Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1859 — SHADE-TREE MEETING. [ARTICLE]

SHADE-TREE MEETING.

[For the Rensselaer Gazette.

At a meeting of the citizens of Rensselaer, held at the Court House November 12, 1859, to take into consideration the planting of the Public Square with suitable. shrubbery, C. W. Henkle was called to the chair, and W. D. Lee appointed Secretary. The President, upon taking the chair, stated the object of the meeting in a few energetic and pertinent remarks. R. 11. Milroy then obtained the floor, and in his powerful and commanding style, gave our citizens just such a skinning as they needed for their lack of public enterprise. Many other gentlemen present expressed themselves that it is a burning shame that our Public Square has been so long neglected of that shrubbery which would be such a convenience and ornamental to the town; and some of them intimated that neglect was rather characteristic of the place, and mentioned some other things, for instance, that a new school house would not be out of the way. It was finally resolved that we throw off the lethargy that has so long enshrouded us, and that we immediately proceed to have our public grounds neatly decorated with suitable shrubbery. There was a motion that a committee be appointed to secure the funds, select trees, and procure the services of an experienced person to arrange and set them out; but this met with a decided opposition, as there appeared to he a great disposition on the part of every one to plant a tree on the Public Square for himself, and with his own hands, that it might there remain a living evidence that he individually did not lack public enterprise; and that it might remain as a monument to his memory, and that his great great grand-children migh rest and refresh themselves under the shade of a tree planted by their parental nncester. r~ It was therefore, resolved that a general invitation be extended to every citizen of Jasper county, to procure and set out on the Public Square one or more trees, of such kind and quality as his or her taste might dictate. It was further resolved that the proceedings of this meeting be published in the Gazette. C. W. Henkle, President. W. D. Lee, Secretary.