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It is almost striking to observe the traits and features 

 of one generation repeated in its successors in a locality 

 where the people have become fixed in their habits and 

 are acclimated to their surroundings. Such resemblances 

 are striking in English counties, in France, and in other 

 localities where man and the climate and the soil harmo- 

 nize. These conditions seem to be fast attached to our 

 county. If the art of photography had existed in the 

 17th century, the portrait of the first settler of what is 

 now Middleton would have been a good likeness of the 

 thrifty farmer of Middleton who took prizes for his stock 

 at recent cattle shows. The same rule holds throughout 

 the county. The same names prosper upon the same acres. 

 They are still the deacons and selectmen and possessors of 

 fat pocket-books, filled by working brains into the ances- 

 tral — rough it may be — but loved acres. 



The charter granted the land to the Colony of the 

 Massachusetts Bay in New England in fee. The Colony 

 gave the same kind of title to towns, commoners and 

 individuals, free from Old World services and limitations. 



Out of this absolute holding of land grew an indepen- 

 dent yeomanry, which in the fullness of time stormed 

 Louisburg, the Gibraltar of France in America, and a 

 generation later defied England's power on Bunker Hill. 



Such men — the men of the town meeting — the men who 

 made America the shining example of human development, 

 came from the stock of owners and tillers of the soil. 



A peasantry never accomplished such results. A 

 peasantry may tear down, but never build up. Wherever 

 man owns his farm, his garden, or his house, it is safe to 



