140 



Dr. Wheatland introduced Dr. GEORGE B. LORING, who spoke as 

 follows : 



LADIE!S AND GENTLEMEN : I cannot assume the honorable position 

 which the President of our Institution has assigned me, without call- 

 ing to your minds the associations which gather around a visit of the 

 historical explorers of Essex County, to the renowned locality where 

 the Puritans planted their genius on this continent, after vain, and I 

 think, heaven-thwarted endeavors to plant it elsewhere. We are 

 reminded of the early relations which existed between the great men 

 of Essex and Plymouth. When, in compliance with a promise to 

 Koger Conant, who, as. early as 1626, was found nursing the infant 

 Massachusetts Colony on the headlands of Cape Ann, and who, with 

 his companions, has been called " the sentinels of Puritanism on the 

 Bay of Massachusetts," John Endicott, a "Puritan of the sternest 

 mould," embarked in the Abigail, for the settlement of Naumkeag, 

 Plymouth was his guiding star, and the God of the Puritan was his 

 " stay and staff " thi'ough all his trial. Disease attacked these first 

 settlers of Salem, and " being destitute of a physician, Dr. Fuller of 

 Plymouth went to their relief; and in the interview with Mr. Endi- 

 cott, the religious views of the Pilgrim were discussed, which led to 

 a correspondence between Mr. Endicott and Governor Bradford, then 

 personally strangers, and a friendship commenced which lasted till 

 death." Then it was that the Woodburys, and Balches, and Palfreys 

 of Essex County learned the earnestness and fidelity and power of the 

 Carvers, and Brewsters, and Wiuslows, and Aldens, and Standishes 

 of Plymouth ; and now we, in whose veins the blood of both colonies 

 has commingled, are here to view the sacred relics and tread the 

 sacred soil of our ancestors. The same sun which lighted their 

 watery pathway, has shone for us on our journey hither; upon the 

 bosom of these waters theif humble shallops floated ; the soft land 

 breezes cheer, and the fierce gales vex the voyager, as they did when 

 the Mayflower and the Abigail bore their precious freights ; here is 

 the same "stern and rock bound coast;" here are the islands and the 

 low line of shore, and here, let us piously and gratefully believe, is 

 the same defiant spirit, the same earnest faith, the same trust in God 

 and humanity, which gave the Puritan immortal force, and which have 

 stood as firm against all attacks, as have these promontories against 

 the assaults of the raging seas. 



I have -no time here to discuss the genius, or recite the history of 

 the Puritans of Plymouth and Naumkeag ; but, while as a citizen of 

 Essex County I can congratulate the men of Plymouth that upon 

 their name, and not upon ours, has the mantle of immortality fallen, I 

 congratulate the world that the Puritan spirit of our common ances- 



