Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 15.

Hero worship began early with me. For no reason that I can give, before I was nine years old Daniel Webster had caught my imagination, and stories about him, and his pictures, have had a fascination for me from that time. In later years I stood beside his burial-place in Marshfield with a feeling of reverence. He was the orator at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, and again at its completion in 1847. My father, as a young man, was present at the latter occasion, and from his lips I had the story of his seeing this great man, and of the immense throng gathered there.

A later hero that strongly appealed to me was Edward Everett, who died fifty years ago, January 15, 1865. In my first scrap-book, begun in childhood, I put a piece by T. W. Persons on the death of Everett. When in riper years I discarded this book, I took from it this one piece and placed it in another that I have today.

When Edward Everett made the speech of welcome to Lafayette in 1824 at the old church in Cambridge, it is said he brought tears and cheers from his hearers, comprising one of the finest audiences in America, when at the close of his Phi Beta Kappa address he turned to the visitor whom America delighted to honor.

Although these reasons may seem insignificant and trivial to you, yet the persons, places and events I have mentioned are to me the links of a perfect circle, a full round story of Lafayette's visit to Medford, and the people with whom he came in touch.