Norwalk After Two Hundred & Fifty Years

What eager life is here! What beauty crowns the sunny heights And fills the vales with cheer! Another world has dawned and left Its impress on the scene; A fascinating picture now Is imaged on the screen! The heritage of all the years On us confers its charm, While sovereignty august avails To shield from every harm! We glory in our high estate, We boast our wealth and power; We magnify this wondrous age That heaps us with its dower! We wonder what the future holds As yet to us unknown; What growth in knowledge and in might Shall here at length be shown; We scan the horizons o'er and o'er Their promises to learn, Some glimpses of what lies beneath Most eager to discern! Shall ancient Norwalk here enthroned 168 Beside the sunlit sea Grow great and strong and rich and wise In true prosperity? Shall all the lands the founders trod Abundant harvests yield, The grasses and the wheat and corn Awave in every field? Shall every brooklet turn the wheel That labor's anthem sings, And all the people find the toil, That peace and plenty brings? Shall pleasant homes on every hand Be filled with joy and light, And all their inmates seek to know And love and do the right? Shall church-bells call to praise and prayer And school-rooms ope the door, And youth be trained for noblest life Now and forevermore? And from these scenes shall men be called To serve in highest place, To aid the State, to bless the land, To elevate the race? Shall it be thus, our hearts inquire, And lift the earnest plea, That all that choicest is and best, May come, fair town, to thee! Peace be upon thy beauteous heights, And peace like sunshine trail O'er every slope and pasture land, Through every flower-gemmed vale! The peace that every good enfolds, Unfathomed, sweet, divine, This peace, O dear ancestral town, Forevermore be thine! Before the close of the meeting the Hon. Orville H. Piatt, United States Senator from Connecticut, was lis- tened to with the closest interest and attention. He said he was proud to speak before an audience of Nor- walk people, and though not a Norwalk boy himself, having been born in Redding, Conn., he felt that he was a Connecticut man, and that any Connecticut man ought to have, as he had, an interest and a personal one, in such an anniversary as Norwalk is now celebrating. He said, 168 also, that there were two forces which our ancestors built upon. These were church and state, and that both were founded on a rock is proven by the fact that, to-day, though the church and state are separate, both are work- ing harmoniously. Mr. Piatt referred to our wounded president and said that all the country was united in sym- pathy for his condition. Out of this misfortune the wrath of man would raise up a law which should deal with an- archists as they deserve to be dealt with. 164 THE HOME GATHERING N the evening at the Home Gathering at the Armory, last night, Hon. John H. Light presided. Seated on the platform were the speakers of the even- ing, Rev. Paul Moore Strayer, Rev. George Drew Egbert, Rev. Charles M. Belden of Wilton; Right Rev. Bishop Tierney, Hon. Howard H. Knapp, Rev. William J. Slocum, and others. After Chairman Light's introductory remarks, he read the following let- ters of regret: Memphis, Tenn., September 4th, 1901. Goold S. Hoyt, Secretary, etc., Norwalk, Conn. Dear Sir: — I have your invitation to be present at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- sary of the founding of Norwalk, and regret more than 1 can express my inability to be present on that occa- sion. Through all the vicissitudes of my more than seventy years, through all its sorrows and its joys, its clouds and sunshine, aye, even through the din and smoke of carnage of many a battle field, the memories of my boyhood days in old Norwalk with the voices and the faces of that long ago come to me now as clear and bright as the drops of dew on the meadow grass in that glad spring-time of my life. I remember the old house where I was born, with its dormer windows and white front porch, where now stands the Congregational Church. Opposite was the old meeting house on the Green, where old Bailey rang the bell, the rope coming down into the entry by the great stove, the Bailey that used to make big eyes at the youngsters and frighten us almost to death. Dr. Hall was the pastor, and such was my fear of his awful presence, in those days, that I would jump over the fence whenever I saw him coming along, but I got over that when he taught me Sallust, and took us in his boat down the harbor to dig clams and catch fish. And the old school house in the center of the Green, the district school below, and Aunt Susan Bett's school upstairs, where I learned my a, b, c's in the stars until 9 o'clock came, the time for bed. And then Saturday 165 v afternoon, the heaven of the school boy in those days, the Jackson dinners in the woods in summer, the swim- ming in the creek and eating green apples on the shore, the coasting in winter on Jarvis's, Barnum's, Barkmill's, Schoolhouse and Mill River. And training day, with Captain Clark's artillery company on the Green, with the old six-pounder, the march, with Beers playing the snare drum, who used to fall out of the line of march and rest by the roadside, overcome by the spirit of '76, of which he imbibed too freely at Captain Pennoyer's old stand by the bridge. And then there was the singing school, with Doctor Hastings and the Sunday school, the Fourth of July, with the band and the solitary lemon in the lemonade. How I would like to tell of the donation parties at Dr. Hall's, the fun of it, the doughnuts and the cakes, the biscuits, the girls, the plays, and the solemn roundup with a sermon at the close, which sent us all home to dream of the Judgment Day. And that assembly on the village green, for the first emigration to the West, to found Norwalk, Ohio. I can see those white-covered wagons, as they disappeared down Barkmill Hill ; can hear the Doxology, the part- ings, as if forever. I must not forget the choir in the old meeting house, with the angelic face of Aunt Juliette, nor W. K. Lewis, with that big bass viol. Can you see them now, and Ed Bissell leading? Then came the South Norwalk Academy, with Storr's Hall and Professor Coffin, with Helen Sammis, E. M. Seymour, Mary Lib. Stuart, Belle Beard, among the girls, always not excepting Mary Jane. How many of them are living now? I hope one of the youngsters is here to-day who will remember when asked his name always responded "George Buckingham St. John Full of Mischief." And there was Dr. Hill with his violin, teaching the boys and girls to sing ; John Burrall, who always had some confidence to impart in a whisper, which you could hear half a mile, and Ed Stuart^ with his red hair, who tried to manage the boys in the boys in the academy, with the usual result. And then came Pudding School Lane,, when my career in Norwalk ended. But I could talk to you for hours on the charac- ters and experiences of those days, as garrulous as the old veteran by the fireside, who "shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won." 166 Dear is the memory of early days That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise." Gone, all gone, the friends of my youth. Their names carved on the stones, but the sweet, the manly face, the tender voices are with me yet. In the coming years I hope the people of Norwalk will have a "Home Coming Week,"' such as are in vogue in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, so that I can meet you all once more. In the language of Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one." With kindest remembrances to all who have not for- gotten me, and with high esteem for yourself, I am faith- fully yours, W. T. CLARK. In Camp, September 6th, 1901. Vassar College, Pough- keepsie, N. Y., President's Office. My Dear Dr. Beard: — I am very sorry that my en- gagements make it inconvenient for me to be at the Nor- walk celebration. I am interested in every detail of it. South Norwalk was my first home after leaving my father's house My first church was there. Three of my children were born there, and for nine years I was entirely identified with the interests of the town. One can never !ose the influences of those early years and their associations, and they come back to one with an interest seldom gained by later days. I will not burden you with the memories that throng in my mind as I write, of leading citizens of a score of years ago, of schools, of churches, of private and social and public interests — but I beg that you will express to our fellow-citizens my regret that I cannot be with them, and my hopes for the substantial and increasing pros- perity of our old town. Believe me, faithfully yours, JAMES M. TAYLOR. 167 UP TOWN AND DOWN TOWN Til ss^Slsis HE Rev. Paul Moore Strayer, of the South N o r w a 1 k Congregational Church, was next introduced. He spoke as follows: The subject is my own choosing. The committee has not led me as a sacrifice to a threadbare topic. But a note that has doubtless been often sounded before needs sounding again. In the town of Norwalk we have two small cities with separate municip- al governments. T do not propose in ten minutes to ad- vocate the combination of the two into one first class city, though this does not appear so impracticable as is imagined. Their geographical separation is now of the past. Electricity has removed this issue. Geographi- cally the cities are one. Yet I speak not for union but unity, which means harmony, concord, sympathy.