Willard expressing his tender concern for his soldiers who are
exposed to ly in Tents in this cold season now coming on and their
cloath now worn out. I would fain use any Interest I could make
that may contribute to the Relief of these and other the Provincial
soldiers in Nova Scotia in the like circumstances, but I am a
perfect stranger both to Governor Lawrence & Coll. Monkton. But the
acquaintance I have of you & my knowledge of your compassionate
spirit, especially towards the soldiers under your command in like
circumstances, urges me to write to you on this occasion (not from
any Distrust I have of your care in these matters, but possibly as
your Distance from the Place where this Company is quartered may
keep you in some Ignorance of the Difficulties these poor men
labour under) to desire you would interpose your best offices for
their Relief. It seems that these men can be of little service in
act of Duty required of them while they are so destitute of the
necessary. Comforts & Refreshments of Life. You will excuse this
Freedom. With my earnest desires of the gracious Presence of God
with you & particularly to prosper your enterprises for the Good of
your nation & Countrey I am, Sir, Your very humble serv't,
"JOSIAH WILLARD."
This was not Captain Willard's first experience of Nova Scotia, nor was
it to be his last. Ten years before he enlisted in the expedition
against Louisburg, being first lieutenant of Captain Joshua Pierce's
company, in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, of which his father,
Samuel Willard, was colonel. He was there promoted to a captaincy, July
31, 1745, three days after his twenty-first birthday. Little more than
twenty years had passed from the time when he had assisted in forcing
the broken-hearted Acadien farmers into exile, and again he sailed for
Nova Scotia, himself a fugitive, proscribed as a Tory, his ample estate
confiscated, and his name a reproach among his life-long neighbors. As
thousands of French Neutrals from Georgia to Massachusetts Bay sighed
away their lives with grieving for their lost Acadie, so we know Abijah
Willard, so long as he lived, looked westward with yearning heart toward
that elm-shaded home so familiar to all Lancastrians. On the coast of
the Bay of Fundy, not far west of St. John, is a locality yet called
_Lancaster_. Colonel Abijah Willard gave it the name. It was his retreat
in exile, and there he died in 1789.
Of the thousand Acadiens apportioned to the Province of Massachusetts,
the committee appointed by General Court for the duty of distributing
them among the several towns, sent three families, consisting of twenty
persons, to Lancaster. These were Benoni Melanson, his wife Mary, and
children, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, John, Bezaleel, "Carre," and another
daughter not named; Geoffroy Benway, Abigail, his wife, and children,
John, Peter, Joseph, and Mary; Theal Forre, his wife Abigail, and
children, Mary, Abigail, Margaret. The Forre family were soon
transferred to Harvard. They arrived in February, 1756, and the
accounts of the town's selectmen for their support were regularly
rendered until February, 1761. They were destitute, sickly, and
apparently utterly unable to support themselves, and were billeted now
here, now there, among the farmers, at a fixed price of two shillings
and eight-pence each per week for their board. Sometimes a house was
hired for them, and, in addition to rent paid, we find in the
selectmen's charges such items as these:--
_£ s d gr_
To cash pd for an Interpreter and
paper, 3 4
To what Nessecareys we found them, 1 0 8 0
To 472 weight of Befe cost, 3 3 2 1
To Corn that they have had &
yoused, with Sauss, 10 8
To one Bushel of Salt & Salting the
Befe, 5 6
to one washing tub, 2 earthen pots
& pail, 4 0
to wood for the winter season for the
year 1757, 1 6 8
Direct evidence to the helpless condition of the two families of French
Neutrals in Lancaster is given in a letter from the selectmen, dated
January 24, 1757, found in Massachusetts Archives, xxiii, 330:--
"and here Foloweth an account of the curcumstances, age and sexes of
those people, thare Is two famles Consisting of fifteen In Number, the
whole to witt. Benoni Melanso with his wife of about fourty four or five
years of age, and they have seven children thre Boyes and four Girlls,
the Eldest Girl about 17 years old, the boye Next about 15 years old,
Sickly. Can Do Nothing. ye Next Boy 12 years old. ye Next boy 10 years
old, and ye four Girles all under them Down to two years old, and the
woman almost a Criple....
The Name of the others Is Jefray--& his wife, he almost an Idot and
aboute 46 years old, ... they have four children 3 Boyes & one Girll. ye
Eldest Boye 10 yeares old & ye Rest Down to two years old.
"WM. RICHARDSON }
"JOHN CARTER } Selectmen of Lancaster."
"JOSHUA FAIRBANK}
Shortly after the date of the above, these unhappy people suddenly
disappeared from their habitation. Reckless with homesickness, they had
stolen away, and made a bold push for the sea, in the vain hope that on
it they might float back to the Basin of Minas. This was in the depth of
winter, February, 1757. They came to the coast at Weymouth. There they
soon encountered the questioning of local authority, and to excuse their
intrusion Melanson made complaint against his Lancaster guardians, the
history of which is in Massachusetts Archives, xxiii, 356.
"The Committee to whom was referred the Petition of Benoni Melanzan in
behalf of himself and sundrie other French People, Having met and heard
the Petition and one of the Selectmen of Lancaster, relating to the
several matters therein Complained of and also have heard the
Representative of Weymouth where the French People mentioned in s d
Petition at present reside: Beg leave to report as follows. Viz: That it
doth not appear that ye Petitioner had any Grounds to complain of the
selectmen of Lancaster or either of them relating the matter complained
of, and therefore Beg leave further Report that the Committee are of
oppinion that the said French People be ordered forthwith to Return to
Lancaster from whence they in a disorderly manner withdrew themselves,
all which is Humbly submited.
"pr order of the Comitte
"SILVANUS BOURN."
"In Council, February 24, 1757.
"Read and ordered that this Report be so far accepted as relates to the
Petitioners Complaint of his Treatment at Lancaster being without
Grounds, but inasmuch as the Petitioner offers to undertake for the
support of himself and the other French removed from Lancaster except in
the article of Firing and House Room, and is likewise willing that two
of his sons be placed out in Families and inasmuch as the Petitioner is
by employment a Fisherman, which cannot be exercised at Lancaster,
therefore, Ordered that he have liberty to reside in the Town of
Weymouth until this Court shall otherwise order, and the Selectmen of
said Town are impowered to place two of his sons in English families for
a reasonable term and to provide House Room for the Rest, & the liberty
of cutting as much Firewood as is necessary in as convenient a Lot as
can be procured. The account of the Charge of House Rent and Firewood to
be allowed out of the Province Treasury.
"Sent down for concurrence.
"THOS. CLARKE, Dpty. Secy.
"Feb. 25, 1757."
"In the House of Representatives. Read and unanimously non concurred,
and ordered that Report of the Com'tee be accepted & ye the said
French Neutrals so called be directed to return forthwith to ye Town of
Lancaster accordingly.
"Sent up for Concurrence.
"T. HUBBARD, Spk'r."
"In Council, Feb. 25, 1757.
"Read & Concurred. A. OLIVER, Secy.
"Consented to S. PHIPS."
They were soon again in the quarters whence they fled. In June, 1760,
the Melanson family were divided between Lunenburg, Leominister, and
Hardwick, while the Benways remained. Among the petitioners for leave to
go to "Old France," a little later, appear "Benoni Melanson and Marie,
with family of seven," and from that date the waifs from Acadie appear
no more in the annals of Lancaster.
* * * * *
GIFTS TO COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
BY CHARLES F. THWING.
The generosity of the American people, in the making of gifts to their
institutions of learning, is munificent. The generosity is keeping pace
with the increase of wealth. In 1847, Abbott Lawrence gave fifty
thousand dollars to Harvard University, to found the school of science
which now bears his name. This gift is declared to be "the largest
amount ever given at one time, during the lifetime of the donor, to any
public institution in this country." But since the year 1847, it is
probable that not less than fifty millions of dollars have been donated
by individuals to educational institutions. In several instances, gifts,
each approaching, or even exceeding, a million of dollars, have been
bestowed. The Baltimore merchant, Johns Hopkins, gave not less than
three millions of dollars to a great university, which, like Harvard,
bears the name of its founder. Henry W. Sage and Ezra Cornell
contributed more than a million to the endowment of Cornell University.
The gifts of Amasa Stone to the Adelbert University at Cleveland
aggregate more than half a million. Since 1864, Ario Pardee has given to
Lafayette College more than five hundred thousand dollars; and the
donations of John C. Green to Princeton aggregate toward a million of
dollars. Alexander Agassiz, worthy son of a worthy father, has donated
more than a quarter of a million of dollars to the equipment of the
Museum of Comparative Zoology and Anatomy which his father founded.
Joseph E. Sheffield endowed the scientific school at New Haven which
bears his name. The late Nathaniel Thayer, of Boston, contributed about
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Harvard. Among various
institutions in the West, South, and North, Mrs. Valeria G. Stone, of
Maiden, Massachusetts, has, within the last five years, distributed more
than a million of dollars. George Peabody's benevolences amount to eight
millions of dollars, about one fourth of which forms the Southern
Educational Fund, and about one eighth endowed the Peabody Institute at
Baltimore. John F. Slater gave a million of dollars to the cause of
Southern education. The amounts contributed to college and university
education in the last ten years may be thus summarized:[A]
1872 $6,282,461
1873 8,238,141
1874 1,845,354
1875 2,703,650
1876 2,743,348
1877 1,273,991
1878 1,389,633
1879 3,878,648
1880 2,666,571
1881 4,601,069
[Footnote A: Compiled from various Reports of the United States
Commissioner of Education.]
In the nineteen years since the close of the war, many institutions have
been founded with munificent endowments, as Johns Hopkins, Smith at
Northampton, Wellesley; and many more institutions have vastly increased
their resources. Harvard's property has perhaps tripled in amount;
Princeton's income, under the presidency of Dr. McCosh, has greatly
enlarged; Yale's revenue has also received large additions. Colleges in
every State have been the recipients of munificent gifts.
Notwithstanding, however, these benevolences, most colleges are in a
constant state of poverty. Indeed, it may be said that every college
ought to be poor; that is, it ought to have needs far outrunning its
immediate means of supplying them. Harvard is frequently making
applications for funds, which appear to be needed quite as much in
Cambridge, as in the new college of a new town of a new State. At the
present time, colleges stand in peculiar need of gifts for general
purposes of administration. Funds are frequently given for a special
object, as the foundation of a professorship. But the amount may be
inadequate. It is not expedient to decline the gift. Properly to endow
the new chair, therefore, revenue must be drawn from the general funds,
which thus suffer diminution. Donations are of the greatest advantage to
a college, which are free from conditions relative to their use.
The demand of institutions of learning for endowment receives special
emphasis at the present by the decreasing rate of interest. It is
difficult, every college treasurer knows well, so to invest funds with
safety as to cause them to return more than five per cent, interest.
Ten years ago in the East it was as easy to secure seven, as it is now
to secure five, per cent. In one year one college saw its income
decrease many thousand dollars by reason of this decrease in the rate of
interest. Bowdoin College is distinguished for the success with which
its funds are administered. At the present these funds are said to pay
about six per cent, interest, but it is a rate higher than many colleges
are able to gain. By this decrease the salaries of professors, the
income of scholarships, and the entire revenue, suffer.
Many reasons might be urged in behalf of benevolence to institutions of
learning. Funds thus given are as a rule administered with extraordinary
financial skill. Their permanence is greater than the permanence of
funds in trust companies and savings banks. Harvard, the oldest college,
Yale, the next to the oldest (with the exception of William and Mary),
have funds still unimpaired, still applied to the designs of those who
gave them in the first years of their incorporation.
Gifts to a college are, moreover, an application of the right principle
of benevolence of helping those who help themselves. The trustees, the
professors, are, in proportion to their income, the most generous. Not
seldom do they pledge a year's salary for the benefit of the
institutions which they officially serve. The first nineteen donors to
Tabor College, Iowa, several of whom were its officers, gave no less
than _sixty per cent._ of the assessed value of their property. The
efficient president of Colorado College has been engaged in making money
for his college in legitimate business, in preference to making his own
fortune. The students, as well as the officers, of colleges endeavor to
help themselves to an education in all fitting ways. The keeping of
school, the doing of chores, the running of errands, the tutoring of
fellow-students, suggest the various ways in which they endeavor to work
their way through college.
Those who thus donate their money, in amounts either large or small,
foster the highest interests of the nation. From institutions of
learning flow the best forces of the national life. Literature, the fine
arts, patriotism, philanthrophy, and religion, thus receive their
strongest motives. The higher education in the United States is most
intimately related to the master-minds of American literature.
Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, were in part created by Bowdoin
and Harvard. Among the most efficient officers of the late war were the
graduates of the colleges. Without the college the ministry would become
a "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" indeed, and without a learned
ministry the church would languish. In the early years of the century,
Mr. John Norris, of Salem, proposed to give a large sum of money to the
cause of foreign missions. He was persuaded, however, to transfer the
gift to the foundation of the Andover Theological Seminary, assured that
thus he was really giving it to the missionary cause. So the event
proved. For the first American missionaries were trained at Andover.
Thus, he who gives his money to the college, gives it to the fostering
of the highest and best forces in American thought and character.
* * * * *
SONG OF THE WINDS.
BY HENRY B. CARRINGTON.
I.
Thin as the viewless air,
Swifter than dreams can be,
Above, around, and everywhere,
We speed with pinions free.
No barrier bounds our path,
But, ever, to and fro,
Angels of mercy and of wrath.
Onward, in haste we go.
II.
Our birth, mid Chaos rude,
Ere Earth had formed its shell;
And nursed we were, in solitude,
Where hoary night did dwell.
We tossed her raven hair,
Ere sun began to glow,
And whirled the atoms through the air,
To form the moon, I trow.
III.
We heard the Eternal Voice
Pronounce, "Let there be Light!"
And, shrieking, fled, beneath the wings
Of the escaping Night.
We saw the earth arise,
Childlike, from Nature's womb,
And flew to it, with joyous cries,--
We knew it was our home.
IV.
How brilliant, then, its dyes,
O'er past we could not grieve;--
We rocked the trees of Paradise,
And whisked the locks of Eve.
Mid things so gay and calm,
With wings, as those of doves,
We floated o'er those fields of balm,
As lightest zephyr roves.
V.
All changed from peace to wrath
When stern Archangel came
And drove that pair from garden path,
With sword of lambent flame.
Our wings grew strong and broad,
Our anger burst on high,
We tore huge trees,--we dashed along,
Our shadows gloomed the sky.
VI.
Our home, the boundless air
Or Ocean's surging breast,--
We meet the lightnings' lurid glare,
Or hang on rainbow's crest;
At touch, the forests bow,
The lake uplifts its voice,
The long grass hums its anthem low,
And ocean waves rejoice.
VII.
Our flocks, the drifting clouds
That sweep across the plain,
Like vessels seen, with netted shrouds,
At rest upon the main.
We laugh to see them spread
With darkened fleece, afar,--
While thunders mutter, overhead,
Like trumpet notes of war.
VIII.
We scorn the pride of man,
With us he dare not cope,
Build vessel strong as e'er he can,
We shiver mast and rope.
Too long we tarry now--
Away,--with speed, away,
More than a thousand miles we go,
To sink a ship to-day.
* * * * *
BRITISH LOSSES IN THE REVOLUTION.
FROM APRIL 19, 1775, TO THE SURRENDER OF GENERAL BURGOYNE,
OCTOBER 17, 1777
[The following account of the losses of the British in the Revolution,
for the first thirty months of the war, is taken from The London
Magazine of February, 1778, and is interesting in that it differs from
all the statements that appear in our United States Histories of that
portion of the war.--ED.]
In March, 1776, the Parliament of Great Britain Voted 42,390 Men for the
Service of America; These troops Landed Accordingly, And have Lost
agreeable to their Returns as Followeth:--
______________________________|___________|_____________|_____________
Places Where | Killed. | Wounded. | Prisoners.
______________________________|___________|_____________|____________
At Lexington and Concord | 43 | 70 |
Bunker Hill | 746 | 1,150 |
Ticonderoga and Quebec | 81 | 110 | 350
On the Lake, by General Arnold| 93 | 64 |
Sullivan's Island | 191 | 264 |
Ceder | 40 | 70 |
Norfolk, in Virginia | 129 | 175 | 40
Different Actions on Long | 840 | 660 | 60
Island | | |
Harlem and Hell's Gate | 236 | 773 | 43
New York, in time of landing | 57 | 100 |
White Plains, General McDougal| 450 | 490 | 270
Fort Washington | 900 | 1,500 |
Fort Lee | 20 | 30 |
Trenton Hessians | 35 | 60 | 948
Princetown | 74 | 100 | 210
Boston Road, by Admiral Hardy | 52 | 90 | 750
Transports taken | | | 390
Danbury | 260 | 350 | 40
Iron Hill, near Elk | 59 | 80 | 20
Brandy Wine | 800 | 1,170 |
Reden Road, by General Maxwell| 40 | 60 |
Staten Island, by General | 94 | 150 | 278
Sullivan | | |
Bennington | 200 | 1,100 | 1,100
Fort Montgomery | 580 | 700 |
Fort Mifflin and Red Bank | 328 | 53 | 84
General Burgoyne's Army | 2,100 | 1,126 | 5,572
Deserted | 1,100 | |
______________________________|___________|_____________|___________
| 8,448 | 10,495 | 10,155
--------------------------------------------------------------------
* * * * *
THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
BY RUSSELL STURGIS, JR.
In the year of our Lord 1844, a young clerk, named George Williams,
consulted with a few others and determined that something should be done
to save the young men, who came by thousands to London, from the
terrible temptations and snares to which they were exposed. The old
times had passed when the young man came to the city recommended to some
friend who would feel a personal interest in him, either take him into
his own house or find some good home for him; who felt responsible for
him and bound to know where he went and with whom he associated; who
often had him at his own board, if not regularly there, and who expected
to see him in his family pew on Sunday.
[Illustration: Old Building.[A]]
[Footnote A: NOTE.--The illustrations are furnished by the architects of
the new building, Messrs. Sturgis and Brigham.]
Perhaps this state of things had, from necessity, ceased to be; perhaps
the introduction of machinery and the employment of large numbers of
young men in the cities made this personal relation no longer possible.
Whether possible or no, the fact remains that this close relation
between employer and employed ceased. There are, even now, some noble
exceptions to this, as in the case of Mr. Williams himself, and the firm
of Samuel Morlay and Company.
The young man to-day comes fresh from the pure air and clear lavish
sunshine of his country home, where summer's flower-decked green is a
continuous feast, and winter's glories a delight no less. Whether upon
the snow in sleigh, or hillside coasting, or the swift skate on the
frozen river, or at evening's cozy fireside before the blazing logs, all
rejoice in simple pleasures, and prayer closes the day. Dear country
home, where every sound is ministry; the morning cock and cackling hen,
the birds' hopeful morning song, the twittering swallow, noon's rest and
healthy appetite, the lowing cattle, the birds' thankful evening note,
the village bell--old curfew's echo, the pattering on the pane, the wind
in the treetops, the watchdog's distant bark for lullaby, and quiet
restful sleep; his greatest sports--those of the evening
village-green--the apple bee, the husking, and the weekly
singing-school.
He stands at evening gazing at the splendors of the blacksmith's glowing
forge, and in the morning says "good-by" to all, and starts upon his
journey to the city.
Arrived, and having found employment, he works from a fixed hour in the
morning till evening, then he goes _home_--where? 'T is all the home he
has--all he can afford: a room, or perhaps a part of a room, on the
upper floor of a tall house, in a narrow street--houses all about--the
view all brick and slate,--the sunshine never penetrates to him--the air
is close and heavy; not one attraction is there for him here. But on his
way from work he must perforce pass many a front, where the electric
light casts its brilliant beams quite across the street. Yes, this
proprietor can well afford the costly allurement--it pays--a very
wrecker's light to lure to destruction. Its baneful brightness makes day
of that dark narrow street. Within is warmth, companionship, music,
wine, play,--all that appeals to a young man's nature. What wonder that
he turns in here rather than go on to his cold, dreary room.
Once in, he is welcomed; hearty good fellows they seem. True, they are
very different from his _old_ friends in appearance, manner, and
language, and he at first shrinks from them, but the wine-cup soon
obliterates distinctions, and he feels that he has never met such choice
spirits before. Laughing at their jokes and coarse stories, he forgets
all in the wild excitement of the moment. His voice is now the loudest.
He sings, shouts, and, at length, losing consciousness, only wakes sick
and utterly miserable. He determines it shall be the last. Never will he
be seen there again. But he has entered upon a path of easy descent, and
lower and lower he falls. He is hurrying to death.
His employer cares only that he is at his place in the morning and
remains there at work till the evening. He cannot follow him, and should
the young man's habits become such that it "no longer pays" to employ
him, he is dismissed and another is quickly found to take his place.
Vast numbers of young men were going down to death in the cities, when
George Williams and his friend determined to do something to keep them
from destruction, and thus they formed the first Young Men's Christian
Association in the world, on the sixth day of June, 1844.
In the autumn of 1851, a correspondent of the Watchman and Reflector, a
religious paper published in Boston, wrote an account of his visit to
the London rooms. Captain Sullivan saw the article, and having himself
visited the London Association, he spoke to others, and the result was a
meeting in the vestry of the Central Church, on December 15, 1851, of
thirty-two men, representing twenty congregations of the different
denominations.
This meeting was adjourned to December 22, at the Old South Chapel, in
Spring Lane. A constitution was adopted on December 29. Officers were
chosen January 5 and 10, and the work began in earnest.