Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-02-07
TOWN HISTORIES.


We learn that Ex-Governor Washburn is
engaged in the preparation of an elaborate his
tory Of the town of Leicester, embracing the
histories of the old families-the whole to make
a volume of four hundred pages. 1t is
also stated that lady in Gardner is about
to publish full and reliable history of that
town. Similar enterprises, we understand, are
projected in other towns in Worcester county.
There could be no worthier enterprises under
taken. Town histories, when complete, ac-
curate and truthful, are so interesting, and
valuable in so many ways, that we wonder
there are so few of them. An accurate series
of such histories, beginning at the time when
the squatters held their first councils-mon-
archs of all they surveyed, and embracing the
salient and instructive experiences of which
every well-developed town in New England
can furnish an abundant variety, would be a
treasure of great practical value to public in
stitutions; and history of ones own town
would be a work which no intelligent citizen
could afford to be without.
Thanks to the fidelity of the public records,
the groundwork of popular and readable his
tory is almost always attainable. The dry,
mechanical, voluminous records of town bust
ness, into which no sane person would dream
of looking for pastime, are full of interesting
hints and suggestions. that, in the hands of
competent persons, might be elaborated or con-
densed into a useful and instructive volume.
Then there are always traditions afoat, half
truth and halffction, mystical heir-looms,
handed down from generation to generation of
the old families, which might be sifted into
chapters of interesting narrative. The strug-
giles which most towns have had to encounter
in the earlier periods of their existence, the
difficulties and the trials which have been met
and overcome in building up local institutions,
the extraordinary events which have from time
to time raised tumults in the midst of rural
repose, the ancient families who have become
distinguished, or whose relics are preserved as
traditional way marks, are fruitful and sugges-
tive topics, fit for the best of local historians.
There is no better method of promoting a
healthy and vigorous public spirit than by
making the public mind familiar with the facts
on which its prosperity rests. 1t is not at all
marvellous that heroes should be made by
reading the lives of other heroes. Greater and
better men than Plutarch's heroes have re-
ceived their first impulses from the elves"
which he wrote for them. This illustration is
on a higher scale than belongs to the plane of
country life but the analogy is good. Cause
and effect are the same in villages and in cities;
in farm houses and palaces. Every town which
is old enough to have town meetings and to
choose its selectmen, its field driver and its
pound keeper without fighting, is old enough
to lay the foundations of institutions which
may affect the welfare and the progress of a
whole state. Here in Massachusetts,, towns
vary from fifty to two hundred years of age
selves in the fog of witchcraft, and the other
mischiefs which troubled the early settlers-old
enough, certainly, to have done many things,
worthy to be preserved by the art preservative
of all arts. How many of the best men, the
young, ambitious men, the real town builders,
which you find everywhere, would have their
wits sharpened, and their energies strengthen
ed by having the memorable deeds of their
own fathers, however humber than Caesar or
Cato, always before their eyes
Let us, then, have more town histories.
Families that can afford but two books, would
add one of them to their Bible. The wretched
stuff which finds its way into villages every
where in the name of romances, and in the
excellent livery of newspapers, might be safely
displaced for few weeks or months, till the
outlay had been properly atoned for