which was read by the Rev. B. K. Peirce, D.D., with the accompanying note:

WINDERMERE, ENGLAND, May 30, 1876.

MY DEAR SIR, - I take pleasure in participating in the approaching patriotic meeting of our fellow-citizens; and, though late (because your letter has been slow in reaching me), I send you the following lines. It may gratify your imaginings to know that they were written partly at Sheffield, where the sweet Christian poet Montgomery lived, and labored, and loved, and died, honored and lamented; and partly on the banks of Lake Windermere, where Wordsworth lived, and wrote himself into immortality.

Very respectfully yours,

S. F. SMITH.

The President then introduced the orator of the day, the Hon. ex-Mayor JAMES F. C. HYDE, who gave the following

HISTORICAL ADDRESS.

In the year 1631 the settlement of the New Town (Cambridge) was begun; and the earliest town records. bear date November, 1632. This New Town, of which our present city of Newton forms a small part, embraced at one time what is now Cambridge, Brookline, Brighton, Arlington, Lexington, Billerica, what was once a part of Watertown, Bedford, part of Tewksbury, and even as far as the Merrimac River. It is said, "She began the smallest township in the Colony, and soon became the largest."

In these early days, there were few houses, and those of rude construction. Deputy Gov. Dudley about this time said, "In our New Town we have ordered that no man shall build his chimney with wood, or cover his house with thatch." The latter precaution was taken because there had been a house burned in Boston by taking fire on the roof. It was the desire and intention on the part of many to make New Town the metropolis of the Colony, instead of Boston.

On the establishment of Harvard University in 1638, it was ordered by the General Court, that New Town should henceforward be called Cambridge. A portion of the large territory on the south side of Charles River, once within the limits of New Town, had reverted to Boston and