Not far from the steps of the Saugus Town Hall, in one of the landscaped areas, lies this Commemorative Marker. The marker reads:
NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM
1629 [Depiction of Town Seal] 2029
DEDICATED DECEMBER 30, 1976
SAUGUS 350TH ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE
"The motto Novus Ordo Seclorum was coined by Charles Thomson in June 1782. He adapted it from a line in Virgil's Eclogue IV, a pastoral poem written by the famed Roman writer in the first century B.C. that expresses the longing for a new era of peace and happiness.
The original Latin in Virgil's Eclogue IV (line 5) is:
"Magnus ab integro seclorum nascitur ordo."
An accurate translation of Novus Ordo Seclorum is:
"A New Order of the Ages"
Charles Thomson was a former Latin teacher, and Virgil was his one of his favorite poets. Inspired by the above passage, he coined the motto: "Novus Ordo Seclorum" and placed it beneath the unfinished pyramid where he explained it signifies "the beginning of the new American Æra," which commences from the Declaration of Independence in 1776." (
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"Saugus is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. The population was 26,628 at the 2010 census.
Saugus was first settled in 1629. Saugus is an Indian name believed to mean "great" or "extended". In 1637, the territory known as Saugus (which also contained the present day cities and towns of Swampscott, Nahant, Lynn, Lynnfield, Reading, and Wakefield) was renamed Lin or Lynn, after King's Lynn in Norfolk, England.
The Saugus Iron Works, in operation from 1646 to 1668, was the first integrated iron works in North America. It is now a U.S. National Historic Site.
The nineteenth century ice industry began in Saugus when in 1804 Frederic Tudor cut ice from a pond on the family farm and shipped it to Martinique.
Saugus is home to the oldest barber shop in the United States. The over 100 year old George's Barber Shop is located in the Cliftondale section of Saugus." (
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