Dedham, Massachusetts

“ The township is traversed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric lines. It contains three villages, Dedham, East Dedham and Oakdale. Dedham has a public library (1854; incorporated 1871) . The Dedham historical society was organized in 1859 and was incorporated in 1862. The Fairbanks house was erected in part as early as 1654. Carpets, handkerchiefs and woollen goods are manufactured, and a pottery here is reputed to make the only true crackleware outside the East. Dedham was “planted” in 1635 and was incorporated in 1636. ”

“ In intellectual tastes, as in all else, the Union showed well-marked divisions between New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the Southern States. New England was itself divided between two intel­lectual centres,—Boston and New Haven. The Mas­sachusetts and Connecticut schools were as old as the colonial existence; and in 1800 both were still alive, if not flourishing.
Society in Massachusetts was sharply divided by politics. In 1800 one half the population, repre­sented under property qualifications by only some twenty thousand voters, was Republican. ”

“ In 1663 our Centre Street was laid out and called the Dedham road or highway, being a direct route from Boston, by way of "the Neck" and Roxbury Street, to Dedham. At that time and for more than one hundred and fifty years after traveling was by horseback, by private carriage, and by the stagecoach. Those who were unable to own horses or pay stage fares walked to and from Boston, often heavily laden.
The accommodation stages would stop for passengers along the route, blowing a horn as they approached the dwelling, wherever a signal had been placed for them. ”

“ Not for a full century had the old Puritan prejudice shown itself in a form so unreasoning and unreasonable; but although nearly one half the people held aloof and wondered at the madness of their own society, the whole history of Massachusetts, a succession of half-forgotten disputes and rebellions, seemed to concentrate itself for the last time in a burst of expiring passions, mingled with hatred of Virginia and loathing for Jefferson, until the rest of America, perplexed at paroxysms so eccentric, wondered whether the spirit of Massachusetts liberty could ever have been sane. ”

“ Let us dedicate it to the sacrifice that is required in these present days. Let us dedicate it to the hope of the future. Let us dedicate it to New England ideals—those ideals that have made Massachusetts one of the strong States of the Nation; strong enough so that in Revolutionary days we contributed far in excess of our portion of men and money to that great struggle; strong enough so that the whole Nation has looked to Massachusetts in days of stress for comfort and support. ”

“ We push our way rapidly through the States. Maine has her liquor law, charmingly framed—but we find her Commissioners in Kentucky drinking Kentucky lemonade. Vermont exhibits a green mountain boy; the look in his eye belies his color. Massachusetts presents her genealogical tree. Rhode Island is represented by an immense specimen of inflated bullfrog. New York has on hand her canal ring, blazing with diamonds. Pennsylvania has her Switchback. Delaware another kind of switchback—her whipping post, and here we delay our progress to admire hers. ”

“ The settlers of New Hampshire were mostly Puritans, and thoroughly in sympathy with the political-religious system of Massachusetts. Massachusetts obtained jurisdiction over Maine through purchase from Gorges, and that territory remained attached to Massachusetts until 1820. Vermont had no separate existence until the Revolution.
The colonies of Connecticut and New Haven were in full sympathy with the religious and political system of Massachusetts. ”

“ In particular I should have desired to point out the great pride Massachusetts has in her war record and the abundant way she has shown her gratitude for her service men and women, surpassing every other State. All this is a record not of promises, but of achievement. It is one in which the voters of the Commonwealth may well take a deep satisfaction. It is there, it stands, it cannot be argued away. No deception can pervert it. It endures. ”

“ The nation is so accustomed to admire her glorious deeds for freedom, that with this expectation their eyes are turned upon her. Massachusetts can do nothing in secret; Massachusetts can do nothing for herself alone; every one of her acts involves a hundred-fold responsibility. What Massachusetts does is felt from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But Massachusetts need only be herself, in order to be great. ”

“ State Societies in the New England States, which has been already accomplished in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, the operations of the New England Society during the past year have been very much confined to Massachusetts, and hereafter it will be only a State Society. ”

“ Most of them were city-bred artisans, unfit for frontier life, who suffered greatly in the wilderness.
[12] The land was included in the limits laid down in the charter of Massachusetts; but that charter was granted after the Dutch were in actual possession of the upper Hudson. In 1786 a north and south line was drawn 82 miles west of the Delaware. Ownership of the land west of that line went to Massachusetts; but jurisdiction over the land, the right to govern, was given to New York. ”

“ Will any man pretend that the name of Andros, and that of Winthrop, are heard with the same sensations in any village of New England? Is not gratitude the sentiment that attends the latter, and disgust the feeling excited by the former? In the Massachusetts, then, there are persons descended from some of their ancient governors, counsellors, judges, whose fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, are remembered with esteem by many living, and who are mentioned in history with applause, as benefactors to the country, while there are others who have no such advantage. ”

“ Whatever multiplies pleasant historical reminiscences and bonds of association between different States, ought to be gathered up and kept fresh in the minds of all. The fact that when Massachusetts was suffering from a fiery and bloody, but brief, persecution by its own Government, New York opened so kind and secure a shelter for those fortunate enough to escape to it, ought to be forever held in grateful remembrance by the people of the old Bay State, and constitutes a part of the history of the Empire State, of which she may well be proud. ”

“ Delaware, whose chief city is but twenty-five miles from Philadelphia, yet preserve their distinctive characteristics as if they were states of the continent of Europe, whose people speak a different language. This shows how perfectly state rights and state freedom are preserved in spite of our National union, how little the power at the centre interferes with the important things that affect the character of a people. Why is it that little Delaware remains Delaware in spite of Pennsylvania, and little Rhode Island remains Rhode Island notwithstanding her neighbor Massachusetts? ”

“ This density gives her 221.78 persons to a square mile, a far greater ratio than any state except Rhode Island. This neighborly proximity has its social tendencies, which may account in part for the hospitable amenities which are a rightful part of Massachusetts' well known loyalty to a higher regard for the purest type of home, a comparative statement of the density of population of a few states.
As inseparable as night is from day, so also are the ills of life from life itself. Massachusetts is no exception to the inexorable law which defines the conditions [pg 445] of human society ”

“ But Boston, though we proudly call it the Athens of America, is not the pleasantest thing in New England to look at; it is the part of Massachusetts which I like the least to look at, spite of its excellence. Look further, at the whole of Massachusetts, and you see a fairer spectacle. There is less wealth at Provincetown, in proportion to the numbers, but there is less want; there is more comfort; property is more evenly and equally distributed there than here, and the welfare of a country never so much depends upon the amount of its wealth, as on the mode in which its wealth is distributed. ”

“ Owing to the death of Mason, and the failure of Gorges's plans for Maine, the settlements north of Massachusetts were without a settled government, and the inhabitants do not seem to have had the ability to create a stable one for themselves, which was so marked a characteristic of those in Massachusetts and Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. ”

“ His observations at Boston confirm his observations at Philadelphia and New York. “I meet,” he writes, “with the same opinions as in the provinces already visited, only expressed with greater violence and acrimony. The four provinces composing New England — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire — appear to be more firmly united among themselves, on account of the community of interests, than the remaining colonies. Massachusetts in particular, the most wealthy and populous, gives the impulse and the signal of independence to the rest. ”

“ The gentleman from Alabama (Judge Hopkins) , has hinted to us that the Southern States may find it necessary to protect themselves against this action of Massachusetts, by legislation that shall touch her material interests. Threats of that kind, sir, have no terrors for Massachusetts. Her people will laugh to scorn all such idle threats, by whomsoever made. Massachusetts, with one million of intelligent people, with free schools, free churches, free labor, is competent to take care of her own material interests. ”

“ In tracing the foundations of the latter, we find the influence of Massachusetts far more potent, for they were being laid mainly by men who found scant room in that increasingly reactionary commonwealth. The founders of Rhode Island and Connecticut alike condemned the religious and political policy that the Bay Colony had now definitely made its own ”

“ The selfish and cruel policy of the theocracy had borne its natural fruit: without an ally in the world, Massachusetts was beset by enemies. Quakers, Baptists, and Episcopalians whom she had persecuted and exiled; the heirs of Mason and Gorges, whom she had wronged; Andros, whom she had maligned; [Footnote: He had been accused of countenancing aid to Philip when governor of New York. O’Callaghan Documents, iii. 258.] and Randolph, whom she had insulted, wrought against her with a government whose sovereign she had offended and whose laws she had defied. ”

“ They seem to have been human enough—erring enough, if we take these records penned by themselves. However, for any such iconoclastic observation it is reassuring to have the judgment of so careful a historian as Charles Francis Adams. He says:
"That the earlier generations of Massachusetts were either more law-abiding or more self-restrained than the later is a proposition which accords neither with tradition nor with the reason of things. ”

“ This refusal was the first denial of the
king's prerogative; only the authority of Parliament had been resisted
before. The soul of the colonial cause in Massachusetts at this time was
Samuel Adams, of Boston, "the last of the Puritans," a man of powerful
and logical mind, intrepid heart, and incorruptible patriotism. ”

“ Evidently an intellectual condition like that of New England could not long continue. The thoughts and methods of the eighteenth century held possession of men's minds only because the movement of society was delayed by political passions. Massachusetts, and especially Boston, already contained a younger generation eager to strike into new paths, while forcibly held in the old ones. The more decidedly the college graduates of 1800 disliked democracy and its habits of thought, the more certain they were to com­pensate for political narrowness by freedom in fields not political. ”

“ In Massachusetts, only 34 per cent, of the townships show a decrease in population during the last decade. The above table presents several important and interesting facts regarding distribution of the increase in population of the nine states studied. All except Delaware show a greater increase in the population of the large cities during the period 1890-1900 than during the preceding decade. Delaware and Ohio, outside of the large cities, increased less during 1890-1900 than during 1880-1890. ”

“ Boston, in 1830 had but the poor population of 61,392, nearly all born on her soil, few of them dirty or beggared. Once, fifty years ago, all through Massachusetts were clean, decent, white-housed towns, such as Worcester, and Springfield, and Northampton, and Concord, and Salem, and Newburyport, centres of small but most cultivated and earnest social life.
Then small farms were cultivated by families of New England birth, out of whom came able men and handsome women. Children lived with parents, and did not tyrannize them. ”

“ Nor was this construction questioned before 1639—the General Court having at an early day measured off the three miles and marked the boundary by what was called the Bound House.
Gradually, however, as it became known that the Merrimack rose to the north, larger claims were made. In 1641 the four New Hampshire towns were absorbed with the consent of their inhabitants, who thus gained a regular government; another happy consequence was the settlement of sundry eminent divines, by whose ministrations the people “were very much civilized and reformed.” [Footnote: Neal’s New England, i. 210.] ”

“ That the influences checking the growth of Massachusetts were not wholly due to general conditions is indicated also by the fact that, while her population, in the next two decades, was considerably less than doubled, that of New Hampshire was nearly tripled, Rhode Island increased five-fold, and Connecticut four-fold. [546] The actual numbers are even more striking than the percentages. ”