^ y a. '/.^V^U^C- , v/OOOWARD HUD SON, CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS. ^.1^0?. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/accountofcelebraOOIincrich The Town Hall An Account of the CELEBRATION By THE TOWN of LINCOLN, MASS"' April 23rd, 1904^ of the 150th Anniversary of its INCORPORATION 1754- 1904 Lincoln, Mass'" PRINTED FOR THE TOWN 1905 FOREWORD At a town meeting held July ii, 1903, the atten- tion of the town was called to the fact that the fol- lowing year would complete a century and a half of the town's corporate existence. The following resolu- tion was unanimously passed : " Resolved, That it is appropriate that the town take some notice of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its incorporation next year. Therefore, Voted, That the Selectmen and the Committee on Claims be a committee to consider the matter and report to the town at some future meeting some plan for the proper observance of the day." At the annual town meeting held March 7, 1904, it was voted, "That the whole subject be left to a committee consisting of the Selectmen and the Committee on Claims and C. Lee Todd, Walter W. Johnson and Harry Russ." The sum of five hundred dollars was appropriated for the use of the committee. The celebration, an account of which follows, is of great importance to the town in many ways. So far as the records show or memory serves, the town has never before celebrated its natal day. The effort has been made in connection with this occasion to pre- serve and put in permanent form what has come down iii F7-^ L7LS ivi5293a08 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN to us of record and tradition connected with the history of the town ; and it is desired to make the printing of the records, vital statistics, and other original matter of value now in the town's possession relating to the first century of its existence a part of the celebration of this one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town's incorporation, and steps to this end have already been taken. The roll of the men of Lincoln who have served their country as soldiers has also been included in this volume. The committee having in charge the arrangements for the observance of this anniversary have sought to make the exercises of interest and value not only to those who took part in them, but also to subsequent generations through having the proceedings printed. The illustrations that have been included in this volume have been chosen with a view to represent- ing the Lincoln of the past as well as of the present, though all of the houses whose pictures are here given are standing to-day. The celebration began at daybreak with the ring- ing of the church bell and the firing of cannon. The day could not have been more propitious, for the sun rose clear and, though there was no rye waving in the fields as by tradition it was on the memorable 19th of April, 1775, the fields were green and the maples and elms were in blossom. The village street was gay with streamers of lavender and white, and " Old Glory " floated above the trees on the Com- mon. The day brought back many of Lincoln's sons iv FOREWORD and daughters, and afforded opportunity for the ex- change of friendly greetings. The approach of the Governor was heralded by the ringing of the bell and the firing of cannon. Before the appointed hour arrived the church was filled with townspeople and others from neighboring towns, and as the Gov- ernor and the others who were to take part in the exercises of the afternoon entered, the audience rose and stood until they were seated on the platform. The program given herewith was then carried out as arranged. For the Banquet and the dancing the interior of the Town Hall had been festooned with long strips of bunting, lavender, white, and yellow, the colonial colors, with groups of Japanese lanterns. A colored sketch of a Puritan man and maiden placed in front of the gallery recalled the aspect of our ancestors of 1754. A long table was spread upon the platform, at which were seated the Toastmaster, his Excellency Governor Bates, the orator of the day, members of the boards of selectmen of Lincoln, Lexington, Con- cord, and Weston, and others who were to speak. The entire floor was occupied by long tables made bright with roses, carnations, and green vines. Two hundred and forty-three persons sat down to the Banquet. A band of music placed in the gallery played at intervals during the supper. A mark of special distinction in the form of a blue ribbon badge was conferred upon all persons who were descendants of families living in Lincoln when the town was in- V THE TOWN OF LINCOLN corporated, and formed a conspicuous feature of the celebration. At the close of the after-dinner speaking the hall was made ready for dancing; the band moved to the platform ; the gallery filled with onlookers ; and soon the floor was taken possession of by the young people, who made the most of the time that was left until the hour of midnight and the entrance of the Sabbath brought the festivities of the day to a close. CONTENTS Program ....... xi Invocation ....... 5 Anthem ....... 7 Words of Welcome ..... 9 " A Milestone Planted " — Address of Hon. Charles Francis Adams . . . 12 Appendix . . . . ... • 1^3 Anniversary Poem ..... 147 Anthem 156 The Banquet Address by Mr. Storey . . . . 161 Remarks by Governor Bates . . • .164 Mr. Adams . . . . 168 Mr. Baker ..... 169 Mr. Flint 173 Mr. Farrar 177 Mr. Bradley . . . . 178 Dr. Emerson .... 182 Dr. DeNormandie . . . 187 Mr. Hodges . .... 191 Letters From Mr. Smith ...... 197 Mr. Stearns 200 Notes on Illustrations . . . . 213 Roll of Soldiers 235 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The Town Hall View of Street looking north View of Street looking south The William Hartwell House The Samuel Hartwell House The Farrar House . The Codman House The Garfield House . The Nelson House The Flint House The Dr. Russell House The Foster House . The Dr. Stearns House The Hoar House The Eveleth House The Smith House The Adams House Brendan . The Paul Revere Tablet Frontispiece I 9 24 38 52 66 80 94 108 122 136 150 164 178 192 206 220 233 ANNIVERSARY PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF LINCOLN SATURDAY, APRIL TWENTY-THIRD NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FOUR program 2.30 p. M. IN FIRST PARISH CHURCH ORGAN PRELUDE Mrs. Charles H. Trask PRAYER Rev. Edward E. Bradley ANTHEM, "Jehovah Reigns" Mendelssohn WORDS OF WELCOME Mr. Charles S. Smith (Chairman of Selectmen) ADDRESS lion. Charles Francis Adams HYMN Words by Mrs. Sarah PhilHps Bradley Tunc : " Park Street " ANNIVERSARY POEM Mr. Julius E. Eveleth ANTHEM, ** God of Our Fathers '* Schnecker BENEDICTION Rev. Henry C. Cunningham 5. JO p. M. IN BEMIS HALL BANQUET Mr. Moorfield Storey, Toastmaster 8.30 P. M. IN BEMIS HALL DANCING HYMN Sarah Phillips Bradley O God, as this the natal day Of our fair town we celebrate. We lift our hearts to thee and pray That on thy guidance we may wait. Our fathers crossed the stormy main. The pathless wilderness they trod. They sought not any earthly gain. But freedom here to worship God. Two hundred years ago and more To this fair hillside's sunny slope Came sturdy men who hardship bore With dauntless heart and steadfast hope. They toiled and suffered, fought and won. Nor counted any cost too high That they may hand from sire to son A heritage of liberty. O God, our fathers* guide and strength Through troublous years of storm and strife. Thou who to our loved land at length Hast brought a prosperous peaceful life ; Grant us, the sons of noble sires Who in thy house to-day have met. To keep alive thine altar fires, *« Lest we forget, lest we forget ! " I ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE CHARLES S. SMITH EDWARD F. FLINT ANTHONY J. DOHERTY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS MOORFIELD STOREY JULIUS E. EVELETH WALTER W. JOHNSON HARRY RUSS C. LEE TODD I ANNIVERSARY PROCEEDINGS INVOCATION Rev. Edward E. Bradley Almighty and ever-living God, thou who art the God of our fathers, we avouch thee to be our God, and desire to acknowledge thee in all our ways. As we have come together to-day to do honor to the men and women who have lived here before us, and especially to commemorate the virtues and the achievements of those who first settled the town, we pray that their character may be so clearly and justly set before us as to call forth afresh our ad- miration and our gratitude. We thank thee for the priceless heritage of our New England ancestry. We glory in the high motives that brought our fathers to these shores ; in their labors and strug- gles and sacrifices to secure religious freedom and political independence ; in the wisdom with which they laid deep and broad and sure the foundations of our national government. We pray that our re- membrance of these men to-day, and of the prin- ciples for which they lived and died, may serve to sober our minds, to elevate our thoughts, to send us forth to live in our day and generation with the same high consecration of purpose and of deed that actuated them. May thy blessing and favor be upon our beloved 5 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN Commonwealth, and upon all within her borders who seek to do justice and to establish righteous- ness. Finally grant us all, we beseech thee, the wisdom and strength so to fulfil the tasks thou hast given us to perform in town and in State that we can pray in all good conscience, " Establish thou the work of our hands upon us ; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." And thy Name shall have all the praise, now and forever. Amen. ANTHEM JEHOVAH REIGNS Jehovah reigns ! Mighty is He, and strong His arm ! Come forth, ye hosts ! with Him to lead. What foe shall we fear ? What harm ? Yes, He doth reign ; Power supreme is His, and Right, March on for Him, exult in Him, And sing with the Hosts of Light. In faith stand firm, victory waits for all Who obey and answer Him when He doth call, Our God doth reign. Power supreme He holds and Right. Arise ! come forth ! Exult in Him, rejoice with the Hosts of Light. Oh, His mercy endures ; He is Love, He is Love, All the earth doth rejoice in His care. Field and flower, hill and vale, and the sea, and the sky. Are the wonders that He doth prepare. Infinite Power ! ever supreme. He is glorious ! Humble are we children of earth. He is victorious ! Let praise unto His throne be ascending, from mor- tals who adore. Let the Light of His Mansion supernal 7 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN Shine upon us, blessed by Him, ever eternal ! Let all He has created acknowledge His name for- ever more. The flowers obeying His own command, Their brightness give to adorn the land. The sun*s bright rays on earth's green verdure shine, To aid the grain, to cheer the spreading vine. The year He crowns with bounteous yield; His watchful care doth spread o'er hill and field. Our God doth reign ; Power supreme is His, and Right, March on for Him, exult in Him, and sing with the Hosts of Light. In faith stand firm; valiant ones, victory waits for all Who obey and answer Him when He doth call. Yes, He doth reign over the world and all that live. Of life and light, the Source supreme. What praise can we mortals give ! And lo ! in all His hand hath made. His marvellous wisdom there is e'er displayed. Earth, sea, and air proclaim His word. While all obey the voice of Him, their Lord. Jehovah reigns ! Mighty is He and strong His arm ! Yes, He doth reign. Supreme is He and right. Arise, ye hosts, exult in Him ! Arise, ye hosts, to praise again ! Jehovah reigns with power supreme ! He reigns ! He reigns ! Fiew of Street looking South (P- 215) WORDS OF WELCOME By Mr. Charles S. Smith, Chairman of Selectmen Friends and Fellow Citizens : We meet to-day to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the incorpo- ration of this town. It is my privilege, in behalf of the town, to extend to you all a most cordial welcome, and to express the hope that the day will be to you all both pleasant and profitable. As we refresh our memories with a review of the early history of the town, and study the characters and lives of the early settlers and incorporators, we shall be anew impressed with the value of our inheritance, and I trust with the duty imposed upon us of trans- mitting it unimpaired to our children. We meet to-day in this house erected on the site of the first meeting-house, which was used for all public functions : religious, political, and social, for more than eighty years. We can but admire the wisdom and good sense of the fathers, first, in choos- ing homes on these beautiful hillside slopes and fertile meadows, and then selecting this matchless site, accessible to all for the preaching of the gospel and the worship of God, which things were of fun- damental importance in their life. The foundations on which our fathers built were good and broad. We may broaden them, but can we better them ? 9 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN Besides good common sense, the incorporators of this town had another trait, indispensable then, and indispensable now, if true success is to be attained, — perseverance. This trait is forcibly illustrated by the fact that for twenty years they labored to have this town set off from the towns of Lexington, Concord, and Weston as a separate municipality. Beginning in 1734, and partially succeeding in the intervening years, it was not till 1754 that *their labors were rewarded, and a separate town, named " Lincoln," became an accomplished fact, a blessed reality ; blessed to them, and we trust to all suc- ceeding generations. Besides the two traits already alluded to, viz., their regard for the worship of God, and their per- sistence in seeking political independence, there was manifest among them a high degree of public spirit, first forcibly illustrated by the gift by a few men of the first Meeting House to the Precinct. Note the language of the givers : " We, the subscribers, inhabitants of the Precinct set off from Concord, Lexington and Weston, being desirous to promote the public preaching of the word of God in said Precinct, and willing for the ease of others, the inhabitants of said Precinct, to take upon ourselves more than our proportion of the great charge of setting up the public worship of God in said Precinct, have at our own proper cost and charge, erected a house for the public use of the Precinct, and have, in part, finished the same, which house standeth near the centre of said Pre- 10 WORDS OF WELCOME cinct and is made use of as a public meeting-house, — do, by these presents, freely, fully and absolutely give, grant, alienate, convey and confirm the said house to said Precinct." We may well believe that it was a full, free offering of love to the people. These traits have ever been exemplified in the his- tory of the town, and may the day be far removed when they cease to exist and rule in the community. The town has ever received the gifts of her sons with gratitude, whether of money, buildings, or self- denying service, and has always reciprocated as far as possible. It is recorded that for the valuable services rendered by the Hon. Chambers Russell, who gave to the town its name : " That Chambers Russell, Esq., have liberty to choose his pew in the Precinct Meeting House where he pleases, and build it when he pleases." I doubt not, Honored Sir, that a like privilege would be freely granted to you for the valued and valuable services you have rendered to the town. I take pleasure in presenting our esteemed towns- man, Hon. Charles Francis Adams, Orator of the Mr. Adams then proceeded to deliver the following ad- dress. A MILESTONE PLANTED' And this day shall be unto you for a memorial ; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. — Exodus xii, 1 4. Why are we here gathered ? Why, old and young, have we left plow and counter and desk, — the fur- row, the school and the office, — proclaiming high- holiday in Lincoln, and thus — men, women and children — met under a common roof-tree ? The answer to this question, put at the threshold of the day's observances, will give its character to my ad- dress, and upon it impose limitations. It is Lincoln's birthday ! — the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its existence as a town. We have met to com- memorate the event. We are here to plant. a mile- stone, — a memorial for other times and subsequent generations. It will mark the ending of one cycle in our existence as a community, and the beginning of another. A dozen years ago I was called upon, where I then lived, to bear the burden of the day, so far as the preparation of the conventional address was con- * This address, considerably abbreviated, occupied in delivery one hour and fifteen minutes. It was subsequently revised. The portions omitted in delivery are here included j and very considerable additions have also been made to it. 12 A MILESTONE PLANTED cerned, on a like occasion. It was at Quincy, not my own birthplace, but where I and mine originated, where — bone of its bone, flesh of its flesh — we for two hundred and fifty years had lived, and, dying, gone back to the soil. Responding, though with extreme reluctance, to the call thus made upon me, I took occasion to comment on the character of such commemorations, — their sameness of tone, their self-laudation and lack of individuality, only exceeded in weariness by their constant succession. The his- torical deliverances customary in such cases, I not untruly asserted, were made up largely of ancestor worship, combined with the ill-considered laudation of a state of things, social, material and educational, which, if brought back and imposed upon us now, would be pronounced unendurable. Of those decep- tive, as well as imaginary, portrayals, I declared I had both heard and read more than enough. Like most conventional observances, they at one time had served a purpose, and a useful purpose ; for in them, un- consciously quite as much as with intent, was recorded much of historical worth, which otherwise would probably have perished, — not only local traditions, personal memories, the story of the quickly forgotten past, its friendships, its feuds, its great aspirations and its small accomplishment, but phases of thought and expression. Records of the time gone by, those discourses and addresses were also mirrors of what was then in vogue. This, however, was in another age of the world, — the days which knew not news- papers or periodicals, the town history or the histori- 13 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN cal society. But, though that period is gone, the commemoration address abides ; and so the old straw is everlastingly threshed over, though few indeed are the grains of wheat resultant therefrom. Each age has, or ought to have, some mode of expression peculiar to itself. The occasional historical discourse and the formal memorial address were of an age that is past. Let them go with it. He, I admit, would be over bold who, standing, in this year 1904, on the threshold of a century, should undertake to forecast the form of expression to which the century will, in its full maturity, addict itself; but I do not think it will be platform oratory. That was characteristic of the nineteenth century, as pulpit deliverance was characteristic of the eighteenth; and, speaking frankly as well as honestly, though not without study of both, I do not know which of the two modes of expression, taken as wholes, was the drearier and the emptier. The theological literature of the eighteenth century is vast, and, in largest part, devoid both of interest and value ; but, on the other hand, retrospect reveals a shallowness and affectation of thought, combined with a tinsel of rhetoric, about the platform oratory of the nineteenth century, which goes far in a comparative way to a rehabilitation of what went before. Thus I felt then, so I feel now ; and so, twelve years ago, I argued to a friend of mine, — one of the antique Quincy stock. He, however, took a differ- ent view of the subject. Picking me up at once, and assenting to much of my criticism, he refused to 14 A MILESTONE PLANTED accept my conclusions, arguing that it was wholly inexpedient on these occasions to dispense with the time-honored address. It was he who then made use of that milestone simile. In Quincy, and along the old Coast-road, as it was once called, running from Salem through Boston to Plymouth, we had a number of those landmarks, bearing upon their faces eighteenth century distances, dates and initials ; and, with them, my friend and I were familiar. Those old colonial way-metes, rough-hewn at the begin- ning and now furrowed and gnawed by the tooth of time, — as they stood there aslant at the roadside, with inscriptions no longer wholly legible through moss growth and weather stain, — had marked for generations of travellers the distances traversed. And so the printed pages to which I so slightingly alluded told for all future time of some point a community had reached in a journey knowing no end. Here those composing that community had paused for a space, and, resting in their march, cast a glance back- ward over the road by which they had come, and forward over that yet to be traversed. " At such a time," my old friend, now become my mentor, went on, " we are, or ought to be, a world unto ourselves. Why take thought, on this our birthday, of other people, or their kindred observances, or burden our- selves because of posterity ? What matters it who are looking on, or what to-morrow's * Times ' or * Herald * may have to say of that now taking place ? Those after us here dwelling will, to remote gen- erations even, give heed to the utterances of to-day ; 15 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN Its record will, by them, not be forgotten. Let that suffice ! This is our anniversary. Thus far have we got in our journey ; and, throwing off our burdens for the moment, we here raise a memorial such as it is, which to those — be they many or few — who care to observe, will tell them that here we rested as we passed a centennial." On consideration I had to admit that my friend had the best of the argument. His was the saner, the more sensible view. So I helped plant that Quincy milestone ; ' and, recalling the lesson then received, I am here to plant the Lincoln milestone to-day. But the circumstances are not the same. Then I spoke as one to the manner born, — I was, as I al- ways had been, part of the halted column. Of the town family, its names, its localities, its traditions, were familiar to me. It is not so here; it never can be so. I may be a useful citizen in Lincoln; and hereafter, as for ten years past, it may be my home. I hope it will be. But here I never can be other than a new-comer, — at most and best, a child of adoption. As such, I am conscious I speak to-day; and what I say needs must lack that insight, that sympathy, that absorption of the individual in the community possible only amid those surroundings where " Heaven," as Wordsworth tells us, "lies about us in our infancy." So I beseech your patience while, « The Centennial Milestone: an Address in Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary ofthe Incorporation of Quincy, Massachu- setts, delivered July 4, 1892. Concerning the friend "of the antique Quincy stock," see p. 44 ofthe address above referred to. 16 A MILESTONE PLANTED not wholly of Lincoln, I speak about Lincoln, to Lincoln. I shall indulge in no generalities or abstractions, much less attempt flights of eloquence. I propose to talk of Lincoln, and of Lincoln only ; and that in simple fashion. But the audience I address is not here; so far from being here, it is remote, as yet unborn. The message framed to-day is to the Lin- coln of the next century. At the earliest it is to the Lincoln of 1954, — those who will then gather on this hillside to celebrate the bi-centennial of the town. It is not often in these days of the printing-press and tumult of tongues that any one can nourish even a hope, no matter how delusive, that what he says or puts on paper will be remembered to-morrow. In- stant oblivion, as a rule, awaits. But the proceedings of to-day are exceptional ; they will surely be recalled. The interest in what we say or do is not widespread, — indeed, it is confined to a very narrow circle ; — and yet what we this day do and say will abide. Within that circle, the passage of time will make it more curious, more interesting, ever more perma- nent. It also will be the time-eaten, weather-stained inscription on a moss-covered milestone. The better to realize this, let us put ourselves in the place of those who are gone, — those we to-day commemorate. To dwellers in it the present is al- together commonplace, and its daily environment, as distinguished from its exceptional events, is deemed uninteresting. It was so in 1754; it is so in 1904; it will be so in 2054. What, in 1754, 17 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN their vision dwelt on every day and all the time was so familiar that it never occurred to those then living here that a generation to which it would all be remote and strange and curiously quaint would presently people the soil. So they made no record. Yet what they did not dream of, long since came to pass ; and, to-day, there is for us no Lincoln start- ing-post ! Vainly we seek even a vestige of the landmark. While we can send a message forward, we cannot send one back. But suppose for a moment we could, — suppose that our voice could reach Chambers Russell, John Hoar, Benjamin Brown and Stephen Weston, gathered at the house of Edward Flint, close to this spot, on the 26th of May, 1746, there and then holding the first precinct meeting, — what would our message be ? If we can frame that mes- sage, we can probably form some idea of the similar message our descendants in 2054 would be likely to send back to us here. Unquestionably, we would say to Chambers Russell, and the rest, including the Rev. William Lawrence, — "Tell us of yourselves and of the Lincoln in which you lived. We do not care to listen to sermons on dead and forgotten theological issues, to disquisitions on the rights of man, or to your conception of the everlasting veri- ties ; — we want to know about you, and the local- ity in which you lived and had your being, — your homes and your meeting-house, your school, with its text-books, your church and its pastor, the roads, the means of conveyance, the clothes you wore, the 18 A MILESTONE PLANTED social life you led, and the bones of contention amongst you ! You once lived, and lived here ! Of you and yours not a vestige remains save a few old houses, and the stones in the village burying-ground behind our new town hall ; not a garment, scarcely a utensil or book, hardly a printed record. What you thought the commonplace of every-day life the passage of years has made quaint. Tell us, then, of yourselves and of the old-time, the original Lincoln, — long since dead and buried and forgotten." As it is with us, so, rest assured, will it be with our posterity. That fact dictates the character of the inscription to be cut on the milestone we now plant. And first of that forgotten past, — that remote heretofore with which there is no connection, whether telephonic or spiritual. To our posterity it will be even more shadowy than it is to us ; and to try to revive it, — to inject such degree of life as is possible into those long-buried bones, a ray of animation into eyes for more than a century glazed and sightless, is part of the task to which I to-day must address myself. In the case of every Massachusetts town the past divides itself into two portions, the prehistoric and the historic, — the last a mere fringe hanging on the garment, yet in great degree conditioned on the first. Our records of Lincoln, — our traditions even, are but of yesterday. They go back only to 1744, or possibly a century or so more at most, — covering the lives of five, or, perhaps, eight, generations of 19 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN children of the soil. Beyond and behind stretches the vast unknown, a very Sahara of time, to the his- torian forever a sealed book, and only in degree and through patient study explorable by the geologist. It reaches back to that remote ice age only in traces vis- ible, but which gave to all the region hereabout the character it bears to-day, dictating in advance for each locality the products of its soil, the vocations of its people, and the lines of its thoroughfares ; — so, commerce was decreed for Boston, mills for Lowell and Lawrence, agriculture for Sudbury, Concord and Belmont, a railroad for the valley of the Charles, and forests of oak and pine for Lincoln. In our homes, our vocations and our journeyings, — in the field and on the road, in locating a way or a mill, or choosing a site for a house, we do but follow those lines, — whether of least resistance, or of grace and beauty, — which were laid down for us here in New Eng- land long before the idea of the pyramids got a lodg- ment in the brains of the Pharaohs, or the legend of Eden assumed shape in the imagination of the pilgrims of Horeb. In his sketch of the history of Lincoln, Mr. Wheeler makes this statement : " The hill on which the [Lincoln] meeting-house stands is four hundred and seventy feet above high-water mark at Boston, and though there are other hills of greater magni- tude, it is believed to be the highest land in [Middle- sex] county whereon men have built themselves habitations. . . . Brooks which are tributaries to the Concord, Charles and Shawshine rise and flow 10 A MILESTONE PLANTED out, but not a tubful of water comes into the town from any source except the rains and dews of heaven." Here, in fewest possible words, is the whole secret told of the early settlement and slow development of Lincoln. They resulted from natural conditions; and, talking of the history of Lincoln, is it not star- tling as well as curious to reflect that, of the seventy or eighty centuries which have elapsed since the nat- ural features of the township became exactly what, we see them to-day, a little less than two cover the history which interests us and which we so minutely investigate, — the other sixty-eight or seventy-eight centuries, a few less or many more, are an absolute blank ! Yet, through them all, Lincoln hill and Sandy Pond, the Walden woods and Fairhaven-bay, were as to-day they are. We men only are here as of yesterday ! When Lincoln was incorporated, — in those days of Chambers Russell and William Lawrence, John Hoar and Edward Flint, — the word geology had no well-defined meaning. The scientific study of the earth, and of the physical changes it has undergone, had not begun. Indeed, the first chapter of the book of Genesis disposed of that matter, and disposed of it summarily. It was all delightfully simple. The earth was six thousand years old ; it was created in six days, and in the form in which we now know it. To question this was impious. The deluge was ac- cepted as an undeniable historic fact ; but the actual occurrence of an ice age was a thing as yet undreamed of even by the most advanced and sceptical of scien- 21 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN tists. Since 1754, and almost entirely within the last half of the period, the geologist has revealed a few facts which, while interesting in themselves, are still more interesting in the possibility of future discov- eries they suggest. But upon the basis of what is already known, the remoter past may, for Lincoln as for other like dots on the globe's surface, be to a degree restored. During that remoter period pre- ceding the last ice age, a period to be measured by aeons and cycles and not by centuries or millenaries even, all the region hereabout, not Middlesex merely but Massachusetts and New England as well, were in the formative stage ; — then the rocks were mixed and hardened below the surface ; and the surface it- self was slowly shaped by rain and the flow of rivers, until its general form was not greatly unlike that of to-day. Instead of being some sixteen miles from the ocean, Lincoln is supposed to have then been some sixty miles from it ; while its altitude above the level of the sea was more than twice what it now is. The' continental coast line seems to have then run well outside of what we call Cape Ann and Cape Cod. The site of present Boston was forty miles inland, and a very considerable river with its affluents, the predecessor of the Merrimac, drained all the country hereabouts. Flowing down from the New Hamp- shire hills and across the present Middlesex water- shed, it found an outlet, it is surmised, not where the Merrimac empties itself, but through the channels of what are now the Mystic or the Charles. Then came the long arctic cycle, with its sea of glacial ice. 22 A MILESTONE PLANTED The dreary waste reached back to the very pole, — one unbroken area of frozen matter, — soil, gravel and ice, — its surface dotted by boulders, like an army moving forward, in New England, towards the southeast in silent, pitiless march. This vast and indescribable desolation was, it is supposed, a mile or more in solid depth, overtopping the summits of our hills by thousands of feet. When all this region, the crest of Mt. Washington even, was submerged by the sea of ice, Lincoln lay simply devoid of Hfe — crushed and mute — under a superincumbent burden of to us inconceivable thickness and weight. Grad- ually, after a lapse of years concerning which we can form not even an estimate, — it is here all matter of guess-work, — climatic changes again came about, and the ice sheet began to melt away. At the time of its greatest development, its frontier had been some forty miles east of Nantucket and south of Cape Cod, — approximately, perhaps, — for certainty and exactness of measurement are, in this matter, as yet remote, — some 120 to 150 miles from Lincoln; — and, as the grinding and excavating barrier, fold on fold and bit by bit, receded, the continent beneath it emerged, assuming as it did so a different contour and novel shapes. This may have been ten thousand years ago, more or less, — probably less rather than more, possibly six thousand only. And yet, in comparison with even six thousand years, how small a poor century and a half of municipal life appears, — the narrow fringe on an ample garment ! When, however, this 23 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN region, in process of time to be known as Lincoln by the descendants of a race not yet emerged from barbarism, again saw the sunlight, — like Hamlet's father, revisited the glimpses of the moon, — when this slowly came about, the crust of the solid earth had been depressed some forty feet, — whether by the sheer weight imposed upon it, or by the cosmic conditions which led to the cyclic change ; the water- sheds were not as they had been, and the streams found new channels and outlets. Meanwhile the interior had become the seaboard ; and the old sea- board marked the edge of what are known as deep- sea soundings. In the further interior the whole aspect of the continent had undergone change, the former surface had been ground down or scraped away, the hills had been denuded, the valleys filled up. Everything movable in the region thereafter to be known as Lincoln had been displaced. When not gouged away, the soil had been bodily lifted up and carried over into what are now Norfolk and Plymouth counties, and there deposited ; or, perhaps, borne still further on and, literally, cast into the sea. Thus, when Lincoln — the township we know — emerged from under the liquescent mass, it appeared not only in a new form, but with a soil in large degree alien, — a detritus from northern Massachusetts, and the mountains of New Hampshire. As the ice dissolved, moreover, fierce sub-glacial streams flowed to and fro, or made lakes against the barrier, seeking, through a strangely changed watershed, the easiest outlets. These streams also brought down with them 24 The William Hartwell House Residence of Mr. Joh?i Dee (p. 216) A MILESTONE PLANTED vast deposits of soil, — gravel, clay and sand, — spreading them over the denuded country or the face of yet unmelted ice, thus long held congealed. On an immensely large scale of space and time, it was the process we now see in little each recurring spring. The fields and roadsides are then boggy with water, brooklets in miniature run everywhere, the uplands are in movement towards the valleys, and every hollow in the fields becomes for a time a shallow lake. In certain spots, — recesses in the soil, — bodies of ice accumulate, and, becoming covered with soil, are shielded from atmospheric influence. Presently, the ice formation melts until finally a cavity is left, at the bottom of which lie the matters which had held the ice congealed. On a gigantic scale, multiplied in every case by many thousand- fold, this familiar process then went on. Take an instance fresh in memory. The winter just ended was with us one of well-nigh unprece- dented severity. They say we had a snowfall of some seventy inches ; while, on more than thirty days, the mercury registered from thirty to sixty degrees of frost. The ice formation and snow deposit, when the season passed its climax, may have averaged two feet. They certainly did not average more. During that glacial period, as the result of which the Lincoln region assumed its present contour, the ice formation was, instead of two feet thick, perhaps five thousand ; and, after lasting not three months but for centuries, it at length broke up through a period and from cosmic causes which the scientist has as yet failed to as THE TOWN OF LINCOLN specify or explain. One thing only may safely be assumed. Every natural process we last month watched in little then proceeded on a scale at least two thousand times as large. Our gurgling roadside gutter stream was a rushing sub-glacial torrent ; the cavities left by the ice bodies which lingered last be- came the beds of lakes ; the soil and gravel and sand we saw washed down and left in the lowlands became those ridges of gravel and hard-pan, those deposits of light, sandy soil, those upland bogs and marshes, cold and treeless, with which Lincoln to-day abounds. Starting at this very hill on which Lincoln village stands, going out through yonder door and walk- ing down by Sandy Pond, the geologist will to-day point out the line of gravel deposit left by the gla- cier where its ice-concealed streams tore down to the Sudbury, which then found and formed the channel wherein now it flows. First, there is Sandy Pond, a mere hollow among the hills, partly rimmed by gla- cial rubbish ; then there are the Concord woods, all ridged with glacial kames and knolls, between and among which lie yet other ponds ; next, sixty feet below Sandy Pond, though not a mile away, is Wal- den, a deep ice-block cavity, among the gravels ; finally, a succession of ridges, swamps, bogs, swales and hollows, — still freshly bearing the imprints of the glacier, — until we emerge on Fairhaven-bay, the shallow and confined residuum of what was once a lake of depth and compass. As the crow flies, Fairhaven-bay is but a short two hundred yards from Walden, and, measured centre to centre, two 26 A MILESTONE PLANTED miles from Sandy Pond ; but, under the mysterious workings of glacial force, there is a drop of sixty feet between Sandy Pond and Walden, and of an hundred between it and the Sudbury. And all the intermediate space is so fresh from the formative power, so clearly marked by it, that though we fail in our daily walks to note it, a thousand years are there but as yesterday and as a watch in the night/ So it was and is ; and, because of it, the Lincoln of to-day is a Massachusetts hill region. In Mr. Wheeler's forceful, if homely, words, " not a tubful of water " flows into the town, — every drop that filters through its soil or falls from the clouds upon it always has sought, and now seeks, an outlet from it. Hence its history. Originally, the backwoods, the outlying districts, " the Farms," as such dis- tricts were then called, of several adjacent towns, out of them it was carved and made up. Concord and Lexington and Weston each contributed, even though grudgingly, a share. In fact, the tradition is that by those dwelling in the mother communities Lincoln was long known not by that name, but was somewhat derisively designated " Niptown," being made up, it was alleged, of remnants bitten oif, as it were, from each. But of the three territorial entities thus despoiled, one alone. Concord, can in the Massachusetts no- menclature be classed as a mother town. Settled, because of its well-watered site and broad bottom lands, in 1635, Concord was in the same year incor- 1 See Appendix A, pp. 113-126. 27 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN poratedj thirteenth in seniority among Massachu- setts towns. Cambridge and Watertown bordered it on the east ; to the west was the unpeopled wilder- ness. What afterwards became Lexington was then known as Cambridge Farms, — the outlying back region of what a year later (1636) became the col- lege town. But almost sixty years were to pass be- fore an independent existence, as Lexington, was to be given that remote region, first (1691) as a pre- cinct, then (i7i3)asa municipality. Watertown was in every sense of the term a Massachusetts mother town. Not until 17 13 was Weston cut off from it. Thus, after 17 13, Concord, Lexington and Weston — one mother and two daughter towns — adjoined each other, and where they met was the hill portion of each ; — an outlying, then inaccessible and, conse- quently, undesirable region, somewhat elevated, not well drained, heavily wooded and with an inferior soil, — where not cold and boggy, light and friable. In a word, it was a glacial detritus, and not an allu- vial deposit. So, naturally enough, Lincoln, the hill tract of the three towns, was peopled last, nor thickly peopled at that. But at length the fulness of time came to it also. It is one of the commonplaces of our Massa- chusetts history that those who first established themselves here as families, — fathers, mothers and children, — and not as mere adventurers, came to Plymouth in 1610, or to Salem in 1628, or to Boston in 1630, to found a "plantation religious," — church and town were one in the beginning, and 28 A MILESTONE PLANTED thenceforth advanced hand in hand. The church represented and comprised not only the religious aspirations and spiritual existence, but the social life also ; the town, the material, the educational and political. The meeting-house, as its name implied, was common ground ; for in those days all was sanctified in a way, and nothing was peculiarly sanc- tified. So, theology and religion permeating life, church and town met under one roof-tree. There was no consecrated church edifice, and no distinctive town-hall, — only the Meeting-house. Naturally, as the inhabitants occupying the back lands, — the Farms, — the common hill country of Concord and Lexington and Weston, — increased in number, they became more and more conscious of their isolation. It must have been great, — as we without much exaggeration would consider it, unbearable. So far as I have been able to discover, for there are no maps of that period, and the records are very scanty, after the incorporation of Weston (17 13) and before that of Lincoln (1754) there were but two East and West roads running through all this region, with one North and South road. In the case of Concord, the earliest way opened, seems to have been from Water- town, through what is now Lexington, by the old Virginia road, so called, through Lincoln's northern limits, to the junction of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers, beyond.' Speaking generally, in those times I See Albert E. Wood's paper »«The Plantation of Muskete- quid ' ' (p. zo), in the publications of the Concord Antiquarian So- ciety. 29 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN the bridle path followed the Indian trail ; the farm- way the bridle path ; the road, then, was developed out of what had been the farm-way ; and, in due time, the thoroughfare, or highway, followed. The railroad, when at last it came, was, as a general thing, apt to keep close to the original trail. From Boston the settlement of Massachusetts ra- diated ; and, in that settlement, Boston continued to be the centre of gravitation. But, at the time of the incorporation of Lincoln, and for two and forty years after that event, Boston was, and remained, strictly a peninsula. We to-day, as our fathers before us, are so accustomed to reach the city^s centre by a direct route, road or rail, through Arlington, or Waltham, and Cambridge, that it is not easy to realize that this has not always been the line of intercourse, — that it is, in fact, a modern invention. Such, however, is the case ; nor is it possible to get a clear idea of the origin and development of Lincoln's system of roads without first ridding the mind of that to which it is accustomed as part of its daily life. Lincoln's roads originated, and were developed, with an eye to Bos- ton : but, until 1786, the only unbroken thorough- fare into Boston was through Roxbury, over the Neck, as it was called. The single other regular means of communication was the Charlestown ferry, provided in 1631 ; and, later, become a link in the great Coast-road of 1639, from Salem to Plymouth. Thus for one whole century and two thirds of an- other, following the settlement of Massachusetts, — three fifths of the whole time since elapsed, — every 30 A MILESTONE PLANTED vehicle that went out of Boston, or into Boston, ex- cept over the ice in winter, passed through Roxbury and along what is now Washington Street. Foot- passengers, and, at a later day, those on horseback probably, were ferried over from Charlestown ; but everything on wheels or runners, even from the Essex towns, found its roundabout way Boston-ward over the Neck. Until 1783, people passing between Boston and Cambridge even, unless they sailed or rowed over, went through Brookline. Thus Judge Sewell records how, on July 4, 171 1, he "went to the Commencement by water in a sloop ; " though, in 1720, he drove out through Roxbury, but had a pleasant passage home by water, and " landed at the bottom of the Common." When, fifty-five years later, the British troops marched through Lincoln to Concord, they were carried over from Boston by boats to what is now East Cambridge, and, on their return, they made their way to Charlestown. I have referred to Judge Sewell, and his Commencements at Cambridge. The Judge was a good deal of a trav- eller about Massachusetts, but he records one visit only to Concord. That was on Wednesday, May 14, 171 2 ; and he went as a delegate from the church of Boston to the ordination of the Rev. John Whiting. He made the journey in a hired calash ; and, start- ing from his house in Boston at five o'clock in the morning, he got to Concord at ten. Coming back, he left Concord at half after three, and " Returned into my own House a very little before Nine. Laus Beor 31 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN Boston being thus the great objective, it naturally followed that, as new roads or ways were opened in Lincoln, they almost uniformly tended towards either Charlestown or Roxbury, on the way to Boston, and not at all to Cambridge. The earliest map we have upon which the roads of the period anterior to 1800 are indicated, is an English military map of 1775. The original and subsequent lines of communication can thereon be traced. The north road in Lincoln then went by way of Prospect Hill to Charlestown ; the south road ran through Weston to Watertown ; there crossing the Charles, it passed through Brook- line to Roxbury. A more direct road through Cam- bridge, and over Cambridgeport bridge, was opened in 1793; while what was at the time referred to as that "gigantic undertaking the Mill Dam," the ex- tension of Beacon Street to BrookHne, was not com- pleted until i8ao. So far as Lincoln was concerned, the Mill Dam, following West Boston bridge, at last did away with Charlestown and Roxbury as thorough- fares to Boston.' In this comparatively remote region, lying between the two natural routes to Boston, — elevated, tree- grown and secluded, — a sparse population dwelt, and, somehow, extracted from a niggard soil the wherewithal on which to live. Needless to say there were in those days no stage-coaches ; no daily news- papers ; no post-offices or mails ; no places where men congregated ; for Lincoln, — I am speaking of the period before 1750, — there was not even a corner ' See Appendix B, pp. 127-132. 32 A MILESTONE PLANTED grocery or a cross-road variety store. It was a work- a-day life in the woods all the year round for those whose lot was there cast, — with Boston, their near- est market-town, some twenty miles away. How they continued to exist, much more accumulate sub- stance, I have found it difficult to make out. Wood they had for fuel ; corn they grew, and from it made meal ; the pork and beef barrels were in the store- house ; their cloth was home-spun ; of groceries and West India goods they used but little, our necessi- ties being luxuries with them ; and, for household utensils, they depended on the passing peddler, or the occasional journey by cart or sleigh to Boston. In case of illness there was no near-by physician; for childbirth no nurse; the simplest drugs and medicines were hardly procurable. There were few books, and absolutely no libraries ; no printing-press, much less a news stand. A surveyor by calling, who in 1 82 1 published what he designated a topographi- cal sketch of the country immediately about Boston, has left this description of Lincoln ; and, be it re- membered, it was written in the stage-coach period, nearly seventy years after the incorporation of the town, and when many additional public ways and turnpikes had been laid out: "The old road [Tra- pelo] leading to the town of Lincoln, for the last six miles, is crooked, narrow, and hilly, little travelled on and much neglected. The roads within the limits of the town are generally uneven and in bad repair. The soil is coarse and rocky, a great portion whereof is covered with wood, and not more than one third of the 33 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN town under culture." ' Certainly not an alluring description ; yet at the time when it was written two generations of inhabitants had already passed away since the incorporation of Lincoln, and the War of Independence was as remote from the people then alive as the War of Secession is from us. The situation I have sought thus rapidly to picture had existed from the beginning. Custom made it endurable ; but, as population increased, people be- came restive. A craving was felt. A full century before the incorporation of Lincoln was discussed, the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay had proclaimed it as their first "duty to provide that all places and people, within their gates, should be supplied with an able and faithful minister of God's holy word; " and now, in August, 1744, divers of those residing in this, the easterly part of Concord, the northerly part of Weston and the westerly part of Lexington, represented to that same Great and General Court that they labored " under great diffi- culties and inconveniences by reason of their distance from their respective places of public worship in said towns, their families being many of them numerous, in the winter season more especially ; " and, accord- ingly, they petitioned to be set off as a separate pre- cinct, to the end that " the public worship of God might, by them, be more comfortably, constantly and universally attended upon." The prayer was certainly reasonable ; for, as the signers of it went on to assert, many of them lived " four, and some five miles dis- ' J. G. Hales, Survey of Boston and Vicinity (1821), p. 68. 34 A MILESTONE PLANTED tant from " their places of public worship ; whereas, if the petition was granted, there would be " but few inhabitants two miles and a quarter from the center" of the proposed precinct. Circumstanced as we to-day are, we do not even remotely realize what all this meant ; but, to those instructed, the words used are in their simplicity redundant of pathos. They reveal a community cut off from everything which to us makes life worth living. Essentially a simple, a moral and a religious race, the seclusion in which they perforce passed their lives bordered close on that solitude which leads to mental atrophy. They had, of course, their pleasures and pastimes, such as they were ; for it was neither a gloomy nor a joyless race. There were the house-raisings, the pig-stickings and the corn- huskings ; Thanksgiving came, as well as Fast-day : but, like his English forbears, the New Englander took his pleasure rather sadly. Into it also he car- ried an abiding sense of the obligations under which he drew breath, and the hereafter which awaited him. Thus the church to which he belonged, and the Sab- bath concourse at the meeting-house were about all either social or aesthetic that existence had to offer. According to our ideas, it was not much ; but, to them, it was everything. Thus it was with Lincoln, as it was with all the little New England civic communities, — the history of the church is the early history of the town. Not only were the two blended, but the former absorbed the latter. On the earliest plan of the township 35 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN which has come down to us, that made by Samuel Hoar just forty years after its incorporation, the " meeting-house " is the one building designated ; and when Hales, twenty-five years later made his surveys, he described the " principal settlements " as grouped around the meeting-house. Naturally enough, therefore, the church being its all, the first acts of the " distinct and separate Precinct," eight years before the town came into being, related to the meeting-house, and the securing the services of " some meet person " therein " publicly to preach the word of God." Of that earliest meeting-house, referred to in April, 1747, as "already built," no description has come down to us. It seems to have stood, and served its purpose, for over a century, indeed until 1857, or easily within the memory of those now liv- ing ; but no sketch or picture of it taken on the spot and at the time is extant. In its latest form also it diifered in all essential respects from the more prim- itive building of 1747, which appears to have been a sufficiently large, but somewhat barn-like structure, foursquare, two stories in height, and surmounted by a sloping ridge-pole roof. In the very early days, in fact immediately after the incorporation of 1754, provision was made for a belfry, and, subsequently, for a steeple ; and for entrances and porches at the front, and on the two sides. The names, twenty- two in number, of those who contributed, whether in money, material or labor, to the construction of the primitive building, have come down to us, — a 36 A MILESTONE PLANTED species of original town roster. Headed by Benjamin Brown, in it is found the familiar Lincoln nomen- clature from the first page of its records to that just written, — Munroe, Pierce, Brooks, Wheeler and Brown; though Farrar, Hartwell, Baker and Smith do not there appear. Curiously enough, and indica- tive of the prudential spirit of the period, in the con- veyance to the precinct of the edifice, together with the land on which it stood, the " glass in said House" was specifically and carefully excepted. The win- dows and sashes apparently did not go with the site and structure ; and the precinct forthwith voted to assess itself in the sum of ^250, "in bills of credit of the new tenor," to defray the necessary charges in further finishing "the edifice." Eleven months later, the meeting-house meanwhile having appar- ently been improved and completed, Mr. William Lawrence was chosen as " gospel minister," receiving twenty-two out of twenty-nine votes. His settle- ment was characteristic of the period. He was to have outright ^800, " old tenor," to garnish his establishment, and afterwards an annual salary of ;^400 " according to old tenor bills." But those were the dreary days of provincial paper money. The currency was in process of readjustment on a hard- money basis, and the bills in use circulated at a rate of about eleven paper to one silver. A livelihood of ;^400 " according to old tenor bills " represented, therefore, a somewhat precarious and uncertain sup- port; and Mr. Lawrence not unnaturally stipu- lated that his salary should be regulated by the 37 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN prices " of some of the necessaries of life." The ar- ticles then enumerated tell us clearly what the eigh- teenth century population of the town produced, and upon what those composing it lived : — Indian corn was the staple, rated at fifteen shillings, old tenor, per bushel ; rye, one pound, old tenor, per bushel ; pork, one shilling and eight pence per pound ; beef, one shilling per pound. The minister was also to have delivered to him " at his house, thirty cords of wood, annually, for his fire." What do these figures mean, — j[SoOy and X400 " according to old tenor bills ; *' Indian corn at fifteen shillings per bushel ; rye at one pound per bushel, — wood thirty cords ? This is history ! Those figures carry us back di- rectly into the homes of a people. With them under our eyes, we can sit down beneath the roof-trees ; we stand at the hearthstones. Interpreting those first pre- cinct votes in the language, and measuring them by the standards of our time, — for they are expressed in a familiar tongue but in forgotten terms, — doing this, we get down to the daily lives of our colonial period, — a period which in Lincoln lasted as long as its first meeting-house stood. But of this, more presently. First, however, to return for a moment to Lincoln town, successor to Concord second precinct. We ob- serve its birth on the twenty-third day of April, and refer to the opening lines of the first page of the ear- liest volume of our records as authority for so doing. On the other hand, the act of incorporation passed both legislative bodies April 19. This fact, only recently come to light, has led to further research 38 The Samuel Hartwell House Residence of Messrs. Edward and Francis McHugh (p. 216) A MILESTONE PLANTED among the archives of the Commonwealth, as a re- sult whereof it appears that Lincoln was very directly connected with a not uninteresting incident in Massa- chusetts provincial history in a way which has here- tofore escaped the notice of its historians. Space and time do not admit of full treatment here. Suffice it to say that between 1740 and 1760 the incor- poration of towns, carrying with it the right of re- presentation, was, for reasons of state, discouraged. During that period only four new towns were or- ganized ; in all other cases, some twenty-two in number, districts were created with all the powers and rights of towns, save name and representation. But the 1754 session of the General Court was in this respect exceptional, inasmuch as three new towns were then incorporated. Of the three Lincoln was one, Greenwich and Petersham being the other two. Governor Shirley had himself inaugurated what may be called the district policy ; and, at his instance, in- structions covering the case had in 1743 been sent out by the Lords of Trade. Subsequently, while Governor Shirley himself was in England, the mat- ter was wrangled over between the Legislature and Lieutenant-Governor Phipps, who, in the absence of the governor, represented the Crown. Chambers Russell then took a hand in the matter. An ener- getic man, he had for some time been involved in a controversy with the people of Concord. He wanted a public way laid out through his estate ; the present road from Concord to Weston, by Walden Pond. Concord opposed the laying out " tooth and nail." 39 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN So he threw his influence in with the inhabitants of the remoter parts of the three adjoining towns, seek- ing incorporation. The Russells were a power in the Province. Chambers's father, Daniel Russell, was of the Council ; his brother, James, was a member of the House of Representatives ; he himself was a justice of the Superior Court of Judicature, as the highest legal tribunal of the Province was then de- nominated. In August, 1753, Governor Shirley had returned to Massachusetts after an absence of three years ; and, meeting the General Court in December, was not successful in his dealings with it. Hutch- inson says in his history that when he asked some allowance to be made him for the time he was away, the legislative body returned "an angry message, and not only refused to enlarge the grant, but gave this reason for it, that if his services and their pay- ment since his appointment to the government could be fully stated, the balance would be in their favor." Having measures of his own — a fort on the Ken- nebec, and instructed delegates to the Albany Con- vention then about to be held — much at heart, his excellency was in no position to oppose the wishes of the Assembly on matters of lesser consequence. The Great and General Court met on March a 8, 1754, and the petition of Chambers Russell and others for the incorporation of Lincoln was that day presented. Somewhat in disregard of rule and pre- cedent, the measure was immediately pushed through all the legislative stages ; and, the opposition of the three towns curtailed of territory to the contrary not- 40 A MILESTONE PLANTED withstanding, the act, in face of sundry adverse peti- tions, passed both houses within three weeks of its presentation. This was on April 19. It then went to the governor. His instructions adverse to it were explicit ; he himself had inspired them. There was, however, no help ; so he chose the lesser of two evils. He seems to have held the measure some days under advisement ; but apparently signed it on the 23d, and it then became a law. The original parchment has disappeared. It cannot be found on the files of the office of the secretary of the Com- monwealth ; but the first town-clerk of Lincoln, in opening his book of records, spread on it the certi- fied copy of the act sent him by the deputy secretary, the act, as thus copied, bearing date " April the 23d, Anno Dom. 1754." No time was lost in organiza- tion. James Minot, of Concord, was a member of the Council. The legislative session closed on the 23d, and Mr. Minot seems to have carried the act home with him, the ink of the governor's signature hardly dry upon it. The next day he issued his precept for a town-meeting. Two days later it was held ; and the town organization of Lincoln thus dates from the 26th day of April, 1754. On the 26th of May, 1746, one month only lack- ing of eight full years before, the first meeting of Concord's second precinct had been held at the house of Edward Flint. The evolution was now complete ; the precinct had become a town : and, as was proper and in accordance with the custom of that time, the first town-meeting was held in the meeting-house. 4X THE TOWN OF LINCOLN Judging by patronymics, the officers then selected might have been selected yesterday, — Ephraim Flint, Ephraim Hartwell, Samuel Farrar, John Hoar, John Garfield, Joshua Brooks, Benjamin Monroe, John Adams, Josiah Parks, Edmund Wheeler, John Billings. From that day to this, the continuity has been unbroken. I have just said that, in the case of Lincoln, the history of the church is the early history of the town, — the former absorbed the latter. The story of the Lincoln church has been told, and well and suffi- ciently told. It has been told also in a scholarly way by men in every essential respect far better qualified for the task than am I. I do not propose to repeat what Mr. Richardson and Mr. Bradley and Mr. Porter have so recently set forth, and so graphically narrated. They have exhausted that field. I do, however, propose to picture, in so far as I can, the earlier life of the town as seen through its connection with the church ; for, only in that way, can it be re- produced and made visible. I begin, therefore, with the precinct's earlier ministerial settlements. William Lawrence, the first minister of the Lin- coln church, belonged to the widely-known family whose name is as deeply stamped on the map of Kansas as on that of Massachusetts. Born at Groton, in 1723, he was graduated at Harvard in the class of 1743. On the 7th of December, 1748, he was or- dained as the first settled minister of Lincoln and, a little more than a year later, on the 7th of February, 1750, he was, in his own quaint language, "married 42 A MILESTONE PLANTED To a young Lady whose Name was Love Addams, Daughter of John & Love Addams/* ' Mr. Lawrence ministered here hard upon a third of a century, or more than five years over the church of the second Concord precinct, and, for the twenty- six years following those five, over this Lincoln con- gregation. He died in the odor of sanctity, and, it is said, of loyalty, in the midst of our revolutionary troubles, on the nth of April, 1780. He left his widow. Love, with nine children, three sons and six daughters, the youngest of eight years. Mrs. Love Lawrence lived to an extreme age, and far into the following century, dying, January 3, 1820, here on Lincoln hill, to which she had come as a bride nearly seventy years before. In the early days of the town. Chambers Russell, we are told, was " the most distinguished resident of Lincoln,*' as unques- tionably he was the most well-to-do ; for no one was wealthy in our sense of the term. His mansion still stands just south of the railroad, and in the fields about it are noble pasture oaks which even in his day must have been large.* Next to Cham- bers Russell in consideration unquestionably came the minister, he also a Harvard graduate, reported to be " a good thinker, a vigorous writer, and an instructive preacher." He was certainly an industri- ous writer, for it is recorded of him that he wrote on an average seventy sermons a year, and that he derived from the Gospel of St. Matthew texts for * See Appendix C, pp. 132-135. * See Appendix D, pp. 135-146. 43 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN no less than 212 discourses, while the Gospels of Luke and John, and the First Epistle of Peter sup- plied him with 295 more. There is in this statement something pathetic and depressing ; for it suggests an industry conscientious and sustained, and yet so exceedingly profitless. Here was a man, educated, and, presumably, refined in his way, — a student and a thinker, — but remote from the world and bu- ried in colonial seclusion, cut off from any contact with living thought or access to current literature, spider-like, perpetually evolving sermons, not from stones but from his inner consciousness. Seventy sermons a year produced under such conditions ! In the thought there is something distinctly appalling. Almost had it been better to have ground in Gaza*s prison-house ! — but, as the Sabbath discourses were all they had, supplying the needs filled for us by theatres, lectures, concerts, newspapers and books, eighteenth century parishioners were, doubtless, exacting. So the unfortunate minister drudged along, eking out weekly his sermon and a half, till at last the end came. To the investigator of later times, however, living in a wholly different stage of development, there is also something exasperating, not to say irritating, in such fecundity of the com- monplace. Why could it not have occurred to Mr. Lawrence to find tongues in trees, and books in the running brooks, so telling us something of Lincoln ? I have not examined these discourses myself; life — at least my life — is not long enough to delve in eighteenth century pulpit utterances : but one who 44 A MILESTONE PLANTED did dip to a moderate extent into the Lawrence man- uscripts assures us that, though expressed in a some- what conventional style, — how, under the circum- stances of composition, could it have been otherwise ? — they show " a careful exegesis, a calm, logical method," and " an earnest purpose ; " but, and here comes in the irritating proviso, in them is found " no allusion to passing events." They are Dead Sea ap- ples, — "all ashes to the taste." A single occasional discourse, descriptive to us of the preacher's sur- roundings, his interests, his people and their pur- suits, would in value have far outweighed to us whole barrels of abstract discourses, though in them " the Beatitudes receive far more specific attention than the Decalogue." Let us now turn to the minister's home. Gold- smith, in his " Deserted Village," tells us of the Auburn curate : — ** A man he was to all the country dear And passing rich with forty pounds a year.*' Measured in " hard money," or, as we phrase it, in specie, the settlement and annual stipend of the Rev. William Lawrence does not seem to have risen to even this modest competence. Those were days of a depreciated paper currency, — bills of the " old tenor," bills of the " new tenor," were out- standing, with, at the close, continental money. Some ten years after the settlement of Mr. Law- rence, the Massachusetts monetary system was reformed, and put on a stable basis, through the 45 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN financial skill and strong business sense of the much, and unjustly, maligned Governor Thomas Hutchinson ; and the bills of the " old tenor '* were then called in, and redeemed, at about fourteen per cent, of their nominal value, — or, more exactly, at 7.5 to I. The j[Soo voted Mr. Lawrence at his settlement in 1747 represented, therefore, approxi- mately ;^ii5 in silver at $3-33 a pound, or an aggregate sum in our money of ^^365; while the annual stipend of ;£'400 was reduced to about j[sSy Massachusetts, or, approximately, I185 a year. If these figures represent the real state of Mr. Law- rence's financial resources, they are certainly sugges- tive. Computed in staples, — the market quotations of corn and rye, beef and pork furnishing the stand- ards of value, — what, compared with the present, was the relative purchasing power of this annual stipend of I185 "hard money"? Indian corn, for instance, seems to have been valued at about 30 cents a bushel, and rye at 45 cents ; while pork was rated at about four cents a pound, and beef at three cents. As corn is now quoted at an average price of about 42 cents a bushel, and rye at ^3 cents, while pork is 12 cents per pound, and beef 10 cents, the purchasing power of money, measured in food staples, compared with its present purchasing power, would seem to have been from half as much again to four and even five times as much.' » When, after the death of Mr. Lawrence, the Rev. Charles Steams was, in 1781, invited to succeed him, the salary offered was ;^8o, Massachusetts, a year, in **hard money," or ^266, and this was, pre- 46 A MILESTONE PLANTED Clearly, then, the Rev. William Lawrence must have been what is now known as a forehanded man ; though his helpmate, or, as he termed her, his " yoke- fellow," may well have been a large factor in his pru- dential affairs. Indeed, she is portrayed to us as not only of " stately mien and benign countenance," but also " a wife of uncommon wisdom and prudence." The worldly outcome of the pair was certainly sug- gestive." Something, it is true, came to Mr. Law- sumably, an increase on the salary previously paid to Mr. Lawrence. The custom of paying the minister his salary on a standard of staple prices continued until the close of the eighteenth century. Thus the report of a committee appointed in 1797 to reach an understanding with Mr. Stearns contains the following : — "That from and after the 7th day of November inst: during the time that he [Mr. Stearns] shall remain our Gospel Minister, his An- nual Salary continue to be Eighty pounds, at all times when the Current price of Indian Com is at three shillings per Bushell, Rye at four shil- lings and Beef at twenty Shillings per hundred, and Pork at thirty-three Shillings and four pence per hundred w't, all of Right good Quality — that the sum or amount of said Salary shall be increased or diminished as the Current price of those Articles shall rise or fall, from time to time, one fourth part of the Salary to be computed on each of those Articles. And that the Selectmen of the Town shall make the said Computation, with the said Charles Steams, in the beginning of No- vember annually. This being the contract of the Specie part of his the said Charles Steams' Salary, the Allowance of Wood [15 cords] re- maining as heretofore allowed by the Town — And that the payment of the said Salary to the said Charles Stearns be made semi-annually by the Treasurer." (Town Records, November 6, 1797.) Measured by purchasing power, the value of the money unit was then four to five times what it now is; measured by cost of living, a salary of {^233 may have been, approximately, the equivalent of a salary of $1200 a year now; but life was much simpler generally. ^ The thrift and business instinct of the Rev. Mr. Lawrence and his spouse seem to have excited notice during his life ; for, in his anniver- 47 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN rence in the way of inheritance ; but it was not much, and consisted chiefly of farming land in Groton. Yet, " passing rich " on that salary of ^60, Massachusetts, a year, he and his spouse Love lived, and obviously prospered ; for they brought up, educated and mar- ried a family of nine children, six of whom were daughters. And when, a minister of one church for over thirty years, William Lawrence wrote himself to a death-bed, he breathed his last in his house here on Lincoln hill, the possessor of what is de- scribed as " a good farm of thirty-nine acres con- nected with the homestead, extending down to [Sandy] pond, besides eighteen acres known then as the 'Oliver land' — since called the Lawrence pas- ture — seven acres of 'mead land,* and some ten acres of ' flint land/ Considerable property was also left in Groton and Townsend." The dwelling-house is thus described : "It was a low-studded two-story building ... a modest abode, with whitewashed walls and sanded floors and plain furniture. There was but one carpet in the house, and that was in the 'west chamber,'" the chamber looking towards sary discourse (p. 22) Mr. Bradley, the successor of Mr. Lawrence in the sixth remove, reports a legend to the following effect : " Toward the end of his ministry one of [Mr. Lawrence's] flock, remarking upon his evident prosperity, asked him in a jesting way how it was that he got on so well. To which Mr. Lawrence replied, * By minding my own business, and letting yours alone.' " The incident Is apocryphal 5 but it is given as illustrating Mr. Lawrence's "sense of humor." It may, however, perhaps be questioned whether the "member of his flock," to whom the reply was addressed, saw at once the humorous aspect of the retort. 48 A MILESTONE PLANTED Concord. " The parlor contained a mahogany table, a walnut desk, a little round tea-table, six leathern- seated chairs, a few books of divinity, and the family Bible. . . . The ' common room ' had an eight-day clock, a looking-glass, and a light-stand. . . . The kitchen had the usual capacious fireplace, with its blazing light reflected from double rows of shining pewter." From the parlor we pass into the minis- ter's study, — the work room in which the busy pen wrote out those seventy sermons in the average year. In it were some two hundred volumes, largely quartos and folios, — sermons, theology and commen- taries ; those forgotten gravestones of a buried past of which Hallam, the English historian, wrote — " They belong no more to man, but to the worm, the moth, and the spider. Their dark and ribbed backs, their yellow leaves, their thousand folio pages, do not more repel us than the unprofitableness of their substance." Of general literature there was lit- tle. Poetry was represented by the wholly forgotten Blackmore, and the lighter prose by eight volumes of the "Spectator." Of history there was little, — the recently published " Massachusetts" of Thomas Hutchinson, and the ubiquitous Rollin, that also then a new work. But among the first Lincoln minister's collections one searches in vain for the names of Shakespeare or Dryden or Bunyan or Pope or De Foe, or even for that of the Puritan laureate, John Milton. And now, having made the acquaintance of the minister and his wife in their dwelling, let us walk 49 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN down the hill to the meeting-house, at the cross- roads. However it may have been in the beginning and in precinct days, one of the first acts of Lincoln town was to provide for the " building a steeple for the hanging a bell for the town's use." " The old Meeting-house," we are told, " was nearly square, and was entered by three porches, the front porch being on the southerly side. The [square] tower in which the bell was hung, and on which thie spire stood, was at the westerly end, as the gables ran, and another porch at the easterly end, a part of which was occupied by the stocks, made of heavy oaken planks." ' Inside, the body of the edifice was filled with long benches, — the women sitting on one side, the men on the other. On the outside of these, and against the walls, were pews, built by permission and at the cost of the owners thereof, — Chambers Russell being the first privileged " to choose a place for his pew in the meeting-house where he pleases, and build it when he pleases." He selected the space on the right of the front entrance, nearest the door. From time to time permission was asked, and for- mally given, to construct windows at the cost and for the benefit of privileged pew owners, through which the proprietor, we are told, wearying with the discourse, would sometimes stand and view the outer » Drake, in his Old Landmarks (^ Boston (p. 92), says : *'In front of the old meeting-house stood the whipping-post, and probably the stocks. . . . Both were used as a means of enforcing attendance, or punishing offences against the church, and their location at its very portal served, no doubt, as a gentle reminder to the congregation." 50 A MILESTONE PLANTED world, his back to pulpit, sounding-board and min- ister. In the early days, when printed books were scarce, it was the custom, after the minister gave out the hymn, for him — or for the precentor, as he was designated in the Church of England hierarchy, here called chorister — to read the psalm line by line to the congregation, which then sang it. In Lincoln this practice was discontinued in 1789 ; but, eighteen years earlier, in 1771, forty-two persons "who had attained a good understanding in the rules of sing- ing " were, by vote of the town, seated together as a choir on the lower floor. While the experiment apparently gave general satisfaction, to Mr. Law- rence's successor. Dr. Charles Stearns, it was a source of special pleasure ; for, among his other endow- ments, that faithful divine seems to have been blessed with an ear, as well as a soul, for music. On this topic he even warmed into eloquence ; and, though it must be admitted extracts from sermons do not as a rule tend to enliven, there are passages in one discourse of his which throw such gleams of light on several points of interest that quotation at length is justified. The sermon in question was preached here in Lincoln, and on this site, upon the 19th of April, 1792, — as near as may be a century and twelve years since, — at " An Exhibition of Sacred Music." Not a soul then living in Lincoln now survives. Addressing the " brethren and sisters of the choir," Mr. Stearns exclaimed, " With pleasure have we beheld your zeal, and the animated diHgence of your teacher. We have often had our ears refreshed by 51 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN your agreeable performances. . . . When sounds bold and strong have set forth the majesty, the power and eternity of God, when lofty notes cele- brated his glories * which transcend the sky,' when menacing tones have shown the dangers of the wicked * on slippery rocks ready to fall into ruin,' when tender and plaintive accents called our atten- tion to ' Jesus nailed to the tree,' when voices softer than the gentlest breeze expressed the care of Jesus over his flock, ' hearing their prayers, and wiping their tears away,' such touches, so true to nature, could not fail. Mute attention, expressive features, and melting eyes declared the sensations of the assembly. To you we owe the revival of sacred music in this place, which had well-nigh slept in silence. So long had our harps hung upon the willows, that we began to fear that they would be wholly useless. But the songs of Zion are revived, and sweeter than before." But in this same discourse of Mr. Stearns there are other passages of much significance. The worthy minister not only actually quotes familiar lines from the " Merchant of Venice," — and apparently from memory, as he fails to quote correctly, — but he cites James Thomson's now forgotten poem of "Sum- mer" as evidence of the high estimation in which the bard of Avon was then held by all Britons : — " Is not wild Shakespeare thine and Nature's boast ? " It was Charles Lamb who in one of the " Essays of Elia " confessed to being wholly devoid of an ear for 52 The Farrar House (p. 216) A MILESTONE PLANTED music, — to save his life, he could not have turned the most familiar of airs, — a not uncommon defi- ciency ; and now Mr. Stearns, by nature tolerant, threw the veil of an all-enveloping charity even over Charles Lamb, and those in this respect his like. Finally, he flashes a gleam of suggestive light upon the manners and bearing of some who would seem even at that period to have attended the sanctuary in a spirit the reverse of devout edification. The passage is as delightful as it is quaint : " From the ease with which minds, susceptible of the pleasures of musick, receive moral and religious impressions, some have been led to consider insensibility to musick as the sign of a bad heart. Shakespeare, whom the people of Britain almost adore, and consider as an oracle in the knowledge of human nature,' saith, — * He that hath no musick in himself. And is not mov' d with concord of sweet sounds. Is fit for treasons.' * " Yet let us while we enjoy the pleasures of musick, be charitable to those who are deprived of them. Reason tells us that dullness to the charms of musick is no more evidence of a bad heart than to be deaf, blind, or dumb. In some cases it is a natural defect. In others, a habit of sedateness has quenched the fire ' FzV^ Thomson's Seasons j ** Summer," ver. 1563. * The correct reading is, " The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd by concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils." Merchant of Venice ^ Act V, Sc. i. 53 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN of imagination. It is related of a German mathema- tician, that attending the King of Prussia's opera, where musick was in its highest perfection, he busied himself in measuring the height and breadth of the room, and in calculating the distance to which the human voice might be distinctly heard. Then, when he had done this, finding nothing else entertaining for him, he left the audience abruptly. Such an in- stance, to the lovers of the Muse, will seem almost miraculous. "Yet this person behaved himself much better than many others, who, not less insensible, are yet less innocent. They disturb the most subUme per- formances, in honor of Christ and of God, by mov- ing from place to place in the assembly, by jesting, laughing and tumult. If indeed it be, that such have no relish for sacred musick, they ought, in point of civility, not to disturb the holy pleasures of others." To return to the choir — the forty-two persons "who had attained a good understanding in the rules of singing ; " — these were at first assigned seats in the rear of the main floor, although galleries had already been built around three sides of the interior ; but not until a later day were the ceilings under the floors of these galleries plastered. Occupied during the hours of Sabbath service, mostly by boys, or by the town poor, and its Africans, the galleries were looked upon as undesirable, — to sit in them was an indica- tion of inferiority. So, not until after the town had been forty years incorporated, and the church had at 54 A MILESTONE PLANTED last given a hesitating consent to the innovation of a bass viol to assist the singers, could the choir be reconciled to a place in the gallery, facing the pulpit. Shattuck, in his history of Concord, asserts that, in Lincoln, the reading of the Scriptures was first in- troduced as a part of the Sunday exercises by Mr. Lawrence, in 1763; and, in 1768, a short prayer before the reading. Later, and in the Stearns pas- torate, the services were much the same as those with which we are familiar — the short and long prayers, the singing of the psalms, and a discourse by the pastor, the assigned limit of which last was, however, not thirty minutes, as now, but a full hour. Such were the meeting-house and the services ; the audience, — all the inhabitants of the town ! The Sabbath was the day of leisure, — the holiday of the week, though a very silent and solemn one, — the single break in that life-long monotony. It is a thing of history now, remembered only by those in the decline of life ; the Civil War is the dividing line: but no one who passed a childhood during the first half of the last century can fail to recall that Sunday stillness, — a quiet so intense, so unbroken, that even animal life seemed to observe it ; so com- plete that it was actually audible. The bicycle, the carriage and the automobile have made of it a tradi- tion ; but it prevailed here in Lincoln for a whole century after incorporation, and, during that period, the meeting-house was for those then here dwelling all that the town-hall, the theatre, the lecture-room, 55 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN the library, the Sunday paper and the periodical are to us of the world as it now is. Of the six hundred and ninety persons who composed the population of the town at its incorporation, probably five hun- dred usually gathered for worship. The old and the young, the rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the wise and the simple, the halt and the lame, the blind and the palsied, — all were at meeting. They came on foot and on horseback. There were no car- riages in those days ; but, summer and winter, farm wagons and rude country-side vehicles trooped in, laden with those of both sexes and all ages, the dog trotting demurely alongside, and, on rare occasions, to the huge delight of the boys in the gallery, indul- ging in unseemly fights, to the great disturbance of worshippers. To keep dogs out of the meeting-house during divine service was in this country, as in Eng- land, not infrequently made the function of a special officer. But, even on the Sabbath, " goin' to meetin' " served other ends than worship. It was the time and place of social gathering. The old meeting-house was then the centre of a lively scene, people gather- ing in groups around the three porches, the sheds on both sides of the road would be full of vehicles while others were hitched to neighboring posts, and often the flanks of the hill were dotted with wagons. On rainy Sundays Dr. Stearns, they used to assev- erate, could be depended upon to preach his best.' Going to meeting, those dwelling more remotely * Mr. Porter's Discourse, Proceedings on the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anninjersary, p. 76. 56 A MILESTONE PLANTED shut up their houses, took with them their food, and made a day of it. These were those Sabbath "noonings" to which Mr. Bradley, in his anniver- sary discourse, properly and truly refers,' as not the least important feature of the Lord's day. It was " the only occasion during the week when the scat- tered neighbors had an opportunity of exchanging " greetings and news ; and there is no sort of ques- tion that " this friendly hour had as much influence as any enactment of the State in securing the gen- eral attendance of all inhabitants at the meeting- house from Sunday to Sunday." In the case of Lincoln, moreover, it was this which decided the placing of the meeting-house, and, subsequently, the site of the village. Lincoln hill was not convenient ; it was not on the line of least resistance for travel ; it was not in the beginning accessible : but it was cen- tral; it was almost equidistant from the two great thoroughfares which crossed the precinct near its northern and southern limits. Even now, a century and a half after the town's incorporation, there is not a single dwelling on either the Walden road or the Sandy Pond road for a space of a mile and a half between the westernmost dwellings of Lincoln and the easternmost of Concord. It was then much the same in the direction of Weston and Lexington. Thus the one great wish of that community was to fix on some common central spot where once a week they could congregate. This they found on the south- ern slope of Lincoln hill ; and there they placed » Proceedings on the One Hundred and Fiftieth Anni'versary, p. 27. 57 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN the meeting-house. It was in the beginning a mere site. There was not, so far as I have been able to ascertain, a single established public way affording access to it. It could be reached only on sufferance and through farm lanes, and by private ways. This, of course, was soon remedied, and, ultimately, the village grew up at the cross-roads ; but, unlike al- most any other Massachusetts town in that respect, Lincoln village has no cause whatever for its being except the one forgotten fact that, a hundred and fifty years ago, it was a central point for the Sabbath gathering of a scattered population, few of whom lived more than "two miles and a quarter" there- from. Here, then, they met in every season of the year, — spring and autumn, summer and winter. In the winter it could not have been otherwise than trying. The ways were bad and heavy ; the meeting-house unwarmed ; out-of-door movement was under em- bargo. Later, when air-tight stoves came into use, great pieces of peat were stowed away in them to keep a slow, safe fire in the deserted house till the return of the family, as the short winter day drew towards nightfall. How the congregation bore the deadly chilliness of the barn-like edifice it is not easy to understand. The introduction of stoves was agi- tated here in Lincoln during the earlier years of the last century, but Dr. Stearns, then pastor, set his face against the innovation. It might extend life and reduce the cases of lung fever, as pneumonia was called, but the fathers had not found any heating 5.8 A MILESTONE PLANTED apparatus necessary, and the world got along very well then ; so he hoped no appliances for heating would be introduced as long as he lived.' During the winter, therefore, those who could not find a friendly shelter in the scattered dwelHngs about the hill, did not attend meeting, — they remained per- force at home ; but it was otherwise during half the year at least. Then, in spring, summer, or autumn, weather permitting, all the youth of Lincoln wan- dered in parties along the roads and through the meadows, down by Sandy Pond and the brooklets, and there the young men met the maidens, and through generations the most momentous question of life was then wont to be put, and the answer to it given. By the older and more sedate, the news of the day was canvassed, and the issues of politics de- bated; on the porch and about the meeting-house — there, during the first year of the Hfe of the town, the bloody defeat of Braddock was discussed ; and, ' Mr. Porter's Discourse, p. 75. Dr. Steams died July 26, 1826. The warrant for the next annual town-meeting bore date February 1 9, 1827. In it was the following : — "Article 7. To know the pleasure of the Town respecting the Stove lately put up in the Publick Meetinghouse — Whether the Town will Defray the Expense of the same, or any part thereof, or give leave to have it remain where it is, or adopt any measures respecting said stove, and provid wood for the same, also provid Storage for the wood in the Meetinghouse as tlie Town see fit and say how it shall be taken care of and by whom. . . . ** Voted to have the Stove remain in the Publick Meetinghouse in Lincoln where it now is, and voted the Congregational or religious society in said Town pay the Expence of said Stove. Also voted the selectmen provide wood, and a place for the storage of the wood to be used or burnt when necessary to have fire in said Stove.'* 59 THE TOWN OF LINCOLN a little later, the events and vicissitudes of the Seven Years* War. Then, in 1757, the massacre of Fort George, and, in 1758, the repulse of Abercrombie at Ticonderoga spread a panic through Massachu- setts, a thrill of which doubtless found expression at Lincoln ; Wolfe's death on the Plains of Abraham followed, with the fall of Quebec and the English conquest of Canada; and, at last, before the town was yet in its "teens," came the close of the "old French War." Subsequently, in 1765, the Stamp Act was uppermost in mind, with that long succession of issues culminating for Lincoln with the 19th of April, 1775. Then, for the only time in its history as a town, the smoke of an enemy's camp-fire curled up within Lincoln limits. In every way, that revolutionary period seems to have been one of sore tribulation for the town ; and, as was always apt to be the case, the trouble cen- tred on the meeting-house porch, and there found expression. It was a civil trouble ; and, as was tra- ditionally proper, the Church was divided against itself The Rev. Mr. Lawrence was even suspected of insufficient patriotism. To such a ripeness did this suspicion grow, that, greatly to his indignation, his private letters were tampered with by the so-called Committee of Safety. A crisis seems to have been reached during the autumn of 1774, — the months following the Boston tea-party, and the closing of the port of Boston. One Sabbath morning during that season, the Lincoln air, tense with excitement, was, it is said, full of rumors. The people gathered 60 A MILESTONE PLANTED about the meeting-house at an unwonted hour, and there was talk of not allowing the minister to enter his pulpit. More neighborly and wiser counsels pre- vailed ; but the closing years of the Lawrence pas- torate were troubled. Indeed, the unhappy minister seems to have been worried into his grave ; for, while he died in April, 1780, only a year previous he had been arraigned at three successive church meetings because of " a jealousy " that he had " not been friendly to his country in respect to the contest be- tween Great Britain and America." After much wrangling it had been decided " by a great majority " to " drop the affair in dispute," the " circumstances and particular instances " alleged appearing on ex- amination " trifling and insufficient." ' That Mr. Lawrence was a Tory has been denied, and certainly was not proven : but it is clear that he was far from being an ardent patriot; and, at a time when his parishioners were thoroughly aroused by great events transpiring, he " halted for a time between two opin- ions, and allowed his trumpet to give an uncertain sound." But, as I have said, the story of Lincoln church * The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anni'i'.''i:>S wm.