An Historical Address Delivered Before the Citizens of Springfield in Massachusetts, at the Public May 26 1911 of the Two Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Settlement

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Excerpt from An Historical Address Delivered Before the Citizens of Springfield in Massachusetts, at the Public May 26 1911 of the Two Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Settlement: With Five Appendices, Viz, : Meaning of Indian Local Names, the Cartography of Springfield, Old Place Names of Springfield, Unrecorded Deed of Nippumsuit, Unrecorded Deed of Paupsunnuck The year 1636 is memorable in the annals of the Commonwealth for the foundation of her great university, it is scarcely less for the settlement of one of her largest cities. It was then at the beginning of things for New England. Peregrine White, born on the Mayflower, as she lay in the harbor of Cape Cod, was but a boy of fifteen when a few dozen people, men, women and children, having followed Indian trails for several days, travelling westward from the vicinity of Boston, arrived on the shores of the Connecticut. We know not whether the arrival was in the morning or at midday or at the coming of night, nor whether the day itself showed the mild rays of the sun of May shining in a cloudless heaven and setting forth all nature, bird and beast, tree and flower, in the colors of active and joyous life or was not rather one of those that come in those seasons of rain after an early drouth when, nature, though renewing herself for still further beauty, nevertheless is draped in gloom, the bird sheltering himself in the thicket and the flower closing its petals against a sunless sky. We could wish that these settlers had the inspiration of bright days, coming as they did to a spot where the house built a few months before in the meadows of Agawam offered the only protecting roof. They had need of courage and hope. Behind them, behind most of them forever, were the comfortable cottages and rose-embowered gardens of the homeland and friends of whom they might dream but whom they should never see. They were to deal with stern and elemental forces, a soil never ploughed, a forest not reduced, the New England winter with its relentless cold, the ravening wolf and the prowling panther, nay, an aboriginal man, at first friendly, but at last, persuaded of the hopeless rivalry of red with white, to exhibit those traits of cruelty and revenge that made the savage a more dreadful neighbor than the beast of prey. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.