The Portland daily press., 1898-06-14
SUMMERS FEsTAL DAY.
Ancient Town Celebrates Hundredth
Anniversary.
Town Presented Centennial Flag by Two
of Its Sons Now Residents OIL noS''
Historical Addresses, Poems, Etc.

of Its Sons Now Residents of Boston
! Historical Addresses, Poems, ETC.
| ESPECIAL TO THE pREssl
| Summer, June 13.-Sumner celebrated
the centennial of its Incorporation TO-DAY.
The morning opened with rain, puO W
ten o'clock IN the forenoon the sun caihe
out Clouds gathered again and showers
frequently threatened.
| The celebration as whole was unusual
ly successful. The attendance was the
largest in the history of the town.
The exercises were under the charge Oh
Captain G. NJ. Small, president OF the
day. They began with the ringing of bells
and salute of one hundred guns at sun
| rise.
| There was SO much delay that work up
ON the next event of the programme dld
not begin until eleven O'Clock when the
Turner brothers, John and Horatio OF
Boston, presented large flag to the town.
John Turner made the presentation
speech to which DR.. j. Blake Robinson
responded ss'siBs s ss.--.fssssls G gassS
William Ryerson dressed as tUnole
Sam" and bearing remarkable re-
semblance in face and figure to that we'll
known character, pulled the string which
unfurled the flag. AS it opened many
smaller souvenir flags fluttered down up
on the assem- bled people.
| After prayer by Rev. A. G. Murray,
and music by the centennial chorus, Mrs.
Alkaline Stetson made fine address of
| welcome.
W. f. Pulsifer of Boston, who was as
signed to deliver the response was not
present. He mailed his address which
was read by j. W. Stetson.
An original centennial ode by WILDER
Stanwood Head of Gould's academy, a
| native of Sumner, was then sung, and aD
original poem by Mrs. Helen S. Robert
son followed. REGULATIONS by bright pupils
and music completed the forenoon ex-
ercises.
The parade was omitted from lack of
time. "Uncle SAM leading Little
Cuba, was one of the attractions of the
day.
The noon hour presented picturesque
scene. Most of the people stood at long
tables upon the green common partaking
of the substantial dinner. Others gathered
in family groups upon the green lawns.
The old people and invited guests dined
in the vestry of the universalist church.
During dinner Sumner presented CEN
tennial cake to it's Oldest inhabitant, Abel
Fletcher, aged ninety three.
By a change of programme the first
event Of the afternoon after recitations,
singing and mnsic, was the historical adj
dress by Rev. L. NJ. Robinson of Phila-
delphia. His theme was the forty-one
founders of the town, one of whom was
Col. Leami Baldwin, originator of the
Baldwin apple
The speaker told in an interesting
manner how the town was settled by
revolutionary soldiers who had been paid
in colonial scrip which was of little value
except to buy wild land in the district of
Maine; of it's growth from the time the
first permanent settler Noah Bosworth
came from Plymouth, Mass, in 1882, to
when West and East Butterfield were in
oorporated June Is, 1898, and named
Sumner in honor of Increase Summer then
governor of Massachusetts of how the first
frame house was built at East Sumner in
1882, by Increase Robinson, and is still
occupied by his grand children of Charles
Ford the first male child and Rebeoca
Robinson the first male child; of the
first religious meetings at Increase Robin
sons in 1855, and the first church on the
hill in 1919; of the first school house now
Capt. Bisbes's woodshed; of the early
mails running once week, the carrier
blowing trumpet as he approached each
house; of the towns remarkablearecord
during the civil war furnishing almost as
many soldiers as there were voters; of its
equally remarkable temperance record the
local lodge having had 500 members while
the population of the town is 900 and of
the many distinguished men the staunch
old town has reared.
The rest of the day was devoted to five
minute speeches under the charge of w.
II. Eastman, and to the inspection of a
hoe0"oA'nJ oHii'DAo VI f@ne1eH6 nOHsehold
utensils, books, muskets, etc., in the
Baptist church. Most of the articles
were more than one hundred years old,
some two hundred and few even three
hundred years old. Among them was the
chair in which the mother of Abel
Fletcher, the Oldest inhabitant, rode in
an OK cart from Dunstable, Mass, in 1880
with babe il her arms.