The majority report of the committee was accepted and the bill failed.

In 1875 the subject of division was again brought before the legislature. A hearing was given by a committee and an unfavorable report resulted. A discussion followed in the house, and an effort was made to substitute for the committee's report Col. Loring's bill of the preceding year, leaving out Shirley and Townsend, but it was voted down and the committee's report accepted by a strong vote. This was the last attempt to secure a division of the county.

This is in brief the history of the several attempts to get a division of Worcester county during the past one hundred and sixty-three years. The cause is not dead but sleeping, and there are reasons for believing that the next effort will result in an easy victory.

Of the many struggles to bring about a division of the county, it is probable that those of the years 1854 and 1856 were the most persistently fought. In both of these years the petitioners had the services of Hon. Rufus Choate, the silver-tongued orator, of whom the present generation know but little from personal recollection, of whom it was said at the time of his death, "as an advocate he has left no successor at the Boston bar.”

No better talent could have been employed by the petitioners, and in both of these years he succeeded in having bills reported; but which failed, as has been before stated, in the legislature.

The leading counsel opposed to Mr. Choate in 1854 was Richard H. Dana of Boston, and in 1856 Judge Henry Allen of Worcester. Ex-Governor George S. Boutwell also opposed in behalf of Middlesex county in both of these years.

In 1852 Hon. Nathaniel Wood and Charles Mason

represented the petitioners, and Hon. Emery Washburn and Joseph Mason of Worcester, the remonstrants. Mr. Washburn also represented the remonstrants in 1855, and we have his argument in print, a pamphlet of seventy-six pages, from which I do not find it necessary to quote at the present time.

It has seemed to me that I cannot better close this hastily prepared paper than to read you some extracts from Mr. Choate's two arguments, the first made in April, 1854, and the second in April, 1856. [Mr. Willis then read several of the most effective portions of the addresses, closing with the following eloquent sentences contained in Mr. Choate's last argument of April, 1856.]

A very powerful final appeal was made to you on behalf of the four towns in the county of Middlesex, which it is said strongly desire to remain in the county of Bunker Hill, and Concord Bridge, and Lexington. Sir, I honor and have these beautiful regards, and this filial feeling which appeals so peculiarly to the glory of our fathers, and makes us all desire to share it. But, sir, I submit that I distrust the cause, although, in this case, I can hardly distrust the advocate who tries to enlist these holy and noble affections to defeat the claims of two and forty thousand of his fellow-citizens to an equality of justice. If he were here, I should be glad to tell Governor Boutwell that these same towns, when the proposition was first presented to them, petitioned by large majorities for a change. Had they then forgotten Bunker Hill; or is it not this vast body of misrepresentation in regard to the increased expenditure that has constantly influenced them to change their minds? Let me tell him that these sentiments refuse to march under the banner of injustice.

Let me tell him that the true descendant of the men who fought at Bunker Hill would be the first to say to this government:-"Gentlemen, assign me my civil or military post, and there I will stand, and there I will fall, by whatsoever name you please to call the county in which I live. Whatsoever place you assign me in the attainment of justice,whatsoever place you assign me in the accommodation of my fellowcitizens, I accept it gratefully, all of it; I accept it all. And meantime, on every Nineteenth of April, and Seventeenth of June, and Fourth of July, I shall continue to take my children, as heretofore, and lead them

out and show them where their ancestor was loading his gun for the last time when the British bayonet pierced his breast; I shall take them to the shade of the monument and teach them to be ready at that day when the country is to fall-when her day of trial shall come-to shed their blood too, in her defence; and I shall reconcile them and myself to that, as good citizens." There will be sentiment against sentiment. These aged men will pass away as a dream, and a new generation will come forward, in whose hearts will spring up that other feeling,-pride to know that there is inscribed on these hills and valleys the greatest name of earth, before whom all ancient and modern greatness is dim; pride to know that on their own county is borne the superscription of Washington, which is to stand a monument at once attesting and sharing his immortality. Let one sentiment, if it is sentiment, counteract the other; and between the two give us justice, and give us our rights. I thank the committee for their patience, and leave the case in their hands.

REV. GEORGE TRASK, THE "ANTI-TOBACCO

APOSTLE."

Read at a Meeting of the Society, September 21, 1896.

BY ATHERTON P. MASON, M. D.

George Trask was born in Beverly, Mass., August 26, 1796. His parents were Jeremiah and Hannah (Wallis) Trask. Of them and his ancestry Rev. Mr. Trask, in his autobiographical sketch printed in The Phrenological Journal, December, 1870, characteristically said: "They were both of a godly type-Israelites indeed-Calvinistic to the hub and as true to the venerable catechism as the needle to the pole. The blood of both is traceable to the blue hills of Scotland; and it must have been very respectable blood, for even now, in spite of all adulterations, it is not half so bad as much that is current about us. I have searched my pedigree and I find no Trask who was a king, lord, duke, or any tremendous character, and I find none that was hung, whatever our deserts."

Jeremiah Trask was a man of unusual intelligence, but in moderate circumstances, and young George was early put to work and so did not receive a very extended common school education. In later years, however, he acquired, through his own exertions, an excellent collegiate and professional training.

When about sixteen years old he was apprenticed to an elder brother, Israel Trask, of Beverly, who is credited with being the pioneer manufacturer of Britannia ware in

this country, and remained with him some four years. In 1816 he went to Marblehead and opened a hardware and jewelry store, where, as he expresses it, he "made a little money when it required but little brains and less knavery to make it." It was during his sojourn in Marblehead that the life-long intimacy between George Trask and the writer's grandfather, Dr. Calvin Briggs, began; and this close acquaintance was continued by the two families ever after. In 1819, young Trask was converted and felt an imperative call to prepare himself for the ministry. He therefore gave up his business, which by that time had become both lucrative and agreeable, and went to Gorham academy in Maine to fit for college, and in due time entered Bowdoin, where he graduated in 1826. During his collegiate course, George Trask was a marked man, not on account of his brilliancy as a scholar, for, as he wrote, "My recitations, if I remember aright, were indifferent, seldom calculated to inflame vanity and pride," but because of standing up for whatever he believed was right, and being strenuous in advocating unpopular measures. He was naturally an agitator and reformer, and aspired to usefulness rather than to greatness. As one of the Bowdoin professors remarked, "Trask is to be the useful man of his class." He was associated in college with such men as Franklin Pierce, John P. Hale, Jonathan Cilley, James Bradbury and others who afterward became famous; and with their bright and keen intellects his was often at variance. Many were the discussions he had, in the college debating societies, with these young men on slavery and other vital questions; and if he was on the unpopular side (as he usually was) and believed it was the right side, he advocated it with indomitable courage, perseverance and zeal.

One instance will suffice to illustrate his strong tendency to reform and his keen sense of justice. He thus relates it:

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