Woodstock: An historical sketch

Ecclesiastical affairs have been so interwoven with town affairs, that it is impossible to give a sketch of Woodstock without giving a history of the churches. It may, however, be done briefly, as others have been appointed to speak specially for the different church organizations of the town. Though the first minister, the Rev. Josiah Dwight, was of the “Standing Order,” so-called, and believed in the Cambridge platform, yet he was suspected of theological looseness and, besides many idiosyncrasies, was accused of “speculating in the wild lands of Killingly.” The first settlers had no end of trouble with him, especially regarding money matters, and he was finally removed September 3, 1726. The next regular minister was Rev. Amos Throop, who was installed May 24, 1727. Like Mr. Dwight, he was a graduate of Harvard College, and came to Woodstock at the age of twenty-five. Naturally he found fault when the town attempted to pay him his salary in the depreciated currency of the time. But the eight years of his ministry endeared him to the settlement, and his sudden death in 1735[59 - Sept. 7th.] was keenly felt by his parishioners. The town assumed the expense of his gravestone, upon which may be read these words:

“O cruel death, to snatch from us below,
One fit to live within the spheres on high;
But since the great Creator orders so,
Here at his feet he doth submissive lie.”

During the pastorate of Mr. Throop the western part of the town[60 - Manuscript Records of Second Precinct of Woodstock, or Parish of New Roxbury, in the possession of G. Clinton Williams, of West Woodstock.] had received some settlers, mostly the sons of Woodstock’s first settlers. In 1727 Joshua Chandler took possession of some land that had been given him by his father, Col. John Chandler, and representatives of the families of Child, Corbin, Lyon, Aspinwall, Bugbee, Morris, Marcy, Morse, Payson, Perrin, Johnson, Frizzel, Griggs, and Paine soon followed. In 1733[61 - May 16th.] the town arranged to have a school-house built in this part of the town, and, the settlers increasing, West Parish desired[62 - Petition to town Nov. 2, 1736.] to have religious services of its own for four months of the year at the expense of the whole town. This request, it was argued, was only fair, inasmuch as the western half was obliged to contribute to the support of the Church on the Hill. But the town refused[63 - July, 1737.] to assume any of the charges. After trying the experiment for two winters, the West Parish people found the expense of supporting both ministers to be too great a burden, and they therefore again asked[64 - 1739.] the help of the town, and were refused. They still persisted, and petitioned[65 - Oct. 2, 1741.] that the western half might be formed into a distinct township. Town meetings were held, and at last permission was given[66 - April, 1742.] them to address the General Court in Boston on the subject. But their petition to the General Court was dismissed. The West Woodstock people, however, insisted on the formation of a parish where they could worship God in their own fashion, and not be obliged to aid any church outside of their parish. They were willing to give up all idea of a town of their own. This modified request was now made to the town[67 - Letter of Aug., 1742, to selectmen.] and to the General Court.[68 - Nov. 18, 1742.] The General Court complied by passing an act in 1743,[69 - Sept. 14th.] incorporating the district as “The West Parish of Woodstock.” A meeting was at once held,[70 - In the school-house Sept. 27th.] at which it was determined to survey the line dividing the two portions of the town. West Parish was now called by the old name of New Roxbury. These acts were afterwards approved by the General Assembly of Connecticut when Woodstock withdrew from under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts.[71 - Line dividing East and West Parishes approved by General Assembly of Connecticut in 1753, and name of New Roxbury approved in 1754.] In 1747 Rev. Stephen Williams was ordained pastor.

The church[72 - The old First Church. See Records of First and Third Congregational Churches, and Miss Larned’s “History of Windham County.”] on the Hill was under the pastorate of Rev. Abel S. Stiles, who had been ordained in 1737.[73 - July 27th.] But the fact that Mr. Stiles was a graduate of Yale College[74 - Class of 1733.] instead of Harvard, as his two predecessors had been, and his family connections[75 - He was the son of John Stiles, who belonged to one of the oldest families of Windsor, and was the brother of Rev. Isaac Stiles, a graduate of Yale College in the class of 1722, and was uncle of Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College. President Stiles often visited Woodstock after his uncle had settled at Muddy Brook, now called East Woodstock.] were all with Connecticut, his parishioners were led to believe that he would favor the “Saybrook Platform” of faith, rather than the “Cambridge Platform,” and if there was one thing our ancestors abhorred quite as much as Episcopacy or popery it was the “Saybrook Platform.” To be tainted with that form of faith, as was the case with Mr. Stiles after his settlement in Woodstock, was heresy indeed, and Woodstock was determined, according to her grant of 1683, to have none other but an “able, orthodox, godly minister.” Instead of attending the Association of Ministers in Massachusetts, Mr. Stiles preferred the meetings of the Windham County Association in Connecticut, and when Woodstock became a part of Connecticut the troubles with Mr. Stiles increased. Councils were held. Pastor and parishioners tried to discipline each other. The General Assembly of Connecticut was appealed to. Threats – even violence was resorted to. But without going into the details of this long-protracted struggle, let it be said that there were two parties in the controversy, one side sympathizing with Mr. Stiles in his more liberal theological views, and the other side at first insisting on a minister who should conform in all respects to the “Standing Order,” and afterwards opposed to Mr. Stiles personally as well as theologically. The Stiles party had favored, while the anti-Stiles party had opposed, the annexation of Woodstock to Connecticut. The result of the quarrel was a break in the church in 1760. The North Society was constituted by act[76 - Oct., 1761.] of the General Assembly, and Mr. Stiles and his followers went to Muddy Brook. Thus was formed the Third Congregational Church of Woodstock, and here Mr. Stiles continued to preach until his death in 1783.[77 - July 25th, at the age of 74.] When it was determined in 1831, by the church in East Woodstock, to build a new meeting-house on the spot of the old one erected in 1767, the people in Village Corners objected to the location and formed a society of their own – the Fourth Congregational Church of Woodstock.

After the departure of Mr. Stiles the First Church was without a pastor for three years. Much time was spent in “going after ministers.” The young Yale graduates who preached on trial did not please the church, whose sympathies were still with Massachusetts. Finally the Rev. Abiel Leonard, a graduate of Harvard College,[78 - Class of 1759.] was installed on June 23, 1763. Of the twelve churches asked to assist in the ordination only one[79 - Killingly.] was a Connecticut organization. In fact it was not until the year 1815 that the church, after an adherence to the Cambridge order of faith for a hundred and twenty-five years, finally accepted the “Saybrook Platform,” and joined the Connecticut association. The church was prosperous under Mr. Leonard. Largely owing to his influence the quarrel between the First and Third Churches was healed.[80 - Vote of First Church passed Dec. 8, 1766.] In 1775, on the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, Mr. Leonard was made Chaplain of the Third Regiment of Connecticut troops. The church, at the request of the commander, Colonel, afterwards General, Israel Putnam, granted the necessary leave of absence. The following year Washington and Putnam joined in writing a letter[81 - Letter dated Cambridge, March 24, 1776.] to the church at Woodstock asking for a continued leave of absence for Mr. Leonard, praising him in the highest terms, and saying:

“He is employed in the glorious work of attending to the morals of a brave people who are fighting for their liberties – the liberties of the people of Woodstock – the liberties of all America.”

Agreeable a gentleman as Mr. Leonard was, he was suddenly superseded while on a visit to Woodstock, and on receiving the mortifying news when en route to join the army he at once committed suicide.

If ever there was an “able, orthodox, godly minister,” of the true Massachusetts type, such as old Woodstock always loved to have, he was the Rev. Eliphalet Lyman, who was ordained in 1779. Although a graduate of Yale College,[82 - Class of 1776.] he fulfilled the conditions of the Cambridge Platform, and continued pastor of the First Church for forty-five years, and was warmly interested in the religious and educational development of the town. He was the last of the historic ministers of Woodstock. He was respected and he was feared. The boys stopped playing ball when “Old Priest Lyman,” in cocked hat and knee breeches, remembered by some of you here to-day, walked up the common.

VIII

It should now be related how Woodstock, settled under Massachusetts, became a part of the State of Connecticut. Massachusetts claimed Woodstock, because the grant was supposed to lie within her chartered bounds as surveyed in 1642, and that claim was what Major Daniel Gookin referred to when he rebuked the agent of Uncas in 1674, during his visit with John Eliot, at Woodstock. But Massachusetts did not believe that the line of 1642 was wrong when she confirmed the grant to the Roxbury settlers. She even censured Woodstock for daring to ask Connecticut to confirm a portion of the grant that fell south of this line. Though Connecticut justly held she was entitled to Woodstock, according to the terms of her charter, she was, nevertheless, willing to forego her claim to this town, provided Massachusetts would allow her to have the jurisdiction over other territory claimed by both colonies. But the repeated attempts to settle the controversy failed, and it was not till 1713 that an agreement was finally concluded. For the privilege of having jurisdiction over Woodstock and the other towns claimed by both sides, Massachusetts agreed to compensate Connecticut, by giving her unimproved lands in Western Massachusetts and New Hampshire. These lands were therefore called “equivalent lands,” and were sold by Connecticut for $2,274, and the money given to Yale College. Woodstock was entirely satisfied with this agreement, as all her associations were with Massachusetts. But in 1747 the town thought that her taxes, which had been increased owing to the French and Spanish wars,[83 - Hutchinson’s “History of Massachusetts,” vol. iii., 6-8; vol. ii., 363-396.] would be lighter, and her privileges greater, if she followed Suffield, Enfield, and Somers “in trying to get off to Connecticut.” So Woodstock applied to Connecticut, claiming that the agreement of 1713 had been made without her consent. After much deliberation, Connecticut voted in 1749 to receive the town, and declared the agreement of 1713 not binding. Woodstock was delighted at being received into Connecticut, and at a memorable town meeting[84 - July 28, 1749.] made Thomas Chandler and Henry Bowen the first members of the General Assembly. Though Woodstock has since 1749 been a part of this State, Massachusetts would never formally yield jurisdiction over the town, and even as late as 1768 warned the inhabitants not to pay taxes to Connecticut. In fact had it not been for the Revolution, Massachusetts might still be claiming Woodstock.[85 - Woodstock speaks of Massachusetts’ repeated claims in a memorial to Conn. Gen. Assembly, May 2, 1771.] It might be added that Woodstock, in being annexed to Connecticut, lost about three thousand acres north of the colony line. This strip of land was known as the “Middlesex Gore” for forty-five years, and was annexed to Dudley and Sturbridge in 1794.

After becoming a part of Connecticut, Woodstock was anxious that the northern half of Windham County should be made into a separate county, of which Woodstock should be the shire-town, but as Pomfret also desired the county seat, and as the State seemed unwilling to act, the project fell through.[86 - Gen. Putnam was much interested in this project. A meeting to promote the idea was held at his house in Pomfret, Feb. 11, 1771. The State again refused the application for a new county, when Pomfret applied in 1786 for a new county, “with Pomfret for shire-town.”]

IX

Woodstock’s military glory is something of which she may well be proud. Representatives of the Morris, Bowen, Hubbard, and Johnson families, who came to Woodstock in 1686, fought under Captain Isaac Johnson, of Roxbury, in King Philip’s War, and were in the famous Narragansett battle in 1675, when Captain Johnson was killed.[87 - Captain Johnson was the father of Nathaniel Johnson, and father-in-law of Lieutenant Henry Bowen, both first settlers of Woodstock.] For the first forty years after the settlement of the town the Indian troubles made every man acquainted with the use of fire-arms, and when in later years there appeared no danger at home, our ancestors were ready to fight abroad either savage or foreign foes. In 1724, Colonel John Chandler received orders from Boston to impress twenty Woodstock men for the frontier service,[88 - “The Chandler Family,” by Dr. George Chandler.] which meant that they should fight Indians in Central Massachusetts. When the news of the war between France and Great Britain was received in Boston in 1744,[89 - England declared war against France March 31st.] fifty[90 - Seven hundred men from Massachusetts, of which Woodstock was then a part, were impressed for this service.] men from Colonel Thomas Chandler’s[91 - Lieut. – Col. Thomas Chandler was the son of Col. John Chandler, and was Woodstock’s first representative to the General Assembly of Connecticut. Ante p. 44.] regiment guarded the frontier, and history declares that this regiment, commanded by a Woodstock man, rendered efficient service in the capture of Louisburg in 1745.[92 - The forces were furnished by New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and amounted to 4,070.] In 1748, before the treaty of Aix la Chapelle had been signed,[93 - October 7th.] the death was chronicled of several Woodstock men who had gone up into New Hampshire to fight[94 - Fight at “Charlestown, No. 4,” New Hampshire, May 2, 1748, in which Peter Perrin and Aaron Lyon, of Woodstock, were killed.] the Indians with a company of colony troops. In the French and Indian War[95 - Or the Seven Years’ War (1753-1760).] for the conquest of Canada, the families of Bacon, Bugbee, Child, Corbin, Chandler, Frizzel, Griggs, Holmes, Lyon, Marcy, McClellan, Manning, Peake, and Perrin had representatives who distinguished themselves in the service. Woodstock and Pomfret boys composed the company of Captain Israel Putnam in this war. The McClellan and Lyon of the Seven Years’ War were the McClellan and Lyon of the Revolution, and were of the same family as the McClellan and Lyon so celebrated and so much beloved in our own Civil War.

The service rendered by Woodstock during the Revolution was most valuable. The town voted to purchase as few British goods as possible, and sent sixty-five fat sheep to Boston as a contribution to alleviate what the town records call “the distressed and suffering circumstances” of that city. Captain Elisha Child, Charles Church Chandler, Jedediah Morse, Captain Samuel McClellan, and Nathaniel Child, were appointed a committee[96 - At town meeting, June 21, 1774.] “for maintaining a correspondence with the towns of this and the neighboring colonies.” The spirit of revolution, which had been growing, rose to fever-heat when the powder stored in Cambridge by the patriots was removed, in September of 1774, to Boston. The news flew as fast through the New England towns as horses’ hoofs could take it. A son of Esquire Wolcott brought the news to Curtis’ tavern in Dudley, and a son of Captain Clark carried it to his father’s house in Woodstock, where it was carried to Colonel Israel Putnam in Pomfret.[97 - Miss Ellen D. Larned’s “History of Windham County.”] The young men of Woodstock did not wait for the call to arms. They hurried to Cambridge, and, with the inhabitants of that and other towns, were with difficulty restrained from marching into Boston to demand, with their loaded muskets, the return of the powder. At the very beginning of the Revolution Woodstock was eager to do its duty. When the cry went through New England that blood had been shed at that “birthplace of American liberty,” the historic Lexington, one hundred and eighty-nine men from Woodstock answered that call.[98 - There is no evidence to prove the reiterated statement that one hundred and eighty-nine Woodstock men fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. This number was stationed at Cambridge, and some of them may have been at Bunker Hill.] Ephraim Manning, Stephen Lyon, Asa Morris, and William Frizzel were officers in Colonel Israel Putnam’s regiment when that regiment was stationed at Cambridge, while Captain Samuel McClellan had charge of the troop of horse, of which John Flynn was trumpeter. Captain Nathaniel Marcy, Captains Elisha and Benjamin Child, Lieut. Josiah Child, Captain Daniel Lyon, Jabez and John Fox, Samuel Perry, and many other Woodstock men, rendered services in this war equally efficient. When Samuel Perry, in his old age, used to go up to the store on Woodstock Hill in the evening, the boys would ask him to tell them about the battle of Bunker Hill, and would always ask if he had killed any of the British in that battle. “I don’t know whether I killed any,” was his reply, “but I took good aim, fired, and saw them drop!” Another Woodstock name, always honored at home as another of the same family name is to-day no less honored abroad, was Dr. David Holmes He had served as surgeon in the French war, and —

– “lived to see
The bloodier strife that made our nation free,
To serve with willing toil, with skilful hand,
The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land.”[99 - Oliver Wendell Holmes at Roseland Park, July 4, 1877.]

When Washington assumed charge of the troops in Cambridge, the Rev. Abiel Leonard, the beloved pastor of the First Church at Woodstock, preached most acceptably. Washington heard him and became his warm friend. Woodstock’s importance during the Revolution was considerable. One line of stages between Woodstock and New London and another line between Woodstock and New Haven and Hartford were established, which carried the war news weekly to be distributed through the colony and thence taken to New York. During the entire war Woodstock did more than her share. While there were many from this town who served the patriot cause with glory to themselves and honor to Woodstock, the name of Capt., afterwards Gen., Samuel McClellan stands out the most illustrious. When the currency of the Continentals had depreciated and no funds were forthcoming with which to pay the soldiers, Gen., or more exactly Col., McClellan advanced £1,000 from his own private purse to pay the men of his regiment. But a memorial of the Revolution in which Woodstock may well take the greatest pride is found in the historic elm-trees in South Woodstock, planted by the wife of General McClellan on receiving the news of the battle of Lexington. All honor to the men of Woodstock who fought for and gained their liberties in the Revolution, and all honor to their wives, who were equally patriotic at home!

In the War of 1812 Woodstock was also ready to do its duty. When Major William Flynn, of Woodstock Hill, received the news, one evening just after dark, that several British men-of-war were hovering about New London, and that it was in danger of attack, he rode horseback about the country during the night, to see officers and men and warn them to assemble on the Common at noon the next day; but when he returned to his home at sunrise he found the Common covered with soldiers ready to go to New London immediately. The patriotic spirit always characteristic of Woodstock was conspicuous in the War of 1812.

Woodstock was no less patriotic during the Rebellion. When President Lincoln called for volunteers to maintain the unity of the country, this town did her full share in that struggle. Many of you remember attending the funeral of General Nathaniel Lyon, who was killed at the beginning of the war and was buried with military honors in our neighboring town of Eastford. Though not a native of Woodstock, Gen. Lyon was descended from an honored family which has been conspicuous in the history of this town from the day of its settlement. But a name even more illustrious is that of Gen. George B. McClellan, whose grandfather was a native of Woodstock, and whose great-grandfather was Gen. Samuel McClellan, and who himself, as a boy, visited the town. You saw him beneath these very trees two years ago. You heard him speak at that time words of love for Woodstock and words of welcome to distinguished strangers. His voice is no longer heard, but the name of General McClellan will be remembered as long as the name of Woodstock itself shall last. Blessed then be the memory of Gen. George B. McClellan! Woodstock will ever cherish his services and the services of all its sons who fought for their country in the terrible struggle between the North and the South! The graves in the different burying-grounds of the town, that you annually decorate with flowers, tell more eloquently than words what Woodstock did during the Civil War.

X

Woodstock has never been negligent in the cause of education. As soon as the settlement became an organized town, John Chandler, Jr., was appointed to instruct the children to write and cipher. As the town grew in population, it was divided into school districts. In 1739 was established the United English Library for the Propagation of Christianity and Useful Knowledge. Col. John Chandler was the moderator at the first meeting, and the Rev. Abel Stiles, John May, Benjamin Child, and Pennel Bowen, of Woodstock, and leading citizens of Pomfret and Killingly, assisted in the organization.[100 - Rev. Abel Styles subscribed the largest sum, £30. He was fond of belles-lettres, and in a communication to his church, speaks of “his beloved studies.” Under his inspiration and instruction, Woodstock and Pomfret young men entered Yale College.] It was Gen. Samuel McClellan and his sons John and James McClellan, the Rev. Eliphalet Lyman, William Bowen, Parker Comings, Nehemiah Child, Ebenezer Smith, William Potter, Hezekiah Bugbee, Benjamin Lyon, Ebenezer Skinner, and Amos Paine who established Woodstock Academy, at the beginning of the present century, and the influence of that honored institution has been deep and far-reaching. But who can measure the good done by Woodstock Academy, or by the different churches and other organizations of the town? Such institutions are our heritage, and our duty and privilege it is to improve their character and transmit them to future generations, with the memories and traditions of the town itself.

XI

Citizens of Woodstock, listen while I call the roll of some of the distinguished men who have lived or were born in the town. Of the first settlers was Col. John Chandler, probably the most distinguished citizen that Woodstock had during its first century, the man who made Woodstock known and respected throughout New England. His descendants include the Rev. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, D.D., Winthrop Chandler, the artist, the Hon. John Church Chandler, Judge John Winthrop Chandler, and others, who have been prominent in Woodstock and throughout the country. No one of the first settlers was more distinguished than Edward Morris, who died three years after the town was settled. His family was prominent in the history of old Roxbury, and all through the last century in Woodstock. Commodore Charles Morris, a native[101 - 1784-1856.] of Woodstock and well known in the War of 1812, and his son, Commodore George N. Morris, Commander in the Civil War of the United States sloop-of-war Cumberland in Hampton Roads, belong to the same family, as well as the Hon. J. F. Morris, of Hartford, whom I am sure we are glad to welcome as our presiding officer to-day. John Marcy, a first settler, was the ancestor of Hon. William Leonard Marcy, Governor of the State of New York, Secretary of War under President Polk and Secretary of State under President Pierce. Abiel Holmes,[102 - 1763-1837.] D.D., LL.D., author of “Annals of America,” and his father, Dr. David Holmes, a surgeon in the French and Revolutionary wars, were born in Woodstock, and were descended from John Holmes, a first settler. Abiel Holmes’ son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, though not born in Woodstock, will be remembered, I am sure, for the beautiful tribute he paid his ancestors in the poem he read in this very park in 1877. The name of Morse has always been identified with Woodstock. Deacon Jedediah Morse held about all the offices in town that he could lawfully hold, and was deacon of the First Church for forty-three years. His son, the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., a graduate of Yale College and the father of American geography, was also born in Woodstock. His grandson was Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse, who was more widely known as the inventor of the electric telegraph. Another Woodstock boy was General William Eaton[103 - 1764-1804.] who ran away, from home at the age of sixteen to enter the Revolutionary War, and was distinguished during the first years of the century as the protector of American commerce in the Mediterranean. Amasa Walker, too, was born in Woodstock, the father of political economy in this country, or better still, the father of Gen. Francis A. Walker, the respected President of the School of Technology in Boston. Another honored name in Woodstock is that of Williams, including Samuel Williams, Sr., the Commissioner of Roxbury in the settlement of New Roxbury, the Rev. Stephen Williams, the first pastor of the church at West Parish, and Jared W. Williams, the Governor of Vermont and a native of this town. Governors, members of Congress, men distinguished in law, theology, and medicine, in trade and on the farm, have been born in Woodstock. The roll of honor could be multiplied; but in speaking of the distinguished men it would be impossible to forget the lessons taught, the struggles endured, and the sacrifices made by the mothers of Woodstock, who all through these two centuries have inspired their sons with feelings that have made them industrious, honored, and religious. Praise be, therefore, to the women of Woodstock! This town has the right to be proud of such noble sons and daughters, and we have the right to be proud that such a town as old Woodstock has nourished us and blessed us with such memories and influences.

XII

What has the town done to make us proud of it? It has exerted an influence for good upon the country wherever its inhabitants have settled. Such settlements have been many. During the early history of the plantation, Woodstock men assisted largely in the settlement of Ashford, Pomfret, Killingly, and other neighboring towns. As the surplus population increased, migrations were made to the wild regions of Vermont and New Hampshire. Later came the settlements made by Connecticut, in the provinces of New York and Pennsylvania, in which Woodstock families were almost without exception represented. At the close of the Revolution the wave of emigration extended still farther West, and some of the oldest families in Ohio trace their ancestry back to this very town. To-day Woodstock has its representatives in almost every State in the Union, and the material growth and prosperity of the country has been in full measure owing to the settlements made by men from towns in New England like Woodstock. The ideas inherited from Puritan ancestors and modified according to existing circumstances have made towns, cities, even States, in which the whole country to-day takes the warmest pride. The man who inherits New England traditions from towns like Woodstock is worth more to the country than an army of Anarchists and Socialists.

Woodstock is distinguished, too, for its “notable meetings,” inherited from the Woodstock in England, of which Judge Sewell speaks. The first “notable meeting” was when John Eliot preached to the Indians on Plaine Hill. The second “notable meeting” was when the first settlers drew their home lots in Wabbaquasset Hall. The third “notable meeting” was at the funeral of Col. John Chandler in 1743, attended by the leading men in the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The church meetings of the last century, the town meeting when Woodstock transferred its allegiance to Connecticut, meetings during the Revolution, the old “training days” on Woodstock Common, have been followed by no end of “notable meetings” during the present century. But the one “notable meeting” that those of us present here to-day have in mind, was when Ulysses S. Grant, General of the Army, Savior of the Country and President of the United States, visited the town in 1870.

But the chief glory of the town of Woodstock has been its love of local law. The source of the power of the continental nations of Europe may be traced back through the centuries to the village communities and Teutonic townships. In the mark, tithing, and parish of England the same principle of local self-government may be seen; and so our own nation’s greatness, through Anglo-Saxon inheritance, has its source, not in the State, city, or county, but in the little school districts, villages, and towns of New England. Woodstock has been like a miniature republic, and has always believed in the supremacy of local law. Its refusal to send its representative to the General Court at Boston unless it could tax its own property as it pleased, and the refusal, for political reasons, of its delegates at the State Convention in 1788 to vote for the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, are instances of the extreme independence of Woodstock. What it conscientiously believed, the town has never been slow to proclaim. Tenacious as Woodstock has always been of its privileges and its rights, its loyalty to the country, from the day the thirteen colonies became a nation, has never been questioned.

XIII

I have given scarce more than a sketch in outline of what the history of Woodstock has been during the two hundred years since that historic band of brave boys and sturdy men, of deft-handed girls and sober matrons, swarmed like bees from the Roxbury hive[104 - Cotton Mather: “Massachusetts soon became like a hive overstocked with bees, and many thought of swarming into new plantations.”] and settled on the Wabbaquasset hills. What Woodstock’s history shall be remains for you, men and women of Woodstock, to develop. The fathers have kept bright the honest traditions and stout independence, the industrious thrift and religious faith which their Puritan fathers brought to the new settlement. The sons of this generation can be trusted to preserve and transmit them to their descendants. You, men of Woodstock, have your duties in the family, on the farm, toward your schools, and to your churches. All that the fathers have done puts an added obligation upon you. The improvement and development of the town depend on the individual exertions of its citizens. If you are young, infuse some of your own enthusiasm and intelligence into its different organizations. If you are old, remember these institutions in a substantial way. Woodstock will be what you make it. Michel Angelo saw in the block the exquisite unsculptured statue. Many blows of the chisel were necessary to disclose the perfect ideal to the eyes of a wondering world. In thought, in plan, in ideal, this town has been almost a perfect organization; but only those whose high vision is willing to pierce through all encrusting imperfections shall be the artists whose toil and sacrifices shall make this dear, noble, historic town of Woodstock an honor to the State and a blessing to its citizens. It is said that old John Eliot, from the high pulpit in Roxbury, used to pray every Sabbath for the new settlers at Woodstock. The words of those prayers are not preserved, but may the spirit of them come down through the centuries to inspire the hearts of all who inherit the blood of the early settlers of this ancient town. God, our fathers’ God, bless old Woodstock!

notes

1

Also spelt Roxberry, Roxborough, Rocksborough.

2

July 30, 1630.

3

Young’s “Chronicles of Massachusetts,” p. 396.

4

Winthrop’s “Journal,” by Savage, vol. i., p. 111.

5

“Ordained over the First Church, Nov. 5, 1632.” – Eliot’s tomb in Roxbury.

6

“Memorial History of Boston,” vol. i., p. 403.

7

Though the Williamses did not settle permanently in Woodstock till some years after the first settlement, the family was most prominent in Roxbury, and one of its representatives visited the grant officially in 1686.

8

Drake’s “Town of Roxbury” and “Memorial History of Boston,” vol. i., pp. 401-422.

9

De Forest’s “Indians of Connecticut,” and Palfrey’s “History of New England,” and Miss Ellen D. Larned’s “History of Windham County.”