St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1909-07-14
Judge Stafford's Address.
Delivered at Isle La Motto Friday at the Close
of the Tercentenary Celebration.

VA 4kAG 1SACSARGS
Your Excellencies, fellow citizens of the
great Republic, and dear friends, every
one: When | was in Buffalo last winter
Senator Hill took me to see the home o.
the Buffalo Historical society. 1t stands
at the old crossing of the Indian trails
and over one of its arches runs this
legend in the dialect of the Senecas
Other council fires were here before
ours" | was thinking of that legend as
| sat here today, and | thought how
few are the places over all this great
earth where some such words might not
with truth be written, if we could only
know all that has gone before; for all
that tread the globe are but handful
to the tribes that slumber in its bosom" "
But such thoughts are overpowering;
they make the life of man insignificant
Let US turn at once to more genial things.
1909 is year we'll worth remember
ing, even without the reason that has
brought us here. That was the year
when Keppler gave the world the new
| astronomy. Calico was constructing
his telescope with which few months
later he discovered the satellites of Jupi-
ter. Henry Hudson was sailing up the
noble river that was ever afterward to
bear his name. Two years before the
London company had planted James,
town. 1t was only six years from the
death of Queen Elizabeth it was only a
year to the death of Henry of Navarro.
The world was ringing with great
names and great achievements.
When Champlain passed the spot
where we now stand, he was 43 years
old-at the prime of life, in the full flower
of his strength. He had followed the
sea for dozen years. as his father had
done before him. He had been born in
one of it's ports on the shore of France
he had seen Spain and Mexico, Panama
and the West Indies; he had crossed and
recrossed the Atlantic, he had cruised
and mapped the New England coast,
sailed up the broad st. Lawrence, and
only the year before had laid the founda-
lions of Quebec. Much lay behind him.
but at least as much before. He was
still to make many voyages and explore
the Ottawa, to discover two of the
Great Lakes, and to stand in the place
OF his King as governor of Canada. He
belonged to that great breed of men the
age brought forth abundantly, a scholar
and soldier. He knew how to act as
well as think, he could fight as we'll as
pray, ne had courage to push out into
the wilderness and science to make clear
his course, and language to record for
after times what he had seen and done;
a hand firm on the tiller of state, heart
devoted to the cross. 1t would be hard
to find better type of the France of his
day.
Brave, able, ambitious, devoted,
for king and church at the best
the new world had to offer, he had a
Frenchman's love of duty, and these
lovely islands took his eye. We will not
doubt today that he stopped here. How
could he have passed by this emerald
gem set in the sapphire sea? Low is
lands, he said he saw, beautiful with
meadows and the noblest trees, ranged
by tawn and stag and fallow deer. His
words are no riddles to us. These are
the islands he saw, and they charm our
eyes today, as they did bis 300 years
ago. The guides told him they had once
been inhabited by Indians, but the mer
CHESS wars that ragged between the
northern and southern tribes had driven
them away, for they lay on the warpath
right in the track of carnage-"Cania-
1eri-guarunte," the natives called 1.-THE
gateway. 1t was indeed the very gate
through which the tides OF ancient In
1ian battle ebbed and flowed, the fairest
spot on earth almost and yet the most
exposed to perils. The coming of the
white man was not the coming of peace,
out rather the coming of more deadly |
war. Here where the red mans council
Tres had burned the white mans fort
was built. The first within the boun.
1arles that were to embrace Vermont.
and here within the shelter of the fort
vas held the earliest Christian service.
n 1868 this fort was built by Captain
lie la Motto, and the first mass was said.
That is the simple story, and yet how
much it means. The pale face did bring
var, war that was to sweep native
aces to their doom, and war even with
lis own kind, ruthless and Unsuitable.
3ut ne brought with him also the holy
blessed truths that will yet overcome the
learts and make all war impossible
sort st. Ann was burned BY the French
themselves but five years later.
1t was only hating, hesitating step,
loot thrust out into the wild and then
withdrawn. Yet it marked the begin.
ing OF a movement in this valley that
vas to be continued for a century, a
etermlned but unsuccessful effort to
liant the banner Of the feur-de-is in the
cry heart of New England. Here the
wo proudest nations of the ancient
World were to have their pioneers
rapple for the fairest portion of the
ew. AS it had been before the white
IAN came, so it was still to be, the
alley OF beauty was the highway of
'ar. The basin of the st. Lawrence
'as being peopled by the French, the
tlantic coast from Cape Breton to the
outh was being peoped by their hated
walls. That was enough. Here ran s
lie unpeopled passageway between the s
NO. For hundred years none but !
'oi would have built home beyond the I
letter OF fort in all these fruitful acres. {
Wanton had half breed settlement E
'rhaps from 100 to 1860. Over there L