en(f of Union avenue, and to its inspiring tones
a procession proceeds up towards the speaker’s
stand in the following order:
Chief Marshal and Aids, with the Executive
Committee.
Bishop Simpson, Mayor Ilenry, and Chairman
of Executive Committee.
Bevcrend Clergy, specially invited. ■
Governors of Delaware, New Jersey and Penn
sylvania.
Judiciary.
General Cadwalader and Staff.
Commodore Stribling and Officers of Navy
Presidents of Select and Common Councils.
Members of Select and Common Councils.
Members of the General Committee.
The judiciary was represented by Judges
Woodward, Strong and Bead. General Cad
walader and Admiral Dupont worthily repre
sented the Army and Navy. A number of
other prominent officers were present.
A MISHAP.
After the distinguished personages had
taken their places upon the stage, and just as
Mayor Henry was about to take the chair, an
accident occurred which caused some confusion
and delay. The temporary platform upon
which the ladies and gentlemen, who were to
sing an anthem, and the Star Spangled Banner,
as a portion of the ceremonies, were seated,
gave way, and threw the singers and musi
cians to the ground upon the top of the wreck.
It was at first feared that serious injuries had
been sustained by the persons who had fallen
with the stage; but the imperilled persons
were speedily rescued, and the gratifying an
nouncement that no person was seriously hurt,
restored quiet and order, relieved the general
suspense, and enabled the Committee of Ar
rangement to proceed with the regular pro
gramme. Hon. Alexander Henry, Mayor of
the City, was the first speaker. During his
address, a National Salute was fired upon the
outside of the Fair enclosure. Mr. Henry
spoke as follows:
MAYOR henry’s ADDRESS,
Ladies and Gentlemen: —We enter to-day
upon the realization of the zealous efforts
which humanity and patriotism have alike in
cited, and as we should, upon the threshold of
an enterprise rarely equalled in extent, never
surpassed in the grandeur of its purpose, we
may rejoice at the rich promise of its success,
while we are yet mindful of the sad urgency
that has called it forth. Gratitude and sym
pathy have before them full scope for their
most generous and untiring exertions. No
claims more sacred, no appeals more powerful
were ever addressed to loyal people than
come to us this hour from the maimed and
suffering defenders of our Union. [Cheers.]
The gigantic contest that is now waged be
tween loyalty and rebellion is preeminent in
magnitude as are the hills and plains that be
hold its deadly strife. No military resources,
however well directed, can adequately provide
Our ID .A. I Xj"3T PAE
relief for the thousands of brave men who
have sunk under the fatigue and privations of
the march or have been stricken down upon
the many fields of battle. In this emergency,
the noble, heaven-prompted associations of the
Sanitary and Christian Commissions, offer to
you wide channels through which the oil and
wine of soothing kindness and of strengthen
ing cheer may flow from the plenty of your
homes to the need of the sick or wounded sol
dier. Of these organizations, the Sanitary
Commission is the chosen dispenser of the lib
eral offerings which the people of our own,
and of two other sister States, have brought
hither on this holy cause. [Cheers.]
Enlarged views, refined tastes and un
flagging energies have originated, planned
and matured this grand undertaking. All
that may delight the sense and gladden the
heart has been gathered into this spacious
temple, dedicated to loyal benevolence, or has
been stored within its numerous courts. The
eye will wander with pleasure over ■ each
attractive scene and brilliant group; the ear
will drink in the surging melody of the joyous
voices with which these arches shall rever
berate, while yet each passing moment may
add new claimants of your benefactions from
among the heroes who even now are assailing
treason in those last strongholds, which, by
God’s blessing and man’s valor, shall witness
the death throes of the rebellion. [Cheers.]
With unusual gratification, I accept the honor
tendered by the Executive Committee of the
Great Central Fair, of presiding on this occa
sion of its opening ceremonies.
Bight Eev. W. B. Stevens, D.D., Assistant
Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, fol
lowed in an impressive prayer for the success
of the great undertaking.
John C. Cresson, Esq., Chairman of the
Committee of Arrangements, was then intro
duced. He formally delivered the building
and its contents to the Executive Committee.
In performing this he said :
REMARKS OF JOHN C. CRESSON, ESQ.
Mr. Chairman of the Executive Committee :—
The hour has come in which the hopes and
labors of many anxious months have reached
their end. It was made the duty of the Com
mittee on General Arrangements to choose a
site, arrange the plans and erect the buildings
for the Great Central Fair. It was to be
properly fitted for the display and sale of
the many gifts gathered by the zealous efforts
of the men and- women and children of three
sister States, to help on the holy work of the
United States Sanitary Commission. With the
help of a host of skilful and busy hands,
guided and urged on by cunning heads and
earnest hearts, the work has been done within
the allotted time. This great hall and its
branching corridors, devoted in name and pur
pose to the Union, are the results of these
labors. In many things they are defective
and fall short of our wishes; but it is hoped
they may afford room enough for the gifts to be
displayed, and shelter for the throngs that
will come to see them, and buy. These build
ings, and the goods they are filled with, we
now hand over to the executive body, over
which you, sir, so worthily preside. We who
were charged with the duty of building them,
and our colleagues who have so well arranged
and decked the interior walls and tables, are
most happy to give place to our other fellow
laborers, in whose hands remains the crowning
work in this good and noble oause.
Theodore Cuyler, Esq., on behalf of the
Executive Committee, received the buildings
and their contents. He said :
REMARKS OF MR. CUYLER.
Gentlemen, Chairmen of the Committees of
Arrangements :—ln the name, and by the au
thority of the Executive Committee of the
Great Central Fair, and by request of its
Chairman, I accept this perfect work.
This beautiful structure, so fair and graceful
in its proportions, and its vast and varied con
tents, more eloquently proclaim your title to
our thanks than any words which I could
utter.
By the same authority I present them to
you, sir, whom the President of the United
States has honored as his appointed represen
tative, so that through you they may be dedi
cated to those noble uses to which they were
designed, and to which they have been conse
crated. Consecrated by no human rite or
ceremony, but by an indwelling spirit of pious
patriotism which inspired their givers, and by
their devotion to the holy purpose of comfort
ing those who toil and suffer, that millions,
who, perhaps, may never hear of them may be
free, and great and happy.
These noble buildings and their precious
contents are the free gift of the grateful peo
ple of three Slates—New Jersey, Delaware and
Pennsylvania—to the army and navy of the
United States.
They are worthy to receive them. These
living heroes who battle on the field and on
the flood will prove it. These maimed and
wounded heroes who crowd our highways and
meet us in our walks, will prove it. These
sick and dying heroes in our hospitals will
prove it. These dead heroes have proved it—
who sleep beneath the wave or upon a hun
dred battle-fields, who moistened with their
blood the soil torn with shot and shell and
trampled with mailed feet, beneath which they
were buried, almost before the red light of
battle had faded from their eyes. But I speak
not now of the dead. They reck little of our
remembering or our forgetting, and are beyond
our ministry, though the time will come when
the peaceful, prosperous, reunited people of a
now shattered but then Restored Union will
build enduring monuments to the immortal
memory of those who, with heroic devotion,
have sealed their convictions with their blood,
and died to teach the world that there are
truths dearer than life, and wrongs more to be
dreaded than death, and if there be a spot on
earth where the grass of summer will grow
greener, and where the winds of winter will
blow less roughly, and the leaves of autumn
will fall more gently than on another, it is on
these soldier’s graves.
But I speak now for the living—for those
who make good in suffering and in blood, at
the sword’s point, our own brave speeches—
who bear the cross, that we, at last, may wear
the crown—for those who give us those great
days, which, to our children, are an inheri
tance better than riches, and of which our
posterity, long generations hence, shall read
with quickened pulses and eyes dimmed with
tears. For such as fought upon the bloody
fields of Hanover and Malvern, of Antietam
and Gettysburg, of Chattenooga, or the bloodier
and more recent battles of the Wilderness.
I speak for the seamen of our navy—for
men such as fought tho gallant Cumberland
and went down with her, nobly disdaining to
surrender, as she was sinking fast beneath
the engulphing ocean, with the banner of our
country proudly floating from her mast-head,