Carry back your mental vision through the far receding years,
When these trees you now term monarchs could have formed the shaft

of spears;

'Ere the Plymoth rock was trodden by those puritanic feet,
Or the classic James was rippled by a Newport's modest fleet;
Ere the Spaniards built Augustine, or the Frenchmen reared Quebec ;
Or the Dutchmen on the Hudson found that little island speck;
Here a colony resided, these the fields that once were tilled
By a purely peaceful people, in the arts of war unskilled.

Here the sound of rural labor in the sweetest gentlest strains,
Filled the breezes with their music, where no jar of discord reigns;
Where no sound of selfish traffic could be heard within the mart;
And disasters born of commerce brought no anguish to the heart.
Here were no conflicting dogmas; here no quarrels of the press,
Here the wealthy were not worried by pale poverty's distress.
Here the poor were free from envy of a neighbor's greater wealth,
For the man was counted richest who enjoyed the finest health.
Politics were uninvented, office-seekers all unknown,
Non-producers lean and stinted lived on what they earned alone.
Women knew no height of fashion, wore no ribbons, pearls or lace;
Decked their forms in simple vesture, with a modest native grace;
Won their men with love, not passion, that divine but subtle force;
Raised their babes to honest manhood, (never seeking a divorce);
Novels then did not attract them, no, nor Saratoga Springs,
Or a thousand dollar Cashmere, or a pair of diamond rings;
Ignorant of all around them, save their duty—is it queer

They enjoyed the rights God gave them, each in her respective sphere?

Years and years this people flourished, in the plentitude of peace, Giving praise with hearts unsullied, as each harvest brought increase. Huts were built of trees and branches, covered o'er with curling bark, Round which trailing vines were clustered, bearing blossoms rich and

rare

In the spring-time; but in autumn stripped of all their foliage stark, Giving fruitage to the people as a recompense for care,

Fields were cleared, and plowed and planted, smaller seeds were deftly

sown,

Corn we hoed and flocks were tended, blooming grass was duly mown,
Smiling plenty crowned their labors, gentle peace encircled all,
Till the jealousy of Indians reached its climax, wrought their fall.

It was in the early autumn, when the evening breeze was mild;
That arose a midnight tempest, louder rose the war-whoop wild;
Flashed the lightning sharp and vivid, but as quick the forest child
Whirled the gleaming bloody hatchet, buried in some settler's brain,
Freeing souls from earthly bondage, trials, troubles, cares and pain;

Flowed the red tide like a torrent, fuller, freer, flowed the rain,
Washing from the reeking greensward every spot of bloody stain !
Wailing went the tearing tempest, as its moans grew low and soft,
Rose the flaming lights more fearful, leeping terribly aloft,
From the cabin, barn and cottage-in the valley, on the hill,

When the morning blessed the landscape, all was gone and all was still."

At the conclusion of Mr. Sweet's poem, George H. Jerome, of Niles, Michigan, was loudly called for, who stepped upon the platform and said:

Mr. President:

At the call of my friends about me here, I have consented to come forward to show you what grand old Pompey has done and can do in the way of her physical productions. While the brains of Pompey have been well represented here to-day, and her moral average has been shown to be a good deal above par, none have had the courage to stand up for physical men. I stand before you as a pretty fair representative of a well-preserved physical Pompey boy-do I not? Look at me and see if you detect any egotism in that. Well, muscle has its advantages as well as any thing else, as an incident or two this day occurring, and on these grounds will show. As we this morning came down from the Globe Hotel in Syracuse, we saw standing on the side walk, two or three boys-one of them a good chunk of a fellow, as we passed, spoke out, "there's some good looking men"-" I'll bet they are going up to that Pompey re-union." "By George, I wish I had been born on Pompey Hill." Now, Mr. President I ask you if ever a neater cleaner compliment was paid to physical development than that? Another incident. A little while ago, a lean Cassius-like friend of mine, one whom Euclid must have had in his eye when he defined a straight line" the shortest distance between two given points," stepped up to me and said, Henry, you seem to be doing more of hand-shaking and kissing than is your share; why, my friend, said I, don't you know that the Committee of Arrangements decided to have the hand-shaking and bussing principally done by Pompey's fat, well-to-do

physical sons- men whom that kind of business don't tire? My longitudinal friend almost instantaneously collapsed, and has been seen but once since, and that was at a refreshment booth, making a most vigorous effort to recruit.

Some pretty tall bragging, as I take it, has been done here to-day, about the glory of birth. Why you can't find in all this vast crowd, a man, woman or child, who will admit that they have been born anywhere else than in old Pompey. Now, if there is any bragging to be done on the score of birth I can beat at that game every mother's one of you, for I was not only born in old Pompey, but I was born twice. I had here a dual birth. And if you don't believe me, I can produce a two hundred avoirdupois witness, a twin brother, nearly as big as myself, to swear to it. Beat that who can, for although Pompey has given birth to Governors, M. C.'s, Judges, and lots of big men, as we have today often been told, yet she has sent out but mighty few men of double birth. Why, I have a brother, whenever he looks at me, I mean at my dual-duplicated self, involuntarily exclaim, "what a birth !"

Now, Mr. President, not a word has been said about the Lyceums of old Pompey. A moment about that and I am done. We all remember the Lyceum fever and furor during the reign of Stebbins. Not a place, not a time, not an occasion was too sacred for spouting and debate. You, Mr. Chairman, must recollect the time when you under the hill, just below where you used to live, waxed eloquent, with nobody but stones, trees, fences, and G. H. Jerome well concealed under the fence, for your auditors. Don't you? Your honest blush gives the answer. I was one of a number of the Academy boys who organized a Lyceum, appointed a chairman and held grand discussions in the belfry of the old Baptist church. Nor was our discussions in that heavenly locality always spiritual. Aye more, I was a member, in good and regular standing of a debating club, organized and its meetings held in a seven-by-nine ice house. And it was at one of those debates on a political question, that a brother

of mine, Wm. Watson, was converted from Whiggery to Democracy, and the very next day after his conversion, he borrowed the money of a Whig brother, and enclosed it to Edwin Croswell, for the Albany Argus, the first Democratic paper ever seen in my father's house. After that he held office as a Democrat, and lived a Democrat up to the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. So it is, I hail with quickened and glad remembrance those Lyceums, for it is to them that we are so largely indebted here to-day, for those Ciceros and Demosthenese, who have fulminated so acceptably at this memorable re-union.

But, Mr. President, I came not here to talk, I simply consented to stand up here for a moment in defense, and if you please, in illustration of Pompey's physical renown-to tell you, that not alone is Pompey's fame intellectual, nor yet alone is her grandeur moral-that wherever bold adventure and physical heroism have thrown their gauntlet and piled their monuments-that wherever sinew and pluck have recorded their victories-that on those cannon-riven battlefields, where liberty was the guerdon and muscle the implement of its achievement, there-there too-Pompey's boys are seen at the front, in no spirit of self-glory, shouting to their comrades born of the lowlands, Come on! Come on !!

At the close of Mr. Jerome's address, Dr. R. F. Stevens, of Syracuse, made a few remarks, as follows:

DR. R. F. STEVENS' STATEMENT.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :—

For some strange reason or other, the committee of arrangements from the town of Pompey seemed to think it necessary to have a corresponding secretary in the city of Syracuse, and it fell to my lot to be named for that office.

I will not detain you now further than to mention that for the last three weeks, I have not had any opportunity to attend to a single item of my own business; I have a great many letters with me, thirty or forty of which would be

very interesting to you, and I will mention some of the names of those that you will readily recognize.

Charles Mason, who says it was impossible for him to be here. I would be glad to read it, but it is too lengthy. Rev. Jared Ostrander and his wife, Lucien Birdseye, several letters from the Marshes, Murray's, Fargoes, Jeromes, Bostwicks, Wrights, and others, are in my possession. I will state as corresponding secretary, that I have sent out over fifteen hundred letters of invitation, and I will state also that I have distributed to-day, among the multitude here assembled, over six thousand circulars or programmes of the exercises of the day.

This will indicate to you very clearly, the magnitude of this re-union, and I merely mention it as secretary of the organization, that I regard it most extraordinary, I have not the slightest doubt, we have here to-day, over eight thousand people.

One more toast will be read, to be responded to by Mr. VanBrocklin, and then so far as I know, the exercises of the afternoon will be closed after hearing from the quartette again, a piece selected by themselves.

The day being nearly spent, the President announced that he would propose but one more toast, as follows :

The present residents of Pompey-Worthy sons of noble sires. In their hands the fair fame of the old town will suffer no reproach. Its escutcheon will remain bright and untarnished. He called upon Wm. W. VanBrocklin, Esq., to respond.

MR. VAN BROCKLIN'S RESPONSE.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :

This is no occasion to render an excuse for this unexpected call. From what has already been said during the exercises of this day, which will ever remain sacred and fondly cherished in our every heart, and from what we have seen, we have a fair account, and a clear demonstration of what