[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 64 (Friday, May 17, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E846]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             350TH ANNIVERSARY OF LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 16, 2002

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today 
to recognize the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts on its upcoming 350th 
anniversary. Lancaster was incorporated in 1653, and is the oldest town 
in Worcester County. Lancaster is the town from which the surrounding 
towns of Harvard, Bolton, Leominster, Sterling, Berlin, and Clinton 
were formed. Lancaster was the home to Mary Rowlandson, whose 1682 
narrative of her captivity during King Philip's War was one of the most 
popular books of the 17th century.
  Mr. Speaker, the fifth meetinghouse of the First Church of Christ in 
Lancaster was designed by Boston architect Charles Bullfinch and is a 
nationally recognized gem of American architecture. The well-known 
publishing firm of Carter and Andrews issued illustrated children's 
books and textbooks in Lancaster between 1828 and 1834. Lancaster was 
the birthplace in 1849 of horticulturist Luther Burbank, the 
progressive Industrial School for Girls, the first reform school set up 
on the cottage system, was established in Lancaster in 1854. The South 
Lancaster Village Church of the Seventh-Day Adventists was dedicated in 
1878 and the South Lancaster Academy (predecessor of Atlantic Union 
College) was opened in 1882. Henry Stedman Nourse, noted historian and 
public servant at the state and local levels, spent the greater part of 
his life in Lancaster. The Rev. Edmund Hamilton Sears, who wrote the 
Christmas hymn ``It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,'' was the seventh 
minister of Lancaster's First Church of Christ. The Lancaster Town 
Library, established in 1862, offers a rich and unusual collection of 
valuable research materials, including a copy of the Nuremberg 
Chronicle of 1493 and a folio edition of Audubon's The Birds of 
America. Citizens of Lancaster have served America honorably in all 
wars and conflicts since the 17th century.
  Mr. Speaker, these are just a few of the many great things about the 
Town of Lancaster, which I am honored to represent in Congress. I ask 
that the whole House join me in congratulating the people of Lancaster 
as they celebrate the town's 350th anniversary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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