The Burnside Picnic, August 1878

 The Burnside Picnic

Oneonta Herald & Democrat, Oneonta, NY, August 16, 1878

The annual picnic of the Burnside family occurred Wednesday in Miss Ella Lyman's grove at Colliersville [Otsego Co. NY].  The day was pleasant, and enough air was stirring to compromise the effects of heat.  About 600 people were present.  The oldest member of the family there was Mrs. Patta Talmadge, aged 83 and the youngest, Russell O. Burnside, two years old.  Of the thousand persons who claim kindred, only one has died during the past year.  It shows a pretty well-organized family that this fact could be known. The Schenevus band furnished music.  Gen. Burnside read the following letter from his friend of many years, Hon. Horatio Seymour:

Utica, August 7th, 1878:  My Dear Sir:  I am gratified with your invitation to attend your family gathering on the 13th inst.  I wish I could accept it, but it is not in my power to do so.  Such meetings are of great value, as they keep alive the sentiments of regard and affection which make the great pleasure and interests of life.  I should be glad to meet your relatives.  I hope they are numerous.  From what I know of the family there cannot be too many of them.  I hope you will express to them my sentiments of respect and hopes for their happiness on that and all other occasions.  I am truly yours, Horatio Seymour.

Gen.  S.S. Burnside:  J. Stanley Browne, of Schenevus and Rev. William Burnside of Covington made interesting remarks, after which President S.S. Burnside introduced Willard E. Yager of Oneonta, as orator of the day.  As the complete history of the Burnside family has been the subject of addresses already delivered, Mr. Yager hit upon the happy idea of considering the life and character of an early ancestor, Sir William Wallace, a Scottish patriot who died in 1805.  Probably no other of the clan has ever been so famous in history as he, and we are not surprised that Mr. Yager, with a good degree of pride, selected the subject he did.  In historical facts the address is valuable.  It is elegant in composition, and a pleasant document to read.  Mr. Yager's delivery is good.  He made a favorable impression upon all who heard him.  He said:

I

Let me sketch for you a picture of the past, of Scotland at the close of the thirteenth century.

Ill fared it then with our bonny motherland, that kind of heroes and of song.  Over the border king Edward and his knights had come, sweeping all before them.  At Berwick, mown down in desperate resistance, eight thousand brave burghers had perished; at Edinburgh, city of the kings, fair Perth, and Stirling Castle the ancient gates in bitter shame had silently swung open to the foe.  Balliol, that should have sat a Scottish throne, pined in an English prison; the miscreant Bruce, forgetful alike of duty and high lineage, had cast his fortunes with the invaders.  What wonder, then, that monk and knight, bishop and prince, looked idly on whilst Surrey and his regents drew tight the bonds of conquest?  What wonder that swords were mute as fair-haired Edward, in scornful pride, called Scotland the fief of England, forfeited by the disloyalty of her king?

But, though priests and nobles despaired, the great heart of the commons of the despised yeomen and burghers, deemed unworthy the steel of a gallant knight, grew stern with high resolve; they waited but a leader to rise in the might of vengeance.  And the leader came, a man raised by the hand of Providence for the salvation of this country, whom men wall William Wallace.  He was no noble blood; from the ranks of the people, God called him to his trust, and nobly did he serve them.

It is in the region twixt Lowland and Highlands, near the source of the Tay, that first we note him.  There with a few kin spirits he lurked and watched, swooping forth from time to time on the outlying bands of Saxon marauders, in swift and terrible retribution.  Months passed, his little band swelled to an army, a stronghold was stormed, another and another, till marking the impending tempest, the Regent took the field.

They met at Stirling, the Lexington of Scottish history, and a name great not only in the annals of Scotland, but in the records of all time.  For there first did common meet cavalier; there first did he shake the power of feudalism and vindicate his claim to those rights which are now a common inheritance.  At noon they met, beside the Forth; at night, beneath the autumn moon, full half the English troops lay stark in woeful slaughter.

Scotland, for the time, was free.  But fresh victories, crowned by the fall of Stirling Castle, roused Edward himself at last.  Northward he swept with a bitter curse of vengeance, and at his heels rode a forest of eager spears. Brief words may tell the tale.  Nor would I more; for who can speak without a tear of Falkirk's bloody field?  The treachery that bore it, the malignant fate that brooded over it, the terrible disaster in which it ended.  Of all the gallant host he led to battle, scarce Wallace and a handful else survived that fatal day.

The dream of liberty was past.  A time, indeed, the fear of French invasion stayed the hand of the conqueror.  That past, he overran the land, despite the desperate struggles of the patriots, with scarce an effort.  Wallace, noble Wallace, whose chivalrous soul would no mercy at the hand of this country's slayer, they carried captive to Westminster.  There in the gray of an August morning, condemned by the strange irony of fate to a "traitor's " doom, he perished at the block.  His gory head, crowned in mockery, like His of Nazareth, the placed on London bridge, for scoffing crowds to jeer at.

But his mission was fulfilled.  Dark as was the night, a golden morning was soon to dawn.  The Scots were roused and ere ten years had passed, by Bannock's burn, the blood of thirty thousand English knights baptized a new born Scotland.