Third Day, May 31st.

History, some one has said, "is the record of the acts of robust men." If this is its acceptable definition, John Tower's qualities commend him to the affectionate pride of his descendants as a man who possessed the qualities which go with history making. That he helped to make it in the pioneer community of which he was a member there can be no question. It is doubtless in this belief that Mr. Loud made the address on "Why Do We Celebrate,?" which is given below, and to which all listened with pleasure and attention. It was given at the first annual meeting of the Society on May 31st, following brief introductory remarks by the presiding officer, Mr. George Warren Tower, and preceded the business of that meeting.

Address of Mr. John J. Loud,

President of the Weymouth Historical Society, Weymouth, Mass.

"WHY DO WE CELEBRATE?”

Mr. President, Descendants of John Tower, Invited Guests and Interested Friends:

I was somewhat surprised that I was to speak to you on this occasion, as I was not aware that I could claim any relationship to the Towers except the very distant one resulting from the marriage of a great-great-grandfather.

I do account it, however, to be some qualification for standing here before you, that I was personally acquainted with the Hon. Solomon Lincoln, author of an early history of Hingham, and with the late Quincy Bicknell who assisted in compiling your Tower Genealogy, and that I corresponded with both of them upon historical or genealogical subjects. No one, I am sure, ever met Solomon Lincoln and conversed with him upon matters pertaining to the local antiquities and the ancient worthies of Hingham without yielding him the tribute of admiration. He was a gentleman of the old school, urbane, scholarly, and of imposing personality.

To Quincy Bicknell I am indebted for carefully compiled information about my own ancestry. I esteemed him as one of those genealogists--may they never become rare-who are more anxious to be true to fact than to write a readable or flattering story. If he were with us, he could tell you, far better than I can, how it came to pass that you are met here to-day to hear and to talk about the Towers, their descendants and their ancient homesteads.

For it is safe to say that you are here because Solomon Lincoln, Quincy Bicknell and others like them, loved to decipher the quaint, old record and the faded manuscripts, left by the early ministers and clerks; because such men, by exhausting

researches which brought small return in money or reputation, discovered those items of personal history which first made your ancestors interesting to you. I believe that the writings of the men of whom I have just spoken, and that the notable volumes of Hingham History and Genealogy will be read when the speeches of your politicians and the very names of your millionaires and of your officeholders will be forgotten. Every year will add to the value of each volume of your Tower Genealogy and to your appreciation of its author.

But what is the good of holding such a meeting as this? Why call together, from a distance a multitude of people who are strangers to each other merely because, two or three hundred years ago, a common ancestor lived in old Hingham?

I will answer for you. It is well for you to meet because it is worth while for you to hear once more the story and to meditate upon the virtues of the men-and John Tower was a good example of them-who, under the guidance of God, laid the foundations of the mighty Republic to which the world bows in homage to-day.

It is good to meet here, upon the soil your ancestor tilled, and near the spot where lies his honored dust, because it may remind you of what you owe to him for the personal traits and characteristics that you have inherited with the blood that he transmitted to you.

For it is surely true that every descendant of John Tower has a different body and is in short, a different person from what he would have been if he had not this blood in his veins.

You walk differently, talk differently and think differently from what you would if John Tower were not your ancestor. It is probable that an observing person who would make a careful study of all the Towers now living, would find in most-if not in all of them-some hereditary features or family traits, and, if a composite picture, such as we heard much about a few years ago, could be taken of all the male descendants of John Tower who are now 28 years of age, it would doubtless be a good likeness of John Tower the First as he looked in 1637 when he was 28 years old.

In the baronial halls of Old England, where hang upon the

walls the pictures of fathers and grandfathers for many generations, it can be shown, it is said, that the representative of each generation more often resembles his grandfather than his own father.

Now it takes but a few grandfathers of grandfathers to bring any one of the present generation back to the man of 1637. An old genealogist once told me that he had studied the faces and personal characteristics of a certain family in whose genealogy he was interested until he could identify people of that name if he only met them on the street by chance and had never seen them before.

How then can the story of a man of the 17th century, who lived in the days of small things, be helpful to us of the 20th century? Why should you congratulate yourselves upon being descended from John Tower? What were his traits and characteristics?

Perhaps I should first call attention to the fact that your first American ancestor was of a generation which paid marked deference to social distinctions. Not every man who was of age was entitled to be called Mister. In Bradford's list of the Pilgrims of 1620, I find only ten men-just about one-fifth of the whole number-with the prefix "Mr." and those thus honored are placed at the head of the list. In the catalogues of the graduates of Harvard College, from the first year to the year 1773, the names of the students were not arranged alphabetically, but in the order of the social rank of their parents. In those days the ministers of the churches were, of course, much venerated. We are, therefore, not surprised to find that in the Harvard class of 1650, Joshua and Jeremiah, sons of the Rev. Peter Hobart, were only second in rank to William Stoughton-whose father, a soldier in the Parliamentary Army in England, was also a benefactor of the college-and to John Glover, who was step-son to President Dunster. That John Tower was eligible to marry the sister of the wife of the Rev. Peter Hobart and the sister, too, of the wife of Capt. Joshua Hobart, speaker of the house and a captain in King Phillip's war, is strong presumptive evidence that his parents ranked well in society. There is reason to think that his wife's parents also had good standing.

It is to be hoped that no one of John Tower's descendants here present will find his hat too small for his head because of his aristocratic ancestry though he may, perhaps, take a just pride in the persistence with which John Tower fought for his own rights against the state, the town and the magistrate, thus showing himself to be a strenuous upholder of the rights of the individual and a bold champion of civil liberty.

Again, your progenitor was not a penniless adventurer but had money in his pocket and was heartily welcomed here in 1637. And the young ladies were not averse to his attentions or, if they were, their parents thought him a "good catch." One cannot help suspecting that a little sly humor was sometimes indulged in by the town authorities to enliven the quiet life of those days. At all events it is quite suggestive of such a habit that, when John Tower came to Hingham, an unmarried man of 28 years, he was given three acres of land on Bachelor street. Why would it not be a good plan, in these days, to segregate young men infected with the bachelorhood germ, banish them to Bachelor street all by themselves and so call attention to their forlorn and lonesome condition.

Moreover John was granted these three acres for a house lot. Pray what need had John Tower, a single man, of a house lot? No bachelors of today or any other day need house lots! What was this but a good square hint to our hero to build him a house and get him a wife? Perhaps the town fathers had eligible daughters.

John Tower took the hint-though he was in no undue haste in doing so-and in 1639 became a married man. He reserved to himself, however, the right to choose where he would reside, or, perhaps his bride decided this question for him.

Your ancestor now began making a future for Margaret Ibrook as well as for himself. He ceased, as every man should cease when he takes a wife, to plan solely for himself and his own happiness. He was becoming altruistic. He had moreover entered upon a path of altruism which had ten branches. -for society in those days smiled approvingly upon large families and became the father of ten children. That was a fairly numerous family for one who married somewhat late in