I think those things are going to pass in the next fifty years. I hope in the first part of it, too, because I wish to live to see it happen. But if it does not come until the last part of it, even then will this prophecy be fulfilled.

Now I wish to make the suggestion concrete. I believe you will retain the Green, - a cameo on the breast of the town. At any rate, I hope you will. I believe that you will establish on one of the four corners of it a great City Hall, - for this town will be a city in a few years, and in fifty years from now it will have a population of 75,000 people, at least. On another corner of the Green will be built a great Chamber of Commerce ; on the third corner a Community House, - a house for community interests, where all interests may be welded and amalgamated, - a melting pot, as some people vulgarly put it sometimes; and, lastly, on the fourth corner you will have the old Atheneum - but probably called the Public Library. And with these four edifices, representing government, industry, community co-operation and interest, and mental development and recreation, you will have the ideals of the old town as they have been enunciated here this evening, and which have made Westfield great, and will make it even greater, as the fathers intended.

At that time I think you will have great broad highways crossing at about the Green, running east and west and north and south. I hope that you will extend Broad Street at its present width directly south to the sister town of Southwick, which in the day I speak of will be annexed to, and a part of, the city of Westfield. I believe that, running north from the Green, Elm Street will be made a continuation of Broad Street. Great River will be unchained, the dam removed and the river bed sunk. The banks will be grass or flower covered, with no white sand islands appearing in the lowlands nine months of the year. The river will be a line of beauty.

Your Boston & Albany Railroad will be diverted as far back as Lee's Crossing, to the east of Sunset Hill and Upper Pochassic, joining the present line again below Woronoco. The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad will use the Boston & Albany tracks from the East Mountain district to Lee's Crossing, and then by a new route of its own across Little River, joining the present location below the old Southwick line.

Your hotels will be on your terraces to the east and to the west of the town, - one on Prospect Hill, with a golf course attached, that will extend away nearly to Camp Bartlett. Another hotel on the terrace to the west, where your present Country Club house stands, with a golf course extending along the ridges of the river.

You will have four of the best air route stations in Western Massachusetts, one standing on each point of the compass. Travel by railroad in the future will be very little known. Nearly all travel of any distance will be through the air. Street cars will be only a memory. Horses will not be allowed within the city limits, and can only be seen as curiosities in corrals and equitation fields. The streets will be paved with a noiseless substance and cleaned by vacuum process.

You will have, perhaps in the location beyond the present Woronoco Park, a large campus, with a beautiful cluster of Normal School buildings on one side of it, in which courses will be offered that will prepare teachers for every grade offered in the public schools. On the other side of that campus will be a beautiful cluster of buildings called the State University.

To the south will be clustered all your manufacturing industries, and not a wheel of one of them turned by power made on their sites. They will be run by electricity, which will be generated far beyond the city limits, on the hills to the west, where there is abundant water power now

The farming land from Westfield River Valley to the Farmington River Valley will be used as intensively as the farming land of Germany was used before the war. It will be covered, I hope, with a goodly number of the returning soldiers, who have already applied for opportunity to own and develop farm land. Then every year you will see upon those hillsides the annual encampment of the American Legion, - the men who actually fought for and preserved our liberties.

Forests will be grown and tended as crops are now. New England, I am astounded to find, now has to import about one half of the lumber that it uses for building purposes. I can remember the day when New England exported lumber, and that day will come again, I hope. But it cannot come unless forests are cultivated.

Now, if you can for a moment look at the picture of Westfield fifty years from now, you will not feel a bit more astounded than the people who were here fifty years ago, and did not stay but a year or two after that time, would feel today, - as one speaker has already said, if they were to return and see it now.

I heard a story a short time ago of a man who had been dead forty or fifty years and suddenly returned to earth. He found it so hard to accustom himself to the traffic underneath the ground in the large cities, as well as on the surface and in the air, that, without saying which of the two places he came from, he expressed a desire to return immediately.

And so, friends of Westfield, this little picture that I have drawn is so short of what will actually befall in the next fifty years, so short of the actual exploits and achievements that will have come when this town is again celebrating her birthday, the three hundredth, that I think I shall apologize for it. But I do say to you, that if, after the purging of the war of the last five years, with the two great forces, - one evil, about to end ; the other constructive, about to begin, - I say that if you cannot get somewhere in the next fifty years far beyond the imagination of anybody now living to suggest, even, it will be because you have not followed the ideals that have been West field's for two hundred and fifty years, - it will be because the vigor and enterprise and initiative and ingenuity of the American people in this section have failed. But I cannot believe that they will fail.

Labor Day

"Gayly decorated booths all around the Green blossomed forth today with soft beverages, banners and 'red hots,' to say nothing of the dozens of other articles offered for sale. The historical exhibit and Hostess House on Broad Street were visited by scores, who especially admired the New England cabin interior; and the tea room was well patronized. The Boy Scouts erected a tent headquarters next door south of the Hostess House and radiated from there all over town selling souvenir programs.

"This, the second day of the 25oth Anniversary Celebration opened with a parade by the Westfield Brass Band from in front of the Town Hall to the M. B. Whitney playground on the south bank of the Westfield River, which at the jubilee of fifty years ago was under water because of the flood which wrought all manner of havoc. Here Uncle Sam's dare-devil acrobats in khaki, on spirited, careening mounts, gave an exhibition which will long be remembered by the three thousand Westfieldians and guests who witnessed the stunts performed. The riding took place in plain sight of the grand-stand and bleachers, but just northwest of the diamond.

"The program of the cavalry troopers from Fort Ethan Allen, Vt., first of all displayed the regular cavalry drill in troop formation. Then there was executed, with splendid horsemanship, a fancy drill by the whole troop. This involved spirals, corkscrews and the double circle. One of the most dramatic parts of the whole performance was what is termed the 'rescue race.' Cavalrymen came onto the field, dismounted and fired their guns as a signal of distress as they would do if their horses had been shot under them. Their companions then dashed into view and effected a rescue. Cossack riding, cross-stirrup fashion and standing up, furnished thrills a-plenty for the spectators. But doubtless the most thrill-starting number of all was the Roman race with one man astride two horses. A couple of the men performed the 'monkey drill,' which is often done in the Wild West shows; also in range riding they did the Wild West saddle vault and picked up handkerchiefs from the ground with ease. Another drove a team of four horses, and two others risked their necks to supply fun for the crowds which swarmed the fields and slopes around.

"The troop was made up of sixty-five men, and in addition to its many horses, brought with it two motor-trucks and an automobile side-car. The men have been sleeping out in the open in pup tents since their arrival early Sunday. This morning at 11.56, at the shrill of a whistle, six of the troop's nine, dust-colored, large tents went up into place simultaneously, and soon tent-stakes were pounded in and the men had things shipshape for any kind of weather. The troop will march in the big parade on Wednesday afternoon." - The Springfield Republican.

Baseball Committee

Baseball enthusiasts keenly enjoyed the baseball throwing contests and the base-running contests which were held Monday morning on the Whitney playgrounds. Participants were stationed far out in the field, and attempted to throw the sphere so as to hit the home-plate. John Dowd won the first prize, and Lester Robinson the second prize. Henry Miller won first prize in the base-running contest and "Clickey" Clark came out second. The first prize in each contest was $3, with $2 as a second prize.

Two Hundred And Fiftieth Anniversary Shop League Ball Game

One of the most enjoyable events of the morning was the baseball game between the two leading teams of the Westfield shop league. The Westfield Manufacturing team had hoped to be one of the two teams to play, but the Foster Machine Company and the H. B. Smith Company nines finally were the ones to clash. The Foster players defeated the foundrymen 4 to o in a game of tense moments.

Monday afternoon the central streets of the town were jammed with hundreds of automobiles bearing parties from nearly all points in Western New England to the historical pageant at Wolfpit meadows. The police should be complimented upon the masterly way in which they handled the immense influx of traffic. The Boy Scouts who helped in many places also deserve much commendation.

Crane Park was black with the cars parked there under a check-system of the Pageant Parking Committee, who agree that over twelve hundred cars were accommodated, and the number of people attending the pageant was estimated to be from eight to ten thousand.

The diversions in the evening were more of the "homey" than spectacular sort. "Visiting round" was in order and many from out of town called on old acquaintances. There were informal family reunions, notable among which was a reunion of the descendants of General William Shepard with about forty in attendance. In this group was former Senator Wetmore of Rhode Island, great-grandson of General Shepard, and one who contributed largely to the Monument Fund. Candles glowed warmly in not a few windows and crowds were out to listen to the band concerts at eight o'clock. The iO4th Regiment band played on Two-mile Falls Park and Short's Band on the Green.

In the distance a form can be seen approaching accompanied by many white-draped figures. These are followed by a group of beautiful wraithlike creatures, clad in exquisite colors, with veils drawn over their faces. As they advance, voices are heard singing a weird chant. Behold! It is Father Time who sings: "I come I know not whence, - I go I know not whither, - for I am Time." Thus he passes on with his ghostly followers. But the others remain, and as the chanting almost imperceptably changes to soft music and the alluring strains increase in volume, they lift their veils and begin a dance symbolizing "The Dawn of Creation." This dance of joy is suddenly interrupted by an Indian war-whoop, and they flee in confusion.

The Coming Of The Indians

When this land was first explored by Europeans it was inhabited by the Red Man. Where this race came from, how many years it had dwelt here, and what peoples it displaced, we do not know. There are historians who believe that the Indians were preceded by another race who built beautiful palaces and large cities, which long ago crumbled into dust. Others suppose that mounds and various evidences of an earlier occupation were the works of the ancestors of these Indians. Therefore, with no direct knowledge or evidences at hand of the ancestry of the Red Indian, their coming is merely symbolical.

Extremely improvident, they cultivated the soil very little, and depended almost entirely upon the chase. Hunting and dancing constituted their chief enjoyment. Their great interest in life was to procure food and devour it, and to subdue their enemies.

Indian Camp With Its Primitive Occupations

Indian braves on foot and on horse-back appear, followed by their squaws and little ones, with the drags on which are their tepees and simple equipment. A fire is started, the camp is set up and the primitive home life of the Indian is presented.

Episode Ii

Mary Pynchon met John Holyoke on the journey from Boston, and they became lovers and were afterward married. In his story called "Bay Path," Dr. Holland has Mary Pynchon name Mount Holyoke after her lover, and Mount Tom for a pet deer.

The meeting with the Indians was friendly, and after the land was transferred, the "Pipe of Peace" was smoked. This ceremony always followed such transactions between the Indian and the White Man.

The meaning of the written deed of transfer was explained to the Indians, and their representatives signed it by each drawing a picture on the parchment. The price paid was:

The western portion of the land bought by William Pynchon and the settlers contained a trading-post called by the Indians "Woronoke." Gradually the settlers took over grants of land at "Woronoco," the earliest recorded being in 1658. Because of its situation at the fork of two rivers which were watered by many streams, the name " Streamfield " was suggested; but in 1669 it was incorporated as the Town of Westfield. This historic scene is depicted in Episode II. An Indian runner comes bringing some portentious message. As he approaches, the chief and other braves gather round. He points behind him and in the distance soon appears the little band of settlers.

After signing the transfer and smoking the Peace-pipe, John Pynchon and his party leave. The Indians have a farewell dance, break camp and move to a distant place where they again set up their tepees, and whence the smoke of their camp-fires is visible throughout the next few scenes.

Episode Iii

In 1676, an order came from Boston urging the inhabitants to abandon the town and move to Springfield for protection from the Indian uprising known as " King Philip's War."

"If you people be averse from our advice," wrote Boston, "we must be necessitated to draw off our forces from them (you), for we can not spare them, nor supply them with ammunition."

A meeting was held with all the settlers attending, and after very little debating they returned to their homes, having decided to ignore the order from Boston. . . . "there is not a man among us has any ye least inclination to remove that way," they replied.

At the beginning of this episode children are playing on the Green, and men are busy at work, when a messenger arrives by way of a canoe on the river. Immediately the peaceful scene is broken by the voice of the towncrier calling to a meeting. All come running to the Green where the town clerk reads the order from Boston. After the vote is taken they all kneel in prayer before appointing sentinels and making other arrangements for their own defense.

The Pioneers Conquering The Wilderness

The labors, the trials, and the sufferings of the pioneers are remarkable features of the early life. The long and distressful winters, with sickness and famine, together with the savage warfare of the Indians were very depressing; but by a determined, holy purpose which has given to their times the tide of "the heroic age of the Republic," - they conquered.

This second scene of Episode III is a symbolic representation of the pioneers struggling with and conquering the wilderness. The powers of the forest, the powers of the river and the mist-maidens, portrayed by different groups of young girls, come forth in obedience to the call of the Spirit of the Wilderness. With her they dance their symbolic dances. Then a man and woman are seen pressing on, encouraging each other as they come. Upon them descend the powers of the forest who circle round and beat upon them. The man overcomes them with his strong arm only to be attacked by the other groups, - the powers of the river and the mist-maidens. Fever, clad all in red, attacks him while the wife gathers herbs to make him cooling drinks. Gray famine follows, but is also overcome, and finally death appears. A desperate struggle ensues, out of which the man emerges triumphant. Then the Spirit of the Wilderness appears offering obeisance and the pioneers pass on as conquerors with those whom they have subdued in attendance.

Episode Iv

In 1725 the first Dame school was established in Westfield, with the "Widow" Catherine Noble as the teacher. The Dame pursued her spinning and household affairs while she taught the children. The girls were taught to sew and make "samplers," while lessons were given by means of the "Horn-book," - a paddle-shaped piece of wood with printed matter fastened on it under a layer of horn so thin as to be transparent.

The children came into their own and performed realistic antics in Episode IV, as they came trooping onto the Green accompanied by the "Widow" Noble and her spinning-wheel. The little girls, in caps and kerchiefs, busied themselves with samplers; while the boys, in short coats and long tight trousers, divided their attention between horn-books and mischief.

Episode

This episode deals with thrilling Revolutionary days. A messenger is seen hurrying onto the Green, bringing news of the battle of Lexington. From all the countryside the minute-men rush into the town, a few with musket or sword, many with implements from the shop or farm, but all eager to fight, and shortly a company of seventy men under Lieutenant John Shepard leaves for Boston; while sweethearts, wives and children cling to them and bid them sorrowful farewell.

worthy memorial to her distinguished son, but a valuable and enduring work of art which she may always regard with pride and satisfaction. "

"If rain failed to halt the progress of the parade, it did disrupt the ceremonies planned for the unveiling and the dedication of the Major-General William Shepard monument. Optimists to the last, the committee made every arrangement for carrying out the program according to schedule. The Red Cross stand was built, and occupied by a few brave women. Hundreds of seats had been placed facing the exedra and the statue for the unveiling exercises and the accommodation of those who wished to remain for the speaking. The prescribed areas were roped off also, to handle the dense crowds which had been expected. The weather forced the abandonment of this plan, and at the last moment it was decided to have the exercises in the Methodist Church which is located within a few rods of the statue.

"Almost before the military parade had finished passing the reviewing stand, Miss Elizabeth Grover Shepard, of Short Hills, N. J., great-great-great-granddaughter of the Revolutionary hero, accompanied by Edwin Shepard of Westfield, a great-great-grandson of Westfield 's General and a returned overseas service man, stepped to the statue exedra. Chairman Henry W. Ely of the Monument Committee spoke briefly. Miss Shepard placed a wreath at the base of the statue and then pulled the unveilingcord, and as the shroud slipped from the great bronze figure, two huge American flags unfolded slowly at either side. This completed the unveiling ceremony.

" Notices nailed to trees and buildings told of the change of arrangements and within a few moments the Methodist Church was packed to capacity. Before the opening of the official program there were selections by the church organist. As the party of distinguished guests and members of the several committees filed to the pulpit platform, the audience rose in greeting and remained standing while the iO4th Infantry Band played 'Gloria' from Twelfth Mass' by Mozart. " - The Springfield Union.

Speakers At Dedication Of The General Shepard Monument

His Excellency Calvin Coolidge, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Hon. Samuel W. McCall, former Governor of Massachusetts Major-General Clarence R. Edwards, United States Army John C. Robinson

Rev. John H. Lockwood, D.D.

Thou Eternal God, our Father, Father of all men, of every nation, we lift to Thee this day the voice of thanksgiving that our lot has fallen in such a goodly heritage, that we have so great a domain and so noble an ancestry to remember at this time. We call upon our souls and all that is within us to bless and magnify Thy great and holy name, and, remembering Thy many mercies, we remember especially today the heroic lives that have made this land what it is, in character and in blessedness.

We thank Thee for those noble souls who from generation to generation have sought not their own, but have merged their personality into the weal of the common good. We thank Thee that we have one especially to remember this day, who went out from this region, a lad, to fight the battles of his country; and again when his country was menaced went out to spend years in faithful, devoted, efficient service.

We thank Thee that as we gather today so worthy a leader is impressed upon us. We thank Thee for those who have come after him who, like him, have considered their own personal good but a privilege by way of offering upon the nation's welfare. And we pray Thee, O Lord, that as our poor minds are stirred up by way of remembrance, our wills may be energized to do our part in this goodly line, to take the torch that has come down to us undimmed and pass it on with quickening glow to those who shall come after us, so that this land shall continue to be a heritage for all the oppressed, for the poor and the needy, and shall continue to be instinct with high purposes and holy ideals.

Bless those who shall take part in these exercises, and grant that everything that is done here in concluding this memorial celebration shall redound to Thine honor and may tend to provoke to nobler manhood and worthier citizenship all who relate it to this goodly town.

Henry W. Ely

Citizens of no mean country, - a country of unnumbered acres; rich in natural resources, producing under its own flag every necessity and luxury sufficient to feed, clothe, arm and transport from continent to continent half of the civilized world; first in primary and industrial education and in the practice of the useful arts; courageous, without fear; invincible in war; the refuge for more than two centuries of the poor, oppressed, and of such as seek liberty and happiness from everywhere, that seek conscience freedom, without distinction as to race, creed or religion; the home of the sower and the reaper, of the scholar, the artisan and the mechanic, the homemakers country, we welcome you.

Your country has not been, and is not now, a quitter country; it is in no sense a negative country; it is not a neutral country; no country in a hundred years has exercised indirectly at least a more potential and commanding influence in all lands, than has the United States of America. Its missionaries of every kind have carried to the ends of the earth backed by the strongest public opinion at home, the gospel of right living and the establishment of right government. Your country carries in the forefront of civilization the torch that is lighting the way of human progress through the ages. From the force of circumstances and by reason of its inherent fundamental Tightness and soundness the United States holds in its hands responsibility for the future conscientious conduct and civilization throughout the world.

but on moral sovereignty, the tenacity with which our people have clung to this ideal; to the Pilgrim and Revolutionary fathers who came into this wilderness world and with their bare hands established a new nation for themselves and their posterity; in short, this government is a composite man not like the chain as weak or strong as the weakest link, but stronger than the strongest man, wiser than the wisest man, more patient than the most patient man, more altruistic than any man. While I have seen men who would take advantage of or receive special favors from their government through weakness or selfishness, I have never yet seen an American who would for a moment tolerate departure by his government from the highest type of morality, justice, brotherly kindness or be willing that his government should do less than its utmost in the interest not only of his countrymen, but all distressed and suffering peoples everywhere.

Westfield remembers today, with satisfaction and pride, the thousands of its sons and daughters who, in the gone by years, wrought worthily and effectively and have passed over to the majority. We feel the influence of their potential lives; they are not lost to us, these inhabitants of another country are with us now. It is our great good fortune and pleasure to welcome as our guests His Excellency, the governor of the Commonwealth, a former distinguished governor of the Commonwealth, a major general of the United States Army, and distinguished citizens occupying high places in the government of our country, our Commonwealth, our county and our town; one and all we welcome you.

And you venerable citizens, soldiers of 1861, who came forward at your country's call to take part in the irrepressible conflict for the preservation of the union, and to bring freedom and opportunity to an oppressed race, you boys in blue, - God bless and keep you each and every one, - we greet you. And you sons approaching middle life who went forth in accordance with the best traditions of this country to bring liberty and opportunity, to establish orderly government in Cuba, and in the Philippines, we extend to you a most hearty welcome.

America, the child, has proved its regard for Europe, the parent. You sons of Westfield, who but yesterday rallied around the banner of the great republic and in the fiercest struggle of the ages hurled back the forces of political and moral reaction on the battlefields of France, on the sea, in the air, and in the training camps of America, we acclaim and applaud you for the battles won and purpose accomplished; we mourn with you and for the comrades who gave their lives that the cause of freedom and liberty might live. We receive you back into our arms with hearts of thankfulness and with confident smiles for a glorious future.

And you, who were not born in this freedom and citizenship, purchased and defended at such great price by our ancestors, men and women to whom such freedom is not an inheritance, but who have been made citizens under just laws and by court's decree, as though you were to the manor born, we welcome you. And you who represent peoples to whom the friendly hand of the United States has been outstretched, feeding them when they were hungry, clothing them when they were naked, and delivering them from the hands of their oppressors in the generations that have passed and in this generation, although we cannot, and no organization or aggregation of citizens can, grant to you the privilege of participating in any way in the direction and control of the affairs of the government, to whom we cannot properly grant the right even to create public opinion that can in any way give direction to the country, we recognize you as brothers, as friends, and your great service to us. We trust that we may be of

If there is here today any man, like the guest especially invited to John Norton's Christmas in the bleak, snowbound wilderness, the vagabond, the man who had lost his courage, - if there is any man here, or woman here, or anywhere, over whose eyes events and circumstances have so woven a web that his vision is obscured, who does not see quite clearly, and through some real or fancied grievance is in some doubt as to whether or not this great country can meet its problems and solve them, is in some doubt as to whether or not in the goings and the comings this country has or will establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, and promote the general welfare, - if there is one here that is in doubt whether or not this nation can and will meet all its enemies, foreign and domestic, and strangle them to death, we especially welcome you, that you may today hear voices out of the great, whispering galleries of the past, that you may see the movement of marching men at Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill and Saratoga and Trenton and Yorktown. We welcome you one and all to take part in the doings of this day.

Presentation Of Monument

Introducing Mr. Lukeman, Mr. Ely said: You have all seen the beautiful statue of General Shepard on the Green. I know it will be a pleasure to you to greet the gentleman and distinguished sculptor who fashioned that statue. It gives me great pleasure to introduce Augustus Lukeman of New York.

In behalf of the committee who had charge of its erection, Arthur S. Kneil Presented the statue to the town, and Louis J. Keefe formally accepted it for the citizens of Westfield.

Arthur S. Kneil

I have the honor, in behalf of the committee appointed by the town to procure and erect a suitable monument to General Shepard, to report the completion and erection of a statue in accordance with the vote of the town.

It is my further high privilege, on the part of this committee, now to officially transfer this statue and memorial to the town, through its selectmen.

It is the work of a noted sculptor, one of the highest achievements of his great art and, we believe, is destined to be one of the distinguished works of sculpture in New England.

Its setting is in an exedra of artistic beauty, which is designed for practical and common use, as an agora or forum for public concourse and civic or political discussion and debate.

It is placed in the heart of the town. It is close to the site of the church through whose doors he went many years as a member and deacon. It is near to the old Academy, an early school of higher education of which he was a founder and an original trustee. It is opposite the site of the old Town House where he often presided as moderator of the annual meetings and elections and in which he sat as a member of the Committee on Correspondence and Safety, as the dark and portentous clouds of revolution were gathering; from which he went out as a selectman when the news came of the fight at Lexington, and to which he came back to serve again, though then exalted in national honor, as selectman of the little town.

It is placed on our beautiful town Green, co-eval with our earliest life, where he gathered and drilled his minutemen and whence he led them out to Dorchester Heights and the great Revolution. It stands upon a spot interwoven with all our history and traditions, with which much of his later life was associated, and where, in his later years, he was an inspiring and beloved figure on training days.

It is not for me to recite his history and state his record of military and civic performance and achievement. That is to be told to you by others.

Distinguished as a general, legislator and statesman; distinguished, also, for faithful performance, throughout his life of the plain, primitive duties of good citizenship, and for constant fulfillment of his obligations to his country and his fellowmen, it has seemed a fitting thing to erect a statue to him and his memory. He was a soldier of many years active service in two of his country's historic wars; rising from the position of private to that of high general command ; a statesman taking part in the legislative counsels of his fellows and, with equal talent and wisdom negotiating treaties at the councils of the Penobscot Indians and in the Long House of the Iroquois.

It is a grateful tribute to a great and worthy man who, in the classic words with which the Roman people conferred their highest honors, deserved well of his town, his colony, his commonwealth and nation. It is a memorial of the sacrifices, the heroic deeds, the inspired principles and lofty purposes of our Revolutionary forefathers. It is a token of our recognition of the cardinal, vital worth of good citizenship, both in war and peace ; and of the fundamental importance of ready and constant performance of civic duties.

We rear today a memorial to the ever memorable past; we rear also a memorial and a pledge for both the present and the future; and this we do at a time when the farmers' shot at Lexington, once heard around the world, now sounds around the world again in tones of thunder.

To quote great words which it is almost irreverent to repeat, it is not for us to dedicate but rather for us to be dedicated to the great tasks and mighty purposes before us.

The long, eternal march of human kind goes by. We are in the front but for a moment. Far off, against the almost inaccessible skies are the banners and spear heads of the mighty army which has gone before. Behind, fast crowding upon us, come the advancing generations. We present this memorial to be a public testimony and affirmation, through the presence of this voiceless but speaking bronze, that we have kept faith with the great and heroic past; that we have held and fulfilled the sacred tradition, handed to us by the fathers; and, further, to be a token of renewal, by those who follow behind us, of the solemn covenant that the republic which the men who won our liberties and framed our government ordained for themselves and their posterity, shall never perish from the earth.

Acceptance Of Monument

It is quite evident that you have listened with attention and pleasure to the gentlemen who have spoken, one extending to you on this inclement day the welcome greetings of Westfield and one presenting you with a work of art of surpassing design and execution, something which we believe your children will cherish and which will be to distant generations an inspiration and delight.

Have we not this day beheld the consummation of genius and art, of art revealed through the hand and the eye, and of genius whose noblest expression comes through the lips from the heart! And, having reached the summit, it were as well no doubt that we might now rest content, for in every affair of consequence there are supreme heights beyond which genius cannot go, and those bounds seem to have been irremovably fixed, whether it is Stevenson who stabs a woman in the wilderness at midnight, or Victor Hugo who kindles a divine and celestial light in the dark conscience of some poor, unhappy convict slave. But custom and your tendency for detail seem to require a few words in acceptance and reply, - a privilege for which one might be truly grateful, but an honor hardly to be repaid.

In the Apennines there are shadows so somber and deep and dark that a cautious soul hesitates to advance. It is not our purpose, therefore, to attempt a further inquiry into a subject which has been so well, though briefly, discussed. Our duties lie in simple, humble ways, like those who dim the lights after the banquet is over.

In the long train of events, culminating with the exercises of today, and stretching back for two centuries and a half, so many glorious things have been achieved, the record of human progress has been so amazingly advanced, individual effort has attained to heights so singular and extreme, it is of slight consequence - of no consequence - what may be spoken here. Here are all those glorious memories revived, of Concord and Lexington, and here have we once again been brought very close to the pain and suffering of those desperate, dark days.

For when that army of half starved Continentals at Valley Forge was the most that stood between liberty and oppression, how beautiful and singular to reflect that out of suffering may come happiness, that out of the darkness of war, that out of discord and tumult and of loud alarm may come a kind of universal harmony, plaintive and sweet, like the rich voices of those musical southerners singing their plantation melodies in the night time.

In the battle at Concord Bridge - something which today would be called a skirmish, but yet a battle which stirred all civilization to its very depths - in that battle were killed two English soldiers whose names were never learned, and there a few yards from the bridge, in among weeds by the roadside, their grave was made, which in time has been surmounted by a plain, flat stone, bearing this inscription by Mr. Lowell:

And have not you in some wise been animated to the same purpose in building this memorial to a soldier man, and that the past might keep its place in your memory and not be forgotten? And so it seems that the spirit of 1776, the call of the past, the call which led the patriots through the hardships of many a bleak winter, has led you here

It is well for the soul that it has ways to expand. That memorial which you have come today to dedicate, appealing as it does to the intellect as well as to the eye, has a power that shall irresistibly draw you, speaks with a voice you cannot choose but hear. To some it will be a symbol of strength and resolution and strong will, qualities which befit a patriot and soldier. To a few it will mean only so many hours of labor, which were as well spent in the wheat fields or mending the roads, for humanity is a vast sea in which the soundings are not always deep. But to you, who look upon it with grateful eyes, and with eyes drawn to beauty and truth, it represents more than so many strokes with a hammer. It represents the soul struggling to express an ideal. And, by the same token and in some such way, life is not made up of great events and cunning strokes, but somewhat of devotion, of sacrifice and faith and love.

Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, your committee: In behalf of the citizens of Westfield, in behalf of her youth, who, growing soon familiar with the character of General Shepard, shall the sooner learn that truth, that integrity is the only nobility, and shall learn to reverence their country, for which men in very love and devotion have yielded their lives; in behalf of those who toil in factory and field, who may see in that Shepard statue something which cheers and exalts, and who, reflecting at times on the tranquillity of a useful life, shall learn there, if nowhere else, that content is the only wealth ; in behalf of her scholars, who, remembering the glory of Thermopylae, shall not forget the sacrifices at Gettysburg; in behalf of posterity, who, from age to age, shall pass that way and shall confess their gratitude - for an ancestry so generous, so prominent, so mindful, so thoughtful of the future; and in loving remem- brance of those heroic young men who sleep today on the hills of France, we accept this Shepard memorial, which, if you will, shall this day be dedicated to the eternal principles of justice and freedom.

And to you, gentlemen of the committee, in all sincerity our thanks are extended for the labor which you so generously, thoughtfully and - may I not say? - lovingly have performed. Our citizens of West field from your committee's hands through mine receive this memorial to one whom Nature blessed with a courageous mind. I know not from what great depths it came, what labor wrenched it from its ancient bed, or in what flaming furnace it was fashioned to that fair design, but this we may assert - if you are true to the ideals which are there so plainly set forth you cannot fail. Courage, it seems to say, and faith, and the victory is yours!

Receive it, then, in the spirit in which it has been so graciously presented, and sometimes when you pass that way reflect for a moment upon the courage and piety and dignity of the life which has gone, and see if we do not agree in this - that from the contemplation of the beautiful and of the sublime we gather strength for the heroic things in life and a better comprehension of its wonderful possibilities.

Introducing Mr. John C. Robinson, Mr. Ely said: Probably there is no family in Westfield better known than the family of Moseley. From earliest times of our town history they have occupied places of importance, trust and honor. Permit me to present one of the sons of that family, John C. Robinson, of Springfield.

General Shepard, Citizen And Soldier John C. Robinson

I appreciate your courteous introduction, and I am very glad that my ancestors were the friends and associates of General Shepard. When he was made a brigadier-general it was my great-great-grandfather, David Moseley, who, having formerly served as his lieutenant-colonel, succeeded him as colonel of the Third Massachusetts Infantry. And later General Shepard's son William married the colonel's daughter, making the association of the families still closer.

As a boy in Westfield I knew a number of men who in their youth had known General Shepard. My own grandfather was a young man of about twenty when General Shepard. died, and I remember with what universal respect his name was always mentioned. But it is more than a hundred years since he was laid at rest in the old cemetery on Mechanic Street, and there is no one alive today who can speak of him personally. To most of you he is little more than a name, and it seems altogether fitting that we should consider, as simply and as briefly as possible, who he was, what he did, who were the men with whom he was associated, what were the events in which he played a part.

William Shepard was born in Westfield in 1737. His father was John Shepard, a tanner, and his mother before her marriage was Elizabeth Noble. His grandfather, also a John Shepard, was born in Suffolk County, England, and settled in Westfield about 1700.

William Shepard was the fourth child in a family of nine, and after attending Westfield's single school he enlisted, at the age of seventeen, as a common soldier in the colonial forces at the outbreak of the French and Indian War. After about two years he was promoted to a sergeancy, somewhat later to a lieutenancy, and reached the rank of captain before the end of the war.

He served under Abercrombie in the disastrous attack on Fort Ticonderoga, and later, under General Amherst, took part in the campaign that drove the enemy from Lake George and Lake Champlain, and, in co-operation with Wolfe's capture of Quebec, brought the war to an end.

It is an odd and interesting coincidence that in this war he should have served first as a lieutenant under Colonel Ephraim Williams, the founder of Williams College, a scholarly man, who inspired him with an ambition to improve his limited education, and later as a captain under General Amherst, for whom the other of our older western Massachusetts colleges is named.

Returning to Westfield at the end of the war, he married, at the age of twenty- two, Sarah Dewey, a girl of eighteen, and for the next fourteen years he lived quietly the life of a farmer and country surveyor, caring for his growing family and taking little or no part in the events leading up to the Revolutionary War.

At the outbreak of the Revolution he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel of the Third Massachusetts Infantry. This regiment joined the American forces outside of Boston sometime in June, 1775. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought on the I7th, and he did not take part in that historic struggle, though he may have been in Roxbury or Cambridge at the time.

A few weeks later Washington assumed command of the Army, and in his correspondence and diary bitterly complained of the inefficiency and inexperience of most of the officers under him. Shepard's energy, sense and experience soon attracted his attention, and they became friends, a friendship that lasted as long as Washington lived.

After the evacuation of Boston by the British in the spring of 1776 Shepard's regiment was transferred to Long Island, he himself made its colonel, and it was attached to General Glover's division. In the well executed retreat from Long Island, following General Putnam's defeat, Glover's division acted as a rear guard and, a few weeks later, at Pell's Point, when Washington's Army was stretched out along the east shore of the Hudson, this division, unaided, defeated a vastly superior British force that had all but cut the American Army in two.

This was one of the most furiously contested and critical battles of the Revolution, and in it Shepard was seriously wounded. He seems to have recovered quickly, however, for he was with Washington in the retreat across the Jerseys, and at Trenton and Princeton - those two brilliant victories that did so much to raise the courage of the almost disheartened colonies - it was again Glover's division that played a most important part.

This ended the fighting for that winter, but the next summer we find Shepard in the north with Gates in his campaign against Burgoyne. He seems, however, to have been recalled by Washington sometime during the season, for when Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga in October the Third Infantry was under the command of his successor.

The following winter Shepard spent with Washington at Valley Forge. There he was in close contact with Alexander Hamilton, who had been a fellow soldier with him in the Long Island and Jersey campaigns, but had now become Washington's aide-de-camp. He also met here for the first time the Marquis de Lafayette, who had joined Washington's Army while he was in the north, and tradition says that they were closely associated for the balance of the war. There seems to be some question regarding this, however, for shortly after the battle of Monmouth and the Rhode Island campaign, in which they were both engaged, Lafayette returned to France and did not come back to this country again until shortly before the end of the war.

After the battle of Monmouth Shepard was one of the judges in the court martial that convicted General Lee, and it was during this summer that he was made a brigadier-general.

It is difficult to trace his career after he became a general. The records are fragmentary and conflicting. It seems, however, that he spent considerable time with Washington, was ordered by him on special missions, and that he also served with Gates and afterwards with Greene in their southern campaigns, leading up to the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1 78 1 .

This closed his career as a Revolutionary soldier, for, while there was desultory fighting from this time up to the signing of the peace treaty, he took no part in it, though he was not definitely discharged until 1 783.

The years from the close of the Revolution to Washington's election as President have been termed the most critical period in American history, and during this time General Shepard served his country even more notably than in the war itself.

Returning to Westfield, he was at once re-elected to the Board of Selectmen, and after serving in this capacity for four years was sent to the lower branch of the Legislature.

There had been almost unlimited issues of paper currency during the war, with the resulting inflation, extravagance and increasing indebtedness that always follow such financ-

These were the conditions that brought about Shays' Rebellion. Its leaders were Luke Day of West Springfield and Daniel Shays of Pelham. Bowdoin was governor. General Shepard had been made major-general of militia on his return from Revolutionary service.

The insurgents had reasonable ground for complaint against the existing laws and conditions, and a very large proportion of the people of Massachusetts were in sympathy with them, but their methods were everlastingly wrong.

When, in the autumn of 1786, they attempted to prevent the convening of the court in Springfield, Shepard, at the head of a small body of militia, by persuasion rather than force succeeded in dispersing them. But a few months later, in January, 1787, Shays, having gathered a force far larger than the militia under General Shepard, attempted to capture the armory at Springfield. This time persuasion proved of no avail, and it was only after a considerable number of the insurgents had been killed and wounded that they gave up the attempt. This was the last important conflict of the rebellion. Shepard was in the field for several months and there was minor fighting throughout the state but Shepard's action had determined the outcome.

If I have seemed to dwell unduly upon this episode of General Shepard's career it is because I believe it was his most important service to his state and his country, a service with which his name will always be associated in the annals of American history. Had he not used persuasion and tact in the first place in dealing with the insurgents, though advised to use force at once by Bowdoin and Hancock, he would have secured for them the sympathy of the great majority of people through the state, and what would have been the outcome we do not know. But when at last he found that persuasion was useless, when they had demonstrated by their actions their unfitness for carrying out the measures they desired, when it was a question between anarchy and democracy, then Shepard acted.

You will remember that it was but a few weeks after this that the Constitutional convention met, and it may not be an over-statement to say that but for this occurrence the drafting and enactment of the constitution might have been impossible, for it demonstrated beyond question that a democracy must have power to maintain its own sovereignty.

While he was in the Senate he served as a member of the Constitutional convention that, after a long and bitter struggle, adopted the Federal Constitution, and it is of interest to remember that the delegates from Westfield and Springfield were among the few men from western Massachusetts who voted in favor of adoption.

The following year it was his privilege to be one of the first presidential electors from Massachusetts, a position then carrying far greater responsibility than now, and further, giving him the privilege of voting for his old friend and associate of Revolutionary days, General Washington. This honor was again conferred upon him four years later.

He served also as commissioner to the Penobscot Indians, settling differences so amicably on this mission that he was shortly afterwards called upon to act in a similar capacity with the Iroquois.

After four years of service in the Senate he was elected a member of the Governor's Council, serving with John Hancock up to the time of his death, and later with Samuel Adams, his successor.

Hancock and Shepard were born the same year. Hancock was wealthy; Shepard was poor. Hancock was a Harvard graduate; Shepard had but a most limited education. And yet I am sure that Shepard's shrewd judgment and common sense was a most fortunate influence on Hancock's conceit.

In 1796 Shepard was elected a member of the Fifth Congress. John Adams had just been chosen President, and the conflict within the Federalist party had already begun that brought about its downfall.

Shepard was re-elected two years later, and saw the Federal capital transferred from Philadelphia, the largest city on the continent, to Washington, a straggling village on the Potomac. He was re-elected to the Seventh Congress, and served during the first two years of Jefferson's administration.

His congressional record is interesting. The problems then chiefly before Congress were our diplomatic relations with France and England and the issues connected with them.

Shepard was not an orator, but he was a ready debater and took a considerable part in the discussion of matters before Congress. He was strongly in favor of preparedness, though he opposed extravagance even in the raising of an army. He supported a militia in comparison with a national army, on the ground that a national army could only be raised and maintained by means of a draft.

While he was a Federalist, at the same time he voted independently on many issues, and with the wave that swept the Federalist party out of power he was removed from Congress, and the last fifteen years of his life were spent in Westfield.

He was a man in limited circumstances, and lived quietly, but found time for many activities of public service. He was president of a club organized to found a library in Westfield. He was one of the first trustees of the Westfield Academy, chartered while he was in the Governor's Council. He repeatedly served as moderator of the local town meetings. He died a few days before his eightieth birthday, in 1817.

He was not a theologian or a philanthropist, - at least in the ordinary acceptance of the term, - but for more than a quarter of a century he served as deacon of the old First Church, respected and loved by his fellow townsmen.

He had but a limited education. He was not a constructive statesman. He was not an orator. And yet, as selectman, as legislator, as counselor to Hancock and Adams, as commissioner to the Indians, as congressman, as personal friend of Washington, his judgment was clear and his advice wise.

He was not a great or brilliant general. Yet in two wars he carried out courageously and efficiently all work that was assigned to him. And when his great opportunity came, in the struggle between anarchy and democracy, that threatened to undo all that had been accomplished in the Revolutionary struggle, his clear thinking, his tact and his energy, when energy became necessary, played no small part in securing those blessings of liberty that we are enjoying today.

Address

We come here on this occasion to honor the past, and in that honor render more secure the present. It was by such men as settled Westfield, and two hundred and fifty years ago established by law a chartered and ordered form of government, that the foundations of Massachusetts were laid.

And it was on the foundations of Massachusetts that there began that training of the people for the great days that were to come, when they were prepared to endorse and support the principles set out in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States of America and the emancipation proclamation of Abraham Lincoln. Here were planted the same seeds of righteousness victorious which later flourished with such abundance at Saratoga, at Gettysburg and at the second battle of the Marne. Stupendous results, the product of a people working with an Everlasting Purpose.

While celebrating the history of Westfield this day has been set apart to the memory of one of her most illustrious sons, General William Shepard. To others are assigned the history of your town and the biography of your soldier. Into those particulars I shall not enter. But the principles of government and of citizenship which they so well represent and nobly illustrate will never be untimely or unworthy of reiteration.

part in establishing the principles that the individual in his rights is supreme, and that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

It is the establishment of liberty under an ordered form of government in this ancient town by the people themselves that today draws us here in admiration of her achievements. When we turn to the life of her patriotic son we see that he no less grandly illustrated the principle that to such government, so established, the people owe an allegiance which has the binding power of the most solemn obligation.

There is such a disposition in these days to deny that our government was formed by, or is now in control of the people, that a glance at the history of the days of General Shepard is peculiarly pertinent and instructive.

The Constitution of Massachusetts, with its noble declaration of rights, was adopted in 1780. Under it we still live, with scarce any changes that affect the rights of the people. The end of the Revolutionary War was in 1783. Shays' Rebellion was in 1787. The American Constitution was ratified and adopted in 1788. These dates tell us what the form of government was that existed in that period.

If there are any who doubt that our institutions, formed in those days, did not establish a people's government, let them study the action of the Massachusetts convention which ratified the Federal Constitution in 1788. Presiding over it was the popular patriot, Governor John Hancock. On the floor sat Samuel Adams, who had been the father of the Revolution, preeminent champion of the liberty of the people. Such an influence had he that his assertion of satisfaction was enough to carry the delegates. Like a majority of the members, he came opposed to ratification. Having totally thrown off the authority of foreign powers, they came suspicious of all outside authority. Besides, there were eighteen of their number who had taken part in Shays' Rebellion, so hostile were they to the execution of all law.

Mr. Adams was finally convinced by a gathering of the workingmen among his constituents, who exercised their constitutional right of instructing their representatives. Their opinion was presented to him by Paul Revere. "How many mechanics were at the Green Dragon when these resolutions were passed?" asked Mr. Adams. "More, sir, than the Green Dragon could hold." "And where were the rest?" " In the streets, sir." "And how many were in the streets?" "More than there are stars in the sky." This is supposed to have convinced the great Massachusetts tribune that it was his duty to support ratification.

There were those, however, who distrusted the Constitution and distrusted its proponents. They viewed lawyers and men of means with great jealousy. Amos Singletary expressed their sentiments in the form of an argument that has not ceased to be repeated in the discussion of all public questions.

"These lawyers," he said, "and men of learning and moneyed men, that talk so finely and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterates swallow the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves. They mean to be managers of the Constitution. They mean to get all the money into their hands, and then they will swallow up us little folk, like the great Leviathan, Mr. President; yes, just like the whale swallowed up Jonah." In the convention sat Jonathan Smith, a farmer from Lanesboro. He had seen Shays' Rebellion in the Berkshires. There has been no better example of a man of the people desiring the common good.

" I am a plain man," said Mr. Smith, "and I am not used to speak in public, but I am going to show the effects of anarchy, that you may see why I wish for good government. Last winter people took up arms, and then, if you went to speak to them, you had the musket of death presented to your breast. They would rob you of your property, threaten to burn your houses, oblige you to be on your guard night and day. Alarms spread from town to town, families were broken up, the tender mother would cry, ' ' Oh , my son is among them ! What shall I do for my child ?' ' Some were taken captive; children taken out of their schools and carried away. How dreadful was all this! Our distress was so great that we should have been glad to snatch at anything that looked like a government. Now, Mr. President, when I saw this Constitution, I found that it was a cure for these disorders. I got a copy of it, and read it over and over. I did not go to any lawyer to ask his opinion. We have no lawyer in our town, and we do well enough without. My honorable old daddy there (pointing to Mr. Singletary) won't think that I expect to be a congressman, and swallow up the liberties of the people. I never had any post, nor do I want one. But I don't think the worse of the Constitution because lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men are fond of it. I am not of such a jealous make. They that are honest men themselves are not apt to be suspicious of other people. Brother farmers, let us suppose a case now. Suppose you had a farm of fifty acres, and your title was disputed, and there was a farm of five thousand acres joined to you that belonged to a man of learning, and his title was involved in the same difficulty; would you not be glad to have him for your friend, rather than to stand alone in the dispute? Well, the case is the same. These lawyers, these moneyed men, these "men of learning are all embarked in the same cause with us, and we must all sink or swim together. Shall we throw the Constitution overboard because it does not please us all alike? Suppose two or three of you had been at the pains to break up a piece of rough land and sow it with wheat; would you let it lie waste because you could not agree what sort of a fence to make? Would it not be better to put up a fence that did not please everyone's fancy, rather than keep disputing about it until the wild beasts came in and devoured the crop? Some gentlemen say, don't be in a hurry; take time to consider. I say, there is a time to sow and a time to reap. We sowed our seed when we sent men to the Federal convention. Now is the time to reap the fruit of our labor. And if we do not do it now I am afraid we shall never have another opportunity."

There spoke the common sense of the common man of the commonwealth. The counsel of the farmer from the country, joined with the resolutions of the workingmen from the city, carried the convention, and the Constitution was ratified. In the light of succeeding history who shall say that it was not the voice of the people speaking with the voice of Infinite Authority?

The attitude of Samuel Adams, William Shepard, Jonathan Smith and the workingmen of Boston toward government is worthy of our constant emulation. They had not hesitated to take up arms against tyranny in the Revolution, but having established a government of the people they were equally determined to defend and support it. They hated the usurper, whether king or parliament or mob, but they bowed before the duly constituted authority of the people.

When the question of pardoning the convicted leaders of the rebellion came up Adams opposed it. "In monarchies," he said, "the crime of treason and rebellion may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished ; but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death. "

We are all glad mercy prevailed and pardon was granted. But the calm judgment of Samuel Adams, the lover of liberty, "the man of the town meeting, " whose clear vision, taught by bitter experience, saw that all usurpation is tyranny, must not go unheeded now. The authority of a

All wars bring in their trail great hardships. They existed in the day of General Shepard. They exist now. Having set up a sound government in Massachusetts, having secured their independence, as the result of a victorious war, the people expected a season of easy prosperity. In that they were temporarily disappointed. Some rebelling were overthrown. The adoption of the Federal Constitution brought relief and prosperity. Success has attended the establishment here of a government of the people.

We of this day have just finished a victorious war that has added new glory to American arms. We are facing some hardships, but they are not serious. Private obligations are not so large as to be burdensome. Taxes can be paid. Prosperity abounds. But the great promise of the future lies in the loyalty and devotion of the people to their own government. They are firm in the conviction of the fathers, that liberty is increased only by increasing the determination to support a government of the people, as established in this ancient town and defended by its patriotic son.

Introducing Former Governor Me Call, Mr. Ely said: A colored man was driving a mule, hitched to a heavily loaded wagon. A bystander said to him, "Sam, it looks like that mule is going to have trouble." Sam replied, " That all depends on the mule. If he tries to turn around in the shafts he certainly is going to have a lot of it."

The American people are drawing a big load. They are all right if they don't try to turn around, if they keep going right along. I believe there are no reactionaries in this audience, certainly none on this program. Permit me to present one of the most progressive of our former governors, Samuel W. McCatt.

The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of a Massachusetts town is no longer a very rare event, but it is still an important one. It serves to emphasize the antiquity of a form of government which has been productive of very much good and has been responsible largely for the prosperity of the commonwealth and for the popular freedom of which she has been one of the foremost exemplars. It marks organized government in that fundamental form which comes near to the people and in the conduct of which they participate directly and not wholly through agents. As institutions go in America Westfield is an ancient town with its origin as an independent community far back in the seventeenth century and those who can claim her as their own may fairly indulge in pride at her steady and prosperous growth in all those things that tell for the real prosperity of a community. Above all, they may take pride in that fine body of citizenship, the existence of which in any community constitutes its first title to our respect.

The admirable accounts written by Mr. Kneil and Mr. Stiles and the fine address by Mr. Bates at the two hundredth anniversary have rescued from oblivion the material facts in the history of Westfield and have placed them within the reach of all. I shall not attempt to repeat what they have so well said. It is a noble and inspiring history, full of interest to one who reads it, and typical of the ancient towns of the commonwealth at their best. I shall concern myself today with the general teachings of this history and with the lessons which it suggests for us all.