[p. 125]
Dedication of memorial tablet to Sarah (Bradlee) Fulton.
more than sixty years ago, in the gray of a November morning, the ‘Passing
Bell’ announced that a life was ended.
Seventy, eighty, ninety, ninety-five, the bell tolled out, and many guessed that the aged mistress of the woodland farm, who only the day before had been about her usual tasks, was gone.
A procession came slowly through the gate of the burying-place.
There walked sons and daughters, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but the old friends who had known
Sarah Fulton in her youth were gathered there before her in their narrow homes.
She was laid in the tomb belonging to Nathan Wait, her son-in-law, and in a few years only her descendants cherished the memory of her words and deeds.
The years brought changes to the town, but few to the little hamlet of the dead.
Over the grass-grown mounds bent the lofty trees, and in their branches the birds sang and nested as their forebears had done for two hundred years.
There came a time when a wave of devotion to patriot ancestors swept over the land, and a chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution was formed in the city of
Medford, which took the name of
Sarah Bradlee Fulton.
From its organization, the Chapter hoped to erect a tablet to her memory.
On May twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred, this desire was granted and the dedication took place.
With the hum of electric cars on one side and the puffing of locomotives on the other, how different
[p. 126] the company gathered on that spring afternoon from the one that stood before that tomb in the village quiet of 1835! Two persons were present on both occasions,
Mrs. Susan (
Smith) Wait and her son
Francis A. Wait, the former the widow of
Nathan W. Wait, grandson of
Mrs. Fulton.
The State Regent of
Massachusetts, and the regents of twenty chapters, Daughters of the
American Revolution, came to honor the patriot woman.
Descendants of
Mrs. Fulton, representing the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations, were present.
Only one of the third generation was living,
Mr. John A. Fulton, of
Cambridge, whom infirmity prevented from being present.
Residents of
Medford, and the members of Sarah Bradlee Fulton Chapter, stood around, and as the strains of ‘
Duke Street’ rose with the words,
Great God of Nations!
now to Thee
Our hymn of gratitude we raise,
all felt the solemnity of the hour.
The first company who gathered there were mourning for a departed mother, a woman who had been heroic in her efforts to provide the best for them, to deny herself, to keep her courage in adversity, and to bring up her ten children in the fear of the
Lord.
The second assembly thanked God for her life and the service she rendered when her country needed every man and woman to found a glorious republic.
The tablet raised to her memory is a rough slab of native granite, set on a foundation of field stone.
Medford furnished the material and the workmen to complete the monument.
For fifty years
Sarah Fulton passed back and forth over this stone, which was at the threshold of her home.
If the old stone could speak, what tales it could tell
[p. 127] of the glad days and the sad days of her long and useful life.
Over it walked the bearers as they carried forth all that was mortal of
John Fulton, the husband of her youth, and over it tripped the brides, as one by one her children went out to found homes of their own; over it pattered the little feet of her grandchildren, and over it she went to her long home.
Some thirty years ago the old house was burned, and beside the cellar wall only the door stone was left.
The property passed out of the family, but fortunately into the hands of one who venerates the past of his native town, and through his generosity the tablet was obtained.
1
The dedication exercises were very simple.
In the absence of the
Chaplain of the Chapter (who was prevented by illness) the invocation was pronounced by
Rev. Henry C. DeLong, pastor of the First Parish, of which
Mrs. Fulton was a member.
The
Regent of the Chapter,
Mrs. Charles H. Loomis, spoke briefly, introducing the
State Regent, who in beautiful language gave a history of the patriotic deeds of
Mrs. Fulton, enjoining the audience, and through them the people of
Massachusetts, to emulate the devotion to country which she possessed.
The
Secretary of the Chapter read a poem written for the occasion by
C. H. Loomis.
For the descendants of John and Sarah (
Bradlee)
Fulton, William Cushing Wait,
Esq., addressed the assembly, speaking of his ancestress first as a mother, then as a patriot.
Rev. Millard F. Johnson, of the First Baptist Church, gave the benediction.
Wreathed in laurel tied with the colors of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, facing the little cemetery, where many flags waved over graves of
[p. 128] soldiers of the
War of Independence, the tablet stands inscribed:
Sarah Bradlee Fulton
1740-1835
A Heroine of the Revolution
erected by the
Sarah Bradlee Fulton Chapter, D. A. R.
1900
In the words of the Regent of the Chapter, ‘The memory of the lives of those noble women of a hundred years ago is a legacy to every American woman, a trust to be proud of, and one to be administered in the spirit of unselfish devotion, lofty purpose, and true womanhood.’
the
Committee on Papers and Addresses has given an interesting series the past season:
November.—‘The Second and Mystic Churches,’ by
Charles Cummings.
December.—‘The Homes of the Puritans,’ by
Rev. T. F. Waters.
January.—‘Benjamin Hall,’ by
Helen T. Wild.
February.—‘The
Royall House and Farm,’ by
John H. Hooper.
April.—‘
Paul Revere's Ride,’ with lantern slides, by
W. C. Eddy.
May.—‘Slavery in
Medford,’ by
Walter H. Cushing.
