No. 112.] 573 # 



are all dead ; and of those who were present on that occasion, 

 and gave the first impulse to the operations of this society, but 

 few remain. Since that time great changes have taken place; 

 one entire generation has passed away, and I now^ see before me 

 the sons and descendants of the hardy and industrious race of 

 farmers who first settled this region, and contributed their share 

 of toil and sufferina: in lavino: the foundation of the civil and re- 

 ligious blessings we enjoy. 



The anniversary of this society naturally suggests thoughts con- 

 nected with our past history. It carries us back to the period 

 W'hen agriculture was in its infancy — when it possessed none of 

 those advantages which aie derived/rom modern discoveries and 

 improve nients ; when our fathers settfed down in the w-ilderness, 

 and made the first attempts to cultivate those fields which now 



yield such rich and abundant harvests. 



♦ 



Schoharie was settled by German Protestants, who fled from the 

 oppression of European despotism, to seek an asylum on these 

 western shores, where they might worship the God of their fa- 

 thers, without any one to molest or make them afraid. They 

 were a part of tliat colony who w^ere transported from Germany 

 by the Queen of England, and located on the shores of the Hud- 

 son river, in the year 1709. In 1711, about fifty families emi- 

 grated to Schf)harie, and made the first settlement on the spot 

 where we are now assembled, and its immediate vicinity. This 

 beautiful valley was then a wilderness. There were no cultiva- 

 ted fields, no stately mansions, no temples of wori^hip, no such 

 rich and beautiful landscapes as are now spread out before the 

 eyes of the behokh^r, nothiiig but the wigwam of the savage and 

 the dense forest, the rugged mountain, and the wikl beast 

 pursuing his prey, or fleeing from the shaft of the savage hunter. 

 Into those wild scenes our fathers entered, without anything to 

 shield them from the perils of the enterprise, but the protection 

 of God, in whom they trusted. Like the Pilgrim Fathers, they 

 were driven out by the hand of oppression to seek a refuge in the 

 wilderness. They came poor. They had none of the facilities 

 for agriculture whicli we enjoy, no such labor-saving machines 

 as the genius of the present age has invented. Uut they had the 



