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Frederick Foster Keith
Daily Hampshire Gazette
September 21, 1936
“Why is my name on this boulder, why on those roadside markers, why do I hear it from many lips today? What have I done that warrants the interest of the generation I find at the Pelham Old Home day of 1936?
Shall we answer him?
Daniel Shays, when you left Pelham a century and a half ago, your Bay State, the state for which you fought during four or five long years was in a state of ferment.
Because you were a capable and brave soldier against the oppression of a foreign foe, you were sought to lead the farmers of the state against certain forms of oppression which had become entrenched in law and custom at home.
Your little army of half-clad, half-starved, half-armed men, largely Revolutionary soldiers like yourself, suffered bitter cold on this very spot, as only men spurred by a righteous cause know how to suffer.
But more potent than your army was the aroused public opinion which stood behind you and of which you were not aware, an idea in the bud, whose time was soon to come.
You were maligned as a rebel by a nation which you compelled to discover its weakness that it might set about fortifying its strength the following year.
You left your beloved Pelham, a despised and defeated man, as you though, although you and your comrades were never ashamed of their part in the drama.
No charge of murder or pillage has been placed against them.
All the homes of New England were made safer and happier because of you.
You were branded as a rebel, but never as a traitor.
History has winked at many demands of your hot-headed companions, but it has exonerated all of your followers who dwelt in Pelham. By the testimony of this boulder, which is now to be unveiled, your neighbors and your state welcome you back and seek to perpetuate your name and your deeds when the site of your old home shall have been obliterated by a flood of waters.
You have written the name of Pelham on that immortal list of places like Lexington and Concord which classes them as national shrines.
Daniel Shays, this is your Old Home day!"
