Re-dedication By Barbara Foote
Welcome, friends, family, Foote Family Association of America Members, and members of the board, Cousins, Wethersfield residents, and distinguished guests. Good Afternoon and welcome to the anniversary of the dedication of the Nathaniel Foote Memorial Monument, here in Wethersfield this 8th day of August 2009.
How did the Foote Family Association come to be: Abram Foote of Middlebury, Vt. and my hometown, spent many years traveling and gathering data on Foote descendants and in 1907 published the first volume of the genealogy and history of the Foote Family. About 6 months before the publication, a group of Foote’s gathered in New York City and a plan was made to host a reunion of Foote descendants. The response was so enthusiastic, that the reunion was planned to be held in Wethersfield, Connecticut, the town in which Nathaniel Foote settled.
On June 4 1907, the Foote Family gathered in Hartford, Conn. In a talk given by Dr Lewis Nathaniel Foote, he expressed the hope that the foundations we lay today, that the Foote Family Association may last to the end of time. The very first Foote Family Association gathering was held in Wethersfield, Conn. on June 5, 1907. At that time, nearly everyone was surprised to find that there was not a marker of any kind to locate graves of any of our ancestors in the Wethersfield Cemetery.
Judge Abram Foote of Middlebury, Vt., Dr Lewis N. Foote of Brooklyn, N.Y. and John A Foote of Catskill, N.Y. were appointed a committee to raise money for, and to place in the town of Wethersfield, a suitable Memorial to Nathaniel Foote the settler. Nathaniel Foote the settler was named one of the 10 adventurers that founded and settled in Wethersfield, Ct. Nathaniel traveled 14 days through unsettled land, with no path or road wide enough for teams of horses and the danger of wild animals and savage Indians.
Nathaniel was looking for a better life and he found a peaceful spot on the Connecticut River here in Wethersfield.
This great monument is of Barre, Vt. granite, roughhewn and is seven and a half feet high by four feet by three and a half feet on the base. On the face this inscription, cut in large block letters, very hard to see today it reads:
Nathaniel Foote The Settler
Born in England 1593
Died in Wethersfield 1644
Erected by the Foote Family
Association of America on the
original home lot Sept 17, 1908
On the reverse side lists the children of Nathaniel Foote and his wife, Elizabeth Deming.
This is surmounted by a bronze electric lamp eight feet high. Making the total height 15 feet and six inches. The base rests on a concrete foundation, seven feet deep.
In the foundation, under the base is a sealed copper box, containing a copy of the Foote Genealogy 1908, reports of the first meeting of the association, list of moneys given to the memorial fund, and the members of the association.
We do not know that Nathaniel achieved any special distinction among his fellows during his short life, such as mankind is accustomed to commemorate by memorials or monuments. We have no reason to believe he was a statesman or soldier.
He was in all probability a plain ordinary average man among his fellows, with no right or title to special distinction above the others, and quite likely if he were here today he would stand bewildered from the fact that a monument had been erected to him in a public place in Wethersfield.
As Dorothy Offensend once wrote, “He was a credit to mankind. Society owes its peace, stability and progress to such men as Nathaniel Foote and the other nine adventurers.”
Taken from the speech given on Sept 7, 1908 by President Nathaniel Foote because I could not express it better. I quote:
“Blood is thicker than water.” We of this association are a part of the now great family founded by this man in this country. We are something more to each other because we each have some of his blood in our veins. We express by this monument our wish that our common descent from this one man should not be forgotten. We also express our debt of gratitude to him for his courage and self sacrifice in crossing the seas to these forbidding shores where by we have been allowed to live our lives in circumstances nowhere surpasses for health, happiness and prosperity and under a form of government which we think the very best.
It is my great honor to be here today, with you cousins, to rededicate this monument for this great man, our hero Nathaniel Foote.
