His Life of our own John Quincy Adams, whom Mr. Seward,
I think, early took as his model and exemplar, and whom a little
more of early training and fortunate surrounding, and a little
more of intellectual and physical vigor, might have enabled him
to approach more nearly, was published in 1849 ; and a collec
tion of his own writings and speeches, in four volumes, was
issued from the press not long afterwards.
Meantime, almost every year of his mature life had furnished
its own evidence of his unwearied industry, professional, politi
cal, or literary.
It will be, however, as Secretary of State of the United States,
during the whole period of the late Civil War, and for nearly
four years after that war was closed, and while its results were
in daily progress of development, that Mr. Seward will be long
est remembered. To him is primarily and principally due the
successful administration of our foreign affairs during that event-
192 FOLSOM, SOMERBY, AND SEWARD.
ful and critical period. Volume after volume of official corre
spondence attests his unceasing labors. And if, in the vast mass
of his written or spoken words, in a time of so much anxiety
and agitation, there be some which even his best friends would
willingly obliterate ; or if, amid the many responsibilities he was
compelled to assume, there were some acts to be regretted by
any of us, yet all such disparagements of his name and fame
will be forgotten hereafter, in the grateful remembrance that
through his leading intervention our peace with foreign nations
was preserved, and our country left free to fight out the great
battle of the Union to its final triumph.
Above all other acts of his, posterity will remember, or cer
tainly ought to remember, with gratitude and admiration, that
brave surrender of the two Southern Confederate ambassadors,
of which our own Boston Harbor was the witness and the scene.
For one, certainly, I have heartily concurred from the first in
the judgment so recently and emphatically pronounced by our
honored associate and Vice-President, Mr. Adams, whom we
welcome here to-day, fresh from his inestimable services at
Geneva, and whom we hope presently to hear bearing witness
to the abilities and merits of his lamented friend.
In his address before the Historical Society of New York, in
December, 1870, after alluding to Mr. Seward, then living, as
" a statesman, calm in council, sagacious in action, and fearless
of censure when an emergency was to be met," he added these
memorable words in regard to the particular transaction to which
I have referred ; and we all know that they were the words of
one who had been in a position to know, more than almost any
one else, precisely what he was speaking of: "I do not feel,"
said he, " that I am exaggerating, when I claim for this cour
ageous resistance to the infatuation of the hour, that it not only
was correct in principle, but also that it saved the Unity of the
Nation:
I would quote more of Mr. Adams s language, were he not
fortunately here in person to renew the expression of the same
sentiment.
Since Mr. Seward s release from public service, he had been
a wonderful traveller, as we all know ; and a posthumous vol-
FOLSOM, SOMERBY, AND SEWARD. 193
ume is on the point of publication, giving an account of the
most remarkable tour embracing almost the whole circle of
the earth s surface which was ever undertaken and accom
plished by one of so many infirmities. But he happily returned
to die at home at last in his beloved village of Auburn, New
York, in the seventy-second year of his age.
Let me only add, that, though not always agreeing with him
in political opinion, I had many pleasant personal associations
with Mr. Seward, while I was in Congress with him and after
wards, and that I gladly bear witness to the amiability and kind*
ness which marked his private life.
13
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON.
ADDRESS AT DEDICATION OF THE NEW TOWN HALL OF BROOKLINE,
FEBRUARY 22. 1873.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF BROOKLINE ;
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS :
I AM deeply conscious how small a claim I have to the distin
guished position which has been assigned to me on this occasion.
I am, as you all know, but an eleventh-hour Brookline man ;
while around me are those who have borne the burden and heat
of the da}-, not only in planning and preparing this beautiful
Hall, but in building up the Town itself of which henceforth,
so long as it remains a Town, this stately edifice is to be the
symbol and the seat of government to its existing prosperity
and importance. In yielding, however, to the kind and compli
mentary request of your Selectmen and Building Committee, I
had the satisfaction of reflecting, that, whatever I might find to
say here to-day, in this Inaugural Address, I should at least be
free from the temptation, or imputation, of commending any thing
to which I had myself contributed, and should be enabled to
pass an impartial and dispassionate judgment on the efforts and
accomplishments of others. A residence in Brookline for six or
seven years, which is all I can claim to have enjoyed, has given
me an opportunity for observation and inquiry in regard to the
history and growth of the Town, and for acquainting myself
somewhat with those who have lived here longer, and who have
labored so diligently and devotedly for its improvement and
welfare. To them the honors of the occasion belong ; and if I
[194]
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON. 195
shall succeed in doing justice to them and their predecessors, and
in illustrating their services and successes, you will feel, I am
sure, that all the reasonable expectations of the hour have been
fulfilled.
We are here, on this auspicious Anniversary, which, more
than any other day, or all other days, in the calendar of merely
human nativities, is associated with whatever is brightest and
best in the history of our country and of the world, to take
formal possession of a new and costly Town House, and espe
cially to inaugurate and dedicate this spacious and magnificent
Hall. But we do not forget that this is not the first time in
our annals that such an occasion has been witnessed here. We
do not forget that a similar ceremony has taken place even
within the memory of not a few of those who are assembled here
to-day. Little more than a quarter of a century has elapsed,
since the beloved and venerated Pastor of your first Parish was
the chosen and appropriate organ of your Selectmen of that day,
in welcoming the people of Brookline to what he then called,
and what was then doubtless considered, " a commodious and
beautiful," as well as a new, Town Hall. I need not say that
it is still standing. You are but just relinquishing its occupa
tion. It has been the scene of not a few interesting delibera
tions and memorable acts. Wise and weighty counsels have
been heard within its walls. Stirring resolutions have been
adopted, important measures have been concerted and consum
mated, by those assembled there. Above all, the sacred right of
Freemen the Elective Franchise has, year after year, been
exercised there. Precious memories of the living, and still more
precious memories of the dead, cluster thickly within and around
it ; and they will continue to be cherished by many of you, as
long as it shall survive the changes and chances to which all
earthly structures are subject. We shall do well, my friends, if
we shall render this far more commodious and costly edifice as
worthy of being held in honor by those who may come after us.
The past is secure. The future has always its contingencies
and uncertainties.
Meantime, there are but few of the occasions which have
been witnessed within those old walls, which we should less
196 THE ENVIRONS OP BOSTON.
willingly permit to fall into oblivion, or which some of yon, I
am sure, still hold in fonder or more vivid remembrance, than
that Dedication Service on the 14th of October, 1845, when
the excellent Dr. Pierce recounted with so much fulness and
fervor, and in so much of minute detail, the earlier and the later
history of the Town. He was my father s friend and my own
friend. He was the friend of all, young or old, who had the
privilege of his acquaintance, or who were in any way brought
within the magnetic power of his presence. A man of larger
heart, of more genial temper, of kindlier impulses, was hardly
to be found here or anywhere. His cheery tone still rings in the
ears of all who ever heard it. His erect and stalwart frame was
a fit setting for so active, eager, inquisitive a spirit. He made
nothing, even to a late day of his life, of walking into Boston
from the parsonage on Meeting House Hill, attending Thursday
Lecture, or perhaps preaching it himself, at the old Chauncy
Place Church, thence proceeding at once to the Monthly Meet
ing of the Historical Society, then dining with a former Presi
dent of that Society, 1 where I have so often met him, or with
some other friend, and at last completing the circuit of no Sab
bath day s journey by walking back to his Brookline home before
sunset. And he could always tell you the precise number of
minutes, or even of seconds, which the walk either way or both
ways had taken. This marvellous appetite for trivial details,
however, went along with the keenest relish for historical and
local research, or certainly for the results of such research. The
history of the town in which he so long resided, and the history
of the families and changing fortunes of his parishioners and
neighbors and friends, were almost as familiar to him as the Bible
from which he took his weekly text, or as that grand old psalm
which for so many years he lined and led, to the tune of St.
Martin s, at our Annual Commencement dinner. He had passed
the full term of threescore years and ten, when he delivered that
Inaugural Discourse in 1845. Indeed, I have seen it carefully
recorded in his own diary, that on that 14th of October he was
" exactly 72 years and three months old." But he was still in
complete possession of all his faculties. His memory, and his
1 The late Hon. Thomas L. Winthrop.
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON. 197
power of employing its ample stores, were alike unimpaired ;
and he gave free play to them on that occasion. How then can
I hope to glean any thing for your entertainment or instruction
from a field which he so vigorously and thoroughly reaped ?
What can I say of the earlier or later history of your beloved
town, down certainly to 1845, which he did not abundantly tell
you, in an Address which is still extant, still remembered by some
of you, arid still within the ready reach of you all ? There is at
least one, however, of his recorded experiences on that occasion,
as I have read it in his own account, from which I may take
courage. After stating that he occupied an hour and a half in
its delivery, he adds : " I contrived to season my facts by many
appropriate anecdotes ; so that I succeeded in keeping the audi
ence awake throughout the Address." May I not venture to
express the hope that, in this respect, if in no other, I may be
equally successful ?
In that Address, your late venerable Pastor did not fail, of
course, to remind his hearers of the fact, which I may be par
doned for recalling with more than common interest to-day, that
the very earliest allusion to the place now known as Brookline is
found, under date of August 30, 1632, in the Journal or History
of Governor John Winthrop ; and that the very first authentic
record of the place is that, " Notice being given of ten Saga
mores and many Indians, assembled at Muddy River, the Gov
ernor sent Capt. Underbill with twenty musketeers to discover,
&c. ; but at Roxbury they heard they were broke up." Let us
pause for a few moments, and ponder this brief record, so as to
unfold something of its real import and significance.
A little more than two years had now elapsed since the Gov
ernor and Company of Massachusetts Bay had taken their birth
rights on their backs, and their Bibles and their Charter in their
hands, and had come over to found and establish an independent
Colony on New England soil ; not yet, indeed, independent of
the Crown or of the Parliament of Old England, the time for
that consummation was still in the distant future, but a Col
ony wholly independent of control by London Committees or
Companies or Adventurers ; and which, in the bold transfer of
its Charter, as was so well intimated by John Adams, foreshad-
198 THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON.
owed, if it did iiot actually contemplate, the grander Indepen
dence, of which he himself was "the Colossus on the floor of
Congress," in 1776.
Salem, where the Massachusetts Company landed in June,
1630, had already been planted by the worthy pioneer Governor,
John Endicott, whom they had deputed to preside over what
was called " London s Plantation," subject to their own regula
tions and instructions from time to time. But there was now
no longer to be any " London s Plantation," or any even nomi
nal subordination to any power, on the other side of the ocean,
less exalted than that of Parliament and the Crown. They
came in the spirit and for the purpose of Self-government, to
be exercised by a Governor and Assistants, and soon by a Leg
islature, of their own choice and upon their own soil. And so
they at once sought out a place for the seat of that government ;
and after lingering a few months at Charlestown, where about
a hundred of the planters who came over successively with
Endicott and Higginson had already settled themselves, they
decided to cross the river and establish themselves at what the
Indians called Shawmut, and what some of the planters desig
nated as Trimontaine, from the three hills then prominent
upon its surface, but which from the 17th day of September,
1630, was to bear the honored name of Boston.
Less than two years had thus passed, since the birth, or cer
tainly the baptism, of Boston, when the first recognition or
mention of the locality in which we are interested to-day was
entered in his Journal by Governor Winthrop. That record, I
think, is full of implication and suggestion as to the condition of
the site on which we are now assembled, as well as in regard to
the immediate circumstances and surroundings of the Massachu
setts Colony. Swarms of savages were still hovering around
them. " Ten Sagamores and many Indians," we are told, were
assembled in this very neighborhood. 1 A Sagamore is second
only to a Sachem, or King of the tribe ; and the titles are some
times employed indiscriminately. Ten Sagamores would thus
imply a large number of warriors under them. They were evi-
1 The site of one of their old forts is now occupied by the house of my friend
William Amory, Esq., at Longwood.
THE ENVIRONS OP BOSTON. 199
dently understood to be lying in ambush ; the Governor s phrase
being that our musketeers were despatched " to discover, &c."
John Underbill was the most trusted Captain of that day, bear
ing very much the same relation to the Massachusetts Colony
which Miles Standish bore to the earlier but wholly distinct and
independent Pilgrim Colony at Plymouth. Twenty musketeers
were sent with Capt. Underbill, more than twice the number
which Miles Standish took with him, when he was despatched
on a similar expedition ten years before, and when he achieved
his grandest victory, or what is called his " capital exploit."
Every thing indicated danger, or certainly the strongest appre
hension of danger; and before another week had elapsed, al
though this particular party of Indians had been " broke up "
or dispersed, we find Governor Winthrop recording the gravest
reasons for suspecting that a conspiracy existed among the
Narragansett men and the Neipnett men, under pretence of
quarrelling with each other, " to cut us off to get our victuals
and other substance." And then the record proceeds : " Upon
this there was a Camp pitched at Boston in the night, to exer
cise the Soldiers against need might be ; and Capt. Underbill
(to try how they would behave themselves) caused an alarm to
be given upon the quarters, which discovered the weakness of
our people, who, like men amazed, knew not how to behave
themselves, so as the officers could not draw them into any
order. All the rest of the plantations took the alarm and an
swered; but it caused much fear and distraction among the
common sort, so as some which knew of it before [that is, which
knew that it was a false alarm], yet through fear had forgotten,
and believed the Indians had been upon us. We doubled our
guards, and kept watch day and night." 1
Such is the picture which Massachusetts and its principal town
present to us, as we unfold the page which contains the earliest
record of what is now called Brookline. There was plainly no
settlement here at that day, or the Governor would have sent
that little army of musketeers to assist and rescue the inhabi
tants, and not merely to discover and break up an ambush of the
natives. And may we not well rejoice that it was so ? May we
1 Winthrop s History of New England, vol. i. p. 89.
200 THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON.
not well rejoice that there was no handful of scattered planters
here to encounter the wild savagery of those u ten Sagamores
and many Indians ; " and that Underbill and his twenty muske
teers heard at Roxbury that they were already dispersed ? Yes,
my friends, let us thank God to-day, that the narrative of our
beautiful village I might rather say, of its pre-historic period
does not open with a scene of massacre. Let us thank God,
that yonder River "Muddy" as it was called was not crim
soned and clotted with the gore of either white men or red men.
Let us thank God, that our Brook was not destined to be called
;t Bloody Brook."
I do not undervalue the gallantry and heroism of those upon
whom the dire necessity has been laid, whether in earlier or
later days, to wield the sword, and wage war to the death,
against an Indian foe. Brookline, as we shall presently see, has
exhibited her full share of such heroism. I fully recognize, too,
that a real and inexorable necessity has often existed for sup
pressing and punishing by force of arms the lawless ferocity of
the savage tribes. The early Colonists must have abandoned
their Plantations altogether, unless they were ready and resolved
to defend them at all hazards against the conspiracies and
treacheries and mad assaults of the aboriginal race which sur
rounded them on every side. Even at this hour, there may be
Modocs or Appaches uncontrollable except by force. But we
may all still sympathize with the sentiment, which was so ex
quisitely expressed by the pious John Robinson in Holland,
when he heard of the first great victory of Miles Standish, in
which six Indians had been slain : " It would have been happy,
if they had converted some, before they had killed any." We
may all rejoice, also, to remember that, within a few months only
of the date of this record about the Indians at Muddy River,
there arrived at Boston, and was immediately settled at Rox
bury, where the first planters of this village so long went for
their Sunday worship, a godly minister from England who made
it his special mission, in the same spirit which had actuated
those brave Jesuit-priests in Canada, to Christianize and civilize
the natives ; and who, during the next thirty years, had not
only preached to many of them, and taught many of them to
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON. 201
pray, but had accomplished the more than Herculean labor of
"translating the whole Bible into their language. No more mar
vellous monument of literary work, in the service of either God
or man, can be found upon earth, than that Indian Bible of the
noble John Eliot. Nor can any of us fail to admire and applaud
the earnest and seemingly successful efforts for the introduction
of a more humane and Christian policy towards the Indian Tribes
still left in our land, by the illustrious Soldier who has just been
called again to the Executive Chair of the United States. There
has been nothing more creditable to our Country since, for a
similar exhibition of humanity in the removal of the Cherokees
beyond the Mississippi, William Ellery Channing paid that most
eloquent and most enviable tribute to Winfield Scott. 1
Pardon me, my friends, for such a digression. I may seem to
have travelled a long way out of our little Brookline record ; but
it has only been, after all, to explain and amplify the gratifica
tion I could not refrain from expressing, and which I am sure you
all feel with me, that those ten Sagamores and their followers
were fairly dispersed before Underbill and his musketeers ar
rived here ; and that the very first page of j^our records escaped,
as it so narrowly did escape, from the stains of conflict and
carnage.
Let me hasten now to resume the more direct story of the
Town, and to pursue it with greater rapidity. The venerable
Pastor of your first Parish, when he occupied the position which
you have done me the honor to assign to me on this occasion,
did not omit to inform, or remind, his audience, that under the
repulsive name of Muddy River, or sometimes Muddy River
Hamlet, the territory which Brookline now covers was for
nearly three quarters of a century included within the limits
and jurisdiction of Boston. Perhaps, therefore, some of our
friends who are so eager to return within the same limits and
jurisdiction, may be found hereafter adopting the policy of the
friends of Texas many years ago, who, when they had discov
ered some pretence for the idea that Texas had once been a part
of the Louisiana Territory, hastened to prefix the little syllable
re to annexation, and thought to strengthen their case by per-
1 Channing s Works, vol. v. p. 113.
202 THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON.
emptorily demanding the re-annexation of Texas to the United
States. I may be pardoned for remembering that a member of
Congress at that day from the neighboring City, who shall be
nameless on this occasion, ventured to suggest that these zealous
and irrepressible advocates of Texas might be wiser, if they
would exhibit as much of the suaviter in modo as of the fortiter
in re. But jesting apart, and I have nothing serious to say
in reference to any mooted question of local policy to-day, we
are all well aware, as a matter of history, that for seventy-three
years from the time when Boston first had a local habitation
and a name on this side of the Atlantic, it embraced the terri
tory now occupied by this town. And its embrace, as we shall
see, was a tight one, with a grasp not easily unloosed. It is
thus from the old records of Boston, or of the Colony, that we
derive almost all which is known of the village hamlet in which
Brookline had its origin. I know not exactly at what date the
first settler was found here, nor who he was. But as the
General Court of the Colony ordered the construction of " a
sufficient cart-bridge" over Muddy River as early as August
16, 1633, we may reasonably conjecture that transportation
had commenced, and that the lands had then begun to be culti
vated and occupied. Yet the order seems to have been very
slow of fulfilment ; since, on the 4th of March of the following
year, we find the General Court passing a more urgent and
specific order, " That Mr. Richard Dummer and John Johnson
shall build a sufficient cart-bridge over Muddy River before the
next General Court, and that Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester,
Newtown, and Watertown shall equally contribute to it."
This certainly looked like business ; yet it is as late as the 2d
of June, 1640, that we find in the records of the Colonial au
thorities that " The charge of Muddy River Bridge, being 151.
3s. 6d., was ordered to be allowed as folio weth : By Boston,
61. ; by Roxbury, 5Z. ; Dorchester, II. Is. Sd. ; Watertown, 11.
Is. lid. ; Cambridge, 1 II. Is. lid." The building of a bridge
across Muddy River in those days was probably accounted as
great an undertaking as the building of a railroad to the Pacific
1 New town had become Cambridge at this time ; the name having been changed
in 1638.
THE ENVIRONS OF BOSTON. 203
in these ; and I doubt not that the accounts of Richard Dummer
and John Johnson, for fifteen pounds, three shillings and six
pence, were analyzed and audited more scrupulously and rigidly
than any Erie, Pacific, or even Credit Mobilier accounts for mil
lions of times as much.
Afc the General Court, at Newtown, held by adjournment, on
the 25th of September, 1634, we find a somewhat singular Order
of two parts, in the following terms : u It is Ordered, with the