قراءة كتاب The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4

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The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4

The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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1879, Governor Thomas Talbot declining a re-nomination, Lieutenant Governor Long received 669 votes to 505 votes for the Hon. Henry L. Pierce, and was nominated and elected, having 122,751 votes to 109,149 for General Benjamin F. Butler, 9,989 for John Quincy Adams, and 1,635 for the Rev D.C. Eddy, D.D.

On the fifteenth of September, 1880, Governor Long was re-nominated by acclamation, and in November he was re-elected by a plurality of about 52,000 votes,—the largest plurality given for any candidate for the governorship of Massachusetts since the presidential year of 1872. He continued to hold the office, by re-election until January, 1883.

Several important acts were passed during the administration of Governor Long, and notably among these was an act fixing the penalties for drunkeness,—an act providing that no person who has been served in the United State army or navy, and has been honorably discharged from the service, if otherwise qualified to vote, shall be debarred from voting on account of his being a pauper, or, if a pauper, because of the non-payment of a poll tax,—an act which obviated many of the evils of double taxation by providing that, when any person has an interest in taxable real estate as holders of a mortgage, given to secure the payment of a loan, the amount of which is fixed and stated, the amount of said person's interest as mortgagee shall be assessed as real estate in the city or town where the land lies, and the mortgagor shall be assessed only for the value of said real estate, less the mortgagee's interest in it.

The creditable manner in which Mr. Long conducted the affairs of the State induced his constituents to send him as their representative in Washington. He was elected a member of the Forty-eighth Congress, and is now a member also of the Forty-ninth. His record thus far has been altogether honorable and characterized by a sturdy watchfulness of the interests entrusted to his care.

As a man of letters. Governor Long has achieved a reputation. Some years ago, he produced a scholarly translation, in blank verse, of Virgil's Æneid, which was published in 1879 in Boston. It has found many admirers among students of classical literature. Governor Long, amid busy professional and official duties, has also written several poems and essays which reflect credit upon his heart and brain. His inaugural addresses were masterpieces of literary art, and the same can be said of his speeches on the floor of Congress, all of them, polished, forceful and to the point.

Mr. Long is a very fluent speaker, and, without oratorical display, he always succeeds in winning the attention of his auditors. It is what he says, more than how he says it, that has won for him his great popularity on the platform. When, in February last, the Washington monument was dedicated, he it was that was chosen to read the magnificent oration of Robert C. Winthrop.

As a specimen of Mr. Long's happy way of expressing timely thoughts, the following passage, selected from an address which he delivered at Tremont Temple, Boston, on Memorial Day, 1881, deserves to be read:—

"Scarce a town is there—from Boston, with its magnificent column crowned with the statue of America at the dedication of which even the conquered Southron came to pay honor, to the humblest stone in rural villages—in which these monuments do not rise summer and winter, in snow and sun, day and night, to tell how universal was the response of Massachusetts to the call of the patriots' duty, whether it rang above the city's din or broke the quiet of the farm. On city square and village green stand the graceful figures of student, clerk, mechanic, farmer, in that endeared and never-to-be-forgotten war-uniform of the soldier or the sailor, their stern young faces to the front, still on guard, watching the work they wrought in the flesh, and teaching in eloquent silence the lesson of the citizen's duty to the state, How our children will study these! How they will search and read their names! How quaint and antique to them will seem their arms and costume! How they will gather and store up in their minds the fine, insensibly filtering percolation of the sentiment of valor, of loyalty, of fight for right, of resistance against wrong, just as we inherited all this from the Revolutionary era, so that, when some crisis shall in the future come to them, as it came to us, they will spring to the rescue, as sprang our youth, in the beauty and chivalry of the consciousness of a noble descent."






CONCORD MEN AND MEMORIES.

By George B. Bartlett.

On a pleasant June morning after a long drive through shady country lanes, the little pile of rocks was reached, which for two hundred and fifty years has marked the western corner of the lot, six miles square, granted to form the plantation at Musketaquid on the second of September 1635. Resting here in the shadow of the pines, listening to the busy gossip of the squirrels, many scenes and people which have made the town of Concord, Massachusetts, so noted, seemed to pass in review, some of which will here be recounted.

Perhaps on this spot Simon Willard and his associates may have stood, and these rough rocks been laid in place by their hands. Peter Bulkeley, the wise and reverend, may have consecrated this solemn occasion with prayer in accordance with the good old custom of the time. To the two gentlemen above-mentioned the chief credit of the settlement of Concord is mainly due. Attention was early called to the broad meadows of the Musketaquid or 'grass grown river' and a company marched from the ancient Newtown to form a settlement there early in the fall of 1635. Few of the thousand pilgrims who arrive every year over the Fitchburg and Lowell railroads can imagine the discomforts of the toilsome journey of these early settlers as they penetrated through the unbroken wilderness and wet and dreary swamps, devoting nearly two weeks to the journey now easily accomplished in forty minutes. Many of their cattle died from exposure and change of climate, and great heroism and courage were required to make them persevere. They were kindly received by the Indians who were in possession of the lands along the rivers, and who finally consented to part with them so peacefully, that the name of the town was called Concord.

Near the present site of the hotel stood an oak tree under which tradition locates the scene of these amicable bargains. On a hill at the junction of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers, rumor also locates the lodge of the squaw who reigned as queen over one of the Indian tribes, and thus introduced into the village female supremacy which has steadily gained in power ever since. Later the Apostle Eliot preached here often, and converted many dusky followers into "Praying Indians." Remnants of their lodge-stones, arrow-heads and other relics were abundant half a century ago in the great fields and other well known resorts, and a large kitchen-miden or pile of shells, now fast becoming sand, marks the place of one of their solemn feasts. The early explorers seem to have built at first under the shelter of the low sand-hills which extend through the centre of the town, and perhaps some of them were content to winter in caves dug in the western slopes. Their first care was for their church which was organized under the Rev. Peter Bulkeley and John Jones as pastor and teacher, but after a few years Mr. Jones left for Connecticut with one-third of his flock. Many other things occurred to discourage this little band, but their indomitable leader was not one to abandon any enterprise. Rev. Peter Bulkeley was a gentleman of learning, wealth and culture, as was also Simon Willard who managed the temporal

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