From New England Magazine March, 1899 The Old Granville and the New. By Francis Wayland Shepardson       In the closing volume of his History of the Pacific States, Hubert Howe Bancroft tells the story of his life work, indicating in delightful language how he collected the great library which furnished the original Rev. Timothy M. Cooley. material for his labors as a historian. There are certain chapters devoted to his family history; and in one of these, after describing the celebration of the golden wedding of his parents, he presents this picture:       "As I am now writing, my father, at the age of eighty-five, is talking with my children, aged six, four, two and one respectively, telling them of things happening when he was a boy, which were it possible for them to remember and tell at the age of eighty-five to their grandchildren, would indeed be a collating of the family book of life almost in century pages."       The scene deserves reproduction not alone because of its charm as a representation of domestic happiness, not alone because of its suggestion of the possibilities accompanying the life of hardy American families, The Mother Church. but also because the story it tells of American development, —as the aged pioneer, approaching the sunset of life, looked out over the calm waters of the broad Pacific, while he told his son's children of the westward movement of his family from Granville, Massachusetts, through Vermont, to Granville, Ohio, and thence with the eager Argonauts of 1849 to the golden strands of California.       Sometimes there is mourning over the abandoned farms of New England and wondering for the families which once peopled the declining towns; but regret is changed to rejoicing when the families are traced backward from the orange groves and the mines, from the prairies and the bustling cities of the West; and the record of achievement of American pioneers is found dull of certificates of indebtedness to the powerful influences of New England environment and New England blood.       The student of American social life knows well that it is in the smaller towns and not in the cities that he — page 97 — Previous Page | Next Page | Granville Page | Hampden County History & Genealogy |