Ohio History Journal



562 Ohio Arch

562         Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

GATHERING UNDER THE OAKS.

On July 6th the Secretary of the Society was the honored invitee

of the committee of arrangements at the semi-centennial anniversary

celebration of the birth of the Republican party held at Jackson, Mich.,

in a picturesque grove of oak trees just outside the city limits.

It was at Jackson, Mich., on July 6, 1854, that the first great mass

meeting of members of the Whig, Abolitionist, Anti-slavery Democrat,

and other members of nondescript political parties met "under the oaks"

and organized and named the Republican party. This meeting led to

the nomination of a State ticket for Michigan, which was elected the

following fall. Some ten thousand voters in Michigan signed the peti-

tion for this meeting. The anniversary meeting was one of great

interest and patriotism. The platform for the speakers was located in a

hollow of the grove, in front of a large temporary enclosure, to the

seats of which were admitted some eight hundred veteran Republicans

who cast their first vote in that party for Fremont in 1856. Of these

eight hundred, some four hundred were present at the initial meeting

held in Jackson fifty years before. It was a remarkable audience of

political veterans, many of them scarred and maimed from service in

the great rebellion.  The honor address of the day was by Mr. John

Hay, the distinguished Secretary of State, formerly private secretary

to President Lincoln, and since the statesman and diplomat, and a life

member from its organization of the Ohio State Archaeological and

Historical Society. His address was in eloquence and scholarship worthy

of the occasion and the reputation of the speaker. Addresses were also

made by Senators Fairbanks and Burrows, Governor Bliss of Michigan,

Speaker Joseph Cannon and others,

 

 

 

HISTORICAL BULLETIN.

The Historical Bulletin, an interesting publication issued at Wash-

ington, D. C., and devoted to genealogy, patriotism and historical

research, in its issue for August, 1904, has, as its initial article, an in-

forming account of the inception of the National Society Sons of the

American Revolution, by George Williams Bates, of Detroit, Michigan.

Mr. Bates is the Historian-General of the National Society, S. A. R.,

and moreover one of its most enthusiastic and popular workers. At

the last National Convention of the Society, held at St. Louis, Mr. Bates,

who   on  that occasion  delivered  an  admirable  address  on  the

Louisiana Purchase, was re-elected Historian-General for the fourth

term, evidencing not only the value of his labors in his office but

the appreciation of the same by the members of the organization. Mr.

Bates is a descendant of a number of distinguished New England