Excerpt from An Anniversary Discourse, Delivered at Dudley, Massachusetts, March 20, 1853: With Topographical and Historical Notices of the Town This is my birth-day; and if any one should address me in the language of Pharaoh to Jacob, and ask, How old art thou 9 I Should not an swer in the complaining language of that much afflicted and greatly tried patriarch: Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been; and have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrim age. No! For I could not thus answer with truth. But I should rather say: 'many and good have the days of the years of my life been; and I have fully attained to the days of the years of my fathers in their pilgrimage.' For I am this day l/treescore and seventeen years old - seven years beyond the common age even of those who live out all their days - having been born at Cohasset, on the 20th day of March, 1776, three months and a half before the birth of our country - before the declaration of the independence of the United States of America. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.