(APPENDIX, No. 1.)

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE

WATERLOO LIBRARY AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY,

NOVEMBER 27th, 1877,

-BY

S. R. WELLES, M. D.,

WATERLOO, N. Y.

-:0:

To an American, comparing his country with the nations of the old world, his native land had for him hitherto but a present and a future. Coming into existence as a development of a new growth emanating from many ancient forms of government, and representing all phases of old world life and thought; an union of elements diverse and heterogeneous, but by the wonderful chemistry of a natural law of national assimilation, so fused and blended as to produce a homogeneous and harmonious whole, his country seemed an evolution, from confusion and discord, of a new and higher national state of being. Thus formed, the young America was left to make for herself a name and record among the nations of the world.

To the American, in the vista of the past, was revealed no long line of barbaric monarchs, or feudal sovereigns, to stimulate his loyalty or nourish his national pride, no splendid cathedrals, whose massive walls and sculptured images told in eloquent silence of the perpetuity of a national faith, no turreted castles fostering ancestral pride,

no galleries of art where, looking upon the inspired canvas, he could claim kinship with the great master of centuries long past. To him, except as claiming a common humanity, the bard, the painter and the sculptor of past ages, were alien; he had but an ownership, in common with all the world, in the Shakespeares, the Dantes and the Goethes, the Raphaels, and the Angelos of the distant past. I have said hitherto, but now at the expiration of a hundred years, a hundred years which have rolled around so quietly that their lapse has been scarcely noted, it suddenly beams upon the nation's consciousness, that, working bravely in the present, untrammelled by prejudices and usages of the past, and unshackled by theories, she has made for herself a history and a name; and her hundred years' apprenticeship ended, she invites the nations of the old world, -the journeymen and master-workmen, to inspect the work of her 'prentice hand. With pardonable pride she points to her industries and inventions, and receives their congratulation and welcome to full communion and fellowship in the sisterhood of nations, and now, assured of her position, confident of the present, hopeful of the future, she can look back through all the struggles of her birth, growth and progress, and behold a glorious past.

During the last few years, with one accord, and as if by common impulse, in sympathy with the spirit of the years, individuals and communities have halted in their eager race for wealth, have taken a breathing space in their pursuit of pleasure, and looked back over the path they have traversed, have scanned the landmarks, estimated the distances and wisely gathered up the experiences of the past. It was in this spirit of retrospection that this organization was effected, moved by it, we are here to-night. Our local history is brief. The short span of a man's life covers it. There are those yet among us who with their own eyes have seen all of Waterloo from its

birth, have grown with its growth, have read its history from living pages, as it was made, known all the actors, viewed all the shifting scenes as unrolled, and closed by time. 'Tis a short story, beginning with the old log mill of 1794, and ending with us here to-night.

It is our part to see that all the leaves of the past are gathered up, it is for those who come after us to guard the future that no page be lost hereafter.

Like travelers standing on the sites of buried cities, we stand upon the graves of a lost race, a great people submerged by the tide of an alien civilization. Grant, that this was their inevitable destiny-no flattering unction will destroy the consciousness which links forever, with the red man's name, the cruel wrong he suffered, nor will time efface the memory of valorous deeds and proud endurance which makes classic the soil the Iroquois once trod. As we stand where once he stood in the pride of absolute, unquestioned sway, and whereof now naught remains save here and there a name given by him to a lake or stream, a name, the only heirloom of a lordly race, imagination invokes the spirit of the past, and we can hear the wail of the last of the Iroquois as he looks upon the hunting-ground lost to him forever.

(1) "Thea-an-de-nea-gua, of the martial brow,

(2) Gy-ant wa, (3) Ho ne-ya-was, where are they?
(4) Sago-ye-wat-ha, he is silent now;

No more will listening throngs his voice obey.
Like visions have the mighty passed away,
Their tears descend in rain drops, and their sighs
Are heard in wailing winds, when evening gray
Shadows the landscape, and their mournful eyes
Gleam in the misty light of moon-illumined skies.
Gone are my tribes-men, and another race

(1) Brant.

(2) Corn Planter.

(3) Farmer's Brother.

(4) Red Jacket.

Boru of the foam, disclose with plough and spade

Secrets of battle field and burial place.

And hunting grounds, once dark with pleasant shade,
Bask in the golden light.

-Hosmer.

The region between the waters of Cayuga and Seneca was thickly dotted with the towns of the Iroquois. The site of our own village, with its rapids, superb fishing and abundant game, its fertile soil and easy access to the lakes on either side, was particularly attractive to the Cayugas,and, clung to by them with the greatest tenacity, was the last of their hunting grounds surrendered to the white man's greed.

Here, on historic ground, where lived and passed away successive generations of a vanished race, let us invoke the spirit of the past. She grants to our retrospective glance, a vision of peace, a nation of red men, a brave, simple people, undisputed owners of the soil, worshipping the Great Spirit of their theology, in their own way, as their ancestors had done for how long we know not, having the vices, it is true, but also the virtues of barbaric life; a proud confederacy, linked together by a Totem-ic tie, rivaling in its completeness and efficiency, any union of States of ancient or modern times, carrying out the doctrine of State rights in a confederation, guarding, with admirable discretion, against the anarchy born of popular license on the one hand,and the danger to liberty, engendered by arbitrary despotism on the other, a free, hardy, independent race, meeting by their representatives in council at the capital of their nation, to contract alliances, conclude treaties, declare war and do all other things which a free and independent people may, of right, do, extending the limits of their territory, literally carrying their conquest from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, or satiated with conquest, busied with the vocations of peace, hunting, fishing and tilling the ground.