EXECUTIVE MANSION,
Hon. EDWARD F. JOHNSON, Woburn, Mass.:
MY DEAR SIR:
The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of Woburn, which is to be held on, October 7, is an event of such interest that I would have been glad to accept the invitation of the committee to participate in the exercises which your citizens have planned, if the circumstances had been such as to make it possible for me to leave Washington. I very much regret that it will be-as your people will understand without more particular reference-impossible for me to be present. The brave and intelligent founders of our early civil communities are worthy of honor; and this generation will derive profit from a study of the influences and principles from which have grown our civil government and our great increase and development as a nation.
Very respectfully, yours,
BENJ. HARRISON.
Benjamin Harrison, Letter to Edward Johnson on the 250th Anniversary of Woburn, Massachusetts Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/276774