The Portland daily press., 1890-07-31
THE SONS and DAUGHTERS OF YORK.
Their Eighth Annual Reunion at DIa-
nond Island Yesterday.
The Dinner and the Good Speeches
Which Followed II.
York County Praised In an Entertain
Ing Letter-offIcers Elected.

after having been postponed ON account Of
the storm last Friday, at Great Diamond ISL
and in and around the club house of the
Portland Club. The majority of the mem.
bers went down on the 1890 boat and occu
pied the forenoon in renewing old acquain.
tances and making new ones, and in view.
ing the landscape from the cool piazza of the
club house. At noon the second boat reached
the island with the stragglers and active pre-.
paratlons for dinner began.
The tables were set in the dining room, and
the overflow were accommodated in the par.
lor. where smaller tables were set There
were eighty-sevan suesls present at the Ia
bles and around the room for some of the
younger and more active members of the So
ciety volunteered as walters and spent the
most of the time on their feet. The dinner.
although simple, being merely an ordinary
shore dinner of chowder, clans, cunners
halibut and other fish and fruit was abund-
ant in quantity and was attacked with rel
ish, after the invoking Of the divine blessing
by the chaplain of the society, Rev. DR..
Small.
After an hour at the tables, and a supple
mentary half for the volunteer walters
to demolish the remaining store of proyis-
ions the company gathered on the front steps
Of the house and had the annual photograph
taken by Mr. Finley, from the Lamson stu
dio. When this ceremony was concluded the
association moved around the building to
the shady piazza overlooking the strip Of
water between Peaks and Diamond islands
where the purely literary exercises took
place.
Hon. William G. Davis, the president of
the society, called the meeting to order, con-
graduating the society upon the sturdy
strength he saw in the faces of those he saw
before him who. he said, had been before
him, unchanged so far as he could see during
the eight years of the society's
life. He introduced as the first
speaker Rev. A. K. p. Small, d. d.
Dr. Small gave way to the appointment of
a nominating committee consisting of l.. B.
Dennett, S. M. Watson and D. B. Kicker
who were instructed to renominate the old
officers for the next year. DIR. Small then
spoke briefly. He asked first what York
county's fame rested on. 1t has not, he said,
the largest cities, nor the highest mountains,
nor great prairies. largest manufactures,
nor the largest and most noted literary in
stitutions. For those we must go elsewhere,
but York county leads In something: in men,
women and the York society dinners. The
most prominent men in politics, law, medi-
cine, business and other departments of life
everywhere are proud to name as their peers
men from York county. He then paid a
tribute to the county as a nursery of
medium men and women who do not aspire
to be leaders but yet who are worthy citi-
zens of every state in the Union. He said
that it was good to see these people coming
back year after year to the reunions, thus
testifying to their love for the land of their
birth
Judge Nathan Webb was the next speaker
He scolded the society at considerable
length for first spelling his dinner by giving
him the idea that he was to be called upon
to speak. and then after letting him out of
the dining room in peace, harrow
ing his feelings up again by
commencing the speeches just as he was be-
ginning to feel comfortable and to digest
what little dinner he had been able to eat.
He then paid high tribute to the spirit
which brought the members of the York So
cety together year after year, saying that it
was a sign of patriotism, for a man to love
his country must first love his home and his
birthplace. thea his family, and he would
insensibly fall into patriotism in its largest
sense.
Hon. A. Ii. Rice Of Worcester, Mass, was
the next speaker. He, like Judge Webb,
had been frightened and disturbed by the,
prospect of being called upon to address the
society, and unlike the Judge, had been una
BILE to prepare anything in advance. Never
theless he made very interesting speech,
telling how he had come from Massachusetts
to Maine in yellow chaise, and how he
lived for a number of years afterward in
country town, where none Of the present ad-
vantages of civilization could be found, con-
trasting it with the present time, when
Maine has all the advantages that any state
has, and is proud to be the birthplace and
the home of the most brilliant and success
full statesman of the present time. This
compliment to Speaker Reed was warmly
applauded.
Mr.. Liberty B. bennett, formerly of Bux-
ton, as the president announced, was the
next speaker. he first read the following
letter from Philip w. McIntire. Esq, for
merly of the Argus:
CORNISH, July %, $780,
Dear Mr.. bennett:
may not be able to be present in body
at the York reunion, but shall certainly be
there in spirit. Picture to yourself my
shade lowering benignantly over Diamond
Island, and the salt sea breeze bearing upon
its wings these words of benediction:
"Bless you, my children" Within the
walls of the Portland Club House itself the
shade would very likely feel like cat in
strange garret.
AS loyal son of the ancient and honora-
BILE county of York whose wide domain
once enc0mpassed the entire state, deep de-
light moves me at these reunions Of its ex-
lied children-for exiles you are. though
your st. Helena be situated in the pleasant
waters of Casco Bay. The old county with
its rugged hills. steep as the path of fame,
its long reaches of woodland, its stretches of
plain and intervale, its happy valleys in
which quiet villages nestle, its streams-the
Saco, the Ossippee, the Piscataqua, the
York, the Kennebunk, the Mousam, rivers
richer to you in "reminiscences than the stor-
led Rhine-tumbling down to the sea, and
the tree -girdled and placid ponds scattered
over its exeanse, must come back vividedly
to most of you as you gather in groups to re-
new old acquaintances and tighten the bonds
- ~ a .eaf1