and her naval captain at Manila, Falmouth can recall that twice she was bombarded by the British and twice defended by the valor of her sons, and when the Civil War broke out, with the larger share of her able-bodied men at sea, she yet sent more than her quota of soldiers to the front. Within the last quarter-century, Falmouth has entered on new activities, largely due to the increasing fame of Buzzard's Bay as a summer resort. The story goes that the town had all gone to sleep, but somebody woke one day and painted his front fence, and forthwith his neighbors, not to be outdone, painted theirs, and their houses too, and the new era came in with a rush. But whatever good fortune the future has in store, Paul Revere's bell, that sounds from her central steeple, will hold Falmouth true to her traditions; for these Cape towns, simple as their record is, have worked out on unconsciously heroic lines the essential principles of a God-fearing, self-respecting democracy. DEERFIELD OLD POCUMTUCK VALLEY BY GEORGE SHELDON To every one familiar with the history of the old Bay State, the name of Deerfield naturally brings to mind two diverse pictures: one, the giant trees of the primeval forest under whose sombre shade the white-haired Eliot prayed, and the sluggish stream beside whose banks he gathered its roving denizens for a test of civilization; the other, that scene of woe and desolation, when, under a wintry sky, the glare of burning houses lighted up a wide expanse of snow, shaded by dark columns of wavering smoke, and splashed here and there with red. The first picture suggests possibilities, the second results. The connecting link between the two is the fact that out of the labors of Eliot on the river Charles grew directly the settlement of the English on the Pocumtuck. Back of all was the interest in the newly discovered heathen, which sent currents of gold from England across the seas to the Indian missions. Of all these that of the Apostle Eliot was the head and front. His first attempt, at Newton, was a failure, from its proximity to a Christian town. On his petition, the General Court granted him a tract in the wilderness where he and the uncontaminated native could come face to face with the God of Nature. This tract was claimed by the town of Dedham, and, after a successful legal contest, the General Court gave the claimant in lieu of it the right to select eight thousand acres in any unoccupied part of the colony. After wide search this grant was laid out on Pocumtuck River, and the selection was ratified by the Court, October 11, 1665. This power, however, was only leave to purchase of the native owners. The laws recognized the rights of the Indians to the soil, and no Englishman was allowed to buy or even receive as a gift any land from an Indian without leave of the General Court. The oft-repeated slander that the fair purchase of land from the Indians was peculiar to William Penn, can be refuted in general by a study of our early statute books, and in particular by an examination of the original deeds from the Indians, now in our Memorial Hall. It will be seen by these deeds that the Indians reserved the right of hunting, fishing and gathering nuts-all, in fact, that was of any real value to them. The critic says that in such trades the price was nominal and that the Indian was outrageously cheated. Fortunately, in this case existing evidence proves that Dedham paid the natives more than the English market price, in hard cash, and besides gave one acre at Natick for every four here. The money to pay for the eight thousand acres was raised by a tax on the landholders of Dedham, the owners paying in proportion to the number of shares or "cow commons held; and their ownership of the new territory was in the same proportion. There were five hundred and twenty-two shares in all, held in common, covering the whole of Dedham. In 1671 a committee from Dedham laid out highways, set apart tracts for the support of the ministry, laid out a "Town Plott," and large sections of plow-land and of mow-land. |