A PRACTICAL SOCIALIST AND COLONIZER.
We found in this town of W----, a moribund Unitarian Church, with
scarcely a handful of attendants, listening once a week to a lifeless
minister and an asthmatic harmonium accompanied by a few feeble,
inharmonious voices.
Our sympathies were aroused for this expiring infant, and we resolved
to rescue it if possible from its open grave. My wife and I,
accompanied by the "Triplets," on the front seat of our carriage
as drivers, canvassed the entire town, asking all we met to lay up
treasures in heaven by "rescuing the perishing," and we soon secured
money to buy a fine toned organ and to hire a wideawake pastor. Ada
played the new organ; May formed a quartette with herself as soprano,
Ida often accompanying with her violin; my wife teaching in the
Sunday-school, myself serving as chairman of the Parish Committee, and
soon our church was filled with attentive and much edified listeners
and helpers. I organized the Channing Club, which soon included in its
membership all the leading musical and dramatic talent of the town. We
met weekly in the church vestry which was soon decorated by handsome
pictures, scenery and bric-a-brac, the gifts of our members, making a
very spacious and attractive resort.
This club over which I presided, developed to a remarkable degree the
latent talents of many who had never before thought themselves capable
of entertaining and instructing the public. We had an orchestra of
stringed and brass instruments, in which May played the flute, Ada
the piano and organ, Ida second violin, while all our four girls sang
solos, duets, trios, and quartettes. Many elderly people paid generous
fees for honorary membership, while the large, active membership,
responded regularly when called upon with musical, literary, or
dramatic renditions individually or in combination as they might
prefer. It was a delightful and instructive symposium which ought to
be found in every town.
The Channing Club soon became famous, and gave first-class
entertainments to very large audiences at high admission fees in our
own and surrounding towns as well as in Boston, thus replenishing the
church treasury and greatly promoting sociability and friendship by
regular dances and suppers which made hundreds seem like one large
family, bound together by many friendly ties, each one readily
responding to the call of the president to render his or her full
share of entertainment and good cheer for the good of all.
It was an ideal socialistic order, and we truly "sat together in
heavenly places." All gladly contributed to the needs of the poor
or the sick; we chartered steamers and went on picnic excursions to
attractive island resorts in our beautiful harbor; class distinctions
were banished, envy and jealousy disappeared like snow before the sun,
and good fellowship reigned supreme. Our rich and poor met together as
brothers and sisters.
Such an organization in churches would soon banish class hatreds, and
do much to make this world a paradise like to that above.
The winter of 1892 was a red-letter season in the history of us all.
We rented our house in W----, to a friend, and lived in Florida,
our four girls attending Rollins College at Winter Park, where they
enjoyed life immensely in the incomparable climate which, with their
studies in this excellent school, was of great benefit to them,
physically and mentally. I was favored with free passes all over the
state, and devoted my time to a careful examination of large tracts
of land in various counties, but found none to my liking until on
our return trip, we spent several weeks at Lawtey, in the county of
Bradford.
Florida, within its vast area, contains a great variety of land and
climates, and the person who has traversed only the beaten track
of the tourist knows nothing of the fertile tracts and delightful
temperatures of these green-grassed and Piny-woods Highlands. Here, as
nowhere else in the world, nature has provided all the essentials to
agricultural success; there was but one mortgaged homestead in the
entire township; it is the greatest strawberry mart in the world; the
abundance of nutritious wild grasses render cattle and sheep raising
throughout the year a source of great revenue, and the maximum of crop
returns is secured with a minimum of labor.
At last, after years of search throughout the state, we found our
ideal location for a colony, and I bonded over 6,000 acres of fertile,
well-wooded lands, returned home, formed a syndicate, and paid for our
tract, to which we gave the appropriate suggestive name of "Woodlawn."
I successfully pursued my avocation of advertising and selling our
lands, having an office in Boston and cooperating agents in several
states.
On June 11th, 1894, my brother Joshua, the last of my father's family
except myself, was suddenly called to join our many loved ones in the
spirit world. All our lives we had been as David and Jonathan, and not
a cloud had swept across the azure of our sky of mutual affection,
until the advent of his second wife. He was one of the best men that
ever lived, and nearly everyone in his town had been benefited by his
well-known generosity and self-sacrifice, and he found awaiting him,
many treasures in the grand bank of heaven.
"I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead--he is just away,
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand,
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there;
We think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of there as the love of here,
Think of him still as the same, I say,
He is not dead--he is just away."
Soon after the departure of my brother to the better land, our
spirit-band informed us very plainly through "Ouija," that it was our
duty to remove to Boston in order that our children might have better
educational facilities, and be admitted to the "musical swim" of the
"Hub of the Universe." We obeyed their mandate, and the predictions of
our angel friends were fully verified. In our new home the older girls
met those to whom they were married in Heaven, and to whom they
gave their hands and hearts. I now look back over a half century of
existence on this earth, and my muse inspires me to record that:
I have ships that went to sea
More than fifty years ago.
None have yet come back to me,
But keep sailing to and fro,
Plunging through the shoreless deep,
With tattered sails and battered hulls
While around them scream the gulls.
I have wondered why they stayed
From me, sailing round the world
And I've said, "I'm half afraid
That their sails will ne'er be furled."
Great the treasures that they hold,
Silks, and plumes, and bars of gold,
While the spices which they bear
Fill with fragrance all the air.
I have waited on the piers
Gazing for them down the bay,
Days and nights, for many years,
Till I turned heart-sick away.
But the pilots, when they land,
Kindly take me by the hand,
Saying, "Surely they will come to thee,
Thy proud vessels from the sea."
So I never quite despair,
Nor let hope or courage fail,
And some day, when skies are fair,
Up the bay my ships will sail.