26 



and its strength, for justice, in its pure decrees and inex- 

 orable execution. They point witli unerring finger to 

 a progressive past, and invite the gaze to a like progres- 

 sive future. 



The prosperous industries which have been established 

 here side by side with the farm, have served in a degree to 

 keep at home the enterprising and ambitious sons of Es- 

 sex. While in that great tide of emigration of the best 

 brain and sinew of New England, which has gone forth to 

 people the west, Essex County has furnished her quota, it 

 has not been in such proportions as in other sections. The 

 field of manufacture has been almost as inviting in its 

 newness and promise of reward as the great possibilities in 

 a new state or unsettled territory, and the eager and as- 

 piring farmer's son has emigrated to the workshop and the 

 counting room and the warehouse, in preference to joining 

 the westward moving throng. While these great drafts 

 have been made upon the east to settled vast areas of new 

 country, the small county in New Hampshire or Maine or 

 in some portions of Massachusetts, devoted entirely to 

 agriculture, may have lost in population, and now show 

 evidences of hastening decay. No such signs are visi})le 

 here. There are no abandoned farms in Essex county, as may 

 be easil}' ascertained by a person desiring to invest in one. 

 The growth of the industrial centres have furnished the 

 farmer with a near market for his product and added to 

 the value ^^■hicll his land possessed for agricultural pur- 

 poses, a value for building sites, and for public possession 

 as breathing places for a dense population. And now that 

 the glow and gloss is somewhat off of western enterprise, 

 and the first approach of a returning wave of population 

 and investment to the east can be discerned, it is our priv- 

 ilege to know that Essex county is already far advanced in 

 all that a new era of prosperity will accomplisli, and takes 

 her position in the march of piogress well to the front of 

 the procession. It is a ])art of the benefits of our diversi- 

 fied industry that we have had none of those periods of 



