narrowness; but neither educated enough, rich enough, nor widely-known enough to encounter the perils of political elevation, domestic luxury, or conventional refinement. Robust in body and practical in understanding, humane in heart and simple in manners, they have founded a race of which they need not be ashamed, and given us ancestors of which we may justly be proud. They have belonged to the working-class in the truest sense, and have been genuine republicans and hearty Americans, mixing always freely and evenly with their fellow-beings. An honest pride of character has ever distinguished them. I never heard of one of the name who was convicted of a criminal offense. Their faults have been those springing from good-fellowship and a constitutional strength of appetite. We have, alas! furnished our full contribution to the ranks of intemperance, when it was the vice of the country and the age; but setting that great weakness aside, I know of none other from which our skirts are not as clean as those of any family of equal size in the country. I never heard a hoarding, mean, and selfish spirit charged upon our race. It has been distinguished for hospitality, for public spirit, and for general success in life; and I thank God, with you, that there is at present no appearance of decline either in its numbers, its character, or its reputation. We should have come together to very little purpose at this time, were our only object that of self-glorification, or even friendly intercourse. Those who still live on the native hills where our race was cradled and nursed, have called the clan together from all parts of its dispersion, to animate the common virtue and resolution of each and all by grateful meditations on its past history; that by considering our origin and parentage, we may be moved to self-respect, and to new and more resolute endeavors to shed lustre on the family name. That generation that binds those of us now upon the active stage of life, and our children, to the founders and fathers of our race, is now fast leaving the scene; and it is a most pleasant reflection, that they have lived to see their children rise up and call their parents blessed. More than seventy years have elapsed since our Founder died; and of course those whose infant eyes saw the last of him, are now just closed, or fast Such closing in death. Still a few veterans linger in the neighborhood of four-score, the eye and ear-witnesses of the men and the events I have described, cotemporaries not of our Founder, but of his children. This is to them a proud and happy day; and their presence is the chief charm of this occasion to us, their juniors and children. Let us assure them, before they leave the world, that we will not dishonor their name and race; that we receive as a precious inheritance the traditions and reputation of the family; that Walpole, the creation of our Founder and his children, shall be our Mecca and Jerusalem; that we will look to it as the natural home of our declining years, and the sweetest resting-place for our ashes. Let us shrive their spirits, now ready to depart, with the sacred promise, that we will dwell in peace and unity as a family, mutually helpful in times of misfortune, solicitous to defend each other's reputation and virtue, and anxiously devoted to whatever can honor and exalt the name of our race. promises will add to the peace of their dying beds. Cousins hail and farewell. A few days will find you again at your scattered posts of duty. Meanwhile, we welcome you to the homestead and the old hearth-stone. Look upon our hills. Are there fairer ones on the face of the earth? Our meadows. Spread there anywhere more peaceful and fertile intervals? Our river. Flows there a more silvery tide, changeful yet constant, winding but onward, wild and yet gentle? This home our Progenitor chose and rescued from the wilderness for his children and theirs. Look upon our elmshaded streets, our places of worship, our school-houses, and our homes. The foundation of all this beauty, prosperity, and civilization our honored Father laid with his brave, strong hand. Do we not owe his memory all the honors we can pay it, and his children, our more immediate parents, the praise of well sustaining what he so well begun? Go to the scene of the old fort, and the ancient homestead; to the terraces, now so peaceful, on which the Kilburn fight took place; to the places where the General and Colonel John have left their strong mark and pleasant impressions; above all, go to the Great Fall. In all you will find occasions of joy and gratitude for what the fathers have done. Yonder marble monument is a fitting tribute to the worth which 76 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF COL. BENJAMIN BELLOWS created from the forest so fair and rich a scene as this-which originated a race such as has gathered around it. But a righteous Providence was before-hand with us, and had anticipated the fitting memorial of our honored ancestor. The Falls themselves-Bellows Falls-they are the everlasting memorial of him who chose their neighborhood for his home, and the home of his race. Everlasting-because while their waters continue to be replenished from the snows of distant mountains and the contributions of a thousand streams, their name is embodied in the topography and history of our country and the world. They bear his name as far as the sound of the English language is known, and will hand it down as long as it lasts. Bursting through mountain-walls, and falling on rocks, they fitly typify his resolute spirit, which no obstacles could hinder, no hardships break. Beautiful waters, we have seen, is the etymological purport of our family fame. The Falls do but repeat their own praise in taking the name of their founder. The old crest, an arm raised to pour water from a chalice into a basin, anticipated the ornament of our Walpole Home, and the natural feature with which our family name is alone. publicly associated-Bellows Falls. Let us make that crest universal and honorable, symbolical and Christian. "Whoso giveth a cup of cold water, only in the name of a disciple, shall in no wise lose his reward." Type of purity, of truth, of abundance, we adopt the cup of water, taken from our Founder's Falls, as the family crest, and with it, that beautiful motto, so pious and so expressive: "All from on high." (Tout d'en Haut) "Every good and perfect gift cometh down from above.” God gave us our fathers, and while the waters pour over the Great Fall of our river, we will not forget them, or Him. APPENDIX. AN ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY MEETING. THE descendants of Col. Benjamin Bellows, the founder of Walpole, wishing to erect in the New Cemetery a monument to the virtues of their ancestor, issued, by their committee, a circular address to all the known members of the family, stating the object, and requesting their coöperation. The invitation was accepted with cheerful promptitude. The sum of $1200 was raised, and afterward an additional sum of $300. Early in October, the monument, made of Italian marble, twenty feet in height, with appropriate inscriptions, and with figures emblematic of the frontier life, beautifully sculptured, was erected by Bowker, Torrey & Co., of Boston. On the 11th of October, the descendants came from the north, south, east, and far west, to join in consecrating, with filial veneration, this moumental memorial to their ancestor. They met in the cemetery, at the foot of the monument. The weather was delightful. The design of the meeting was announced by Benjamin Bellows Grant, Esq., the judicious, energetic, and indefatigable chairman of the committee, super intendent of the work and of subsequent arrangements. The exercises were commenced with a devout and strikingly appropriate prayer, by the Rev. John N. Bellows, of Wilton. A short address was then made by the Rev. Dr. Henry W.. Bellows, of New-York; an original hymn followed; and the exercises at the cemetery were closed with an earnest prayer and benediction by the Rey. Mr. Tilden, of Walpole. The meeting then moved to the town-hall, where many had already assembled. Expectation sat with ready ears and excited anticipations for the speaker, Dr. Bellows, to begin his address. He held the audience in riveted attention for three hours. The address was replete with local history, biographical sketches, amusing anecdotes, humorous allusions, and just remarks. It was delivered with those various modulations of voice, occasional playful expressions of countenance, ease and elegance for which he is distinguished. The relatives and invited guests than passed into the lower hall, a spacious room, which was tastefully decorated with evergreens. A collation had been prepared by a committee of ladies, with skill and elegance, and with a profusion worthy of the olden days of Walpole, when its hills and meadows. flowed with milk and honey. After fasting from breakfast until four o'clock, a blessing being asked, the company, with no doubtful appetites, performed their parts in a manner worthy the example of their healthy ancestors. When the repast was finished, sentiments, speeches, and odes followed, and were continued into the evening. From the collation, many of the company, by an invitation given to all, spent the remaining part of the evening at the house of Dr. Bellows. His spacious rooms were filled. Friends met there who had not seen one another for years. Mutual congratulations, pleasant recognitions, agreeable introductions to new connections, affectionate inquiries, and interesting reminiscences were crowded into a few hours. Some returned to their homes on the following morning. Those who remained, spent the day in social calls, and in visiting the spots endeared to them by recollections of their childhood, or in hunting up the old fort and the battle-grounds of Indian warfare. Some went to view Bellows Falls; others, the old burying-ground, to find the graves of relatives and friends, and to read the tomb-stone annals of the early settlers— "Men to fortune and to fame unknown. "Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield; Their furrows oft the stubborn glebe has broke. How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!" |