Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1885-06-05
Chr Gssf& County 9erala.
MEMORIAL DAY.

Tic OuStA duCb VI NlS NSANtiithioH
of this day was attended with all
the appropriate and touching Incl
dents belonging to it. We are
happy to say that the decorum of
the occasion was carefully main
tanned in all the services, and was
practised throughout the town, thus
making it quiet, dignifed, and or
.derly day, so becoming to the sa-
.credness of its character. Business
places were closed at appropriate
periods during the day and there
was not the slightest appearance of
levity or disorder. Never did our
town seem to be so deeply i'm
pressed with the Importance and
benefit to communities of this inter
.esting and touching custom. The
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick clothed
in regalia, bearing their tasty and
characteristic banners, marched to
the Grand Army Hall, where they
were joined by Essex Lodge of Odd
Fellows in procession, and together
they received the Commander and
comrades of Erastus Buck Post, No.
78, G. A. r., and escorted them to
the NJ. E. Church, attended by mar
tial music. After an anthem by the
choir and prayer by the Rev, w. |.
Todd, followed by the impressive
exercises of the Post peculiar to
such occasions, Commander A. II.
Hall briefly addressed the audience,
welcoming their presence, and in
PRODUCED as the orator of the occa-
sion Hon. George N. Dale.
Mr.. Dale commenced by saying,
in substance, that when Martin
Luther stood before the famous
Diet surrounded, constructively,
with bristling bayonets, or when
Robert Emmett, the ardent apostle
and martyr of freedom stood before
his unjust judges in his defiant
death speech, or yet when he whom
the speaker esteemed to be the
Demosthenes of sacred eloquence
stood before King Agrippa and his
royal attendants, or even when
Beecher, "the eagle of American
.eloquence," during the late rebellion
met the jeers and taunts of a sea of
men and women in the great St.
Georges Hall at Liverpool, England,
neither of them met the peculiar
embarrassments which attend the
little task he had been asked to per-
form. For even if those occasions
with their difficulties, and the i'm
lnense and superior facilities to
meet them, were nlgn ABOVE those
of today, still those men were i'm
PEELED by a power of resistance
which, continued by oppressive
abuse, had been stirred within them;
but that he (the speaker) stood I'M
armed amid the silent musings of
the hour. He could almost feel the
beating of hearts filled with per-
sonal and public bereavement at the
loss to earth of the flower of Ameri-
can manhood. The scene was sadly
and oppressively quiet, and SO was
the whole country.
IAN quiet along the Potomac today,
Not sound save the rush of the river,
While soft falls the dew on the face of the
dead.
Tie picllets are Off duty forever"
He then sketched the kind offices
which sorrow for the dead had been
commissioned by a kind Providence
to perform for the benefit of the
living, Referring to the Post he
.dwelt upon its organization, its pur-
poses, objects, advantages and bene-
fits. Continuing, he said; "Com-
.mander and men Of the Post; for
what would you exchange the name
of your Post? And yet if he who
made that name glorious by his life
and death had not lived and died
just as he did you had not had the
name" He then briefly sketched
the life and character of the be-
loved captain in whose honor the
Post was named, and traced his
career from his enlistment to his
death. lie alluded to the tender
and touching solicitude of the pure,
noble, and patriotic Mrs. Baxter for
The soldier during his sickness; to
the return home Of the brave man,
dead, and described his funeral cere-
monies with its many touching and
sad Incidents. He then gave a
hasty resume Of the different kinds
of government which had been tried
and failed, claiming that the prinoi-
pal cause of their failure was in the