of its effulgence. Man, regenerated and disenthralled, beat down the walls of slavish incarceration, and trampled on the broken chains of regal bondage. The vast resources of an emancipated people were called into generous exertion. An enthusiastic spirit of independence glowed in every breast, and spread the uncontaminated sentiments of emulative freemen over the broad extent of an exasperated republic. The united energies of a virtuous people were strenuously directed to the effectual accomplishment of national independence. During those portentous times were achieved the most honorable deeds which are inscribed on the ever-during records of fame. Stimulated by accumulating wrongs, and elated by the purest feelings of anticipated success, no disastrous events could check the progress of their arms, no fascinating allurements deflect them from that honorable path which they had sworn to pursue, or perish in the hazardous attempt. Inspired by the guardian genius of Liberty, no barriers could oppose their impetuous career. Like the Pontic Sea, whose icy current and compulsive course ne'er feels retiring ebb,' the irrefluent tide of freedom rolls unrestrained. By the courageous virtue of our illustrious heroes were secured those inestimable blessings which we have since enjoyed. To the warriors and statesmen of the Revolution are we indebted for all those distinguished privileges which place the citizens of the United States beyond the predatory vengeance of ruthless oppression. This invaluable inheritance is the prize of slaughter acquired by the lives of contending freemen, secured with the blood of battling patriots."

The father of Gen. Dearborn, who was in the battle of Bunker Hill, and a captain in Col. Stark's regiment, relates that, being destitute of ammunition, the regiment formed in front of a house occupied as an arsenal, where each man received a gill-cup full of powder, fifteen balls, and one flint. The several captains were then ordered to march their companies to their respective quarters, and make up their powder and ball into cartridges, with the greatest possible despatch. As there were scarcely two muskets in a company of equal calibre, it was necessary to reduce the size of the balls for many of them; and as but a small proportion of the men had cartridge-boxes, the remainder made use of powder-horns and ball-pouches. Every platoon-officer was engaged in discharging his own musket, and left his men to fire as they pleased, but never without a sure aim at some particular object. He did not see a man quit his post during the action; and did not believe a single soldier who was brought into the field fled until the

whole army was obliged to retreat for want of powder and ball. It is a most extraordinary fact, that the British did not make a single charge during the battle; which, if attempted, would have been decisive and fatal to the Americans, as they did not carry into the field fifty bayonets. In his company there was but one. Not an officer or soldier of the continental troops engaged was in uniform, but were in the plain and ordinary dress of citizens; nor was there an officer on horseback.

Henry A. S. Dearborn was born in Exeter, N. H., March 3, 1783; was the son of Gen. Henry, who married Dorcas Osgood, March 28, 1780. He early entered Williamstown Academy; was first a student at Williamstown College; entered, in advance, at William and Mary's College, Williamsburgh, Va., where he graduated in 1803. He studied law under Hon. William Wirt, and closed his course with Judge Story, of Salem; begun the practice of law in Portland, in 1806, and married Hannah Swett, a daughter of Col. William R. Lee, of Marblehead, at Salem, Mass., May 3, 1807. He became a counsellor-at-law; was deputy-collector of Boston, under his father, in 1811, and his successor as collector of the port of Boston in 1813, which station he occupied until the appointment of David Henshaw, in 1830. Gen. Dearborn delivered the oration on our national independence, July 4, 1811, for the Bunker Hill Association; which, with the Republican Society, were merged in a new society, called the Washington Society, of which Charles Hood was the first president. He was commander of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, in 1816; 5; was brigadier-general of the Massachusetts militia, in 1814; was a member from Roxbury of the convention for revising the State constitution, 1820. He was a Roxbury representative in 1830; of the Governor's Council, of the State Senate, from Norfolk, 1831, and a member of Congress in 1832. He was also the adjutant-general of Massachusetts, 1835. In 1847 Gen. Dearborn was the second elected Mayor of Roxbury, which station he honored to the day of his decease, July 29, 1851.

The reports of the speeches of Gen. Dearborn, in the journal of the convention of 1820, evince force of argument and political sagacity. In his speech on religious tests, he remarked that political opinions were not subject to a test,—why should those upon religion be subject to any? They had no right to compel a man to throw open the portals of the mind, and discover his religious sentiments. He trusted such

oppression would not prevail in this free and enlightened country. There was no authority for it in the Scriptures; and it was not until the third century that persons raised to civil offices were required to believe in any particular religious creed. He had heard it said that this test will exclude immoral and wicked men from office. He asked if such had been the effect of tests in other countries. The offer of a sceptre had induced princes to cross themselves, or to throw off their allegiance to the Pope, just as suited their views of aggrandizement. In England a man goes to take the sacrament, not to repent of his sins, but because he is chosen First Lord of the Treasury. The Declaration of Independence which proclaims, and the United States constitution which prescribes, our rights, require no testno reason requires a test in the State constitution.

The origin of the Rural Cemetery at Mount Auburn may be traced to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, whose anniversary discourse he delivered September, 1828; and was its first president, when a committee was selected to devise measures for this purpose, in connection with an experimental garden. Gen. Dearborn, while president of this society, was chairman of this committee, and prepared a report, in which an extensive and able exposition was made of the advantages of the undertaking; and, on the 8th of June, 1831, another committee, of which Gen. Dearborn was a member, was appointed to forward this object, and for sixty days a horse and chaise was ready at his door, that he might traverse the grounds and execute the design. On Sept. 24th, of the same year, the cemetery was consecrated, and Hon. Judge Story gave an eloquent address on the occasion; and much credit should be conceded to Gen. Dearborn for the architectural and rural taste exhibited in the order of Mount Auburn Cemetery. The city of Roxbury is under peculiar obligation to Mayor Dearborn as the originator of Forest Hills Cemetery, consecrated June 28, 1848. In allusion to this noble repository of the dead, the honored Mayor Dearborn remarks of it as "a retired, umbrageous, magnificent, and sacred garden, which will continually augment the number and variety of funereal monuments, as well as insure the erection of such other structures as may be deemed expedient, and so capacious as to entirely supersede the occasion for any other burial-place in that city."

Mayor Dearborn, of Roxbury, had accumulated ninety volumes of manuscript, largely of his own production; among which is the Life and Times of Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn, including an extensive cor

respondence with the greatest men of our country, in eleven volumes. He had written a Diary, or journal of his own life and times, and correspondence with famous men, in forty-five volumes. He had written Grecian Architecture, in two volumes folio; a volume on Flowers, with drawings, and compiled a Harmony of the Life of Christ, 8vo., prepared for the instruction of his children, when they were educated. He had written the Memoirs of Commodore William Bainbridge, in 400 pages; a History of the Battle of Bunker Hill, in several hundred pages of quarto, besides literary and scientific works. He was author, moreover, of the Memoirs of Col. William R. Lee, in two volumes quarto. Gen. Dearborn had an extensive library in his romantic cottage in Roxbury, where the intervals of leisure were devoted to his diary and literary research. Would that he had lived to complete the hundredth volume of mental power! No man in New England was more devoted to literature and science. He had great force of intellect, and a large share of varied learning. His unpublished productions will add new illustrations to American history, and would be a valuable legacy to the Massachusetts Historical Society, should they never be published. The most valuable work ever printed of which he was the author is the History of the Commerce of the Black Seas, in two volumes octavo, which has a high character in the North American Review of 1820. Should his residence be destroyed by fire, with all the manuscripts, it would cause a vacuum that never can be filled.

In the peroration of Dr. Putnam's eulogy on Gen. Dearborn we find this glowing passage: "Lie lightly upon his bosom, ye clods of the valley; for he trod softly on you, in loving regard for every green thing that ye bore! Bend benignantly over him, ye towering trees of the forest, and soothe his slumbers with the whisperings of your sweetest requiem; for he loved you as his very brothers of God's garden, and nursed you, and knew almost every leaf on your boughs! Guard sacredly his ashes, ye steep, strong cliffs that gird his grave; for ye were the altars at which he worshipped the Almighty One, who planted you there in your strength."

Mayor Dearborn was a member of the American Antiquarian Society, Massachusetts Historical Society, New England Genealogical Historic Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Association for Advancement of Science.

BENJAMIN POLLARD.

JULY 1, 1812. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

THE ancestor of this family was William Pollard, whose wife, Anne died in Boston, Dec. 6, 1725, aged one hundred and five years, and left of her offspring one hundred and thirty. She used to relate that she went over in the first boat that crossed Charles River, in 1630, to what has since been called Boston; that she was the first that jumped ashore; and she described the place as being at that time very uneven, abounding in small hollows and swamps, and covered with blueberry and other bushes. In the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society is a portrait of this centenarian, taken in 1723, presented by Isaac Winslow, Esq. Col. Benjamin Pollard, a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1726, Sheriff of Suffolk for thirteen years, and founder of the Boston Cadets in 1744, whose portrait is also in the Historical Society, was father of Col. Jonathan Pollard, who married Mary Johnson; was a goldsmith, whose shop adjoined that of the bookstore of Gen. Knox, and in 1777 was an aid-de-camp to the latter in the Revolutionary War; and Benjamin, the subject of this notice, was his son, born in Boston in 1780, on the site of the Tremont Temple. His teacher was Francis Nichols, in Scollay's Buildings, who was an importer of books from London. He was Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1811 to 1815. He was secretary of the State convention for revising the constitution, in 1820; and was the City Marshal of Boston from its incorporation, in 1822, until his decease, November, 1836, aged fifty

six.

Marshal Pollard was very partial to polite literature and politics, and was the reputed editor of two periodicals, the Emerald, and the Ordeal, which, it is said, went down at no distant period from each other. Ignorant of this fact, a literary stranger inquired of Robert Treat Paine "what rank this gentleman held among the literati." Paine answered, "He possesses the greatest literary execution of any man in America. Two journals have perished under his hands, in six months." The Ordeal was first issued in January, 1809, in connection with Joseph T. Buckingham; and its objects were, to attack the Democratic party, to review and ridicule the small literary publica