The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-09-15
Memories of His Birthplace.
A Letter From Secretary Blaine, Read at
the Centennial Celebration OF Washing
ton Co., Penn, Last Thursday.
WASHINGTON, Sept 5

| w AShANdIONt Oept o.
John T. AcKenRGn, Washington, Pa:
DEAR SIR-I had anticipated great pleasure
| IN being present at the centennial celebration
of Washington county, but the national sorrow
which shadows every household detains me
here. shall, perhaps never again have the
| opportunity of seeing so many of the friends OF
| my youth and so many of my blood and kim
dred, and you may well conceive that my dis
| appointment is great.
The strong attachment which feel for the
county, the pride which 1 cherish in its tradi-
tions and the high estimate which 1 have
always placed on the character of its people,
increase with years and with reflection
The pioneers were strong-hearted, God-fear-
ing, resolute men, wholly, or almost wholly,
of Scotch or Scotch-Irish descent. They were
men who, according to an inherited maxim,
never turned their backs ON a friend or on an
enemy. For twenty years, dating from the
middle period of the revolution, the settleIs
we're composed largely of men who had them
selves served in the Continental army, many
OF them as officers, and they impaired an in
tense patriotism to the public sentiment. 1t
may be among the illusions Of memory, but 1
think have nowhere else seen the Fourth of
July and Washington's Birthday celebrated
with such zeal and interest as in the gather
ings then attended recall a great meeting
of the people on the Fourth of July 1S40 on
the border of the county, in Brownsville, at
which considerable part of the procession
was composed of vehicles filed with Revolu-
tionary soldiers. was but 10 years old, and
may possibly mistake, but think there were
more than two hundred of the grand old he
roes. The modern cant and criticism which we
sometimes hear about Washington not being,
after all very great man, would have been
dangerous talk on that day and in that assem-
blage.
These pioneers placed high value on edu-
cation, and while they We're still on the from
tier, struggling with its privations they estab-
lished two excellent colleges, long since pros
perously united in one. 1t would be impossi-
Bile to over estimate the benefcent and wide
spread influence which Washinfiton and JEFF
ierson Colleges have eXerted on the clVlllZa-
ton of the great country which lies between
the Alleghanies and the Mississippi river.
Their graduates have been prominent IN the
pull pit, at the bar, on the bench and in the
high stations of public life During my service
of eighteen years in Congress l met larger
number of the alumni of Washington and Jef-
ferson than Of any other single college in the
Union. make this statement from memory,
but feel assured that close examination OF
would fully establish its correctness.
Not only were the two colleges founded and
we'll sustained, but the entire educational sys-
tenn of the county, long before the school tax
and public schools, was comprehensive and
thorough. l remember in my own boyhoOd
that there were ten or eleven academies or Sc
lect schools in the county where lads could be
fitted for college. In nearly every instance
the Presbyterian past lr was the principal
teacher. Many who will be present 1T your
nj al will ronall IA cuaoocenn 0f we'll
drilled students who came for so many years
from the tuition of DR.. McCluskey, of West
Alexander; from Rev. John Stockton at Cross
Creek; from Rev. John Eageston, at Buffalo,
and from others of like worth and reputation.
l is inevitable that country thus peopled
shoul grow in strength. wisdom and wealth.
Its 60, 900 inhabitants are favored far beyond
the average lot OF man. They are blessed
with fertile soil and with the health-giving
climate which belongs to the charmed latitude
of the fortieth parallel-the middle vf the
wheat and corn belt of the continent. Beyond
this they enjoy the happy and ennobling intiu-
ences of scenery as grand and beautiful as that
which lures tourists thousands of miles beyond
the sea. have myself visited many of the
celebrated spots in Europe and America, and
have nowhere witnessed a more attractive
sight than was familiar to my eyes in boyhood
from the old Indian Hill Farm, where | was
born, and whore my great-grandfather, the
elder Neal Gillespie, settled before the out
break of the Revolution, The majestic sweep
of the Monongahela through the foothills Of
the Alleghanies, with the chain of mountains
but twenty miles distant in full view, give an
impression of beauty and sublimity which can
never be effaced
talk thus familiarly of localities and child
hood incidents because your assemblage,
though composed Of thousands, will in effect
be a family reunion, where the only thing in
order will be tradition and recollection and
personal history. Identified, as l have been
for twenty-eight years, with great and noble
people in another section of the Union, have
never lost any of my attachment for my ma
tive county and my native State. The two
feelings no more conflict than does mans
love for his wife and his love for his mother.
Wherever i may be in life, or whatever my
fortune, the county of Washington, as it an
ciently was, taking in both sides of the Monon-
gahela, will be sacred in my memory. shall
always recall with pride that my ancestry and
kindred were and are not inconspicuously con-
nscted with-its history, and that on either side
of the beautiful river, in Protestant and in
Catholic cemeteries, Eve generations Of my
own blood sleep in honored graves.
Very sincerely yours,
JAMES G. BLAINE.