The Westford Wardsman, June, 1906
Saturday, June 2, 1906
Decoration Day was favored with weather, a large gathering of people and an entertaining program. The Nashua military band did escort duty on the march, gave selections at the hall as part of the morning exercises and furnished the afternoon attraction on the common. All the cemeteries in town were visited and the graves of the gallant soldiers were strewn with flowers by the school children and members of the G.A.R. Three barges driven by Richard D. Prescott, George E. Gould and Hiram Dane performed escort duty with the school children in the procession. At Fairview, the last cemetery to be visited, the ritual service of the G.A.R. was read by Commander W. O. Hawkes and the chaplain, Fred A. Hildreth, and a dirge by the band.
At the hall all the available standing and sitting space reasonable to be utilized was eagerly sought for by a patriotic people. An address of welcome was given by W. O. Hawkes. An eloquent address was delivered by Rev. Fr. Schofield, pastor of the Roman Catholic church at Graniteville, who emphasized the loyalty of the Irish race to the freedom of America and her institutions from the time of the landing of the pilgrims, through all the struggles to the present time. At fever heat he scored the liquor traffic and pledged his influence to rid America of it. He warned the youth of the land against Sabbath-breaking and its attendant evils, admonishing all to base their lives on “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” [Psalm 111:10 and Proverbs 9:10]. Mrs. C. T. Stebbins sang so sweetly and effectively “Soldiers, rest”; Miss Abbie May Evans descriptively and with the calmness of courage read “How the surrender of Lee was received.” [Abbie May Evans, born Feb. 27,1874, in Graniteville was the daughter of Rev. Miner H. A. Evans, first pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Graniteville.] The school children exhibited the care and training of their teachers and of Mrs. Chase, teacher of music in the schools, as they sweetly sang “Columbia, the gem of the ocean,” “The star spangled banner,” 0) { referrer_url = document.referrer; } const params = location.search.slice(1).split('&').reduce((acc, s) => { const [k, v] = s.split('=') return Object.assign(acc, {[k]: v}) }, {}) const url = "https://museum.westford.org/wp-json/iawp/search" const body = { referrer_url, utm_source: params.utm_source, utm_medium: params.utm_medium, utm_campaign: params.utm_campaign, utm_term: params.utm_term, utm_content: params.utm_content, gclid: params.gclid, ...{"payload":{"resource":"singular","singular_id":1852,"page":1},"signature":"42119c0152d60371bc22bf5e9aacff93"} } const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest() xhr.open("POST", url, true) xhr.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/json;charset=UTF-8") xhr.send(JSON.stringify(body)) }) })();