HISTORY OF SULLIVAN, NEW HAMPSHIRE PT 4

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Local and Family Histories: New England, 1600-1900s

Concluding Prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the records of this town, which have been unfolded to us at this gathering. We thank Thee for the past history of the town. We thank Thee, our Father, for the record which has been made for Christ and His ever-blessed religion. We thank Thee for the records of the church which have been given to us this morning. We thank Thee, our Father, for the blessing that has come to this town in moral worth, founded upon the basis of scripture, teaching knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for the temporal prosperity of this Christianized town, and may the records of the future reveal as great a degree of both material and spiritual prosperity as those of the past have done; and in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, help us to seek Thy blessing and the life everlasting. Amen.

As a response to the prayer, the Hubbard Quartette sang "Father, hear," arranged by C. Henderson. The benediction was then pronounced by Rev. H. W. L. Thurston; Page 36 and, while the guests were preparing for luncheon, the Goodnow Orchestra played Bouillon's "La Belle de la Ville."

...SNIP...

SECOND SENTIMENT:

OUR FOREFATHERS.-- Though humble, yet they were virtuous. Let their sterling worth, industry, sobriety, and regard for honor be appreciated and imitated by their descendants.

The President called upon Orlando Mason, Esq., of Winchendon, Mass., a prominent business man of that town, to respond to this sentiment.

Address of Orlando Mason, Esq.

MR. PRESIDENT,--Fifty years ago, when entering my teens, I thought Sullivan a remarkable town. The people, the farms, the herds and flocks, seemed to me above the average; and, as I listened to the addresses of your president and historian to-day, and partook of your bountiful dinner, my youthful dreams were fully confirmed.

Our forefathers were a noble race. History fails to give a parallel for such devotion to principles as is recorded of them. They left home and friends and fatherland, and crossed the pathless ocean, to found a nation where they could worship God according to the dictates of conscience. Passing their trials and triumphs in the wars with England, we see them, by their representatives, drafting the Declaration of Independence. They knew, when they put their names to that immortal document, that it meant liberty or death. As one of their number said, "If we do not hang together, we shall hang separately." Eleven years later, was assembled in the same room another representative body of their number (among them were some of the signers of the Declaration of Independence), for the purpose of drafting a Constitution for the States. There were conflicting interests, and one of the thirteen states failed to be represented in the Convention. After laboring days and weeks without reaching any satisfactory results, Benjamin Franklin, then over eighty years of age, moved that thereafter the sessions be opened with prayer, saying, "I have lived a long time, and the longer I live the more certain I am that God rules in the affairs of men." Page 42 They labored other weeks and months and brought forth one of the most remarkable instruments the world has ever known. The adoption of the Constitution of the United States and the incorporation of the Town of Sullivan occurred the same month of the same year -- one hundred years ago.

Our fathers were worthy sons of worthy sires. They arose early and toiled late, and ate the bread of carefulness. They purchased nothing they could raise or make, and allowed nothing to waste. Our mothers, too, of blessed memory, were like those of whom Solomon says, "She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with her hands." While our fathers were felling the trees, or planting the crops, or caring for the herds and flocks, our mothers were carding the wool, and spinning the yarn, and weaving the cloth, and making the garments for the half-dozen, or half-score of children that God had given her, and for whom she was thankful, and never wished the number less. Our fathers were an intelligent people. They had not collegiate or academic advantages, and their schools were of the primitive kind. Yet they appreciated them, and considered the school-master second only to the minister. They read and they thought. They read the history of their country till they knew it by heart. They read the weekly newspaper, advertisements and all. And they read that book which great minds of all ages have pronounced "the book of books"--the Bible; and they drew from it lessons of wisdom, and integrity, and morality, which they practised in their lives and handed down to posterity. They were a social people. When the corn and beans were in the chamber, and the potatoes, and apples, and beef, and pork, and cider were in the cellar, and the shed was filled with the best of cleft, dry, hard wood, they used often during the winter months to invite their friends to spend an afternoon and take an early tea; and they discussed affairs of church, and town, and state, and nation; while the children listened, or joined in the conversation.

They wished their children to be social, and occasionally the large kitchen, always neat, received an extra touch; the white floor was sanded, the best of wood was on the open fire, an extra number of tallow candles were placed about the room, in iron or brass candle-sticks, and a row of boards on sap buckets served for seats, and the younger members of their families were invited for a social time. They sang songs, played games, and conversed with as much pleasure and profit as in gatherings at the present time.

Ruskins says, "It is better to be nobly remembered than nobly born." Our fathers came of good stock, they had good blood in their veins--let us, their children, see that they are nobly remembered. Let us, by our lives and the history of the town, hand down their virtues, not only to our children, but to our children's children yet unborn.