The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1912-02-08
The Lincolnville Club.

III oPitC VI uH1dVOFdDlc WodC0eF Lnc
fourth banquet of the Lipcolnville Club
in Boston, Wednesday night, Jan. 31st,
was well attended, and was a success.
Rev. Mr.. Maynard asked divine blessing.
Between the courses of the banquet SOLO
lists sang the old songs printed for the
occasion, while the whole company came
in on the chorus. Mrs. Florence Hallett
Forte sang, with beautiful expression,
'In the Good Old Summer Time" and
''1n the Shade of the Old Apple Tree. "
Mr.. Thomas did justice to "The Quilting
Party" and other old songs. Miss
Churchill, violinist, entertained during
dinner, while Mrs. Maud Cushing Nash
was piano accompanist for the fourth
time.
Mr.. J. S. Crehore, President of the
Club, introduced Mr.. Clarence French, a
descendent of one of the early settlers
of the town of Lincolnville. Mr.. French
responded as follows:
Mr.. President; My first words to the
Lincolnville Club shall be words of thanks
for that New England hospitality ex-
pressed in your constitution, whereby
you invite to full privileges of member
ship the children of those who formerly
lived among you. Lincolnville is to many
of you the dear old place that was once
your home, and where now you love to
visit. To me it is now much as it always
has been. AS boy it was one of my
chief delights to go there from my home
in your neighboring city of Belfast to
see grandpa and uncles and aunts and
cousins. Grandpa is no longer there, but
it is still one of the greatest delights of
the vacations | pass on the shores of
your bay that see some of the uncles
and aunts and cousins again.
But as we meet here on Beacon Hill,
we need not feel like exiles. If we turn
back little in our family history,
l think some of us will find the names Of
great grandparents who lived here in
eastern Massachusetts,. When our Rev.
dictionary War had closed, and the large
families of those days were no longer
kept down by battles and Boston Mas
sacres, the farmers and mariners of this
region began to feel crowded. Around
this hill was teeming population of some
Is, 600, and other places had their thou
sand or more. And some of the people
of some of the old Massachusetts towns
had heard of land on Penobscot bay
which would be theirs if they would cul-
tivate it, and where they would find good
timber to build ships and good harbors to
shelter them.
Nearly every family had its Revolu-
tionary soldiers, and in some were SOL
n or,I
and they had heard that the shores of
the bay were once a border land between
hostile French and English, and that the
Oldtown Indian did not always make and
peddle baskets, but did sometimes reap
where the white man had sown, and
liked to watch the burning of the white
erected at Castine and the place we now
had at last been established long way
no longer feared. And so, many families
settle the shores of our bay. They cul-
tivated the land, and they built ships and
sailed the seas, they and their children.
They did their full share to build up and
to continue to build up the American
merchant marine until it saw its proudest
days and then the captains of Lincoln
vile could be found in all our ports.
When our shipping interests were in
their hands, our merchant flag was car
ried over the seas as it has not been
carried since our ironmasters, with
all the resources that wealth and organ
iZation could command, took up the
building Of our ships.
But after while they, too, with their
larger families, and with the vigor that
comes from hard work, with good food
and shelter and plenty of room, began to
feel as did their grandparents who had
settled the land, that the good places
were all taken up and there was not
enough to go round. And some of them
looked over our land and saw the great
west that had come into our possession.
And out of their abundance the people of
Maine sent many of their young men
into the west and many of those young
men and their children were among the
rulers of that country.
But these people of a race of pioneers
saw in old Massachusetts scene of an
other kind. Wonderful changes had
taken place. Commerce and manufac-
turing had so altered the manner of liv-
ing that towns that once seemed crowded
with their tens of thousands were de-
handing their hundred thousands. And
so many of our people who looked for
other homes tried the new and more
crowded life of Massachusetts.
This club is evidence that Lincolnville
sent a good share, for we have been
holding meetings perhaps as large as
would be gathered in the old town itself.
And as in the new west, so in old Massa-
chusetts it is no empty boast, but plain
fact, to say that our people have taken
places we'll to the front. Enumeration
would be tedious, butt has been motto ed
that in many of our cities, when the So
ciety of the Sons and Daughters Of
Maine holds its meeting, the city govern
ment is unable to get quorum.
Mr.. President, shall not try to con-
tinue this story of Maine and Massachu-
sets into the future. The changes that
the past has shown teach us that we
must not look for the same things TO
ontinue. 1t is enough to say that we
know we have left that future in worthy
hands.
! Miss Tucker. of Dorchester, read E
poem that Mr.. Dearborn of Lincolnvile
had kindly written and sent for the even
ing. Rev. Mr.. Maynard, pastor of the
South Congregationalist church, Pea.