MICHIGAN SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AS A STATE. ACTION OF THE MICHIGAN PIONEER AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN PIONEER AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, SIR,-At a joint session of the Executive Committee and Committee of Historians of the Michigan State Pioneer and Historical Society, a resolution. was adopted providing for a representation of said Society at the Semi-centennial celebration of the admission of the State into the Union, to be held at Lansing, June 15, 1886, by a committee, of which the Hon. Henry Fralick, President of the Society, is chairman. You are hereby notified that you were appointed as one of such committee, and it is hoped that you will attend the celebration, and aid in representing the Society. Very respectfully, HARRIET A. TENNEY, LIST OF DELEGATES. Hon. Henry Fralick, President. Mrs. Harriet A. Tenney, Recording Secretary. Ephriam Longyear, Treasurer. Executive Committee: Prof. John C. Holmes. Judge Albert Miller. Hon. Francis A. Dewey. Committee of Historians: Col. M. Shoemaker, Chairman. Dr. O. C. Comstock. M. H. Goodrich, Esq. Hon. Talcott E. Wing. Hon. Witter J. Baxter. Delegates: Hon. John J. Adam, Tecumseh. Hon. W. L. Bancroft, Port Huron. Hon. C. B. Stebbins, Lansing. Hon. Francis R. Stebbins, Adrian. Mrs. E. M. Sheldon Stewart, Michigan Center. Hon. Smith Tooker, Lansing. Mr. A. D. P. Van Buren, Galesburg. Hon. C. I. Walker, Detroit. Hon. Wm. L. Webber, East Saginaw. Hon. E. S. Williams, Flint. Hon. Edwin Willits, Agricultural College, Lansing. Hon. Peter White, Marquette. THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. At a joint meeting of the Executive Committee and the Committee of Historians of the Michigan State Pioneer and Historical Society, held at Lansing, June 8, 1886, a resolution was adopted providing for a representation of the Society at the Semi-Centennial celebration of the admission of Michigan into the Union, to be held at Lansing, June 15, 1886, and delegates were named from the membership of the Society from all portions of the State. At the same meeting the Hon. Witter J. Baxter, of Jonesville, was requested to speak in behalf of such representation on the Semi-Centennial occasion, if an opportunity was given by the Committee of Arrangements. This action was taken by the Pioneer Society at too late a day for any place to be assigned them on the programme for the day, as that had been already prepared and printed, and the entire arrangements for the occasion completed, with a programme so full as to allow the introduction of no new exercise. The Committee of Arrangements for the Semi-Centennial, however, on the evening of the 14th, concluded to give the representatives of the State Pioneer and Historical Society from three to five minutes, immediately after the address of welcome by the Governor of the State, at the front of the Capitol. At the close of the Governor's address, Mr. Baxter was introduced by the Governor, as representing the Pioneer and Historical Society of Michigan, who, speaking without notes, made, in substance, the following address: ADDRESS OF HON. WITTER J. BAXTER. Mr. President and Fellow Citizens of our beloved State of Michigan: At a gathering like this to celebrate the semi-centennial of our State, it was thought not inappropriate by the Pioneer and Historical Society to appear by representatives selected from their membership from all sections of the commonwealth, and the very pleasant duty has been devolved upon me of saying a few words on their behalf. Surrounded as I am here by these representatives so chosen, we need no introduction as pioneers. Our whitened heads, our halting steps, our bended forms, all proclaim in language more forcible than words, that if not in Michigan, at least somewhere on God's green earth, we have already passed nearly the entire period allowed to man's terrestrial existence. Some of us time has touched with gentle hands, leaving us, after our three score years and ten or more of earnest work in our several stations, with much of vigor, strength, and joyousness, glad participants with you in these commemorative exercises. Nearly if not quite all of our representative members present with you today have passed in Michigan more years than have gone by since it became a State. And of the scenes and incidents attending the rise, progress and development, from small beginnings, to present growth and greatness of our Michigan of to-day, have been eye-witnesses, and in securing the grand results, busy workers and participants. We trust it will not be considered obtrusive, or out of place, to call to your attention some of the valuable work already done by our Pioneer and Historical Society, though but the beginning of work projected, and which we hope to carry forward to full accomplishment. While at our annual social gatherings we clasp hands with friends and associates in early struggles and successes, and revive recollections of days long past, collect and preserve, for future reference and use, the words and the works of the fathers, into whose rich inheritance their children, and their children's children, have entered-WE DO MUCH MORE. We make careful examination of ancient relics, papers, and records, found among family treasures, carefully stowed away, or among the archives of historical associations, private, State, and national. Many of these we find covered with the dust of many years and undergoing defacement and decay, and which, but for the timely action of our Society, would soon have been lost beyond recovery. In the seven volumes of our collections already published will be found. much of great interest and value to students of history, and while there will doubtless be found much of personal narrative, much of merely local interest, and much that might possibly have been omitted without serious loss, still we are fully persuaded that these volumes and others soon to follow will prove to the antiquary and historian a mine of inestimable wealth. FIFTY YEARS constitutes for the individual a large part of his allotted period; not so with states and nations. For them the hand upon the dial of time moves slowly, and when upon the revolving wheel of years its bell shall have tolled out fifty it is still with. the state or nation early morning. With states or nations, however, no less than with individuals, the early years, the springtime of existence, are of prime importance. In them are found the germs of which the future is but the development and outgrowth. It is the province of our Society to discover the germs from which our institutions have developed, to lift the veil from the long hidden past, and by the view thus presented to give strength and encouragement for the present, and with the blessing of Almighty God on human efforts full assurance for the future of our State. |