"A Bit of Birthday Toast": A Birthday Poem

Dr. Benjamin F. Leggett wrote and read the following poem at the 50th birthday party of dairy entrepreneur and cream-cheese man, Pennock E. Sharpless.

Dr. Benjamin Franklin Leggett

The poem alludes to Sharpless’s boyhood in Edgemont township, the arson attack at his creamery in Ward, his popular “gilt-edge” butter, and even dying his hair! The birthday party was well attended by the social families of Concord, including the following families: Pyles, Bishops, Hannums, Harveys, Scotts, Shortlidges, Kellys, Darlingtons, Palmers, Hills, Horners, Mattsons, Stillwells, Willets, Styers, Brintons, Paschalls, Heyburns, McCays, Buckleys, Hibbards, and Cheyneys.

Dr. Leggett was an acclaimed published poet and author who resided in Ward from 1882-1919. Hs works were published in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, The Kansas City Star, Napa Journal, Tulare Advance-Register, The Buffalo Commercial, The Natchez Bulletin, the Salt Lake Telegram, and The Sun, among others.

“A Bit of Birthday Toast”

Read at the 50th birthday party of P.E. Sharpless, Ward, Del. Co., Pa,, May 15, 1902

Confession must be made to-night: ’Twas

 my untimely “scat”

That oped the bag of this “surprise” and

 set at large the “cat!”

I own the corn, so let it pass, — but let me

 give our host

A word to cheer his weary way, a bit

 of birthday toast.

Two hundred years! Just write it down,

 two hundred years, no more —

It seems an awful time indeed, but now

 divide by four

And that will give us fifty years and

 nothing left beside,

And that goes back to fifty-two — the year

 that Webster died!

The very year! We well may spare the

 statesman’s waning glory

When Edgemont hills took up again an-

 other living story!

And all the homestead acres broad, the

 valleys, hills and dells,

Re-echoed fifty years ago a certain young-

 ster’s yells!

The boy grew up as well he might; the

 air was healthy then,

But long the pathway seemed to him

 from boyhood to men;

But still he plodded bravely on, no idle

 dreamer ever,

But tried to make the household bright

 with kindly grand endeavor;

He fed the pigs and milked the cows, and

 did a hundred chores,

He went to school and filled his head with

 learning’s useful stores,

And so he grew to man’s estate, a worker,

 strong, ecstatic,

And followed in his father’s steps, and

 voted Democratic!

His passing years have seen the strife of

 treason’s dire dissensions,

And he has seen the wondrous growth of

 many rare inventions:

Electric lights, acetylene, and bikes and

 telephones,

Have had their growth along with him,

 and some of them he owns!

His mission has been one to cheer and

 stir the marts of trade,

To give the world for daily food the best

 that could be made!

He trod not in the beaten paths that

 others trod of old,

But studied how to change the grass to

 butter flakes of gold!

While separators spin and run and pour

 the golden cream,

The magic wonders that are wrought

 might seem a fairy dream;

Through churn and worker, print and

 wrap, such gilt-edged beauty grows,

As golden as the lily’s bloom and fragrant

 as the rose!

He never took a college course, but left

 that to the preachers;

Experience and practice, too, he thought

 the best of teachers;

The best and wisest of the past the pres-

 ent for him borrows —

From toilers of the yesterdays and dream-

 ers of the morrows!

And when the fire fiend smote his work

 and plans went up like tinder

The flames could never smoke him out,

 however they might hinder;

And so he builded wiser still, a well laid

 base securing,

Of brick and mortar, slate and stone, to

 make the work enduring, —

So life should have a basis firm, well

 groined in arch and portal,

And then, whatever may befall, the work

 will stand immortal!

And so, Oh friend, we come to-night,

 with joy on all our faces,

To cheer our host and limber up his old,

 rheumatic paces;

For since these fifty years have flown, it

 must be very plain

That dye his white hair he may, he

 can’t be young again!

We come to take him by the hand, and

 if it must be told,

To ask him how it seems to be just half

 a century old!

May all the years just lead him on, full

 freighted as they run,

Til he shall reach the sunny slope of

 ninety-nine and one!

And when the second fifty years shall

 bid us gather here —

Our great grandchildren in the train and

 bringing up the rear,

We’ll not come then, as we do now, the

 Concord thoroughfare,

But every one will come on winds, or

 frisky ships of air,

And every boy will have his craft, a-sail-

 ing up and down

And all the girls will sail on plumes, a-

 shopping in the town!

The “bargain counters” will be heaped

 with such a load of things,

They’ll have to keep an extra boy to dust

 the shopper’s wings!

And business then will boom and go, and

 every man be able

To have an automobile to rock the baby’s

 cradle;

Then blessings on our genial host, his

 wife, household, position —

And bless all honest efforts made to but-

 her his condition!

 —Benj. F. Leggett

as published in the Daily Local News; May 19, 1902