The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-07-07

Within her ancient oak k-wood
The summer wind rejoices
The trees lift up their voices
No light blown leaf is still;
Where oft, in youth, poet
Went dreamily delaying,
With long, long thoughts, and straytng
Boylike and windlike at will.
Throned on her headlands in majesty
The city beholds the ocean,
That moves in treless motion
About her many isles.
ocean immense! Here at our gate
Gather thy waves in armor bright:
Strong, uncontrolled as power of fate,
Who may Withstand the waters might!
Come not, 0 Sea, in all thy wrath,
Loose not thy wind upon its path,
Make not thy deeps hollow for graves;
D Sea- be kind-restrain thy waves.
Fire left her places desolate
Furious, not having pity;
Yet undismayed our city
Lifts up her head and smiles.
And as the bird of fable
Is burned with myrrh and spices,
And presently arises
More radiant from the pyre-
From flame and smoke and ashes
Our city came victorious,
Renewed and still more glorious,
After the wasting fire.
Welcome another new century!
The suns as they circle above her
Increase the praises of her,
Our City by the sea!
The Chairman then introduced the Hon.
Thomas B. Reed as orator of the day, who
was received with tremendous applause.
The grafton was condensed review OF
Portlands historyland included passages both
humorous and pathetic. The tributes to
the honored dead Of Portland were of the
highest order and eloquence of the richest
character marked them. The Grafton in
full is as follows:
HON. t. B. REEDS GRAFTON.
Whoever stands, on clear summer day
on tLe yerandah at CuShing'S Island and
looks across the harbor, will find his eye rest
ing upon a scene which for loneliness and va
ried beauty has no superior, and perhaps no
parallel anywhere on the broad earth. The
long slope of grassy verdure varied by the
darker foliage of the trees spreads wide to
the waters edge Then begins the bright
sparkle of the summer sea that many twink
ling smile of ocean, that countless laughter
of the waves which has lighted up the heart
of man centuries since Eschylus died, and
centuries before he lived. Across the sun
lit waters, dotted with the white sails or
scanned with the bubbling foam of the steam
er's track, past the wharves, brlStl1ng with
masts and noisy with commerce, tne gaze
falls upon the houses sloping gently upward
in the centre and becoming more and more
embowered in trees as they climb the hills
at either end. Following the tall spires the
eye loses itself in lthe bright blue sky
above. On the right are the roadsteads and
the islands stretching out of sight. On the
left are Fore River, the forests, the Cape and
the boundless ocean, and altogether scene
which mingles all that is best and bright of
sea and Shore Ii you shut your eyes and let
the lofty spires disappear, the happy homes
glsten out of sight, and the wharves give
place to a curving line of shelving, pebbly
beach; if you imagine the bright water un-
vexed by traffic, the tall peninsula covered
with forests and bushy swamps, with the
same varied expanse OF island and OF sea,
and the whole scene undisturbed by. any
sound save the changing cries of innu-
merable birds and water fowl, you will be
looking upon Machegonne as it appeared to
George Cleeve in the year 1862, when ne land
ed, not knowing what beautiful city ne
was to found, and never dreaming that at
this distant day his name would be honored
by so many people on the very scene of his
varied struggles, his alternate victories and
defeats Where George Cleeve was born,
where he lived before he came from England
or where his bones now rest no one OF his
unnumbered descendants knows today. His
labors have been over more than two hundred
years. He was a strong, vigorous man, full
of expedients, bold Of speech, rash" they
called it in those days, when they used to
fine men for expressing opinions-tenacious,
and with an aptitude Of resource, which
strikes with wonder whoever considers his
Strengthened circumstances, and the results
he brought about against powerful and per.
sistent foes. In the whole of his long life OF
struggle and contention his enemies were
never victorious except in his extreme old age.
He first came to this country in 1880 and
built a house at Spurwink, from which he
was driven by Trelawney's agent, John Win
ter, who being also masterful man, became
his lifelong enemy In the year 1852 Cleeve,
II ,ic xNifa -IOan his dQnOhfpr EliIahptb
and his partner, Richard Tucker. landed at
the cove which is now covered by the Grand
Trunk grounds and which then received the
little creek, on the bank of which he built
the first house on the Neck: This frst house
was near where the foot of Hancock street
corners on Fore street. There for four years
he titled the land he cleared, traded and, we
may hope, got some small gain. Finding his
title disputed by his old enemy he took the
resolution to go to England, and found him
self there in 1886. In England, by his ..'ex-
cellent address and commanding ability he,
an Independent in religion, at time when
Laud was in full possession of his greatest
power, procured fromSir FerdinandO Gorges
and brought back with him; not only deed
for the whole Neck from Fore River to the
Presumpscot, but also plan for united
government of New England, which, had it
been adopted and succeeded, might have
made him name as widely known as Win
throp's, and might have made Massachusetts
Shire and of Maine. But Winthrop, though
cognizant of the magnanimity and fairness
of Cleeye towards himself, rejected the plan,
feeling that firm faith in his own charter
which subsequent events justified. The
fates were wiser than the designs of Cleave,
and in the result the Province of Maine be-
longing to Massachusetts, has become the
State of Maine belonging to itself. Armed
with his deed we might have expected that
George Cleeve would now trade and plant
4 To- D,aE fc nf 10
characteristic of a new settlement. Emigra-
tion means vigor, and vigor likes to have its
own way. Our ancestors in New England
did not do as they do beyond the Mississippi,
start graveyard when they started town.
They went to law instead, a process which,
the Western method, has the abounding
merit of encouraging deserving profession,
and of not being so sudden. Cleeve's law
suits about his title he won twice over. But
In those days the strong man kept MS mouse
until stronger came and took it away. Evl-
dence is plentiful that powerful conspiracy
well calculated to be successful in the end,
had been formed against the owner OF the
Neck. But his enemies belonged to the Roy
alst party, and while their combination was
forming against him the news came IN lo4z
that their friends over the water had met
with disaster and that Oliver Cromwell had
appeared victorious on the scene. Cleeve,
with that wise promptness to seize an ad-
vantage which was not the least OF his char
acteriStics, Immediately crossed the Attain
tic. He found his enemies on that side OF
the water the hackers of his enemies at
home, dispersed and overthrown. He imme-
diateiy set to work, and in short time ha
induced Sir Alexander Rigby, powerful
member of Parliament, to purchase the Ly-
gonia patent, which covered an area OF forty
miles square, stretching on the sea coast
from Cape Porpoise to Merrymeeting Bay
| and back into the country to a line which
| crossed the head of Long Pond. OF this ter
| ritory Rigby appointed Cleeve the Deputy
President Knowing that his foes at home
| from whose Vaccinations this happy turn in
| English affairs had enabled him to escape
were entrenched behind their de Jfdct0 rights
| and in that far off country were not likely tt
| Weld their power without a struggle, he pc
| titioned Parliament and obtained from it {
| commission to examine into charges of mis-
| government which he filed against them
| He then returned home and met the opposi
| tion his foresight had anticipated. For thu
next three years, marked on his part by ;
| course of conduct remarkably judicious, es
| Decially when his earnest and headStrons
| nature is considered, his authority was sue
| cessfully resisted, but in 1916 the Commits
| sioners of Foreign Plantations decided in hi
| favor. and George Cleeve took his rightfu
! nosition as a recognized leader among men
| From that time until the death of Alexande
! Rigby i'm 1850 the Province of Lygonia, ant
esnecially the Neck, enjoyed peace and pros
nerity. while all around was discomfort ant
| proieoovernment These four years were tn