Taft Family - Mayor Henry Chapin: An Uxbridge "Taft" Story

Mayor Henry Chapin: An Uxbridge "Taft" Story

In 1864, Judge Henry Chapin, a three term Worcester Mayor, and Chief Judge, quoted a well known Uxbridge story as follows: A stranger came to town, met a new person and said, "Hello Mr. Taft". Mr Taft said, "How did you know my name?" The stranger replied, "I presumed that you were a Taft, just like the other 12 Tafts I have just met!". This story was repeated in a poem form by Mayor Chapin, at a famous Taft family reunion here, recorded in the Life of Alphonso Taft. A young future President, likely heard this.

Read more about this topic:  Taft Family

Famous quotes containing the words mayor, taft and/or story:

    If a large city can, after intense intellectual efforts, choose for its mayor a man who merely will not steal from it, we consider it a triumph of the suffrage.
    Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925)

    I cannot exaggerate the waste of the President’s time and the consumption of his nervous vitality involved in listening to congressmen’s intercession as to local appointments. Why should the President have to have his time taken up in a discussion over ... who shall be the postmistress of Devil’s Lake, in North Dakota? How should he be able to know ... who is best fitted to fill such a place?
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    A good story is one that isn’t demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn’t remind us of the bad times, the cardboard patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all.
    Kathleen Norris (b. 1947)