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while living and able to enjoy the rich results, rather than 

 leaving legacies to be lessened or lost in the wrangles of con- 

 tending heirs. 



The value of a park was happily set forth by Hon. David 

 Dudley Field in the following presentation address given before 

 a large concourse of people at the dedication of these grounds. 



" We are here to deliver into your hands the parcel of 

 ground on which we are standing, and that other which lies in 

 view before us, to be kept as pleasure grounds for the people 

 of Haddam in all time to come. We give them in memory of 

 our father and mother, who were married seventy-five years 

 ago to-day, and came immediately afterward to make their 

 abode on this river-side, where he was soon to become the 

 pastor of the church and congregation. Here they lived 

 active and useful lives, in the fear of God and love of man, 

 doing faithfully their several duties, he in public ministrations 

 from pulpit and altar, at bridal, baptism, and burial, and she 

 in the quiet tasks of her well-ordered household. Here they 

 passed their first years together ; here they raised their first 

 domestic altar, and here most of their children were born. 

 For this cause, and in grateful remembrance of their love and 

 sacrifices for us, we, their surviving children, four of us only 

 out of ten, present these memorials, not of cold stone, though 

 the hills about us teem with everlasting granite, but of shaded 

 walks, green lawns, and spreading trees, where this people 

 may find pleasure and refreshment, generation after generation, 

 so long as these fertile meadows, these rugged hills, and this 

 winding river shall endure. And remembering that " beauty 

 is truth, truth beauty," we hope that they will cultivate here 

 that love of nature, which is a joy in youth and a solace in 

 age ; which nourishes the affections, and refines while it 

 exalts ; which rejoices in the seasons and the months as they 

 pass, with their varying beauties ; catches the gladness of June 

 and the radiance of the October woods ; and in every waking 

 moment, sees, hears, or feels something of the world around 

 to take pleasure in and be grateful for. We trust that they 

 will come, not in this year only or this century, but in future 

 years and centuries, the fair young girl, the matron in the 

 glory of womanhood, the boy and the man, grandson and 



