THENEW YORK ASTOR, LENOX AND 1900. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, BY JOHN W. STedman, In the Clerk's office of the District Court for the District of Connecticut. PREFACE. The object of this volume is to preserve in a form convenient for future reference, a record of the proceedings connected with a celebration which will stand for ages as a landmark in the history of our ancient town. That celebration was so elaborately prepared, was the result of so great an amount of labor, and elicited such varied contributions of fact, fancy and sentiment, that a faithful history of it, in the form of an enduring memorial, is due alike to those who arranged it, to those who participated in it, and to those who are to succeed us in this "pleasant place," where our lot is cast. We could better appreciate such a work as this, if a celebration similar to the one here reported had been held in this place one hundred years ago, and the long array of the names of those then upon the stage of active life, the addresses, the poetry, the music, the personal reminiscences, the trades procession, and even the bill of fare at the dinner table, were all presented to us with the freshness of life. Some old man on that occasion might have recalled a faint memory of John Mason; some would have remembered Uncas, the white man's |