ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 11 



instructive, and of Flint, whose volumes are unsurpassed among 

 the reports of kindred associations ? 



Time would fail us to recount the solid work that has been 

 done from year to year by those who are gone, and by those 

 now before me, whose praises will be spoken l)y other men in 

 other days. But any body of men, that I)y their very gathering 

 can awaken such associations of beneficent deeds, are certainly 

 welcome to any spot in this old Commonwealth. And to no 

 place can they come more fittingly than to this ancient town in 

 the most fertile valley of the State. Two hundred and thirty years 

 ago, Pynchon and Holyoke and Chapin fixed their eyes on 

 this spot, as one to he desired for beauty of situation and fer- 

 tility of soil. But for ages before the corn-fields and tobacco 

 plantations of the Indians had given this valley the appearance 

 of civilization, even while the home of savaofe tribes. The 

 Indian women, with moose bone and clam-shell hoes, cultivated 

 here large fields of corn, and renewed the fertility of the soil 

 w^ith fish from the river. And the Indian warrior, although 

 generally too lazy or too proud to work, here raised his tobacco 

 with his own hand, because the weed was too noble for a woman 

 to use, or even to touch. No " brave," even, coiild smoke it 

 until he had gained renown on the war-path. To-day, women 

 help raise tobacco in this valley, and their children often smoke 

 it before they can claim the name of men. It may rebuke our 

 pride and urge us to a moral improvement, to be reminded that 

 in some things we are behind the Indians who cultivated these 

 valleys more than two hundred years ago, and sold this town- 

 ship for a hundred fathoms of wampum, and ten coats of 

 doubtful value. 



But contrast Northampton to-day w^ith the Nonotuck of those 

 times ! It is renowned for the men who have lived here in the 

 past— divines and jurists. Look at its multiplied manufactures 

 of w^ood and iron, and silk and cotton — ^giving a true idea of a 

 model New England town by its diversified industry. Look at 

 its institutions where the dumb are taught to speak, the unfortu- 

 nate are cared for and the fcjrtunate are educated, where a 

 woman's w^calth has done its highest and nol)lest Avork for 

 woman's education. 



And here, too, you are welcomed by the old agricultural 

 society of the three counties — one of the pioneers beginning iu 



