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Cornell University Library 1993.ANNUAL ADDRESS
BY THE
REV. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
PREACHERS, PEDAGOGUES AND POETS OF BUFFALO IN 1825.
DELIVERED AT ST. JAMES HALL, BY APPOINTMENT OF THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ON
THE OCCASION OF THE FOURTH “ OLD FOLKS* FESTIVAL,
JANUARY 24, 1867.
Fellow Citizens, Ladies and Gentlemen:
In their selection of the speaker to-night, the Buffalo Histor-
ical Society have had in view the Annual Festival of the Old
Residents of this city, and do not expect from me any learned
or elaborate historical discussion. Having been a collector of
antiquities long before the Society I represent for this time was
originated, I have not been so much a contributor to their
collections, as a rival, in a humble way, for old books and other
monuments of the past. But they have this advantage, that
Historical Societies are corporations living on through the cen-
turies, and gradually absorbing all private collections as their
owners pass off the stage. For my own, I desire no other or
better eventual destination. I am laboring for them, if not
with them, in gathering materials which are to be consigned to
their archives. “Art is long, life is short,” is an adage of the
Latins (Ars longa, Vita brevis), beautifully rendered by one of
our poets:
“Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though strong and brave,,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.”
5$114	ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
The Historical Society of this city is the natural depository
of the relics of the past; and it is to be hoped that our citizens
will remember this in their testamentary dispositions, if not
before.
From any formal or lengthy discussion of historical topics, I am
excused, not only by the occasion, but by the exhaustive labors
of my predecessors. Who would care to enter upon the early
exploration of the region about Lake Erie by the Jesuits and
their associates who traversed the wilderness, while the first
settlements in New England were yet in their infancy, after the
able dissertation of O. H. Marshall ? Who would venture upon
the early history of Western New York after the elaborate his-
tory in which William Ketchum has made us familiar with its
Indian tribes, treaties and councils? Of the war of 1812 and
the destruction of Buffalo, what remains to be said? The
burnings and murders of that time, the flight of the population,
the barbarities of the British and their savage allies are as
familiar as household wrords.
And what more can be said as to that vexed question, why
Buffalo was called “Buffalo;” whether the great bison of the
West, extending his visits to this locality, gave us the name,
or the multitude of bass-wood trees found here described
in the Indian tongue by a word resembling our cognomen,
came to designate the Place of Bass-wood ? If Buffalo means
soft timber, we have enough of that yet to fully justify its
appropriateness. If it means the hard-headed representative
of the western prairies, who monopolizes the best pastures
and takes possession of every oasis in the great North Ameri-
can Desert, we have his likeness still, and may congratulate
ourselves that in either case the name of the Queen City of the
Lakes is sufficiently significant of portions of its population.
Besides, the very able and flattering reminiscences of many of
our old citizens which have appeared in the papers of the Buf-
falo Historical Society, would prevent my attempting the formal
biography of any one departed magnate, were it not forbiddenRE V. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
115
by the character of the occasion which calls us together, and
the general and reasonable expectation of free sketches of the
past, in which may be mingled the grave and the gay, as rather
suitable for this Annual Old Settlers’ Festival, already assum-
ing the importance of a permanent institution.
I shall go back to the period of my first knowledge of Buf-
falo, and mainly confine your attention to the year 1825, mem-
orable for the completion of the great Erie Canal, the visit of
La Fayette, the dedication of “Ararat” by Mordecai Manuel
Noah, and the execution of the three Thayers for the murder
of John Love.
Perhaps the completion of the Erie Canal may be con-
sidered the great event of the first half of the nineteenth
century. It is now almost forgotten that this magnificent un-
dertaking was bitterly opposed by a large party usually domi-
nant in the State; that the city of New York, which it has made
the centre of the trade of the New World, was, with a charac-
teristic stupidity, generally hostile to “Clinton’s big ditch,” as its
citizens facetiously termed it; and that nothing but the genius
and energy of the great statesman who projected it, and the
completion and use of the long level west of Utica, when unbe-
lievers who maintained that it would never hold water, were
made to see boats afloat, could ever have secured the comple-
tion of the greatest work of the age.
The reception of General La Fayette was a great event for
Buffalo. The old veteran stood upon a platform in front of
the Eagle Tavern,* and the crowds assembled from the sur-
rounding country passed him in single file, each person taking
him by the hand. The largest battle of the Revolution in which
he was engaged, could not have resulted in greater fatigue to
the old hero than the hand-shaking of that day.
I saw the foundation of “Ararat” laid, not on Grand Island,
* Situated on Van Staphorst avenue (Main street), west side, just south of Cazenovia
avenue (Court street.) The ‘ eagle ” which held its place for so many years over the door
of this celebrated inn, and'gyave it its name now spreads its wings over the United States
department in the library of'the Society.—Ed.ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
116
but in St. Paul’s church, with a strange mixture of Hebrew and
Christian rites, a curious commingling of Jew and Gentile.
There was Major Noah, with his Hebrew chorister and ritual,
dedicating Grand Island as a City of Refuge for the scattered
people who rejected Christ; and by his side an Episcopal rec-
tor in full canonicals, uttering a Christian benediction. Ara-
rat came to nothing, and the only memorial of this City of Ref-
uge which remains is the corner-stone, all there ever was of it,
which, owing to the efforts of the Hon. Lewis F. Allen, has
been deposited in the rooms of the Historical Society of
Buffalo.
Still giving our attention to this memorable year, we have to
note the leading men of that time resident in Buffalo:-—our ora-
tors, statesmen and poets; our clergymen, schoolmasters, doc-
tors and lawyers; our beaus, bon-vivants and wits. Perhaps it
will be said:	“This is rather a grandiloquent catalogue for a
western village in 1825.” But is not every village a world in
miniature, and especially such a precocious town as Buffalo;
always anticipating its coming greatness; always blowing its
horn in the face of mankind; always counting, Chicago fashion,
three or four for every two of its population!
Buffalo, in 1825, published to the world in general, and par-
ticularly and pugnaciously thrust into the face of Black Rock,
with whom we waged a deadly war, a census of two thousand
four hundred souls. Possibly there may have been a popula-
tion approximating to two thousand; but the most ambitious,
restless, pugnacious, egotistic people in the State of New York;
and withal, abounding in men of great enterprise and ability.
Surely among such a population, our catalogue need not be
considered a joke, or even an exaggeration, seeing that in little
more than fifty years, a noble city of more than one hundred
thousand inhabitants, of which these men were the fathers and
founders, bears witness that there were “giants” here in those
days,—men of renown, who have left their mark for all time
on the shores of Lake Erie.RE V. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
117
But it may be anxiously inquired, how can you bring your
numerous classes within the compass of an Address which
ought not to exceed thirty or forty minutes? I reply, that as
one of the standing orators for the Old Folks’ Festival, I wish
to lay out work for several years for myself and associates, and
this Address is but an exordium. I do not intend to imitate the
example of that long-winded Scotch Presbyterian, who, being
called on to preach before the Vermont Legislature, stated,
after an introduction which occupied an hour, that he should
consider the remainder of his subject under nineteen particu-
lars; upon which intimation his appalled audience rose and left
him to discourse to vacant seats. I engage to touch lightly
upon a few points, reserving the nineteen particulars for future
anniversaries and other orators, who cannot fail to be grateful
"for the large and exhaustless field I have opened up before them.
It will not be deemed inappropriate to commence with our
pedagogues. The “schoolmaster was abroad” in Buffalo, in
1825; and in the school work of that year,. I may say with
JEneas, “Magna pars fuiP The two teachers best known to
myself were Millard Fillmore and John C. Lord. Mr. Fill-
more’s work in this interesting field had ceased before mine
began; but knowing many of his pupils, and being particularly
interested in one of them, I consider myself at liberty to refer
to his labors as a teacher of the young idea.
Mr. Fillmore was engaged in this vocation at the Cold Spring,
near Buffalo,* and also in the village proper, in the old Mullett
house, then standing near the corner of Main and Genesee
streets. He “boarded round,” at least a part of the time, and
was “well thought of.” Indeed, he was considered so “likely
a young man ” among the old folks, that it was suggested by
some that he would yet come to be a Justice of the Peace, while
others did not think the Assembly Chamber of Albany beyond
the reach of his endeavors.
* Two miles north of the village center.n8
ANNUAL A'DDRESS B V THE
I cannot of my knowledge speak of his success, in general,
as a teacher; but having had one of his pupils, a daughter of the
late Dr. Ebenezer Johnson, afterwards under my care, under
a special covenant to honor and obey, I have been led to believe
that Mr. Fillmore’s discipline was not what it should have been.
Yet this same village schoolmaster succeeded in after life in
the government of a great nation, which esteemed him a saga-
cious President and successful Chief Magistrate, of whom it
can only be said that he is not the first of the notable rulers of
men who was yet unable to govern a woman. One proof I can
produce of the intellectual progress of his pupils, in the poetic
effusion of one of his scholars, which, if unequal to Gray’s Elegy,
is sufficiently striking and unique to deserve a record in the
Historical Society of Buffalo. This poem details the fate of a
young man, suddenly cut off in the prime of life:—probably
one of the boys who enjoyed the instruction of our distin-
guished townsman.
This brilliant effusion is “owned to” by one of Mr. Fill-
more’s pupils, and presented to the singing meeting in the
New England Kitchen,* where it has been read with great ap-
probation. Here it is:
LINES ON THE DREADFUL DEATH OF CALIB DULITTLE, WHO RECENTLY
CAME TO THIS SETTLEMENT FROM VERMONT.
One Calib Dulittle was his name,
Who lately to this village came,
Residing ni his brother Jeemes,
Last Friday noon went out, it seems,
To cut sum timber for a sled.
The sno being deep, he had to wade
Full 40 rod to a ash tree,
The top being dry, as you may see.
* A distinguishing feature of the Old Settlers’ Festival, presided over and conducted by
Mrs. Dr. Lord.REV. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
Il9
Our Calib swung his ax on hi,
And thro the air he let it fly;
His work he thot was nearly done,
For it was now ni sit of sun.
The tree was holler at the coar,
And when it come a tumblin ore
It hit poor Cale upon the hed,
Arid he was tookin up for ded.
Remarkable was soon distrest
While Thankful, she wept in his brest,
No tongue can tell how Mercy felt
While on his shockin deth she dwelt.
Oh, cruel fate, thou wast unkind
To take our Cale and leave us hind,
For Calib was our rite han man.
And worker of our good farm land.
And when that tre it killed him ded,
It nocked our prospiks in the hed,
And laid him in the churchyard bed,
While on his body worms is fed.
Now, skollars, all a warnin take,
How Calib Dulittle met his fate,
And when you have a sled to make,
Don’t let a tre fall on your pate.
Of the merits of John C. Lord, as schoolmaster, and of his
select school, which was located in one of the Old Court House
rooms, in the winter of 1825—’26, I am too modest to speak.
We had a liberal range of study from Webster’s Spelling Book
up to the French and Roman classics; but as several of our
professional and literary notables, such as Dr. White and O. H.
Marshall, Esq., were among the pupils, it may yet be hoped
that “ Papers ” on this interesting topic may be read before the
Historical Society.
I shall only refer to an extract from a New Year’s Poem,
published on the first of January, 1826, in the Buffalo Journal\T 20
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
of which David M. Day was the publisher, which poetic effu-
sion, of my positive knowledge, came out of that schoolroom;
and I shall quote only what relates to the affairs of 1825 and its
remarkable events.
Hr	*	Hr	Hr	Hr	Hr	. Hr
VII.
Let despots mock the joy with which we met
Upon our shores our fathers’ friend and son,
And greeted him—the gallant La Fayette.
Dare they insult the flag that bore him home?
No ! Europe never will again forget
The due respect and proper courtesy
Columbia’s Banner claims upon the sea.
*	VIII.
My Muse wants breathing, she is too sublime
For modern ears; ’t were well to take good care
Lest criticks ridicule her lofty rhyme—
Which would indeed be a most sad affair.
We’ll lower our strain then, and devote a line
To home concerns. ’T is said that Buffalo
Is soon to be a city, and I know—
IX.
No reason why she should not. The foundation
Of Ararat we lately helped to fix
And have had other public celebrations
(According to my note-book sixty-six,)
And have a right to make our calculations
On future greatness. There is something pretty
And quite harmonious in the name of “ city.”
X.
The year hath been to us a Jubilee,
A year of great rejoicing; we have seen
Lake Erie’s waters moving to the sea
On their own element. The bark I deem
Which bore our gift, more famous yet shall be,
Than that proud ship in which to ancient Greece
The intrepid Jason bore the Golden Fleece.RE V. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
121
XI.
Yet boast we not of mighty labors done
In our own strength or wisdom; we would bless
His sacred name in morning orison,
Who stamped his footstep on the wilderness;
And towns and cities rose,—the busy hum
Of congregated man, where erst he viewed
One dark and boundless solitude.
XII.
And the white sail now glistens on the Lake,
Where late the Indian in his bark canoe,
*	Bursting from some low marsh or tangled brake,
Shot forth upon the waters joyously,
Perchance his annual hunting tour to make,
Where since the cultivated field, I ween,	*
That savage mariner himself hath seen.
I dare not compare this poem with that inimitable effusion
of Mr. Fillmore’s pupil; and outside of their respective merits
there are two reasons for my forbearance; one is, that my com-
petitor is a lady; and the second is, that the aforesaid lady has
it in her power greatly to annoy me if I should be so unfortu-
nate as to awaken her indignation. Let her wear the laurel
crown, so there be domestic tranquillity—peace at the hearth.
While on the subject of poetry, that remarkable ballad on
the murder of John Love which appeared in the same year
ought not to be omitted.* It should be preserved, like a fly
in amber, in the archives of the Buffalo Historical Society.
Whether it was the production of any of the pupils who at-
tended the schools before referred to I cannot say. It has been
claimed by the town of Boston, but I think it belongs to Buffalo.
As the cities of Greece contended for the birthplace of
Homer, so it may hereafter happen to Boston and Buffalo to
contend for the honor of the nativity of the immorjtal poet who
sang the dreadful fate of John Love and the crime of the three
Thayers, who were executed in this city, June 17th, 1825. I have
had surmises that one of my own pupils might possibly have122
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
been the author of this lamentable ballad, but I will not press
the claim, as my friend Fillmore may contend with justice that
this mournful ditty was quite as likely to have issued from his
school as mine. I read it as a reminiscence of the year 1825,
and for the purpose of putting it upon record in the Historical
Society.
THE LAMENTABLE BALLAD ON THE MURDER OF JOHN LOVE BY THE
THREE THAYERS.
In England some years ago
the sun was pleasant fair and gay
John Love on board of a ship he entered
and said in to america.
Love was a man very percevering
in making trades with all he see
he soon engaged to be a sailor
to sail up and down on Lake Eri.
he then went into the Southern countries,
'	to trade for furs and other skins
but the cruel French and saveg Indians
came very near of killing him.
But God did spare him a little longer
he got his loding and came down the lake
he went into the town of boston,
Where he made the grate mistake.
With Nelson Thayer he made his station
thrue the summer for to stay
Nelson had two brothers Isaac and Israel
love lent them money for thare debts to pay
Love lent them quite a sum of money
he did befriend them every way
but the cruel cretres tha couldent be quiet
till they had taken his sweet life away
One day as tha were all three together
this dreadful murder tha did contrive
tha agreed to kill Love and keep it secret
and then to live and spend thare livesRE V. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
123
On' the fifteenth evening of last december
in eighteen hundred and twenty four
tha invited Love to go home with them
and they killed and murdered him on the floor
First Isaac with his gun he shot him
he left his gun and went away
Then nelson with his ax he chopt him
till he had no life that he could perceive
After tha had killed and most mortly brus’d him
tha draw’d him out whare tha killed thare hogs
tha then carried him of a pease from the house
and deposited him down by a log
The next day tha ware so very bold
tha had loves horses riding round
Some asked the reason of Loves being absent
tha said he had clerd and left the town
tha said he had forged in the town of Eri
the sheriff was in pursuit of him
He left the place and run awa
and left his debts to collect by them
tha went and forgd a power of turney
to collect loves notes when they ware due
tha tore and stormed to git thare pay
and sevrl nabors they did sue
After they had run to a high degree
in killing love and forgery
tha soon were taken and put in prison
whare tha remained for thare cruelty
Tha were bound in irons in the dark dungon
for to remain for a little time
tha ware all condemd by the grand jury
for this jnost foul and dreadful crime
Then the Judge pronounced thare dreadful sentence
with grate candidness to behold
you must be hanged untell your ded
and lord have mursey on your sols.124
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
But enough has been said of the poets and poetry of Buffalo
in 1825. I shall defer the pathetic narrative of the shipwreck
of the canal boat Medora to a future occasion.
Passing from these light topics, will not the audience accept
a graver theme, in brief sketches of the clergymen of Buffalo,
in the year of our Lord 1825, of whom it may be truly said that
they would lose nothing by comparison with their successors in
1867. ,The leading denominations were represented here in
1825, each by a single church. The first regularly settled clergy-
man was the Rev. Miles P. Squier, in the First Presbyterian
Congregation. . He was an educated man, not without good
points, but with an overweening self appreciation, which, while
it gave offence to some, was to the major part of his acquaint-
ance a source of amusement. He could not have exhibited a
greater dignity of deportment had he been Bishop of Rome or
Czar of all the Russias, and resembled the man described by
Coleridge who always took off his hat when he spoke of him-
self. He would have shaken hands with Andrew Jackson or
George the Fourth, with the patronizing and condescending
air of one conferring a great favor. In the latter years of his
life he wrote a book on the “ Origin of Evil,” in which, I have
no doubt, he imagined he had mastered this intricate subject,
untied the Gordian knot in theology, and left nothing further to
be said or desired on the topic. He was a worthy man and a
sincere Christian, notwithstanding his eccentricities, and is re-
membered with affection by some of our old residents. The
successor of Mr. Squier was the Rev. Gilbert Crawford. I be-
came acquainted with him and attended his services in 1825.
He was a Scotchman, and had had the advantage of the admir-
able training of the time-honored and witness-bearing church
of his fathers. Though tenacious of the five points of Calvin-
ism, and in the beginning of his ministry inclined to limit the
entrance of the Way of Life to Presbyterians of the bluest cast,
yet with time and experience he became tolerant and catholic
in his judgments of those who “ cast out devils” under otherRE V. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
125
symbols than the Assembly’s Catechism. Mr. Crawford was
one of the ablest preachers ever settfed in Western New York.
He was of a more ardent nature than is usual with his country-
men, and was at times a model of pulpit eloquence, moving
all hearts with his vehement arid passionate oratory.
Though Gilbert Crawford has long rested from his labors,
yet his memory is green in the hearts of multitudes in Western
New York who have been made the wiser and the better by
his ministry.
With the Rev. Mr. Searle, Rector of St. Paul’s, I next made
acquaintance. He was the predecessor of the Rev. Dr. Shelton,
who has been settled here for a longer period than any other
clergyman, and who enjoys a large measure of the esteem and af-
fection of our community, irrespective of denominational bound-
aries. Mr. Searle was a finished gentleman in manners, and was
said to be of somewhat convivial tastes. He was highly and
deservedly esteemed. My impression is that he was the high-
est kind of High Churchman, holding the Kingdom of Heaven
to be a close corporation in the Episcopal Church, and looking
upon those without her pale, as the “celestials” regard all people
not inhabiting the “Flowery Kingdom,” as outside barbarians.
Of Diocesan Bishops, we knew little in those primitive days.
I do not remember to have seen Bishop Hobart, the Episcopal
Bishop of New York, at this time. I well recollect, however,
an introduction to Bishop Dubois, the Roman Catholic Prelate
of this State in 1825. He was made known to me by Mr. Le
Couteulx, an old and worthy citizen, whose memory should
long since have been honored by a “Paper” read before our
Historical Society. Bishop Dubois was the most polite of
Frenchmen, and seemed amazed at his own hardihood in ven-
turing so far beyond the pale of civilization; feeling, like the.
traveled Turk, that he had, in his visit to Buffalo, reached the
“ Wall of the World.”
My recollection is that the only Roman Catholic priest here
in 1825, was Father Pax, a German, who ministered in a very126
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
humble edifice, then standing upon the present site of St. Louis'
Cathedral. He was esteemed a worthy man, but a severe dis-
ciplinarian; for though his name was Peace, his practice was
occasionally belligerent—the old gentleman freely applying his
cane to the shoulders of refractory parishioners.
The Baptist Church of this city has never enjoyed the labors
of a more eloquent divine than the Rev. Mr. Handy, who, in
1825, held forth the Word of Life in Buffalo. He labored as
one standing by the grave’s mouth, with his eye fixed upon the
Heavenly City he was soon to enter.
How well I remember his youthful and intellectual counte-
nance, upon which the shadows of death were falling, his ear-
nest and eloquent appeals, his affectionate manner, his hectic
cough, marking him for the grave, where he was early borne by
a weeping community. Many were attracted to his ministry
outside the Baptist communion, for while a sincere immersion-
ist, he was a catholic Christian, who held the essential doctrines
of the gospel far above all denominational shibboleths.
There remains but the Methodist Episcopal communion,
which, if I mistake not, was served in 1825 by the Rev. Glezen
Fillmore, an able and faithful minister of the New Testament,
whose praise is in all the churches, and who yet survives,* the
venerable and venerated relic of a past age.
In conclusion, let me say that the Historical Society of this
city has the main design of preserving all records of the early his-
tory of Buffalo, and all the reminiscences of its pioneer popu-
lation. They are fast passing away. Every year their numbers
are diminishing, and we have evidence to-night that only a few
venerable Fathers and Mothers survive of those who encoun-
tered the perils of the wilderness, and who suffered.the loss of
the fruits of their industry in the burning of Buffalo. They
remind us by their presence of what they have done and suf-
fered, in laying the foundation of this populous, wealthy and
*Rev. Mr. Fillmore died January 26th, 1875.RE V. JOHN C. LORD, D. D.
127
beautiful city. What amazing changes have these aged men
and women seen, changes in a lifetime, which ordinarily require
centuries in their accomplishment. What contrasts must be
apparent to them, as they look back to the period when Buffalo
was an insignificant hamlet, fringed with impervious forest on
one hand, and the solitary waters of our great inland sea on
the other; the mournful sighing of the winds in the tree tops,,
and the solemn singing of the stormy waves, deep calling unto
deep, only broken by the whoops of the savages who came to
gaze upon the white men who had invaded their solitudes.
With what anxious foreboding did the young mother clasp her
babe to her bosom, as the red warriors looked curiously into
her cabin, knowing that neither age nor sex were spared by them
when out upon the war path. Could that fair girl or her youth-
ful husband, in their most vivid imaginings, have conceived it
possible that they should live to see such a city as this, with a
harbor wdiitened with the sails of many populous states, and a
commerce more important than that of the entire sea-board, in
the year 1800? Like a dream, when one awaketh, must these
changes seem to the venerable survivors who saw Buffalo in the
early years of the nineteenth century.
Separated from the East, the supplies of the early settlers,
were forwarded slowly by dangerous and uncertain routes.
They were deprived of the ordinary appliances of civilization,
dwelling apart from their brethren. They now hear the sounds
of commerce on an artificial river connecting this city with the
ocean and the world; and the solitudes, which once were broken
only by the hoot of the owl, or the melancholy cry of the whip-
poor-will, are now resonant with the rush of commerce and the
shouts of the canal driver. They fled, more than half a century
ago, from their burning habitations, pursued by a merciless foe;
they saw the results of all their toil dissipated in a conflagration,
from which it seemed that Buffalo could never recover; they
have since seen her rise from her ashes like the fabled Phoenix,
and on her banner the excellent motto of the Empire State, of128
ANNUAL ADDRESS BY THE
which she is the second city in commercial rank, “Excelsior/'
Recovering from the momentary panic, the people of Buffalo,
with the indomitable energy which was a marked characteristic
of our pioneer population, returned, not to sit down among the
ashes of their houses and their goods; but to rebuild and restore,
to lay anew its foundations, to repeat the trials and self-denial
of years, the fruits of which were destroyed in an hour, to com-
mence their labors a second time in a solitude as profound as
that which they invaded when they first entered their cabins on
the shores of Erie.
Survivors of those who have borne the burthen and heat of the
day, we welcome you to these festivities, commemorative of your
trials and labors, and especially of your triumph. Behold the
•city which you and yours have built! Behold this audience, in
which is represented so much intelligence, character and wealth,
so much youth and beauty; which, but for you, gould never
have met to make this Hall vocal with their congratulations !
The Historical Society of Buffalo welcome you, and promise,
before this vast congregation, that your names and your deeds
shall not perish from among men; that future generations shall
know from their archives, the privations and sufferings of that
•enterprising band, who first camped under the “grand old
trees” bordering the solitary waters, now ploughed by a thou-
sand keels; who, under the arches of that primitive forest, or in
their rude log’ cabins, offered prayer and praise to Him who
had been a wall about them in all their perilous journey, and
to whom they looked for protection from the dangers they must
yet encounter.
We welcome the living. We honor the dead. We implore
for these survivors the divine benediction and the good hope
of another and a better life.
Over the dead of two wars, separated by more than half a
•century, some of you have been called to mourn; the associates
of your youth, the friends who labored by your side, have for
the most part passed into the unseen world, yet you have notANNUAL ADDRESS.
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labored or suffered in vain. You behold the result of your
toils to-day, and beyond this “ there remaineth a rest for the
people of God.” Why should you count the sufferings of this
time worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be re-
wealed ?
Wayworn and aged friends,—may we not apply to you the
pathetic words of a poet:
“ My feet are worn and weary with the march,
On the rough road and up the steep hill-side;
Oh, City of our God, I fain would see
Thy pastures green, where peaceful waters glide.
My garments, travel-worn and stained with dust,
Oft rent by briars and thorns that crowd my way,
Would fain be made, O Lord, my righteousness,
Spotless and white in Heaven’s unclouded ray.
•Patience, poor soul, the Savior’s feet were worn,
/	The Savior’s heart and hands were weary, too;
His garments travel-stained, worn and old,
His vision blinded with a pitying dew.
Love thou the path of sorrow that He trod;
Toil on, and wait in patience for thy rest;
Oh, City of our Lord, we soon shall see
Thy glorious walls, home of the loved and blest.”