“It is an honor to belong to that grand old race, aye, even to hold one drop of Irish blood in your veins, but, good friends all, with or without it, I am proud to testify to what Irish friendship, Irish loyalty and the matchless Irish courage can do. No man ever knew as I have known what Irish friendship is, no man ever knew as I have known what Irish hospitality is, no man ever knew as I have known what Irish loyalty and patience is, without bowing in humble respect to it, whether he drew his blood from France or from Russia, from America or from England, each one of which owes Ireland a measureless debt. And all who love truth in history and gratitude for priceless gifts received, will urge your Society onward every day and hour you labor in the work you have so well begun till every heroic son of this great line who has helped to build the fabric of American liberty shall have his rightful place in history and the laurels he has fairly won. “I have now come to that which, in justice to Major General John Sullivan, I think should be related. I shall ask you to turn from the beautiful State in which you live to that far off region of beauty in which I have the honor to hold my home. In 1778 occurred in Wyoming that awful massacre whose horrors yet ring in the history of our country and in the hearts of the descendants of those who lost part of their families, who lost limb, who lost health, who were maimed, in that most horrible of savage invasions. Early in 1779 Congress, representing a country which had been shocked to the limit by those terrible outrages, passed a resolution of unlimited vigor, calling upon Washington to arrange for their punishment. It was suggested at first to Washington that General Gates should have the command, but Washington, whose knowledge of Indian warfare was complete, wanted General Sullivan, and to that officer was entrusted the conduct of that great fight. “In the history of Indian warfare in this country there is nothing more successful, more thoroughly creditable to the commanding officer, than the history of what General John Sullivan and his command did in the then wilderness reaching from Wyoming to the Genesee; and today, think of him what you may, build to him tablets as beautiful as this, recall his manifestly skilful work in the State where you stand, and you cannot accord to him one half the veneration and the love which the citizens of the counties around me, now a million in number, feel towards General John Sullivan for the work which opened up that magnificent line of valleys unequalled in their fertility, and whose line of bordering hills to this day, one hundred and thirty years after, is resounding with thanksgiving and praise for what General John Sullivan did there.