The Story Of The Old Meeting House Marker
from The Blandford Monthly
July 1903
The monument committee (Rev. S.G. Wood, Dr. Plumb Brown, and Enos W. Boise) has in charge the preparation of a brief service of presentation, or unveiling, of the boulder with inscribed bronze tablet to mark the site of the old first meeting house.
There is a significant relation of the service of unveiling to the day we celebrate (July 4th), if for no other reason, in the fact the old building was seized for the quartering of Hessians.
August 1903
(After a town picnic in the pines, music by the Westfield Fife and Drum Corps, and athletic sports)
It was very gratifying to see the whole assembly go in a body to the monument, and give their undivided and interested attention to the exercises. Dr. Brown made the presentation address, emphasizing most fittingly the religious motives and principles of the founders of our communities and commonwealth, and their offering of self sacrifice in the cause of humanity and God.
The presentation was made to the people in the name of the selectmen of the town and the trustees of the First Religious Society.
The monument was next unveiled by Dr. Brown's little son, Elliot.
S.C. Tiffany, chairman of the selectmen, and C.B. Hayden, one of the trustees of the First Religious Society, responded gracefully and happily to the address of presentation, voicing the hope that the monument might inspire the people to worthy emulation of the examples of the early leaders of church and town.
S.G. Wood spoke of the monument itself and of the connection of church and town with Revolutionary history, recounting the fact that the old meetinghouse was used for quartering Hessian prisoners after the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and that the old Watson house (on Tannery Hill) served as quarters on that occasion for army officers and perhaps others.
This speaker also directed attention to the old barn on the Agricultural Society's grounds, a building whose timbers were taken from the original meetinghouse after that had served its time as a town hall. He made a plea for the repair of this historic building and for some simple marker to be placed upon it, identifying its history for the citizen and visitor.
August 1903
(From a sermon preached by Rev. S.G. Wood - 7/19/1903)
So, in stone native to these rock-bound hills, the unhewn fragment of a granite boulder, rugged in form and surface, like the men and women for whom it stands, is fittingly laid a bronze tablet, open to the heat of summer and the storms of winter, confronting the vision of the passer-by in the place, where first was erected in this hill town a public altar to the living God and Savior of men, bearing the inscription: -
“YE OLD FIRST CHURCH OF THE FRONTIER TOWN OF BLANDFORD, MASS. STOOD ON THSI SPOT.
BEGUN 1740, FINISHED 1805.
VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO
JULY 1903"
The monument committee (Rev. S.G. Wood, Dr. Plumb Brown, and Enos W. Boise) has in charge the preparation of a brief service of presentation, or unveiling, of the boulder with inscribed bronze tablet to mark the site of the old first meeting house.
There is a significant relation of the service of unveiling to the day we celebrate (July 4th), if for no other reason, in the fact the old building was seized for the quartering of Hessians.
August 1903
(After a town picnic in the pines, music by the Westfield Fife and Drum Corps, and athletic sports)
It was very gratifying to see the whole assembly go in a body to the monument, and give their undivided and interested attention to the exercises. Dr. Brown made the presentation address, emphasizing most fittingly the religious motives and principles of the founders of our communities and commonwealth, and their offering of self sacrifice in the cause of humanity and God.
The presentation was made to the people in the name of the selectmen of the town and the trustees of the First Religious Society.
The monument was next unveiled by Dr. Brown's little son, Elliot.
S.C. Tiffany, chairman of the selectmen, and C.B. Hayden, one of the trustees of the First Religious Society, responded gracefully and happily to the address of presentation, voicing the hope that the monument might inspire the people to worthy emulation of the examples of the early leaders of church and town.
S.G. Wood spoke of the monument itself and of the connection of church and town with Revolutionary history, recounting the fact that the old meetinghouse was used for quartering Hessian prisoners after the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, and that the old Watson house (on Tannery Hill) served as quarters on that occasion for army officers and perhaps others.
This speaker also directed attention to the old barn on the Agricultural Society's grounds, a building whose timbers were taken from the original meetinghouse after that had served its time as a town hall. He made a plea for the repair of this historic building and for some simple marker to be placed upon it, identifying its history for the citizen and visitor.
August 1903
(From a sermon preached by Rev. S.G. Wood - 7/19/1903)
So, in stone native to these rock-bound hills, the unhewn fragment of a granite boulder, rugged in form and surface, like the men and women for whom it stands, is fittingly laid a bronze tablet, open to the heat of summer and the storms of winter, confronting the vision of the passer-by in the place, where first was erected in this hill town a public altar to the living God and Savior of men, bearing the inscription: -
“YE OLD FIRST CHURCH OF THE FRONTIER TOWN OF BLANDFORD, MASS. STOOD ON THSI SPOT.
BEGUN 1740, FINISHED 1805.
VOX CLAMANTIS IN DESERTO
JULY 1903"
