The Granite Monthly, a New Hampshire Magazine, Devoted to Literature, History, and State Progress. Vol. 37

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THE

GRANITE MONTHLY

A New Hampshire Magazine

DEVOTED TO

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, LITERATURE, AND STATE PROGRESS

VOLUME XXXVll

CONCORD, N. H. PUBLISHED BY THE GRANITE MONTHLY COMPANY 1904 N

V.37 Published, 1904 By the Granite Monthly Company Concord, N. H.

Printed and Illustrated by the Rumford Printing Company (Rum/ord Press)

Concord, AVtc Hn>n.fishire, U. S. A. The Granite Monthly.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXXVIl.

yiily—December, igo^.

Ayres, Philip W., Thk Poorest Situation in New Hampshire and How to Change It ...... 65

Baynes, Ernest Harold, George I. Putnam .... 49 Beede, Eva J., Midsu.mmer {poem) ...... 87 Blake, Amos J., Sketch of the Life and Character of Col. Amos A. Parker 104 Boody, Louis Milton, The Front Fence ..... 43 Brown, Gilbert Patten, John Stark, the Hero of Bennington 73 Buflfum, Jesse H.. Dempsey's Trick ...... 68

Carr, Laura Garland, A Fact {poem) . . . 72 Chesley, Charles Henry, On the Tide {poetn) .... 17

Clough, William O., Crayon Portrait of Abraham Lincoln . lOI Colby, H. B., A Glass of Ale ...... 3 Charles C. Hayes ...... 15

Dempsey's Trick, Jesse H. BuiTum ...... 68

Editorial Notes : An Automobile Law ...... 88

Road Improvements under State Supervision . 89

Some Lessons from the Berlin, N. H., Fire . 133 Road Improvement in So.me of Our Smaller Towns 134

Fact, A {poem) , Laura Garland Carr ...... 72 Farr, Ellen Burpee, Our "Old Home Week"' {poem) 57

Forest Situation in New Hampshire, The, and I low to Change W. Ayres ...... 65 Front Fence, The, Louis Milton Boody ..... 43

Glass of Ale, A, H. B. Colbv

H., A. H., The Hope Plant {poem) .... 76 Hayes, Charles C, H. B. C 15 Hope Plant, The {poem), A. H. H 76

Leslie, H. G., M. D., Shoreline Sketches—Thanksgiving 59 Lincoln, Abraha.m, Crayon Portrait of, William O. Clough lOI

4»'3 5'i IV CONTENTS.

Midsummer {poem), Eva J. Beede ...... 87

On the Tide {poem), Charles Henry Chesley . . . . • 17 Our "Old Home Week" {poetn), Ellen Burpee Farr ..... 57

Parker, Col. Amos A., Sketch of the Life and Character of, Amos J.

Blake, Esq...... 104 Putnam, George I., Ernest Harold Baynes ...... 49

Roberts, Col. James, of Berwick, Maine, John Scales . . . . . 2,-j

Sanborn, F. B., of Concord, Massachusetts, History and Poetry from the

Life of . . . 19, 77, iii Scales, John, Col. James Roberts of Berwick, Maine ..... 37 Shoreline Sketches—Thanksgiving, H. G. Leslie, M. D 59

Stark, John, the Hero of Bennington, Gilbert Patten Brown • 73 State Highway Work in the White Mountains, John W. Storrs ... 95

Storrs, John W., State Highway Work in the White Mountains . 59

T., A., Vanitas Vanitatu.m (^poetn) . . . 43

Vanitas Vanitatum {poem), A. T...... -43

THE CLOCK TOWER, FRANK JONES BREWING CO., PORTSMOUTH, N. H. The Granite Monthly.

Vol. XXXVir. JULY, 1904. No. 1.

View From Clock Tower.

A GLASS OF ALE.

With pictures from the plant of the Frank Jones Brewing Company, Portsmouth, N. H.

By H. B. Colby.

Ale is a decoction of barley to It would appear from these records which is added a certain quantity of that barley must have furnished a hops and yeast, and is then allowed to national beverage for many years be- ferment to a given degree, when it is fore that book's earliest date. It is drawn off into barrels and permitted also related that Osiris, about 2017 B. to age perfectly before it is ready for C, found "barley-wine" in the the use of the consumer. Egyptian city of Pelusium; again, we It has been made in some form or are told, in another place, that about other since the very earliest ages of 3000 B. C, in the Nile land, four which we have any reliable record; kinds of beer were known. for we find that the Egyptians made Herodotus (484 B. C.) speaks only a decoction of barley which was used of a barley-wine known to the as a beverage more than five thousand Egyptians, and even asserts that the years ago, according to the estimates grape was not found on the soil of of the most eminent Egyptologists of Egypt. A native of Greece, where the present day. It played a most the grape has been cultivated since important part in their mythology dim ages of the past and where wine

' ' and is mentioned in the Book of the drinking was ever the universal cus- ' ' Dead, which is the record of the an- tom, Herodotus was plainly an entire cient Egyptian kings, and which book stranger to the Egyptian juice of is at the least five thousand years old. barlev. He relates: "Their beverage A GLASS OF ALE.

Private Railway in Brewery Yard. is a wine prepared by them from bar- reached England, where its manufac- ley, there being no grapes in their ture attained such absolute perfection country." Pliny (23 A. D.), speak- of brewing that the "Ale of Merrie ing of the Egyptian drink, says that England" has been for many years it is made from grain soaked in the standard of quality. By the be- water; and, as a wine-drinking Ro- ginning of the reign of Henry II the man, he deplores the fact that so English were greatly addicted to the much skill is wasted in the production use of ale. The waters of Burton- of so light a beverage. That it was on-Trent began to be famous in the made from malted grain is not alone thirteenth century. The secret of shown by the various designations of their being so especially adapted' for barley, but also by the discovery of brewing purposes was first discovered harley-malt in the ruins of ancient by some monks, who have ever been Egypt. In this connection we find celebrated in poetry and painting as no mention at all of hops, so it is good and great drinkere, and the mon- most probable that they used pungent asteries were remarkable for the roots and certain spices for the flavors strength and purity of their ales, to suit the popular taste. brewed from malt prepared by the The formulas for the making of monks with great care and skill. barley-wine, and many variations of A record still extant and bearing the same, were evidently carried date of 1295 (think of it), bears wit- gradually from one country to an- ness of a re-lease of certain lands and other, by occasional travelers and by tenements in the adjacent neighbor- the incessant invasions of warring hood of Wetmore to the abbot and armies, and in due course of time convent of Burton-on-Trent at a daily A GLASS OF ALE. rental, during the life of the lessor, "for we brought neither beer nor of two white loaves from the monas- water with us from the ship, and our tery, two gallons of conventual beer, only victuals was biscuit and Holland

' ' and one penny, besides seven gallons cheese and a little bottle of brandy. of beer for the men. The brewers of And later when on board ship they Biirton-on-Trent are more famous to- were debating as to the advisability day than ever before. INIiehael of establishing a permanent settle- Thomas Bass, who died in 1884, was ment on Cape Cod, the same record

' ' noted for his industry, integrity, abil- says : We had yet some beer, butter, ity, and public liberality (especially flesh, and other victuals left, which to religious and educational works). would quickly be all gone; and then For thirty-three years he also repre- we should have nothing to comfort us. sented Derby in the British parlia- . . . So in the morning, after we had ment. ]\Iichael Arthur, his eldest called on God for direction, we came son, succeeded him in the manage- to this resolution—to go presently ment of the business. His parlia- ashore again and to take a better mentary career commenced in 1865 view of two places which we thought and he was created a peer, under the most fitting for us; for we could not title of Lord Burton, during the last now take time for further search or Gladstone administration. consideration, our victuals being Beer was brought from old Eng- much spent, especially our beer, and land to New England by the passen- it being now the 19th of December." gers on the Mayflower, and we find in Later we find: "Monday, the 25th, Young's "Chronicles of the. Pil- 1620, being Christmas day, we began grims," that, after a two days' pur- to drink water aboard. But, at suit of Indians on Cape Cod, they night, the master caused us to have stood much in need of fresh water. some beer, but on shore none at all."

Store where Ale is Matured. A GLASS OF ALE.

A Floor in the Mal.t House.

A year later, one of the Pilgrims started a brewery on Bridge St., but writing to a friend in England, tells soon moved to Market St. Swindels him, in shipping goods for the colony : was a thorough master of the art of **Let your casks for beer be iron- brewing and made a good quality of

' ' bound. But so far as I can find out ale, but he lacked the business capac- there is no record of the arrival of ity essential to success, so in 1856 he this beer in any kind of casks. One sold an interest in the brewery to John Jenny, a brewer by trade, came Frank Jones, and in 1861 Mr. Jones to Plymouth in 1623, and was the purchased the balance of the business first of the craft to arrive in New and started The Frank Jones Brew- England; he worked a corn mill but ing Co., which began with an annual it is not recorded that he ever brewed output of only five thousand three in the colony. The colonists of Mas- hundred barrels, and is to-day one of sachusetts Bay were more successful the largest ale and porter plants in in their shipments from the old coun- the United States. try, for, early in 1629, the British Frank Jones was born in Barring-

Court of Assistants sent to th(^n, on ton, September 15, 1832, and was the the Talbot, forty-five tuns of beer and fifth of seven children of Thomas and four hundredweight of hops. Thir- Mary (Priest) Jones. Thomas Jones, ty quarters of malt were sent after- a thrifty and well-to-do farmer of wards in another ship. Samuel Barrington, was one of fourteen chil- Wentworth of Portsmouth obtained dren of Peltiah Jones, a successful the first license to brew beer in New sea captain who, born in Wales and Hampshire in 1670, but the difficulty emigrating to this country with his in obtaining barley caused the trade parents in infancy (his father dying to languish for many years. on the passage), was in early life In 1854 John Swindels, an English- placed by his mother in the service of man, came to Portsmouth, N. H., and the well-known Portsmouth navigator, A GLASS OF ALE.

Captain Sheafe, by whom he was he obtained his father's consent to trained in the occupation which he strike out for himself and, putting his followed for many years, becoming a clothing in a bundle, he started on ship owner as well as master. The foot for Portsmouth, a city with War of 1812 made navigation danger- which he was alreadj" somewhat ous, and, during its progress, he familiar, having driven in more than availed liimself of a favorable oppor- once with charcoal, wood, or farm tunity to sell both ship and cargo, and products for the city market, in the with the proceeds purchased the farm disposal of which he learned his first in Barrington, which became known lessons in trade and business life. as the Jones homestead, and subse- Here his elder brother, Hiram, was quently came into the possession of already well established in the stove Thomas, who, inheriting the Welsh and hardware business, with several characteristics of perseverance and men in his employ, most of whom sagacity, aided hj the Scotch thrift engaged in peddling his lighter wares and intelligence of his wife, a daugh- through the surrounding towns. ter of Capt. Joseph Priest of Notting- Frank went to work for his brother, ham, added largely to his possessions, and shortly made a contract with him and accumulated a handsome proper- for three years' service, receiving a ty for a New Hampshire farmer of thousand dollars for the full time, that day. With the characteristic most of which he spent as a peddler. independence of the New England The knowledge of human nature, and youth his sons started out early in the varied characteristics of men,

A Mash-tun. life to make their own way in the which he gained during his three world. It w^as the desire of his years' experience, proved of vast ad- parents that Frank should remain at vantage in his future business career. home upon the farm; but the young His father had endeavored to secure man's ambitious spirit was not satis- his return home, but his brother's fied in any such circumscribed sphere promise to receive him as a partner in of action. In his seventeenth year the business at the expiration of the 8 A GLASS OF ALE.

A Copper. contract was a teniptatiou too strong which was accordingly carried out, to be resisted. "When reminded of and he became a partner with his his promise, after his contract had brother in a large and well established expired, his brother tried to persuade business in January, 1853. Already him to continue in his employ, offer- thoroughly conversant with the prac- ing him a cash present of one thou- tical details of the business, he sand dollars and a thousand dollars devoted himself thereto with all the a year for a term of five years. This, energy of his nature, and the follow- at that time, was a most tempting ing autumn his brother, being in ill offer for a youth of twenty years, and health, sold him his interest, leaving the he thought at first to accept it; but, him, at twenty-one years of age, the upon returning to the store, after a sole proprietor. He continued brief visit to his parents, he was for- business with eminent success until cibly struck with the thought that if 1861, when lie sold out, for the pur- his brother could afford to make him pose (as we have already stated) of such an offer the business was suffi- devoting his undivided energies to the ciently profitable to make an interest management of the brewery. therein desirable, and he determined Under his guiding hand the busi- to insist on the original agreement, ness grew more prosperous and lucra-

Good Yeast. Poor Yeast. A GLASS OF ALE. tive, and many improvements and ter in the United States were built, additions were projected and carried and other improvements have since out by Mr. Jones. To bring and been made on a like scale, important keep the quality of his ale up to the among which should be mentioned the highest point of excellence was Mr. extensive bottling works erected in Jones' object from the outset, and he 1900, and adjoining the brewery. consequently determined to produce A visit to the plant of this company his own malt. So, in 1863, the Com- will take one over an enormous acre- pany built a large malt house, with a age of floor space, every bit of which capacity of eighty thousand bushels. is absolutely as neat and clean as it The business increased steadily and is possible to obtain by the copious this house in 1868 of hot and they enlarged ; scaldings boiling water,

The Cooler. then in 1871, to keep up with their thorough scrubbing. Up in the top orders, it was found necessary to of one of the malt houses you will see build a new brew house, which was great vats in which the barley is constructed and arranged throughout steeped, or soaked, in order to start in the most thorough and perfect the germinating process. In steep- manner, and furnished with the best ing, the grain swells about one fifth improved appliances kno\\Ti to the in bulk, and on6 half in weight. It business. In 1878 a cooperage is then spread on floors and germin- department was added, and the fol- ation begins. lowing year still another and much Barley is the seed of several species larger malt house was erected. of Hordeum, and belongs to the tribe During the early eighties the largest of grasses called by botanists Gramin- cellars for the storage of ale and por- aceoe. It has been cultivated since lO A GLASS OF ALE.

Fermenting Tuns. tlie earliest times. Good barley converting the starch of the barley should have a thin, clean, wrinkled into sugar, and thus preparing it for husk, closely adhering to a plump, the brewery. As germination starts, well-fed kernel, which, when broken, the stem begins to grow under the appears white and sweet, with a germ husk from the same end as the root, full, and of a pale yellow color. It but, instead of piercing the husk, is, of all cereals, the best adapted for turns around and proceeds under it malting, containing more starch and to the other end of the grain. This less gluten than other grain, and would develop into the green leaf about seven per cent, of ready-formed were its progress not stopped. Best grape-sugar. Great care must be ales are made from malt in which the exercised in buying in 0i.'der that the stem is allowed to grow to almost the barley may be of even-sized grains length of the kernel and is nearly and free from clay, stones, and other ready to burst through as a veritable seeds. Outside of this country the sprout; at this time there will be brewer has to scour Europe, Asia, found five rootlets curling from the Africa, South America, and the Uni- end of the grain. "When germination ted States for his barley and hops; has reached this stage it is stopped by but the Pacific and "Western states removing the barley to another room, and the state of New York supply the having a metal floor pierced with American brewer with all that he re- many fine holes which admit a con- quires. stant current of hot air, thus drying The maltster's object is to obtain as the grain quickly. The Frank Jones much saccharine matter as possible, Co. malt houses use over four thou- with the smallest loss of substance, by sand bushels of barley every week. A GLASS OF ALE. II

The malt, being sufficiently dried, is hops are added and the materials for then sifted, and crushed in a mill the brew (now known as "wort") are that resembles those used in making ready. Hops were first used in "roller process" flour, after which it brewing in the ninth century, and is conveyed to the mash-tun and is were introduced into England from there covered with water heated to a Flanders. They are added to impart very high temperature. Good water, the bitter flavor and also as a preser- hard, and free from organic matter, vative. A good brewer carefully is an absolute necessity in the brew- times his brew at the proper tempera- ing of good ale. The supposed value ture, for too much or too little brew- of the Burton waters is due to the ing is as bad for ale as for tea. The fact that they are not surface waters wort is now dra^vn off and rapidly at all, but are drawn from wells cooled by falling in a steady stream twenty to one hundred and twenty over the pipes shown in the cut. feet deep, supplied from springs. These pipes are ice cold, being filled Now that is exactly the case in Ports- constantly by the pumps of the re- mouth, and The Frank Jones Brew- frigerating plant. The wort passes ery has its own auxiliary pumping from the cooler to the fermenting station readj^ in an emergency. tuns, where the yeast is added and The water having been heated and fermentation at once commences. added to the malt in the mash-tun The yeast is a very important factor (the contents of which are now in brewing operations and great care known as "mash") the mash is is taken to have it pure and of the drawn off into the copper; here the right formation. Microscopic exam-

Filling Casks in Racking Room. 12 A GLASS OF ALE.

Where the Casks are Washed. ination is the test for this and two The Frank Jones Brewing Company kinds are here shoAvn. As fermen- make most of the casks which they use, tation progresses, a great mass of and maintain a large and well ap- foam is thro\vn up to a thickness of pointed cooper shop for this purpose. some three feet on the top of the ale AVhen a cask is returned empty, it is and is repeatedly skimmed off until carefully inspected, and, if sweet, is the operation is completed, when the cleansed in the washing room, thor- ale is drawn off into a tank of metal, oughly scalded and rinsed before re- and compressed air admitted to the filling; but if it is found to be foul, top to force it into the casks in the then it goes to the cooper shop and a

' * ' ' racking room. The casks are also head is taken out to cleanse the in- filled with air at the same pressure, so side thoroughly. that as the ale comes in the air goes In order that the ale in cask may out, and there is no foaming; conse- be systematically and intelligently quently the barrel may be filled full. matured, stores are required in Avhich

"la.d f«r Grains. r-arrn Tearyis V'v'aiting in tlie Bie.'.c.^ A GLASS OF ALE. 13

Store for Maturing Bottled Aie. one even temperature can be kept all modern labor-saving machinery for the year round. This means that cleansing the bottles, filling, and seal- each store must contain a heating ap- ing them. paratus for use in winter and a re- In every department of tliis im- frigerating one for use in summer. mense brewing plant the utmost care In these vaults are stored thousands is taken to the end that its product of casks at the same even temperature shall be the best that money and every day of the year. Experience brains can produce. Cleanliness is has proved that 54 degrees Fahr. is the first order for every man on the the natural temperature for the life place, and the men in charge of the of ale. There are several useful by- various operations are every one ex- products in the process which are val- perts. Only the best modern ma- uable, among which are the grains chinery is used, and the buyers of the which are bought by the farmers in grain and hops to be consumed are the vicinity for feed; the spent hops, searching always for the best that can for manure; and screenings or sldm- be bought. mings of barley, for chicken food. The result is that most people con- When the several brands of ale are sider Frank Jones' Ales even supe- properly matured, the casks are rior to the celebrated imported pro- shipped to the different agents for ducts. The output is steadily in- sale, or else are taken to the adjoining creasing, being last year nearly a bottling department and bottled for quarter of a million barrels, and wiU export or for family use. The bot- probably exceed that amount consid- tling plant is equipped with the most erably the present year. CHARLES C. HAYES. CHARLES C. HAYES.

iL. n. c.

At a recent political meeting held Store," known far and wide in the in Manchester, the Democratic candi- early days of Manchester under the date for mayor was briefly introduced management of Kidder & Chandler bv a after the nominee late * man,7 who,7 had (the distinguished Mason and made his speech of acceptance, was Odd Fellow, Joseph Kidder, being the liimself loudly called upon for a original head of the firm). The speech. The current papers said business of this firm was very exten- that he made "his usual graceful sive and it brought the young clerk, speech, which was composed of solid a wide acquaintance with the farmers facts, combined in logical sequence; of the surrounding towns, for the no vituperation; just a fair-minded "Old Family Store" was almost a presentation of facts and figures with landmark for the farmers from miles wliich he was perfectly familiar." around, who were accustomed to make This man was Charles Carrol it their headquarters on their trading Hayes, one of the leading business trips to Manchester. Remaining men of Manchester. here about three years, Mr. Hayes He is a native of New London. His entered into business for himself, early years were spent in that beau- purchasing a grocery store at the tiful country town and in Salisbury, corner of Elm and Mechanic streets, where his parents moved in 1861 and which he conducted successfully for where his father, the late Hon, John three and a half years, when he dis- M. Hayes, conducted a general store posed of it and entered upon the real during, and after, the Civil "War. In estate, insurance, loan, and surety 1869 the family moved to Manchester, bond business, in which he is at which has since been the residence of present engaged. Having his ofBce the subject of this sketch. Mr. at first in the Opera block, Mr. Hayes Hayes obtained his education in the moved in 1894 to the magnificent, district schools of New London and newly erected Kennard building, and Salisbury and the public schools of in the new structure of the same Manchester, graduating from the name he has his office at the present Manchester High school in 1875 with time; he is also the agent for the a good record for scholarship and in- building. The -integrity, business dustry. acumen, and enterprise of Mr. Hayes After graduation he made a trip has resulted in building up a profi- through the West and shortly after table and satisfactory business of a his return he entered the employ sterling reputation among people of of John M. Chandler & Co., then con- all classes. ducting the "Old Family General Politically, Charles C. Hayes is a G. M.—2 1 6 CHARLES C. HAYES.

Democrat, and of the most sturdy been its treasurer since the death of sort, as was his father before him. the late Henry Chandler. In the But such is the confidence reposed in development of the shoe industry, him by even his political opponents which is second among the great that he has always run largely ahead industries of Manchester, where its of his ticket when named for public employees number several thousands, office. In 1894 and again in 1896 he he is actively interested, and is treas- was the candidate of his party for urer of the Eimmon Manufacturing- mayor of Manchester against the company, owning the factory opera- popular William C. Clarke. On ted by H. B. Reed & Co., and is clerk the latter occasion he polled a vote of the ]\Ianchester Shoe IManufactur- larger by fifty per cent, than that ing Co., which owns the huge build- thrown for his ticket, being de- ing occupied by Kimball Bros., who feated by only 700 votes when the are among the largest manufacturers average Republican majority for in their line in the country. Mr. other officers was over 2,600. This Hayes is a stockholder in numerous was in the Presidential year of 1896, other manufacturing enterprises on when, it will be remembered, the sil- which the abundant prosperity of ver issue contributed so largely to ]\IanChester is founded. No project demoralize the Democratic party, and looking toward the advancement of when the largest degree of personal the city of his adoption fails to secure popularity was necessary to hold the his sympathetic assistance, average Democratic strength, not to It is inevitable that a man of Mr. mention gaining votes from the oppo- Hayes' companionable nature should sition. This year he has been named be attracted by that form of modern by his party for treasurer of Hills- civilization which finds its expression borough county, and there is little in the Fraternal Order, and he early doubt among any who know him but became a member of the ]\Iasonic fra- that his record will largely reduce, if ternity, to whose teachings there is no it does not extinguish, the usual large more devoted adherent in our state. Republican majority for that office. He took the degrees, which made him In the councils of his party Mr. a Master Mason, in Washington Hayes is an influential figure. While lodge, No. 61, in 1877, and subse- making no aspirations to the fame of quently passed through the significant " " a speU-binder, he is a clear, logical, rites of Mt. Horeb Royal Arch Cliap- and forcible speaker, and is found on ter, Adoniram Council of Royal and the platform declaring the truth as Select Mastera, and Trinity Com- of he sees it, with dignity and effect, raandery. Knights Templar, Man- whenever occasion requires. Chester. He was also advanced In the various business concerns of through the degrees of Edward A. Manchester Mr. Hayes is largely in- Raymond Consistory of the Scottish terested as a public-spirited and en- Rite of Nashua, and received the 33d terprising citizen. A charter mem- degree of Masonry, September 21, ber of the Board of Trade, he was the 1897, at Boston, Mass. In all the president of that representative or- beneficent work of this grand frater- ganization in 1894 and 1895, and has nity he bears an honored and prom- OA THE 7 IDE. 17 inent part, for he is a friend and sup- Hayes liolds membership in the porter of that magnificent charity, Derryfield and Calumet clubs, and is the IMasonic Home at Manchester, a trustee of the Mechanics' Savings being at the present time a trustee of bank. that institution. The offices he has Islr. Hayes has been twice married, held in the ]\Iasonie order embrace first, in 1885, to Miss Belle J. Ken- those of "Worshipful IMaster of Wash- nard (daughter of John and Hannah ington lodge, Thrice Illustrious Mas- B. Kennard), who died August 1, ter of Adoniram Council, Eminent 1890, leaving three children, John Conunander of Trinity Commandery, Carrol, Louise K., and Annie Belle. ]\Iost Worshipful Grand Master of In 1900 he married Miss Carrie W. jNIasons in New Hampshire in 1894- Anderson. They have one daughter,

'95, and Eight Eminent Grand Com- Marion. mander of the Grand Commandery, In all the relations of life Charles Knights Templar of New Hampshire C. Hayes represents the best type of (in 1893), of w^hich body he is now the public-spirited, conscientious cit- Grand Treasurer. izen, and his name stands for honesty. In addition to his Masonic con- conservatism, and good sense in the nections, he is a member of Amoskeag management of public and private grange. Patrons of Husbandry. Mr. affairs. Whenever he has been a Hayes early affiliated with the Bap- candidate for public office, his op- tist denomination and was president ponent has realized at the close of the of the First Baptist Religious society canvass that there has been a contest, of Manchester for the thirteen years and the large votes cast for Mr. ending in December, 1903, and was Hayes show clearly enough the im- identified with its board for twenty press that his character has made years. upon the community in which he has In a thriving city like Manchester lived so many years. Thoroughly there is no end to the directions in loyal to his city and his state, true to which the activities of a public- his principles, to his friends and him- spirited and energetic citizen can self, Charles C. Hayes deserves the manifest themselves, and, in addition respect in which he is held, to the bodies already mentioned, Mi\

ON THE TIDE.

By Charles Henry Chesley.

We idly drift down the marshy coves, And round the ledges where the breakers foam, The white-winged gulls fly overhead in droves " And wildly sing our hearts : The sea is home. r

o X 3 _] o

r F. B Sanborn (I 904).

HISTORY AND POETRY FROM THE LIFE OF F. B. SANBORN OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS.

shorter time, with no consent of our CHAPTER I. —CHILDHOOD. for the and the influ- own, most part ; At the request of the editor of the ence of our small contribution of vital- Granite Monthly, who desires to ity and activity, to the infinitude of preserve and publish in this maga- life around us, we can neither com- zine all that relates to the colony and pute nor avoid in the final reckoning state where we were born, I begin of human accountability. I can at these recollections of a long life, in least say that mine has never been which will be mingled many a strand consciously directed, save in the sal- from earlier times than ours, and lies of youth, towards aught but the many another life which has crossed good of others, as I then understood or flowed beside it to that wide it it well be that what I mine, ; though may ocean of Eternity, towards which thought for their best was in its effect every human existence tends, in its far otherwise. short course through this inscrutable My vitality, but, I hope, not my world. We are sent into it without infant accountability, began in a brisk our will, and we stay here a longer or winter day, December 15, 1831, in 20 FRANK B. SANBORN.

The Old B. Sanborn House. (In Front of Munt Hill ) the southwest lower room of the old Sanborn (born in October, 1843), took house, built in 1743, which is repre- his Harvard degree. In his educa- sented in the view of it here given. tion Dr. Charles and I co-operated, My mother, I^ydia Leavitt by her and also his two sisters and elder maiden name, was then approaching brother, Lewis Thomas Sanborn (born thirty-two, having been born at her October 11, 1834; died June 26, 1904), father's house, under the four elms, under whose particular care he was (Thomas lyeavitt's) in March, 1800, after my leaving New Hampshire in coincident with the new century, and i854-'55. These sisters were Sarah married at the of Elizabeth died age twenty. My (born May 23, 1823 ; father, Aaron Sanborn, was then at Hampton Falls, Feb. 25, 1903) and thirty-nine (born November 26, 1793); Helen Maria (born March 17, 1830, and I was the fourth of his children and still living in our old home). who survived—an infant, his first- Our ancestors, with the exception of born, dying in i820-'2i. His oldest Mr. Bachiler and his eldest grandson, my eldest living brother, to son of the Sanborn line, John, were whom I was much indebted for my all born in the first broad township of early education, Charles Henry San- Hampton, including what are now born, became a physician after many that town and Hampton Falls, North experiences and some adventures, and Hampton, Seabrook, Southampton, practised for more than forty years in and a good part of Kensington. Most the old township of Hampton, which of them, excepting the second John was founded in 1638 by our earliest Sanborn and his brother Joseph (of American ancestor. Reverend Stephen the Sanborn line) were born, on the Bachiler, an Oxford graduate of farm of which our old house w^as near 1586, and the latest of our immediate the center, and the Benjamin San- line to receive a university degree, born house (represented above) was until 1855 and 1856, when Charles at the western limit. Another San- and I took our Harvard diplomas of born house stood not far from the A. B. and M. D., 270 years later barn of Dr. Sanborn's place, and was than our clerical forefather. In 1867 long the residence of Deacon Benja- our youngest brother, Joseph Leavitt min, one of the first of many Hamp- FRANK B. SANBORN. 21

a still older was a blockhouse fort ton Falls deacons ; while originally house, most likely of hewn logs, against Indian assault, then a school- " stood near the Pepperidge Bush," house, and finally the meeting-house which was a landmark for centuries, of 1768, here represented. One by one half way down the hill to the north- the families removed, and others came west, on the old Exeter road. in (always excepting the Sanborns and The original Sanborn farm, taken a branch of the Bachelders), so that, up, as I suppose, before i6So, ad- at my birth, the neighborhood was joined the farm of Nathaniel Bachel- made up of Sanborns in two houses, der, a grandson of Parson Stephen, the Browns in two, the Lanes (a con- now occupied (in part) by my cousin, nection of the Sanborns by the mar- Warren Brown, the historian of the riage of Deacon Lane to my grand- parish and town of Hampton Falls. father's aunt, Mary Sanborn), and the It was much more extensive than that Perkinses, Wellses, and Healeys, who lately left by my brother, Lewis, and had come upon the lands of Deacon seems to have reached from the cor- Sanborn, and of the Greens and Pres- " ner where the " Old Mill Road comes cotts and Cliffords gone elsewhere. out upon the ' ' Back Road ' ' to Hamp- Temporarily the parsonage was empty ton, westward about 220 rods, to the of a minister (Parson Abbot having Indian hill behind the Benjamin San- gone upon his farm at Windham) born house, on which, traditionally, and my uncle, Joseph, with his wife was the of an Indian — and two children were there, tenants . wigwam

' ' ' ' always known as Munt Hill, mean- of the parish. A few years after my ing "Mound Hill," as I fancy. birth they removed to what is now This neighborhood center of San- the oldest house in town—an ancient borns, Bachelders, and Prescotts Cram homestead—my uncle's wife

The Old Meeting-house. 22 FRANK B. SANBORN.

Interior of the Old Meeting-house. being Betsey Cram, a sister of Porter four, and at the age of four and a half and Joseph Cram, who were an im- I was the pupil of dear Mary Law- portant influence in my boyhood and rence, who gave me my first reward youth, as will be seen. Of this house of merit, and bestowed on me her the artist presents a view in connec- sweet smile, which I still remember. tion with the story of my first esca- She was the daiighter of Dr. Law- pade. In my native hamlet I was one rence of Hampton, and taught only of some twenty children-six Sanborns, in summers^—the winter schools, fre- one Sanborn-Stevens, adopted by my quented by the big boys, requiring six cousins of the muscles of a grandfather ; Healeys, schoolmaster, who the rod Mrs. Dall ; three Browns, two Lanes, sometimes wielded with manly two Wellses, and one Perkins—the vigor. I was soon transferred to the other Browns and Perkinses having brick schoolhouse on the Exeter road, grown up and gone into the world to and there continued my education, make their way. At present there summer and winter, till at the age of are but four children where the twen- eleven I had begun algebra, and ty-one of 1833 gamboled and went to was learning a little Latin from my school at the red or the brick school- brother Charles, who read Caesar, house. My systematic instruction Virgil, and Cicero "at the age of began in the red house, on the ridge twenty, self-instructed, so far as I leading to my Grandfather Leavitt's know. hill and meadow farm, and half way But I have a few recollections between his house and my father's. earlier than even my alphabetical My sisters took me there before I was school years; indeed, I must have FRANK B. SANBORN. 23 had the alphabet when I went to by the two marriages of my Grand- for I then read in father Sanborn with two cousins Mary Ivawrence ; words of two or three syllables, and named Blake. By the first was born could understand the pictured fables in one daughter, Dolly (shortened from the that had never married spelling-book superseded Dorothy), who ; by " " Webster's. His rude boy steal- the second, two sons and two daugh- ing apples still survived in the newer ters, of whom only the younger book, and could be seen in the coarser daughter, Sally, married. The two printed Webster, carefully preserved brothers, Joseph, named for the among other old schoolbooks in the builder of the house, and Aaron (a new garret. Of this garret I have early name in the family), had been diligent but one of earliest in the district and re- souvenirs ; my pupils school, recollections is of another garret, with ceived prizes for their skill in mathe- very steep stairs, up which my short matics,—small American editions of legs, at three years old, could hardly "Pope's Essay on Man," to which mount. I remember myself in a his Universal Prayer was annexed. " short plaid gown, toiling up this These, together with the ciphering mountain pathway, along with another books" that had won the prize, re- child (Arthur Godfrey, perhaps), and mained in an old chest in the west not till many years after did I recog- garret, which contained a medley of nize this same stairway in the old ancient literature. Upon these my Benjamin Sanborn house, then owned thirst for reading exercised itself for by Cousin Nancy, in which my Aunt half a dozen years, —almanacs and Dorothy, soon to be mentioned, was school-books, old copies of the Nezv brought up by her grandmother as a Havipshire Patriot of Isaac Hill, and companion to her younger cousin, more recent copies of the first Uni- early left an orphan. This incident I versalist newspaper in Boston, Thomas in but before that I place 1835 ; was Whittemore's Trumpet. the hero of another adventure, of But there was more solid food in a " " which my mother told me, for I can- Social Library founded by Parson not recall it. In 1834, when I was a Abbot, who had succeeded Dr. I^ang- little beyond two years and a half, if so don as the town minister when my much, our house was struck by light- father was five years old, and induced ning, and the bolt ran down the big his parishioners to take shares in it. chimney, and diverted itself a little Ordinarily it was kept in the parson- " in the back chamber," where I was age, across the green from my grand- playing alone, near the chimney. My father's house, where now stands the sister ran up to see what had hap- house, about the same size, of my pened to me, but I was found placidly late brother I^ewis. Before I was playing with a stick, seated on the eight years old I began to read those " floor, and declaring that the great books, particularly Mavor's Voy- " noise had been made by my pounding ages and -" Plutarch's Lives," the on the floor with my stick. I believed latter in Langhorne's version, with myself already capable of making quotations from Homer given in the some stir in the world. words of Pope, and with other poetic My father was one of five children passages (in the footnotes) from Dr. 24 FRANK B. SANBORN.

The Old Cram House.

Johnson and his contemporaries. For the founders, and for years the editor, " fiction we had the Popular Tales" of the once famous Lowell Offering, " of Miss Edgeworth and the Moral written by factory girls, of whom Tales" of Hannah More; while ser- Harriet was one. I was sent to the mons and biographies, Goldsmith's Exeter Road school in the summer "Animated Nature," and an occa- of 1836, a mile from our house, and sional volume of poems, —Southey's more than half a mile from my "Joan of Arc," I remember, for uncle's; but, beguiled by some boy there I first saw Greek verse in the or girl, I ran up there after school, unknown alphabet, and the effusions against the injunctions of my sister of Colonel Humphreys and Robert Helen, who had the care of me. I Treat Paine. remember this incident for two rea- My Uncle Joseph, a grave and sons, —it was the only time I recall kindly man, who had lived for a few seeing this uncle, and I was much years in the parsonage after Parson afraid of being whipped for my es- Abbot vacated it in 1827, was now capade. My uncle sat in the long living, a confirmed invalid, in the old dining-room, in his sick chair, and Cram house, here represented, and spoke to me in a pleasant manner, probablj' built before 1700. He died while my aunt and cousins were in in December, 1836, before I was five and out of the quaint old room. I years old, and his funeral sermon was became well acquainted with the preached by Rev. Stephen Farley, house afterward, but this was the the father of Harriet Farley, one of only time I saw my uncle in it. My FRANK B. SANBORN. 25 sister Sarah, whose portrait at a with all, and allowed the range of much later date is here given, came the house, and the orchard, which in up to take me home, and, I suppose, summer and autumn abounded in held out prospects of punishment by fruit. There were the bee-hives, my father, for when I saw him, and from which we got delicious honey, he sent me to wash my feet on the and there were specialties in my bench at the back door, I had great aunt's cooking which pleased me fears that a whipping would follow. more than what I had every day at It did not, but my mother put her home. I was first carried there, so tired son to bed with many injunc- far as I remember, in the —winter, tions not to do such a thing again. with my father and mother, I sit- At this time, as near as I remember, I was a chubby boy, with long light hair, which my Grandmother Leavitt used to stroke with her soft " hand, and call me her Httle Dr. Franklin." I often visited her and my corpulent grandfather, 'Squire Tom Leavitt, living in the white house near the hill, under the four elms, and with his hives of bees beside the well, in full view from his east door, near which he sat in his justice's chair and read his news- papers, or heard cases brought before him as justice of the peace, an office he held by constant appointment from his first commission by Gov. John Langdon in 1805 till his death in 1852. His three sons had married and left home, and two of his daugh- Sarah Elizabeth Sanborn. the eldest so ters, my mother being ; that his house w^as kept by my Aunt ting wrapped up in the bottom of the Hannah, then about twenty, assisted sleigh, —and as we glided along, by her mother, who soon became so drawn by the horse of my own age, much an invalid that she could do or a little older, I noticed how the little except entertain visitors with stone walls seemed to run awaj'' back- her pleasant conversation. The farm— wards as we passed by. Occasionally was carried on by a hired man, at I spent the night at this house, and first David Forsyth, a Yankee, but distinctly recall the high-post bed- soon b}^ a north of Ireland Scotch- stead, into the luxurious featherbed man, John Cochrane, who remained of which I had to climb by a chair. for many years. There, too, I met my cousins from "With this pleasant homestead many Boston, half a dozen city girls and of my most delightful recollections boys, who spent some part of their connect themselves. I was a favorite vacations at their grandfather's, —

FRANK B. SANBORN. one of them a boy a little older than preferred to sit, and in front of which nij'self, with whom I learned to swim he died in December, 1901. In the in the small stream at the foot of the corner opposite the fire stood the tall hill. old clock, and there was the book- I was often sent to carry the news- case near by, in which I found and paper to my political grandfather, learned by heart two or three of the who, in return, sent us his agricul- plays of Shakespeare, and from which " tural weekly, for he was a farmer I took my great-grandmother's Scots with specialties, such as the breeding Worthies," with its biographies of of Durham cattle and bee culture. Knox and his associate Calvinists,

\ f

,/' ,

Thomas Leavitt, Esq. (1808 ) Hannah (Melcher) Leavitt.

He understood the latter better than and the scandalous pamphlet of an5'body in town, and dealt with his Howie of lyochgoin, "God's Judg- bees in a way that astonished boys, ments on Persecutors," aimed spec- who did not dare to go near the hives ially at the Stuart kings and their for fear of being stung. In the win- instruments of oppression in Scot- ter he lived by an open fire in a land. Franklin stove, which came to me The poetry in our Social lyibrary afterwards, and furnished my poet- did not much attract me as a child, friend Ellery Channing, during the ten nor was it very good, but at a neigh- years and more that he lived in my bor's I found the poems of Burns, house, the cheerful blaze by which he and my brother Charles had an Amer- in

CO< iiJ

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Ul X H

Q O o X o CQ X o UJ

Ul X FRANK B. SANBORN. 29 ican editiou of Moore's "Melodies," ping wood, and a dozen other things on which I feasted, as I did on a which a boy could do. The work borrowed edition of Campbell's poems. did not press, usually, and there was These introduced me to Walter Scott, plenty of time to learn shooting, at and one of my own first purchases first with bow and arrow and after- was a Philadelphia edition of the ward with guns, and for playing the " Waverley Novels," which I read simple games that country boys then at the age of twelve with the greatest understood. Baseball, for instance, " — delight. I had read, the Scottish not then the angry and gambling

' ' Chiefs of Miss Porter earlier, and game it has since become, —and the

' ' ' ' " an edition of Don Quixote in four easier games of one old cat," "two volumes, printed at Exeter in small old cat," and "drive," played with type, but easily read by young eyes. balls; and "truck," played with a Mrs. Radcliffe's "Romance of the solid wooden wheel, rolled over the " Forest was another novel of which ground. I read the first volume and did In such did only, games girls not join ; not learn till many years after how and the game of cricket, which has the story came out, for my brother, long prevailed in England, and in at a muster-field, where books were which girls in school now take part sold by a peddler, bought two cop- there, never was domesticated in New ies of the first volume, supposing England. But there were many less he had the whole book, and was active games in which girls in Hamp- never able to match them with the ton Falls participated. Such were " second. Hy Spy," a hiding sport, where All this time I was going to the one boy or girl stood at a tree, the district school, and—learning all that side of a building, or elsewhere, with successive teachers young women —in eyes covered, while the rest of the summer, and young men in winter children sought hiding places during could impart to a boy who took to the half minute that the spy was studies of all kinds like a duck to counting a hundred. Then they were water. From my brother Charles I had searched for, and when seen the one " " got a smattering of Latin before I was who was it" called out, I spy," ten, and at the age of eleven, a lively and both ran for the "gool," which young schoolmaster, D. W. Barber, was the tree, etc., where the spy had began to teach me Greek in the town stood.. If the spy got there first, or school. I learned the alphabet and touched the one espied, he or she " the declension of the Greek article, was it," and the game took a new " " but then my careful father declared turn. This word gool for "goal," me too young for that study, and I figured in another game, called indif- unwillingly gave it up. At the same ferently "gool,"' "tag," or "co- " time I was all the ram in this two learning common ; spots were marked activities of farming—riding the horse and called "gools," between which to plow and rake hay, driving oxen, the children must run, and could be

' ' ' ' planting and hoeing corn and pota- tagged or touched anywhere off toes, raking hay and weeding the the gools. To decide who should be garden, taking care of the barn, chop- the first catcher in such sports, a 30 FRANK B. SANBORN.

recited sometimes walked down this alley, as mystic rhyme was ; laughing this: this verse was chanted— mona Eena, meena, mike, This needle's ej-e no one can pass, strike, Pestalahni, bony, The thread it runs so true ;

Boo ! Huldy, guldy, It has caught many a pretty fair lass, And now it has caught you. A child was pointed at with each word, and the first catcher was the At which last word the linked arms " one on whom the fatal Boo" fell. of the last couple dropped down over Another and more elaborate incanta- the head of the last girl, and she was tion was this : subject to be kissed by the boy of that These indicate how Wier, brier, limber lock, couple. sports Five mice all in a flock early the natural relation of the two Sit by the spring, and sing sexes began to show itself in the sim- O-U-T ! for the and ple community ; boys girls letter fell to the one who was The last who taught me to play them could to be "it" in any game. Still not have been more than seven years another rhyme began, old when I learned the rhymes. A little later came the Intery, mintery, cutery corn, sedentary games Apple-seed, apple-thorn, for long evenings, —checkers, morrice " (which we called moral "), fox-and- to which the rhyme just cited could and the forms of card- be added. In other games, like geese, simplest Chess came in later, and I "Thread the Needle" or kissing playing. was twelve at least when I learned games, these rhymes were chanted by that game of skill from the minister's the little girls, who had better notions son in the across the green of song than the boys,— parsonage Whist came about the same time with Uncle John is very sick. chess, and was diligently pursued for What will you please to give him ? Three good wishes. several winters, the boys meeting Three good kisses. round at each other's houses and And a pint of ginger. playing in the family sitting-room, Or else this, — undei the eyes of the older people. " This, in my case, was the clock William Healey, so they say, the tall Goes a-courting night and day. room," where still stands Sword and pistol by his side, clock, one hundred and thirty years And Brown shall be his bride. Fanny old now, which was made by Daniel In each case the boy was to catch the Balch of Newburyport, and has kept for five of San- girl and kiss her if he could. In good time generations "Thread the Needle," which, Uke borns in the same corner. In other most of these sports, was very ancient houses we played in the long kitchen, and traditional, like these rhymes which was apt to be the family sitting- (though the latter had been much room in winter, because better heated changed in passing from one genera- than the rest of the house, before air- tion to another, never being written tight stoves or furnaces came into down), the boys and girls formed an use. The parlor, or "best room," alley by standing opposite and holding was seldom opened to the children, ' ' ' ' to hands above the head of the girl who except when company came FRANK B. SANBORN. " " dinner or tea, or for the nooning orthodox Congregationalists in other but in Falls on Sundays, at which time our house, towns, hardly Hampton ; being near the church, became the while the Quakers, much more numer- resort of cousins, aunts, and distant ous then, in the towns which made up parishioners. old Hampton, than they are now, or Already in my early boyhood, or have been in my time, had long ab- before, had begun that religious dis- sented themselves from the parish integration which gradually changed meeting-houses. the ancient unity of the town or par- Dr. Ivangdon brought together in ish into a group of warring sects, dis- the church edifice, near his parson- puting more or less zealously about age, more than seventy families, and infant baptism, original sin, eternal punishment, the Trinity, and the other points of contention among be- lievers nominally Christian, and more or less accepting the Bible as the lit- eral word of God, both Old and New Testaments. The last town qlergyman who held the whole population together around his tall pulpit in Hampton Falls, was Dr. Samuel Langdon, who came there from the presidency of Harvard university in 1780, shaking off the dust of that ungrateful "society," as he

termed it, and burdened with the debts contracted in the service of the clergy and people of Massachusetts, which the new commonwealth for several years neglected to pay, and never Doctor Langdon's Headstone In Hampton Falls. did pay in full. He was the most learned person who ever lived and must have had, on pleasant Sundays, died in the town, and one of the most if the weather was not too freezing for useful his immediate succes- the at least three ; though unwarmed house, sor, Rev. Jacob Abbot, who succeeded hundred hearers for his learned ser- him as my grandfather's nearest mons, expounding Romans or Reve- neighbor, ser^^ed the community lations. But it was rumored that he with rather more of the if chose his longer, and was no Calvinist ; and he modern spirit. Dr. I^angdon was of successor, as probably he did, he must the later eighteenth century, parson have known that young Mr. Abbot of earlier insist Abbot the nineteenth ; both was Arminian, and did not on liberal, philanthropic, and devoted to endless damnation for a majority of good literature. his parishioners. At any rate, such Before Dr. Langdon's death, in proved to be the fact, and very soon November, 1797, the revolting Bap- the Baptists began to hold meetings tists had begun to secede from the by themselves, and protest against G. M.—3 32 FRANK B. SANBORN. the ministerial tax collected by the or twenty years. My other grand- town authority and paid over to par- father, Sanborn, and his elder son, son Abbot. A wealthy family of Joseph, also joined this society, and Browns led off in this secession, which the latter was its treasurer in 1832, in course of twent}' years again di- when the town's property in the par- vided, the original seceders calling sonage lands was sold, and the money " themselves "Christian Baptists, and (about $3,000) divided between the leaving the Calvinists to organize a four societies then existing. Some- church later at the "Hill" (as the thing more than a fifth part went to small village was called), and to con- the Universalists, and the rest was nect it with a special school, main- divided almost equally between the tained by Baptists and known, during still united Congregationalists and the

The Unitarian Church, Hampton Falls. the twenty-odd years of its existence, two Baptist churches, the Christians " as Rockingham Academy." getting more than twice as much as " The secession of the Freewill or the Calvin-Baptists." Now, seventj'^ Christian Baptists took place in 1805, years later, the Universalists have and included several who took that merged in the Unitarians, the two mode of signifying their general dis- Baptist societies mostly in the Calvin- sent from the "standing order" of ists, while the Congregationalists New England churches, without at- have divided into Unitarian and Trin- taching anj' special significance to the itarian, neither of them strong socie- rite of baptism. Among these was ties. In my boyhood the Universal- my grandfather Leavitt, who, ten ists had ceased to hold meetings, and years later, headed a movement for a their church library had been divided Universalist society in the town, to among the members, my father re- which he and his son-in-law, my ceiving as his share a two-volume father, attached themselves for a dozen history of Universalism, a Life of John FRANK B. SANBORN. 33

Murray (the Irish Methodist who first thodox were Federalists, the Baptists, preached universal salvation in Rock- Methodists, and Universalists became ingham county), and the sermons of Jeffersonian Democrats, —in my time " Elhanan Winchester, a Restoration- followers of Jackson and Van Buren. ist"; who, after preaching in New Thus, in Hampton Falls, until the England awhile went over to London Texas question made an issue among and founded what became the Fins- these Democrats, the Christian Bap- bury Square Chapel, where W. J. tists and Universalists, and some of Fox, and after him my friend, Mon- the Unitarians, were mostly Demo- cure Conway, preached for long years. crats, while the Calvinists and most There were other books from this of the Unitarians were Whigs, and source but these attracted Harrison in the first ; my boy- supported presi- ish interest, and b)^ reading them dential election that I remember. —never having heard a sermon on the Even in 1839, at the age of seven, I subject— I became, at the age of nine, was taking an interest in politics, as a convinced Universalist. But I con- my father, grandfather, and elder tinued to frequent other churches, — brother did. Charles, afterwards Dr. the Unitarian, near home, and the Sanborn, subscribed, in his eighteenth Christian Baptists where now the year, to the Congressional Globe, of town library is. In the former I heard the elder Blair, and in that quarto good preaching, by educated men, record of congressional proceedings I whose books I had read, or was to became familiar with the names of read. Among the Baptists I heard all the senators and congressmen, spontaneous religious utterances, and knew to which party they be- oftentimes from while their I even I was women ; longed. recall, though ministers, or "elders," were without but little more than seven, the ex- much education, but often of good citement caused by the shooting of natural eloquence. At home I had Cilley, Hawthorne's classmate, a read the Bible from earliest years, so Maine congressman, by Graves of that I could perhaps have said at the Kentucky, in a quarrel originating age of twelve that I had read all its with Colonel Webb of the New York of course with- Courier a7id and I fol- books through twice ; Enqiiirer ; out much understanding of the mys- lowed with interest the contest for tical or theological parts. the speakership in December, 1839, To a certain degree, these sec- which ended with the election of tarian divisions in religion repre- Hunter of Virginia. sented political opinions also. The Then came on the noisy log-cabin "standing order" of Congregation- campaign between Van Buren in alists had been patriots in the Revo- power, but burdened with the lack lution, Federalists under Washing- of prosperity in the country, and ton and Adams, and had become Harrison, a military candidate (who "Whigs" under the classification united in his rather insignificant per- that I first remember. The seced- son, the elements of general discon- ing sects, therefore, being at variance tent), and the powerful leaders of with the parish ministers, took an the capitalist party of Whigs, such side in as the Or- as and Wilson of opposite politics ; Webster Clay, New 34 FRANK B. SANBORN.

Hampshire, and Evans of Maine. barn. Of the merits in the case I Knowing nothin'g of the principles know nothing, and it is possible that involved (if there were any) I was a Pierce, who w^as district attorney for warm partisan of Van Buren, while New Hampshire about that time, the two sons of the new Unitarian may have been prosecuting George minister in the parsonage, Charles in the United States court, but I and Henry Shaw, were ardent think not. All that I recall is the Whigs, With Henry I had a bet elegant figure and pleasing face of pending on the result, —no less than the leading Democrat of the state the old "fourpence ha' penny," then, and for a dozen j-ears more. valued at six cents and a quarter, in He was wearing the fashionable dress those da.y& of Spanish and Mexican of the period, remembered now^ coins. I lost the bet, of course, but chiefly because Webster gave it a my exultation was great the next dignity, —the blue coat with brass summer, when Tyler of Virginia, the buttons and the nankeen trousers accidental president, vetoed the cur- strapped over the slender boot. His rency and tariff bills of Henr}^ Clay, aspect was what Hawthorne after- divided his party, and let the Demo- wards described in his campaign life " crats come into power in the next of General Pierce : vivacious, slen- congress, —even carrying Massachu- der, of a fair complexion, with light or a of it. hair that had a curl in it his cheer- setts, good part New ; Hampshire valiantly supported Van fulness made a kind of sunshine, yet, Buren, who, on the currency and with all the invariable gentleness of tariff questions, was right, as I now his demeanor, he perfectly gave the view it, and steadily sent a solid impression of a high and fearless Democratic delegation to congress, spirit." Norris was of another in both branches. make, tall and large and dark, of I saw little of the leaders in these strength almost gigantic, and party contests, but Moses Norris, naturally a leader, without the who went to congress in 1843, was a graces of leadership. Neither of nephew of my Grandfather Leavitt, them get full credit now for their and I remember seeing him in the talents, because they were exerted winter of i842-'43, when he was a in the cause of human slavery, candidate, coming to our door in his its extension and perpetuation, yet uncle's sleigh to make a call on my both were men of great humanity, mother. It must have been in the who would rather do a generous ac- summer of 1843 that I first saw his tion than a cruel one. associate, Franklin Pierce, afterwards The contest over the slavery ques- president, and I remember distinctly tion in New Hampshire began in the how he looked and was dressed. It winter of i844-'45, ^^^ i^ ^^Y very was in the court house at Exeter, neighborhood, for it was the Demo- where a criminal trial was going on, cratic member of congress from and Pierce had come down from Rockingham and Strafford, John P. Concord to defend Sara George, a Hale of Dover, who revolted against wild youth of Seabrook, who was the dictation of Pierce, Atherton, charged with burning his uncle's and Norris in regard to the annexa- FRANK B. SANBORN. 35 tion of Texas. New Hampshire had dependent Democracy in that part of declared against slavery in 1820, New Hampshire. He had till then when both political parties had been occupied wholly with farm united in passing resolutions in the labors or with teaching, but had been state legislature, declaring slavery a wide reader of political and social wrong and inconsistent with demo- literature, and had many friends and cratic institutions. The annexation of followers in the towns where he was Texas was favored chiefly by the slave- known. holders and their political allies, and Though but thirteen years old, I the extension and protection of slavery sympathized entirely with him in his was sought to be guaranteed by this views. I had been much indebted expansion of our territory, at the risk of war with Mexico. The New Hampshire Democrats, following the lead of Van Buren, had passed resolutions again,st annexation, but the South had carried its point in 1844, nominated a Tennessee slaveholder for president, rejecting Van Buren, and their national platform favored annexing Texas. Mr. Hale, who had been nominated by the Demo- crats for reelection to congress, came out with a letter explaining his vote against annexation. The "Concord Regency," headed by Pierce, demanded that he should be dropped from the general ticket and another man nominated. When this was done, a few men in Kxetcr, Portsmouth, the Hamptons, and that Charles Heniy Sanborn (1846). neighborhood, called a public meeting, which took place at Exeter in to him for aiding my education, out February, 1845, and declared that of school, and teaching me much in ^'Independent Democrats" would the use of tools and the art of shoot- support Hale. They did so, to such ing, in both of which he had made an extent that Woodbury, the sub- himself more expert than I ever be- stituted nominee, could not be came. He was a good cabinet elected, and there was a vacancy in maker, self-instructed, a good the delegation till a coalition of draughtsman," and in other ways Whigs and Independents carried the handy, which I was not, though state in the election of 1846. willing to learn. He had taught This contest brought my brother himself Latin and French, and other- Charles, then twenty-three years old, wise had qualified himself beyond into political activity, and made him what was common among the youth of of In- of and he had one the younger leaders the his time and place ; 36 FRANK D. SANBORN. an ambition, afterwards gratified, to the Leavitts. My own first portrait practice a profession. His experi- was taken three years later, when I ences of the heart had been unhap- was seventeen, and both were called the sweet to he was likenesses at the time. py ; girl whom good attached having died before they It will be seen that the portrait could be married. above is that of a scholar, or, per- In 1846 he became an assistant in chance, a poet, rather than a finan- the office of the anti-slavery secretary cier. My finances up to the age of of state in Concord, and also aided seventeen were slender, and were chiefly expended for books or magazines. The}'^ were derived from small paj'ments made to me for small labors on the neighboring farms, or the care of Widow Perkins' barn and wood- shed I for the ; which had most part until I entered college. To this were added small tips from visiting cousins or other persons who shared the ample hospitalities of my father and two and the sales my grandfathers ; which I occasionally made of walnuts gathered in October. When in my twelfth year I visited Boston for the first time, my pocket money must

have been supplied by my father ; and was expended in part for an " American edition of Hudibras," which I bought at a book-stall near the Faneuil Hall market. I had of I this hu- F. B. Sanborn (I 849), y€t. 7^ made the acquaintance morous poem by some citations in in editing the party newspaper, the "Newman's Rhetoric"; but was Independent Democrat^ which did much disappointed in the story, " much to turn New Hampshire from which seemed to me, after Don the pro-slavery Democracy to what Quixote," flat and tiresome. On this was afterwards organized as the Re- visit I saw Adelaide Phillips (sub- publican party. sequently a famous singer) in a His portrait, here engraved, was child's part at the Boston Museum, taken in Concord at that time. It long owned by Moses Kimball who represents him at the age of (nearly) was my associate in later years. twenty-five, seriously handsome, and [ To be continued. much resembling his mother's family, COL. JAMES ROBERTS OF BERWICK, MAINE.

B}i John Scales.

Col. James Roberts was the son of unteer to form companies to march 'Joshua and Ruth (Smith) Roberts. to Boston at once, but of course it He was born in Berwick, Me., 31 required some little time to organize May, 1745. His father came to Ber- and equip the men. The second Pro- wick from York, where he was born vincial Congress of Massachusetts and his ancestors had lived for sev- issued a call, 23 April, 1775, for eral generations. His mother was troops, and York county, in which is the daughter of John and Elizabeth Berwick, responded promptly and Smith of Berwick. It is not known raised the first regiment of foot sol- that he was any relation to the Rob- diers that was furnished by the dis- erts family of Dover. trict of Maine, then under Massachu- When a boy, James Roberts was a setts rule. The town of Berwick pupil of the famous schoolmaster, raised two companies of 64 men each John Sullivan of Somersworth, and for this regiment. This shows the a schoolmate of John Sullivan, the patriotic spirit that prevailed in the distinguished general in the Revolu- town. tionary War, and of James Sullivan, One of these companies was com- governor of Massachusetts. Under manded by Ebenezer Sullivan, the the instruction of such a teacher, Mr. youngest son of Master Jolm Sullivan Roberts must have acquired a good and brother of the general. The education for that period. When he other company was commanded by was twenty-two years old he married Philip Hubbard, and James Roberts, Martha Woodsum (9 July, 1767), and who was his second lieutenant, was to them were born several children. very efficient and active in enlisting The eldest of these, Mary, born 12 men for the company, which, when May, 1769, married Thomas Went- completely organized, was as follows: 16 1790 and their Mar- Capt. Philip Hubbard 's Company. worth, Feb., ; tha, born 4 April, 1795, married John Col. James Scammon's Regiment of Ham of Dover (second wife), 14 May, Foot, York County, District of 1837. Their only son is John Thom- Maine. as Wentworth Ham of Dover, N. H., Captain Hubbard was com- who was born 1 July, 1838. missioned June 2, 1775, and his The battles of Lexington and Con- descendants still have the original cord were fought 19 April, 1775. document. When he entered the The news of this affair reached Ber- service he was about fifty-seven years wick the next day and of course old and had had considerable expe- caused great excitement. All the rience in the French and Lndian able-bodied men were anxious to vol- wars. The following is tfie muster 38 COL. JAMES ROBERTS. roll of the company, with time of en- Elisha James, Lebanon; May 5. listment, under command of Captain Wm. Davis, Berwick; May 5.

Hubbard, in August, 1775 : Benj. Goodwin, Berwick; May 5. James Grant, Berwick; May 5. Philip Hubbard, Captain, Berwick; Daniel Wadlin, Berwick, May 5. ]\Iay 2. Bartholomew Nason, Berwick; May 'Jedediah Goodwin, 1st Lieut., Ber- 8. wick; May 2. Ichabod Smith, Berwick; May 8. James Roberts, 2d Lieut., Berwick; Abel Getchell, Berwick; May 8. May 2. Walter Abbott, Berwick; May 8. . Simeon Lord, Sergt., Berwick; May Morrill Hobbs, Berwick; May 8. 2. Benj. Weymouth, Berwick; May 8. Joshua Nason, Sergt., Berwick; Theophilus Abbott, Berwick; May May 2. 8. Richard Plummer, Sergt., Berwick; Daniel Abbott, Berwick; I\Iay 8. May 2. Simeon Lord, Jr., Berwick; May 8. •Tristram Fall, Sergt., Berwick; Aaron Hubbard, Berwick; May 8. May 2. Moses Courson, Lebanon; May 15. Samuel Hubbard, Corporal, Ber- Dodifer Garland, Rochester; May wick; 2. May 15. Freethy Spencer, Corporal,, Ber- Jonathan Garland, Rochester; May wick; May 5. 15. Samuel Worcester, Corporal, Ber- Nathaniel Blewett, Berwick; May wick; May 5. 15. 'Joseph Ber- Hubbard, Corporal, Berwick 15. Daniel Hodgdon, ; May wick; May 5. Moses How, Berwick; May 15. Samuel Stevens, Drummer, Leba- John Davis, Berwick; May 15. non; May 20. Lebanon 15. Ralph Farnum, ; May Privates : Berwick 15. Thomas Downs, ; May Moses 15. Berwick 5. Londrast Hearst, Berwick ; Hubbard, ; May May Aaron 20. Goodwin, Berwick, May 5. John Pugsley, Berwick; May Moses Francis Berwick 20. Spencer, Berwick; May 5. Peiree, ; May John Shorey, Berwick; May 5. James Smith, Berwick; May 20. Benj. Row, Berwick; May 5. Ichabod Downs, Berwick; May 20. Daniel Lord, Berwick; May 5. John Cousens, Berwick; ]\Iay 20. Stephen Wood, Berwick, May 5. Jonathan Buroughs, Berwick; May Daniel Berwick 5. 20. Hubbard, ; May Jeremiah Berwick 5. Paul 20. Lord, ; May Welch, Berwick; May Wm. Stone, Berwick; May 5. John Peiree, Berwick; May 20. Daniel Grant, Berwick; May 5. Joseph Goodwin, Berwick; IMay 20. James Lebanon June 28. Wentworth, Rochester; May Gilbert Perkins, ; 5. • 12. Silas White, Lebanon ; Aug. Richard Perkins, Lebanon; May 5. Moses Lord, Berwick; July 11. Berwick Benjamin Horsham, Berwick; May Philip Hubbard, Jr., ; July 5. 20. COL. JAMES ROBERTS. 39

The origical roll, from which the The point of rendezvous was Ber- above was copied, is in the Massa- wick, now South Berwick, and all chusetts Archives, Vol. 15, page 33. had gathered there by Saturday- Total, 64 men. All had guns and night, June 3. It is not recorded all but one were supplied by them- what they did on Sunday, but they selves. Only twenty-four cartridge started on the march at sunrise Mon- boxes returned in the company and no day morning, June 5, and reached bayonets. Hanson's tavern in Dover in season There is one remarkable and note- for an early breakfast, and the pro- worthy fact in connection with this prietor had everything ready to en- company, and that is that Ralph Far- tertain the sixty-four men when they num (Farnham) of Lebanon, who arrived. This tavern was what is enlisted May 15, was the last survivor now called the old Dover hotel, and of the soldiers who participated in the is o^^^led by the Misses Woodman. It battle of Bunker Hill. He lived to stands at the "Corner," at the junc- be one hundred and two years old tion of Hanson street and Central and visited Boston and Bunker Hill avenue. after he had passed the century From here they marched to Dur- mark. He was received with great ham and halted for dinner at Win- honors all along his journey. born Adams' tavern at the Falls. Colonel Scammon's regiment This hostelry stood on the hill on the marched to Cambridge in companies, east side of "Oyster River freshet," one following another, because it was and nearly south of where the SuUi- not possible for the taverns along the van monument now stands. Mr. line of march to accommodate a regi- Adams was then in the army and was ment at one time, and the men had later colonel of a regiment. His not the outfit for camping by the way. wife, the mistress of the house, was Captain Hubbard's company was the daughter of Israel Bartlett of the first to start on the journey. Nottingham, and sister of Col. Thom- Each man had armed and equipped as Bartlett, one of the distinguished himself with gun, powder, bullets, and men of New Hampshire in the Revo- all that was deemed necessary to en- lution. After dinner they marched gage in fighting the British army. As to Newmarket and put up at Doe 's a matter of fact the dress and equip- tavern for the night. That place ments were picturesque rather than was a small village then. Just uniform. The housewives did not where the tavern stood I do not know, all use the same dyestuff in coloring but it was somewhere near the falls, the cloth, nor the tailors the same cut The reader, who has a lively imagin- in making the garments; but all had ation and has had experience in feed- the same uniform courage and desire ing and providing otherwise for a to defend the rights and to preserve crowd of lively and hungry men, can the liberties. None but the officers easily see what "mine host" Doe and wore uniforms. The following is his wife had to do to meet the wants the line of march pursued by Captain of that occasion. Hubbard's company. Tuesday, June 6, they left at sun- 40 COL. JAMES ROBERTS.

rise and marclied to Exeter before toric Longfellow house. Tims, these breakfast, where they halted at Gid- patriots had been four days in travel- ding 's tavern and partook of the re- ing about seventy-five miles, over freshments that were all ready for roueh roads, each man carrying his own them, the proprietor having been baggage. They were paid one penny duly notified of the time they would a mile, and free board at the taverns, arrive. Resuming the march they The other companies follow in the reached Parsons' tavern in Kingston same route from all points in York and halted for dinner. The journey county, Me. So the regiment was of the day was completed at Sawyer's well in camp before the affair at tavern in Plaistow, where they lodged Bunker Hill, in which it took part. for the night. On the day of the battle, June 17, "Wednesday, June 7, they were out Colonel Scammon's regiment had to of bed at daybreak and at sunrise be- march to Lechemere Point, East Cam- gan their march to Haverhill, having bridge, opposite Charlestown. No first partaken of liquid refreshments, sooner had he reached there than he the common beverage of that period, was ordered to "Cobble Hill," later At Haverhill they breakfasted at the site of the McLean Asylum. From Greenleaf 's tavern. A heavy and vio- there, just after the noon hour, he lent thunder shower- came up while was ordered to take his regiment they were eating and delayed their across Charlestown Neck to Bunker crossing the Merrimack till noon. Hill to join in the engagement against hence Mr. Greenleaf had to furnish the British. As they crossed the dinner for them. They crossed the Neck they were subjected to a severe river and reached Stevens' tavern in cross-fire from the British gunboats Andover about sunset, where they in the rivers on each side; but his rested for the night. As they neared men did not flinch or halt in the the seat of war the rumors of what march through shot and shell. Some had happened and was expected soon of the men had seen service and had to occur grew thick and interesting, been under fire in the French and In- and kept the men talking till the old dian wars, but most of them were god Somnus called them to sleep. smelling an enemy's powder for the Thursday, June 8, found them up first time as they crossed that narroAV and on the march at sunrise for Bal- neck of land. Lieutenant James lardvale, where they took breakfast Roberts here had his fiirst experience ^^jiL-Deacon Ballard's tavern. In the in war, and was one of the bravest of forenoon they marched to Wyman's the brave. The record says that when tavern in Woburn, where dinner was they were in the hottest and most served. In the afternoon they reached dangerous of this cross-fire Colonel Wdtherby's tavern, in what is now Scammon shouted to his men :" Come

Arlington, and encamped for the on, my Yorkshire lads ! Let us show night. our bravery!" The men responded

Friday, June 9, they marched to heartily; they went on, and they did Cambridge and were ordered to en- show their bravery all right in the camp near General Washington's thickest of the fight, headquarters, of a later date the his- After the battle they returned to COL. IAMES ROBERTS. 41

Cambridge and resumed their camp After Colonel Scammon's regiment duties near General Washington's was through with the siege of Boston, headquarters, engaged in the siege of Lieutenant Roberts continued in the Boston. This regiment was a part of service and rose through various the besieging army of 17,000 men, grades to that of colonel of a regi- who were encamped in a semi-circle ment. He was prominent in town af- around that town. They lived in all fairs also. He lost his life in 1780, sorts of habitations, a few tents, but while on a journey down the river to mostly log-huts. Cambridge was a Portsmouth. village of 1,500 inhabitants with only One of the men in the company a few large houses like Washington's kept a diary from which the writer headquarters. It was not a part of was able to trace the route of march the siege to attack the British in Bos- from Berwick to Cambridge. Scam- ton, but to keep them from getting mon's regiment was the "Thirtieth out of it by any other way than by Massachusetts Foot." The Thirty- their fleet which filled the harbor. first was Colonel Edmund Phinney's Washington expected they would regiment of Falmouth and vicinity. come out and attack him at any time, The Thirty-first marched to Cam- night or day, so he had his men at all bridge in July over the same route times prepared to defend themselves through New Hampshire and Massa- against any sudden sally that might chusetts that has already been de- be made. This was the kind of work scribed. Of course in passing through that Lieutenant Roberts and his men Dover they did not always stop at the had to do, day by day, during the same tavern, as there were several siege. here at that time. The regiment had left York county One does not have to stretch his im- in such haste that the officers had had agination very much to appreciate the no time in which to get their commis- lively times the women of the taverns sions, but that proved to be all the had in cooking enough to satisfy the more fortunate for them, as they wants daily of sixty or seventy hun- finally got their papers signed by gry men on their march to Cam- Washington himself, instead of the bridge. They not only had to pro- Massachusetts officials. It is said vide for those men from Maine, but that Lieutenant Roberts' commission also for the companies in New Hamp- is still in existence with some one of shire on their way to the front from his descendants. Of course whoever the towns around J)over. The women has it has a great prize with the auto- did not have any modern cooking graph of George Washington on it. ranges to work with but had to do the Lieutenant Roberts saw the great gen- cooking over fires in open fireplaces eral often, who is described as a man and in the huge ovens by the side of six feet two inches tall; very muscu- the fireplace. All this work required lar; large hands and feet; a Roman as much patriotism on the part of the nose blue a as the and ; eyes ; fine, large head, women marching fighting and his body in grand proportion required of the men. No doubt there with his head; and he impressed the was a good seasoning of fun mixed observer as noble and lofty in spirit. with all the hard work that won 42 COL. JAMES ROBERTS.

American liberty for local self-gov- deliberate pace, I suggested the pro- ernment. priety of quickening the march of the The writer has always taken special regiment that it might sooner be re- interest in all that concerns the battle lieved from the galling cross-fire of of Bunker Hill, and no little pride the enemy. With a look peculiar to that his great grandfather was a pri- himself he fixed his eye upon me and

vate in Captain Henry Dearborn's observed, with great composure : " company, Colonel John Stark's regi- 'Dearborn, one fresh man in ac-

' ment, at the famous "rail-fence." tion is worth ten fatigued ones ! and Dearborn was a he continued in , Captain Nottingham the advance the same ' ' man, and later in life rose to be gen- cool and collected manner as before. eral in the American army. About It was just the same with Stark the beginning of the nineteenth cen- when he began to fight the enemy at tury he published his recollections of the rail-fence covered with new mown the battle and in it describes the grass. When he saw the enemy land- march over Charlestown Neck as fol- ing from the boats in Mystic river to lows: march up against the New Hamp- "After completing the necessary shire troops, he marched out in front preparations (at Medford) for ac- of his men and stuck a tall stick in tion, the regiment formed and march- the ground; he marched back delib- ed about one o'clock. When it erately to his line and gave orders for reached Charlestown Neck we found his men not to fire till the British line two regiments halted in consequence reached that stick. They obeyed his of a heavy enfilading fire thrown order; the result is recorded in every

across it, of round, bar and chain shot history; the British soldiers were cut from the lively frigate and floating down as grass before a scythe. When batteries in the Charles river, and a the British had reformed and were floating battery lying in the river again advancing. Stark gave orders Mystic, Major McClary went forward not to fire until they could see the (from Stark's regiment) and ob- whites of the enemy's eyes; they did served to the commanders (of the so and the whole British line was cut halting regiments), if they did not down as before. intend to move on, to open and let our Lieutenant James Roberts was not regiment pass. The latter was imme- in Colonel Stark's regiment, but he diately done. My company being in was just as brave as Stark's men at front, I marched by the side of Col- his post of duty. onel Stark, who mo\dng with a very VANITAS VANITATUM.

By A. T.

With winter nigh, a butterfly, In the sun came floating by, " And, prophet-like, O fool," said I, " To some summer region hie. Else to-morrow thou shalt die." But looking then with prophet's eye, Where Pleasure's train was passing by, From my heart there came a sigh. And turning on my way, said I, " Man hath not yet become so wise That he may preach to butterflies."

THE FRONT FENCE.

By Louis Milton Boody.

Uncle Dory had decided to paint thing ! Half on't black as sut with • the fence. dust, and tother half jest like powder " We hevsechderned mean weather —got some of the stuff on my good here on this Cape Cod," remarked he; black britches, too. I don't care so " nothin' but fog durin' this time of much for the britches, cos it didn't year, and nothin' but a blisterin' hot do 'em any hurt, but Abigail gut sun in the summer, thet paint, 'spec- mad as thunder." ially white paint, gits to be no better At this juncture Abigail and her than whitewash." daughter Hetty appeared at the Uncle Dory was on his knees by door, the front-yard fence, and, as he ad- "Theodore, you ain't a goin' to dressed the foregoing remarks to me, paint thet fence with them pants on, he gave force to his words by expres- air ye ? Now, Theodore, do be sen- sive waves of the paint brush. sible." "Jest look at thet confounded fence. "Well, Abigail, I think 'twould Last spring I painted it with the best look better if I kept 'em on." Then white lead and good linseed oil—fel- his tone changed perceptibly, as he ler I bought it of said 'twas linseed continued in an explanatory manner, oil, but I believe the derned stuff was "Abigail, I ain't a goin' to paint— powgie oil. Now see the derned not what you 'd call reg'lar paintin'. 44 THE FR0N7 FENCE. " I 'm jest a goin' to cover a few don't know. Styles hev changed.' places." The light of battle shone in the Aunt Abby looked distressed. Captain's eye.

"Theodore, you air such a trial. "Don't know! Don't know ! Hm,

You know you '11 be spattered with don't know ! P'raps I don't know. paint from head to foot. Do for Ged, I follered the sea, man and boy, pity's sake hev a little sense, and for fifty odd year. Shipped as cook " change them pants ! at ten year, and been mate and mars-

The Captain's head went up and ter of a vessel, but now, Ged ! Hetty's lie gave a snort, "Abigail, you let captain, Abigail's first mate, en' I 'm me paint this fence in peace. I 'm a workin' before the mast, with the goin' to "keep these pants on." whole focsle all to myself. Styles Aunt Abby returned to the kitchen, hev changed—yes, sir, styles hev and Hetty followed after delivering changed. They didn't hev no sech this parting shot: "Father, I think derned, cussed-fool notions, when I you are real unlikely." was a boy, as they do now. " "Huh!" sniffed the Captain, Show ! My Godfrey dominy ! "unlikely! Ain't thet jest like a thet's the ruination of this whole woman ? Unlikely ! Ged, I 'd like country. Show ! Show ! Huh, to know who 's gut a better right show ! Nothin' but show ! Hetty than me to say whether I 'm goin' to wants a meckintosh—hed one two wear these pants or not ! But, then, year ago, but 'taint the style now— yer can't reason none with a woman. so she sez. No, sirree, yer can't never tell a "Now thet meckintosh is jest as woman nothin'. good as ever 'twas—don't fit quite " Now there 's darter — so as it did of fer my— Hetty good once, course, good girl— as ever was hed a good edu- Hettj^'s fleshed up some, but 'twill cation graduated right here at that keep rain off jest the same. " school yer see over yender—school- But then, what 's the use of talk- marster said he never hed a smarter in' ! Talkin' is derned poor business scholar. But she 's been teachin' when yer run afoul of a woman, 'spe- school now fer a year. Thinks she cially if thet woman is Abigail or knows all about everything now. Hetty—might jest as well shet up Been livin' over to Southbay, j^er when either of them begins to talk. see, en' gut a lot of dern-fool notions I tell yer what 'tis, a man thet hez in her head. two women folks at home hez gut to " She don't like white paint—sez sail prett}' clost to the wind. 'taint the thing now to hev yer house "Well, we ain't all built alike- painted white. 'Taint artistic, she some thinks one way en' some an- says. En' what Hetty sez Abigail other. Thet makes me think of a

will swear to. Ged ! I don't know feller thet used to live here in the nothin' nowadays. What I say don't village— lised to go mate with Cap'en count. Jest as sure as I say a word, Josh Hillerson. why Hetty puts her head back, en' "Well, the feller gut to goin' kinder gives a little sniff en' sez with 'round one winter to dances en' sech

' reg'lar quarter-deck air, Father, you like, en' after a while he begun to THE FRONT FENCE. 45 take a shiue ter Susan— Bigsbee, old months or so when —a feller come down Cy Bigsbee's darter derned pretty here from Boston— a slick lookin' girl, too. cuss, he was, too buj'in' up cram- "Well, the}^ was engaged, en' b'ries fer the firm he worked fer. 'twas understood thet when he gut Somehow he happened ter git ac- back from the next vyge they 'd be quainted with Sue Bigsbee, en' — tnerried. Things in this world is well, as I said, yer can't ever tell mighty uncertain, "specially mer- nothin' about a girl. Soon 's she riage. saw him, with his shiny shoes en' " Yer see, the feller went whalin' — standin' collar en' pretty neckties en' shipped along with a New Bedford sech, the fat was all in the fire. He cap'en, en' 'twas nigh onto three hung on here en' he hung on till years en' a half afore he hove in sight he'd bought every cramb'ry in the agin. Ged, didn't he look fine! I town, en' he en' Sue was tergether recollec' the fust time I see him com- the whole endurin' time. in' down the street after he gut back.— "Yer— know how sech things turn He hed a blue coat en' yeller pants out they thought they— could n't live but I 'm gettin' ahead of my story. without each other thet fust affair " Sue —Bigsbee was a good enough was all a mistake, yer know, en' so girl, but well, she was about like on—yer know how girls talk. other girls, if yer know what thet is. "Well, he went back ter Boston, Give me a good vessel en' a decent en' arter a while thej^ was merried crew, en' I can do a thing or two, en' went away ter live—I guess 'twas but I don't know nothin' about a a good match, too. Them en' their I never set to be a two children was down here last girl. Ged, up — sum- connoshicr on the subject of girls. mer they 've gut two of as likely- " Well, fer a time after the feller lookin' children as you ever see—a went away Sue was pretty dumpish boy en' a girl. " -—didn't go nowhere nor seem ter When it come time fer the other care fer nothin' —seemed kinder lone- feller to git back, people was kinder some en' off color—lovesick, I sup- wonderin' how he 'd take it. Yer pose. Well, she run on thet way fer see, he had n't heard nothin' about a week or two, en' then she took an- it, fer when a feller goes off whalin' yer other tack. Mopin' want never in can't always tell jest exactly where to her line, en' I guess she overdid it. reach him by writin', so he don't git Anyway, all of a sudden she come much news from home. There want out of mournin' —so ter speak—en' nobody on the train coniin' down was as lively as ever. from Boston thet knew him, en' so he " Ged, I had n't ought ter be wast- didn't hear nothin' about it until he in' my time tellin' yarns en' this was ridin' over on the stage from the fence not touched yet ! Abigail en' deepo. Hett}' will keelhaul me if they come "Jimmy Smith, the stage driver, en' find me runnin' on like a sea- told me about it. He said they was lawyer tTiis way-—might as well finish, a drivin' along, talkin' of this en' though, now I 've begun. thet—things thet had happened while " 'Twas pretty nigh on ter six he was gone—lots of things happen 46 THE FRONT FENCE. " when a feller's away on a whalin' "God's truth,' said Jimmy. vyge, I tell yer. Jimmy sez they "The feller looked down at the was along by the old Joe Kent place, wheels fer a minute or two, en' give when the feller said, kinder quiet: a sigh, then he bust out into a laugh. " 'How's Sue lookin'?' Jimmy sez thet laugh made his skin "Jimmy said it kinder took him crawl. " back a bit, but he answered some- 'Well, there's more than one thin' or other. Feller kinder suspi- Sue in the world,' said the feller. cioned somethin' was wrong, en' he "Well, sir, I'll be derned if he begun to ask questions. Jimmy held didn't go next day en' propose to back as best he could, but when they Sue Baker. He told her he never

gut into the village, the feller sez : cared fer Sue Bigsbee, anyhow, en', " 'Jimmy, yer keepin' somethin' womanlike, she believed him. They back from me, en' I don't git out of was married within a month. " this stage till yer tell me what 'tis Well, as I was a sayin', some yer holdin' back.' thinks one way en' some another." ' ' En' then Jimmy told him. Well, '.'Theodore," came a voice from " sir, Jimmy sez the feller jest set the house, air 3'ou a goin' to open " lookin' quiet-like out over the fields, them oysters fer dinner? " en' keepin' mighty still fer a time, Yes, yes, Abigail, I 'm a comin'."

en' then he sez : "Guess I'll hev to paint thet " 'Air yer tellin' me the truth, derned fence next week," remarked

' Jimmy? the Captain to me.

SPORTSMEM . . .

I do everything in Taxidermy. Send me your trophies for mounting. Deer Heads a Specialty.

GEO. P. WELLINGTON, The Reliable Taxidermist, 5end for Price List. EAST JAFFREY, N. H. RUMFORD PRINTING COMPANY,

^vintetr0, QSinb(^v0^

Railroad Square CONCORD, N. R

MR. BAYNES AND "JIMMY," THE BLACK BEAR CUB. The Granite Monthly.

Vol. XXX Vn. AUGUST-SEPTEMBP:R, 1904. Nos. 2-3.

ERNEST HAROED BAYNES.

By George I. Putnam.

Photos by Mr. Baynes except when stated otherwise.

"Hadn't you better inquire the Baynes the young men will again " way ? saj^s your Companion for per- hold up their heads. The large pub- haps the twentieth time that morning, lie that has been enjoying his nature " Here 's a pretty good looking house stories and studies in the past months " coming— will be glad to know something of his " If you mean any reflection on the very interesting personality, speed of this horse," you reply with A young man just reaching the dignity, "by attributing mobility to fresh and able maturity of the early such as I shall out thirties ; medium stout objects houses, get height ; and walk and to drive, to compel you enough suggest strength ; spare As good a horse as there is in the enough to prove the endurance of the " the told us— athlete built for car- county, liveryman wiry ; speed and " 'T is a small county, and a poor." rying himself with the perfect poise " I '11 inquire," says you, preparing of a happy physical training; face to alight in the dooryard of the neat, showing the pleasant lines impressed red-painted cottage. Some one came by sun and wind as he carries his out to meet and the one studies afield a of us, some was ; thatch brown, the man we had reached hair his face sought. We graying ; and body the the Haven Cottage, in Croydon, and reflex of a mind that is active, dis- met its occupant, Ernest Harold cerning, well trained. A genial man- Baynes, who welcomed us with the ner that places you on friendship's kindly manner that is the key to his footing instantly, and a cheery voice success with all the lower animals, that entertains you with story-bits man included. and ends of experience in his work Mr. Baynes has been spending the with birds and animals. These things summer on the eastern border of the mark the man whose success in the famous Corbin Park, in Sullivan field of nature study has won him a county. New Hampshire, and is now wide public, together wnth recogni- domiciled for the winter in Meriden, tion from that veteran, John Bur- near the northern end of The Park, roughs, and other of the old time Sullivan county has gained some little leaders. Mr. Baynes follows the work attention reason of from heart's his efforts are public recently by choice ; its many smart and agile centenari- sincere, his descriptions honest. There ans but with the of Mr. is a the that ; coming dependability about man 50 ERNEST HAROLD DAYNES.

guidance round the place. Where " are they ? " All around us," was the prompt reply. "They are a good deal like children off ; they never show well before company. But we '11 see what we can find." So we submitted to his guidance, and sought the children with due care. For aught we could see we were as amiable in appearance as Mr. himself feathers fur Baynes ; yet and flew to greet him, and shunned us as if we were the plague. We felt a "Isaac,'' the Turkey Vulture. secret aspiration to form ourselves on him, but the attempt seemed hope- all his less and a little later decided not runs through undertakings, ; we and gives them permanence. to interfere with him in au}^ degree. " ' ' " Where are the critters ? says That was when, after stationing us at your Companion, trying to look dis- a safe distance and out of sight of the " appointed. We expected to see all enemy even, he boldly approached manner of fish, flesh and fowl on the the lair of an old lady skunk who, as " fin, foot and wing submitting to your he said, was fixed ready for busi-

The Haven Cottage and Croydon Mountain. ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES. 51

Photo, by L. B. Baynes. Mr. Baynes and His Tame Fox, "The Sprite. aiess," detached one of her young of the freedom of his forbears on from her maternal breast, and brought western prairies, forever unattainable the little black and white baby to us for him. A flying squirrel showed in his hand for our wonder and admi- the most lovable disposition imagina- ration. Nothing unpleasant trans- ble, sitting in Mr. Baynes' hand and pired, and we wondered and ad- accepting peanuts from strangers mired. Joshua's feat of compelling with charming confidence. He sub- the sun to stand still may have been more far reaching in its consequences, but it seems no more wonderful than to compel the mother skunk to stay her hand, as it were, in defense of her litter. Moreover, we know that this was done. Joshua's feat has been questioned. The barn was in use as a hospital. A lame robin ej^ed us from the window-sill, his only apparent interest being whether or not we brought him a worm. A cynical and despairing coyote in a stall nursed a leg that the young foxes had chewed, and dreamed ' The Sprite" as a Youngster. 52 ERNEST HAROLD BAYNES.

Mr. Baynes' Present Home Near the Northwest Gate of the Blue Mountain Forest.

Buffalo Herd in Foreground. mitted to any amount of handling by slope and in the cool edge of a wood, those experienced hands, while the were a number of big wire crates, in peculiarities that give him his name each of which some pent-up denizen were shown and described. of the wild temporarily acknowledged Across the road, on a daisy-dotted the sovereignty of man as exempli- fied in the person of Ernest Harold In this fox kittens in Baynes. one, ; fox in the another, a wolf ; a mature third, and a fourth claimed by a vulture that flew the length of his cord and flopped heavily upon the ground. While a young bear, rejoicing in the name of "Jimmy," ambled about at will, scorning cages, making short forays into the wood and up trees, but returning with commendable faithfulness to Mr. Baynes whom he had quickly learned to recognize as the source of bread and milk and other things good for young bears. The Companion was well convinced— of the existence of "critters," he had in-— Adult Bull Buffalo. clined to skepticism before starting cot- One of the Corbin Herd. and we made our way back to the ERNES 7 HAROLD BAYNES. 55 tage accompanied by as many members of the Happy Family as were not detained by cords and cages. We were particularly interested in the fate of the fox, which Mr. Baynes said was soon to be turned loose to shift for himself. "You wouldn't sell him?" we asked. " Yes, if I could get my price," he " replied, brazenly. Several men have asked what that was, and I al-— ways give them the same figure one million dollars— no more, for he it no for is n't really worth ; less, moral reasons." Then he became earnest. "As a fact, the fox has earned his liberty. He has helped me earn my money—he has given me A Broad-Winged Hawk. my studies, and has posed for character in my stories. He has had nothing We demurred a little, for we had in return. All he wants is his natu- mental visions of a fox, robbed by ral liberty, and that he is going to captivity of his ability to compete have." with other animals in the wild, falling

Photo, by L. B. Bay?ies. Mr. Baynes and His Tanae Prairie Wolf, "Romulus. 54 ERNES 7 HAROLD BAYNES.

a victim to their relentless natures ; or of a fox, tame and trusting, trotting with unsuspected feet up to a man with a gun. But Mr. Baynes held there was no danger, —for the fox. " " Farmers tell me," said he, that the tame fox is the worst fox. He is slyer than any other, and he is bolder. He will rob a henroost more openly and successfull3^ In fact, his operations become depredations. His natural war is on weaker animals than himself, and he will not suffer when I turn him loose in the park." So we saw that the real danger was not the fox that to Mr. Baynes, and ; farmers would protest against the " taming of varmints," which might then be freed and become the worst

sort of pests. We all know what the " " embattled farmers are capable of take a stand so we trem- Young Raccoons at Home. when they ;

Fawn of White-Tailed Deer in July.

Showing the Protective Value of the White Spots at this Season. ERNEST HAROED BAYNES. 55

bled, a little, for the enthusiastic trees is a lake and beyond that the naturalist who would spare the life of heights of the Park mount up and up, a single fox and ruin for some farmer's ever clothed with trees, until the lofty daughter the income of her poultry line cuts the sky and shuts the west yard. We still count, however, on away. One may look and look, and the qualities of redemption held by never tire, for the land returns swiftly

Fawn of White-Tailed Deer in September. the farmer's son and a handy shot- to its virgin state, and the green-clad gun. folds of the hills inspire restful The Haven Cottage that Mr. Baynes dreams. The mountain curve en- is one of those closes as an west occupied surprising ampitheatre ; north, houses that keeps its pleasant places and south the upraised world-crust for the intimate guest. You might say rims you round, melting in distance it has turned its back on the highway to deep blue, coming nearer into with its passers, and keeps its face for hopeful green, making a blissful soli- the hidden side, turned towards the tude in the centre of which nestles glories of the great Park. There the red cottage with the white high- is a wide, high veranda on this side, way ribboning by unheeded. Here and the Park fence runs by at a rod's one denies the existence of the flesh distance. Beyond the first fringe of and the devil, believing only in a 56 ERNES 7 HAROLD BAYNES. spotless world. Here one who is ing the small wild animals of that civ- here also a ilized weary may grow strong ; section, and attaining knowl- naturalist may find the most secret edge upon which he both writes and and intimate heaven of his desires. lectures most instructively and enter- One immediate result of Mr. tainingly. While he has by no means Baynes' stay in New Hampshire has exhausted this field of study, his been the arousing of his interest in desire to widen the field has led him the American Buffalo. With him, to make New Hampshire his home this means action, and he is already at present. The privileges of the deep in the effort to arouse public great Corbin Park have been freely opinion and sentiment to the necessity given him, with full power to hunt of preserving this noble animal from therein with all the weapons he de-

Mrs. Baynes Feeding "Actaeon," tne Fawn. extinction. Corbin Park contains a sires. As his weapons consist of fine herd of buffalo, and, taken in field glasses, camera and note-book it connection with other herds scat- is easily seen that the game will not tered the suffer his while his through country, gives by presence ; strong hope of future success. One studies of elk, deer, moose, buffalo of Mr. Baynes' most interesting lec- and wild boar in a state of nature will tures is upon the buffalo, and this, in certainly enrich man's present knowl- connection with his earnest and con- edge. For he is doing good work, vincing writing, is surely working to and doing it well. It is a work that the result desired. It is a magnifi- demands to be done, for mankind cent object, and worthy of his best needs it. It is of high importance. endeavors. When you consider, men have for a For some years Mr. Baynes has few generations been getting away been doing most excellent work at from nature, wearing black broad- his home in Stoneham, Mass., study- cloth and living in cities. It has OUR ''OLD HOME WEEK:' 57 remained for this generation to un- that Mr. Baynes has done is a guar- in the of of the will derstand some measure folly anty work he yet do ; he this, and to seek a return to the soil, brings fitness to the work, and the Pioneers must go ahead and blaze out field is ample, the way to this new-old land, encour- age the revival of simple living, of belief in good old Mother Earth and her cures for man's ills, of inter-' est in the natural life that ever shuns the cities, of love for the beasts, of kindness towards them, of a broader human sympathy than has been practised. Here is work for those who understand what is needed, for those who hear the call with comprehension, who have the physique and the courage to endure. The work Young fox Yawning.

OUR "OIvD HOME WEEK."

By Ellen Burpee Farr.

(Read at Bow, N. H., Aug. 25, 1904.)

New Hampshire's children, roaming wide. In many a clime, the earth around, Will hear the summons to abide For this rare time, with joy profound. And with light hearts, will gladly seek " " Their native soil For "Old Home Week."

Our Farmer, from the grand, broad West, " " Forsakes his miles and miles of corn. And hies him straight, with eager zest. Back to the state where he was born. " And fun is there, when Greek meets Greek,' " " And he swaps yarns In "Old Home Week."

The Lawyer leaves the city's din. Where piles of brick and stone, uprear. " And with his client's hard-earned tin,"

Comes back to freedom, year by 3^ear. So for this time, for him bespeak, A glad release For "Old Home Week." 58 OUR ''OLD HOME WEEK.

> ) The Doctor lets his patient "live " " Forgets that calls are part of life, And for a time dares all to give A respite to his world of strife.

Of him beware I Lest he should seek To save your life In "Old Home Week." " " " Our Politician drops his artful wiles," " " Forgets that Candidates were ever born. " And with the other party," jokes and smiles. The future holds for him no times forlorn, While he goes forth, with conduct meek, To swell the crowd In "Old Home Week."

Of boys and girls, there comes a crowd, With elders in their youthful train, Than whom no parents are more proud. As with their kin, they meet again.

What gay old pranks, these youngsters seek ! What fun for them In "Old Home Week."

" " So down the line we search and call For those old friends, whom once we knew. " New greets them, one and all," Hampshire " And bids them come, the tried and true." But what of those who may not speak. Or hear your call For " Old Home Week"?

How many such will not respond ! Their souls heed not the calls of life. " Today, they 're in the Great Beyond," Far from the cares of mortal strife.

So let them rest ! No longer seek. Or wish them back For "Old Home Week."

And some who cannot heed the call, Would gladly meet with you once more. Send out to them, what e'er befall—

Those absent ones, whose fate deplore ! And for them all your love bespeak, With kindly thoughts. For " Old Home Week. ) !

So, far from home, in Sunset land, " my " A Greeting speeds its wa3\ " upon For "memories crowd on every hand. Recalling many a happy day With those whom you will vainly seek To join with you In "Old Home Week." Shoreline Sketches.

THANKSGIVING.

By H. C. Leslie, M. D.

" " of thin Man alive ! said Captain Somes, silver fringe ice, breaking up in the current with a one night when I had presented the and floating away of which would proposition that I must return to my chime and jingle music, " to have been had it not been a city quarters, I don't want you go pleasant until after Thanksgiving. I am getting prophecy of a sterner grip when it to be an old man and have no near rela- would not yield to wind and tide. Above tives or children and when this day in the cold gray of the sky the long ir- comes around, it is a pretty lonesome regular lines of wild geese seeking a thins: for Marm and I to sit down and more hospitable clime betokened the gnaw a turkey bone alone. Of all the coming of a period of inclemency. fixed a blessings that Providence sends I think I had from time to time date I would the great big old-fashioned family is in my mind when pack my about the best. I do n't know of any belongings and return to my studio. word in the English language that has a Some new attraction would, however, more solemn sound than — alone. present itself. Some varying tint of on the river. When my neighbors' sons and daughters light and shade Some come trooping back to the old home on subtle unknown influence, and the day this occasion, I feel that I have been was indefinitely deferred. It was not deprived of a good deal in life." altogether the appeal of nature that in- That period of time ordinarily devoted fluenced me. I had no home of my own to summer vacations had long since and even in childhood had been bereft around passed. From mountain hostelry and of tender associations, clustering seaside resorts the children had returned the paternal hearthstone, so that the to their schoolrooms and the business kindly unostentatious welcome to a seat man to his desk, and still I lingered at by Captain Somes' kitchen stove was a Shoreline. nearer approach to such comforts than The trees along the river bank that I had previously enjoyed. bore the foliage of June, when I first Friendships are not always the growth saw them, had passed through various of years. There is a mental telegraphy tells us on the first stages of transformation, the dusty tint that oftentimes of midsummer, the painted glories of meeting that here is one whom we have autumn, and now with every gust of heretofore missed in the by ways of life, wind were sending their discarded deco- who possesses, characteristics for which rations to float on the swift-running we have felt the need to complete our tide. The nights had grown chilly and happiness. Such had been my experi- associa- in the early morning the dry grass in ence in Shoreline. The daily the yard rustled and crackled beneath tion with its people, their simple, pleas- the feet with the tune of frost. The ant lives, undisturbed by the rise and river bank had already borne its first fall of stocks in the market place, 6o THANKSGI VING.

honest these words for the observance of these festivities, genial, sincere, ; mean so much to one who has seen the the Captain could be found in the selfishness of human cattle in larger kitchen arrayed in a wonderfully check- fields, that the touch of unglazed, un- ered apron covering the protruberance varnished kindliness is a constant pleas- supposed to contain his digestive appa- ure. Unfortunately the smile that has ratus, and extending nearly to his feet, not beneath it some ulterior motive is as stoning raisins, chopping mince meat rare as the diamonds of Golconda and and paring pumpkins, or such other culi- almost as priceless. nary preparations as preceded the When the Captain gave me the invi- event. tation to stop over for this crowning He had written to his niece in Boston event of the season's pleasure there was who occupied the position of book- a ring and tone of voice that somehow keeper in a mercantile firm in that city, conveyed more than the words them- as well as to the schoolmaster in Exeter, selves and as it required but little to tip and received favorable replies from the balance in favor of staying, I decided both. His injunction to the latter indi- to remain. vidual, not to forget his fiddle, betok- To New England alone belongs the ened more than an ordinary element of custom and observance of Thanksgiv- hilarity. From sly inuendoes casually ing Day. Here it originated and here dropped I judged that the meeting of transpired the events which gave cause the Captain's niece with the young for its being. History has engrossed schoolmaster was a matter of exceed- the story on its pages, and the veriest ingly personal interest to them. tyro of a school boy can give the origin The afternoon preceding Thanksgiv- of the festival. The sons and daugh- ing Day the schoolmaster made his ap- ters of Pilgrim stock have carried more pearance, rosy and red from a long or less of the sentiment to wherever walk across the hills from Exeter, His they may have made their homes, but hearty greeting should have compensated beyond the confines of New England it him for his rough journey on the un- is a hot-house flower of forced roads of but in answer growth ; even Kensington, here it is spontaneous in development. to a look of inquiry the Captain said, " The poet Whittier must have had in Sadie will be up with Newell Harden mind this New England festival when the last trip tonight," thus tacitly ad- he wrote the description of the wedding mitting the particular attraction that " feast of Weetamoo in the Bridal of was to recompense him for his long and Penacook," for surely nowhere else dreary walk in the sharp November air. could have occurred the suggestion for "All mankind loves a lover," and the such a scurrying together of good things Captain's smile as he made this state- for the delectation of the animal man : ment proved that he was no exception to the general rule. Bird of the air and beast of the field, to this All which the woods and waters yield During the two weeks prior dishes of birch and hemlock On piled occasion the Captain's old dory made Garnished and graced that banquet wild. numerous trips to the Port to procure At almost any hour of the day, in the condiments supposed to be neces- the fortnight preceding the day set apart sary in compounding the various dishes. by the Governor of the Commonwealth He even went so far as to visit the cider- THANKSGIVING. 6i mill at the Buttonwoods and secure a street holding their wraps close about keg of Tom Page's best sweet russet the face. Attractive indeed would be cider. This apparent lapse from abso- the discourse on such an occasion that lutely strict temperance principles was would rival the housewives' considera- only made on the repeated assurance of tion of the condition of the turkey, left Mrs. Somes that it was utterly impossi- to assume its most delectable flavor in ble to make good mince pies without the oven at home, and very popular was boiled cider, and moreover there was the preacher who had the good judg- the apple sauce to go with the dough- ment to deliver an abbreviated ser- nuts and cheese to be thought of. The mon. Captain drew a long sigh as he started The Captain evidently did not feel the on this mission, well knowing of the re- need of spiritual comfort and made no peated statements he would he required effort to respond to the call of the bell to make in reply to the sly inuendoes of and accompany Mrs. Somes to the place his cronies with regard to secret bibu- of worship. His frequent trips to re- lous habits. When the Captain returned plenish the fire and carefully examine from this unwilling trip Jake Short stood the conditions inside the oven door on the wharf and cheerfully assisted in might have subjected him to the same " landing the cargo. Gor ram him," reproof as the one of old who gave too " said Capt. Jared, he is always hanging much attention to the affairs of this round where he ain't wanted." world. His conscientious ministrations

At one time in the early history of were amply rewarded and when Mrs. Newbury, Vt., when the Inanksgiving Somes returned home from her enforced Proclamation was read in church, one of period of rest the long table was in the members gravely arose and stated proper position and ready to receive its that there was not a drop of molasses in burden of smoking viands. town and as his boys had gone to south- The Arab of the desert shares his ward to procure a supply he moved that pinch of salt with the traveler, beneath the celebration be postponed until their the folds of his tent, in token of friend- return which was done. The wild Indian of the far West ; accordingly ship. No such untoward event occurred to when he invites the wayfarer to a seat mar Captain Jared's plans, and all things within his lodge and bids him partake went as merry as the traditional mar- of his pot of meat precludes all ideas riage bell. of treachery, and gives a guarantee of The sun arose Thanksgiving morning friendly regard. In a like manner the bright and clear but almost immediately New England Thanksgiving table is an slipped behind a gorgeously illumined emblem of love and kindly feeling. cloud. A sure sign according to the Here are gathered the few of all the Captain's standard of predictions that wide world most dear to the host. The it would storm before night. Long be- ceremonials of state functions have no fore the church bell sent forth its appeal part or place at this gathering. The for devotional exercises, the sky had hired waiter, the obsequious servant is become overcast and the wind echoed not in keeping with the event. The the somber notes presaging the change. personal attentions of the master of the The scattered few who responded to the house, the watchful eye, the liberal call of duty hurried along the bleak hand conveys more than the morsel of 62 THANKSGI VING.

animal food; it possesses a permeating Capt. Jared in astonishment, "am I flavor of hearty good will, of more value such an old back number that the by far than the orderly attendance and things I know all about you never saw ?

stately grace of trained servitors. Well, by Jiminy hill ! you come up in In the hour of repletion, over the the attic and I will show you the very " lots of figurative walnuts and wine," the flash one your grandmother used, and of studied wit, the brilliant display of other things I reckon you never saw.

oratoric power, bearing the trademark The fact is, that when some new thing of laborious thought, pales before the comes around into this part of the simple stories and personal experiences house an old one goes into the next of the host, who, although his efforts story, and then from there into the may bear the musty odor of age, con- attic, and if it want for the roof to hold tributes his best and all for the pleasure them in, I don't know where they would of his guests. go next. Every time house cleaning As we smoked our after-dinner cigars comes around I have to stand guard." " with the wind whistling around the win- Now, Jared," said Mrs. Somes, dow panes and the scattered snowflakes "don't talk that way, and I don't be- whitening the ground outside, the con- lieve that anybody wants to go in that " versation drifted to the inconveniences dirty old place, so now ! and discomforts of a previous genera- This did not prove to be the case, tion, who had used the great old-fash- and we were soon treading the narrow ioned fireplace behind the stove, which stairs leading to the unfinished space the Captain had closed in favor of more beneath the roof. The Captain reached modern methods of heating. under the eaves of the garret and pulled "Yes," said the Captain, "private out a square wooden frame of quite houses were bad enough, but the old elaborate finish, which served to hold in at Hill took the a tin shell inside of meeting-house Rockv place perforated ; cake on a winter's day with no attempt this was an iron tray designed to hold at heating. I have seen the puffs of the charcoal, upon the whole quite a breath going up from the pews like lit- scientific device for imparting heat. tle steam engines. I can remember On the wall hung a brass warming-pan, when my mother bought a foot-stove, the duplicate of those that made up the and some of the women said she was somewhat celebrated cargo sent by Lord getting terrible high toned. I used to Timothy Dexter to the West Indies. have to go over to the parsonage and A variety of spinning wheels were in get my share of coals to put in it and evidence, great and small, all bearing take it over to the church. The minis- the marks of much service. Pathetic ter's folks built a reminders of a lost art worn always great hickory ; every fire Sunday mornings so as to have spoke telling its story of the devotion plenty of coals for the boys. 1 have of patient hands to the needs of bygone seen a dozen standing round at a time generations. The Captain undertook waiting for their turn." to explain how the yarn was twisted by "What is a foot-stove. Uncle ?" said the spindle and drawn out in long " the Captain's niece. I never saw threads, but if spirit eyes were looking one. from some shadowy recess, his clumsy " " trav- Bless your soul and body ! said efforts must have appeared like a THANKSGI VING . 63 esty on the skill of those hands that hood, the tremulous words of feeble spin no more neither do they weave. age. It's all there ! It's all there ! " Substantial chairs with broken flag When I was shipping a crew I bottoms stood here and there. Great, always paid a man who could fiddle solid sea chests lined the wall, filled two dollars a month extra. Sailors get with the discarded finery brought home the grumps on a long voyage, and noth- from many a distant land, now regarded ing will take it out of them like the as simple curiosities, the victims of snappy notes of a hornpipe. In ten fashion's fickle moods. minutes they are kicking the deck like A heavy flint-lock musket stood in mad and the squall is all over with." one corner with two or three rusty cut- The schoolmaster took out his violin lasses, the relics of privateering days. and handled the bow with the skill of an On a wooden peg near the window expert. He made no attempt, how- hung a tall white hat with a long, silky ever at classic productions, but played fur almost like an animal's. This the the old, sweet ballads of long ago. Captain placed on his head, saying that After a little, in spirit of mischief, he it was his grandfather's wedding hat. shifted to the snap and flourish of an the He found an old green camlet cloak, Irish jig. to which Captain beat with stiff high collar fastened by a large time in hearty appreciation, but when silver hook and chain. With these ad- he suddenly changed to a well-known ditions to his wardrobe he posed as the sailor's hornpipe, the Captain sprang to dandy of long ago. his feet and with a skill and agility Darkness began to gather in the cor- wholly unexpected in one of his years ners of the garret before we descended and rotund girth footed the well-known to the sitting-room below, with some- step. As the music quickened, in fever- what of the same feeling as -one has ish excitement his boot heels beat the when returning from foreign lands to floor like the long roll of a snare drum. " the familiar scenes of home. There now, Jared," said Mrs. Somes, " Now," said the Captain, when he "I am ashamed of you. What would had returned to the sitting-room, "let's Elder Morton say if he should look into " have some real, genuine music. You the window ? •can talk to me until doomsday about "I don't know what /n- would say," " harps, pianos and orchestras, but to my said the Captain, but I say that when mind they can't hold a candle to a a man is happy there is no way he can fiddle. That little brown box that the show it quite as well as by dancing.

' Irishman said looked like a duck and There's plenty of Bible authority for it, was about the size of a goose, but when too. Whenever there was an especial you turned him over on his back and occasion for rejoicing they danced. I rubbed his belly with a greased stick. don't know much about the modern Holy Mother! but the voice of him!' fandangoes of hugging and lop-eared has more in it that will pull the heart- swinging, but I believe that there is strings of a man than anything else in nothing that makes one feel better than the world. a good, honest breakdown." " You can hear your mother's voice The schoolmaster fingered his violin in the old songs, your father's solemn like a guitar and sang two or three col- tone in prayer, the laughter of child- lege songs, then some one suggested 64 THANKSGIVING. that the Captain give us a regular old I lay awake for a long time, but sea song. Nothing loth, he cleared finally dropped into a troubled sleep, his throat and started that threadbare where Captain Somes' brine-soaked tale of songs mingled with the soft, tremulous notes of the violin in a way more fan- My name was Captain Kidd, tastic and than the When I sailed, when I sailed, strange abrupt And I murdered William Moore flashes of the northern lights that were

I left him in his And gore, painting the midnight sky. When I when I sailed. sailed, The next morning when Newell Mar- den's overland came This selection was followed by express swaying and rattling around the Ferry Corner and his wife's mother Billy Bowlin I stood by my luggage on the Captain's Both rode over the bridge together. front steps. The bridge broke down and they fell in; The that was Devil of a bridge, said Billy Bowlin. theory language given man for the purpose of concealing his What was lacking in musical rhythm thoughts may or may not be true, but was made up in force, and seemed to it is quite certain that the hand grasp carry the accompaniment of roaring of a friend gives an assurance of sin-

sea and wind beating out the chords on cere regard that no words can . rival. straining rigging. You may call it mental telegraphy, mag- The schoolmaster whispered to the netism, or what not, but there is some- Captain's niece, and putting the violin thing that goes with it that binds the in place they sang together the old strands of friendship into a firmer cord. " song of Tom Moore's, Sweet Vale of I felt this as I grasped Captain Somes' Avoca." hand. Little was said, little need be Have song writers lost a delicacy of said, we knew one another too well to touch and sentiment, or do the cluster- play with words. ing memories of scenes and events give The old coach swayed and swang a flavor of their own to bygone min- down the long street, its genial driver strelsy? Certainly it seems as though shouting his morning salutations to the pages of the past must be turned to every one he met. When the horses feel the heart touch of the best. slowed down to a walk on Cedar Hill

The lights had gone out along the I turned for a last look at Shoreline. shore save here and there where the A big lump came in my throat as I wearying grip of pain called for a thought of the possible changes that watcher's sympathy and attention. The might come ere my eyes rested again on did. wind howled in dolorous cadence down this scene, if, indeed, they ever the wide chimney throat, the windows A turn at the top of the hill, and the rattled and all the multitudinous sounds leaf of records of one summer vacation

of a blustering night filled the air. was turned. Fire Consumed the Soil Twenty Years Ago.

Soil entirely gone. Rock -washed bare by the rains. No future groivth possible.

THE FOREST SITUATION IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND HOW TO CHANGE IT.

the Forests. By Fliilip W. Ayres. Forester of the Society for Protection of N. H.

northern towns this product must I. THE SITUATION. soon be greatly diminished by ex- Few realize the importance of the haustion of supply. The old pine forests in New Hampshire. Scat- growth is gone already, but it re- tered as our people are in three hun- produces rapidly, and we are reaping dred self-governing towns, it is diffi- a large return annually from second cult to realize the situation or to growth. By proper management, determine a method of forest treat- getting pines instead of hard woods ment. Not only is a very large por- to succeed pines, as can easily be tion of the land area of the state cov- done, and has been done in the state ered b}^ some form of woody growth, repeatedly, the income from our pine —more than seventy-five per cent., forests can be more than doubled, including the brush land, —but also perhaps quadrupled, while by a dif- a very large portion is non-agricul- ferent method, of cutting, our spruce tural and can never be productive of supplies can be made to hold out any but a forest crop. It has been much longer. estimated that the present gross pro- The clean cutting of spruce on our duct of the forests in the state is high mountain slopes, practised by :$i6,ooo,ooo annually, and that at the all of the great paper companies, is present rate of cutting spruce in the wasteful in the extreme, and in many 66 FOREST SITUATION IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Ttiis Tree Snows How the Soil was Consumed by Fire.

Tiuo feet and eight inches luere hiiriieii away. instances, especially when the slash bread and butter to our all-the-year is consumed by the great fires, the population. soil is destroyed, and a future crop How essential a proper treatment of any value is postponed for several of the forests becomes is seen in towns centuries and sometimes forever. The like Roxbury, formerly a flourishing accompanying picture photographs community, but now without a post- the soil consumed by fire, where for- office, or Saron or Richmond or man}- merly, only twenty years ago, a great others that are not what they were forest stood. Germany and France when farming and lumbering com- have learned by much bitter experi- bined yielded a comfortable living, ence that floods and timber famine for which the farms alone are inade- follow destructive lumbering in the quate and no longer used. It is in- mountains. They now use the wiser, evitable that many of our mountain selective method, taking out only towns now flourishing will follow mature trees. We are following their their example. Indeed, Bartlett and former methods, without profiting by Tamvvorth have done so already, and their experience, and when we awake are dependent largely on the summer to our real needs it may be too late. visitors. It appears to be only a These considerations do not concern question of time when the present our summer visitors; they are not a prosperity of several of our mountain matter of sentiment, but primarilj^ of towns will disappear. FOREST SITUATION IN NEW HAMPSHIRE. 67

As the forest grows slowly, and bring forces quickly to bear upon when abused produces tree weeds or large ones. There are striking ex- species of little value, often for a hun- amples of the benefit of this system dred years or more, legislation is nec- in New Hampshire where private essary—more necessary to a rational wardens have been employed. forest management than to general 3. By providing a nursery for the agriculture, yet our forest laws are distribution of forest seedling trees few and inoperative. and seeds at cost. 4. By establishing one or more IT. HOW TO CHANGE THE SITUATION. areas in the state under expert man- How can the situation be changed ? agement, to demonstrate the financial

In the following ways : value of proper treatment of the for- 1. By spreading as widely as pos- est, and to preserve some of the vir- sible, among woodland owners, a gin forest, both of pine and spruce, knowledge of tree growth and tree of which now very little remains of values, and the best methods of cut- either. ting and of reproducing a forest. 5. By the establishment of a na- The Grange has been active in this tional forest reservation in the White regard, and can do still more. The Mountains. A bill for this purpose Society for the Protection of New has been introduced in both houses Hampshire forests provides lantern of congress. It has passed favorably slides, and a lecturer free, except the the Senate Committee on Forest Res- expenses of the lantern. ervations. 2. There should be better laws on Everj^ one who is interested in the the subject of forest fires. Last year preservation of the forests on these eight thousand acres burned over in mountains, and in their more con- the town of Bethlehem, two thousand servative use, is urged to write to in Franconia, twelve thousand in his or her representative in congress, Berlin the of this bill. Per- Milan and ; more than two urging passage hundred thousand in the state at sons of New Hampshire birth or an- large, causing a loss in present values cestry, living in other states, can lend estimated at one and one half mill- most valuable aid in this direction. ions of dollars, with loss to young Within the state the immediate ob- growth and to the soil that is beyond jects to work for are better laws to estimate. Several states, including protect our forests from fire, and one New York, Massachusetts and Min- or more state reservations under ade- nesota, have a fire warden in each quate care. town to put out small fires and to DEMPSEY'S TRICK.

By Jesse H. Buffutn.

The trouble began in a way that the doctor said, and I was informed many troubles do, by my father's that I had a summer of idleness be- determination that I should enter the fore me—to boot, the impossibility of ministry. At first this did not con- a railroad journey home. cern me very much, for I was but So I began to make the most of fourteen years old when the subject North Conway. was first broached, but as time ac- When I say that the trouble all cumulated I was so overwhelmed by began with my father, I am partially the realization of my own sinfulness wrong, for had I not been born with that I could not for a moment enter- a seemingly inherent love for rail- tain the idea of correcting the same roading, I would not be telling you idiosyncrasies in others. this story about myself—I mean about I gave this explanation to myself, Dempsey,— for I play but a poor part for it was in a way comforting. in the little tragedy soon to be The inevitable climax came at enacted. last, and to the query, "What on Do not expect a graphic account earth are you going to do?" I of some deep-laid mathematical plot promptly replied, "Go to my uncle of a boy train despatcher, whereby and learn to quarry." he saves scores of lives by a single " "Hugh! touch of the finger and brings the What made this sudden disposition Ivimited in on time. It is a railroad of the problem possible was the fact story, to be sure, but of the practical that my uncle, Allen Eastman, owned coolness of an obscure fellow who, " " a granite quarry far up in the wilds when he was needed, was there and of New Hampshire, as my father able to think. The young man who termed it, in the beautiful White wonders how he can succeed may Mountain more read this with region ; or, particu- profit, perhaps. larly, in the quiet village of North I reveled in the unspeakable beau- Conway. ties of a springtime in the woods. I About my experiences in this have learned where and when to strange position I .shall tell you but spend my vacations, for the veritable little, for six weeks of quarrying nature-garden of the North Conway ended in my extreme inquisitiveness region cannot be surpassed. I took being rewarded with a broken leg— many walks after I had laid my two places, broken ribs— about six, crutches aside, and although I was and severe internal injuries. weak and could stand but little ex- My accident, which occurred in ertion, I was constantly expedition- early spring, had been a peculiar one izing. DEMPSEY'S TRICK. 69

My fascination with things railroad nothing on earth to occupy one, one led me to quite frequently pay visits gets tired of life even. So I began to the depot, water tank and round- to learn the alphabet. As I grew a house. North Conway marked the little more and more adept, the incen- terminus of the Boston & Maine. tive became stronger, and I found The Maine Central passed through myself spending several hours each another portion of the village, run- day, wrapt mind and soul in the sim- ning north and west up through the ple instrument before me. This went White Mountains. It was on this on until about the 13th of June, branch that Dempsey did his ' ' trick. ' ' when, as the "summer" business I would each night at 6 o'clock stand began, there came down from the " and watch the engineer "put her to C. F. D." the peremptory order to " — bed"—in the roundhouse. The en- Stop that novice work at C y," gines there—were three during the My ambition gauge dropped about busy season would come in from the fifty degrees, but Dempsej^ who was turn-table panting just like "humans," resourceful if anything, sent me sky- as if they had done a hard day's ward again by running a private line work and wanted you to know it. from the ofhce to his boarding-house I did not confine my perambula- and thence to my own room. Thus, tions to the tank, switches or round- whenever a spare hour came, whether house, but occasionally would saun- daytime or evening, he coached me. ter into the cool depot, where the I soon became an "expert," as my click of the relay fascinated and at- chum enthusiastically declared. tracted me. For hours between train It was well along in July when an times, when the place was not busy, incident occurred which, though I I would sit and chat with the ope- placed no value on it at the time, rator. It was thus that I got to proved of much consequence to me a know Dempsey. Dempsey was the little later on. I was spending the operator. afternoon in the office as usual. I had lived this way for about a Dempsey had left me, going out on month, perhaps, going and coming some errand or other, and I was sit- at will, doing nothing and wanting ting alone, listening to the dull drone to do nothing, when one day after of the haymaking as it came up from our customar}^ chat about nothings in the intervales beyond. Suddenly the particular, Dempsey said to me : relay began to speak. I knew the

" " ' ' " Why don't you learn to trick? call instantly : C—y C—y . It He called everything a "trick," was the ofhce call, and it kept com- from booking cars to refilling bat- ing insistently. It grew more impe- teries. rious. Dempsey nagged me continually I trembled -a little at what I was about learning to operate. I have doing, but I opened in and, scarce wondered many times at his interest realizing what I was doing, took in me, and as I have grown to know down orders, flagged trains and, as him better, I believe it was because some say, saved a few lives. I speak he hated to see me kill time. I was shortly of this, for it has nothing indeed getting into a bad way. With to do with Dempsey, and does 70 DEMPSEY'S TRICK. not compare with what he did in fame for himself and a better job the mountains in the little town for me. of Bartlett. I found my new duties very agree- The summer was far spent. I had able, and in time overcame the in- found time, when I was not sending tricacies of the position with some " whole chapters of Quincy Adams assistance from my ever-ready friend Sawyer" over the wire to my friend down the line. During the remain- of the key, to take in all the sights der of the summer, and w^hile the in the vicinit}', and my conquering days were still hot, I found much spirit yearned for fresh fields of ad- leisure time, for my duties were light, venture or work, for Dempsej' had lost as the passenger service, though for me my laziness. I had climbed brisk, alone demanded vay attention. Washington, Moat, Kearsarge, and The freight traffic would begin to passed raptures on the various scenes pick up in the early fall. and places of the famous White But while I had much time to spare Mountain region. from my work, I was not going to be My uneasiness for w^ant of occupa- allowed to lapse into idleness. Demp- tion was increased by a letter from se}^ kept the wire hot. He first de- home stating that my father had se- clared that I was not always going " cured for me a position in a business to hang out at Bartlett, and 5^ou house. It was time that I made some want more speed." He made me an move. When I communicated to my expert in abbreviating, and no code chum this intelligence he was deep- or system in vogue in the railway ly interested, and distressed at the world but what I could tick off thought of my going back to New glibly. On hot afternoons during Jersey. August and early September we had "It will never do," declared he, delightful chats over the wire. I "you were cut out for the railroad would sleep during the forenoon and and you won't fit anywhere else." spend the remainder of the day in " Say," he continued, after we had the ofiice. Occasionally he would stood a while in silence brooding try me for speed. Under his direc- over the matter, "will you take a tion I accomplished a great deal, and

' ' trick if I can get one for you ? during those periods when the wire "Yes," I said, though with no would be almost entirely quiet, I faith in the outcome. would send him whole chapters of My chum was enthusiastic and some favorite novel we would both volubly assured me of a job soon be reading. Dempsey, w^ho was an found. I left him, myself far less expert stenographer as well as teleg- hopeful of so delightful a result. rapher, would "take me down" in Though I had always entertained shorthand and repeat all I would full confidence in my friend Dempsey, send. I in turn would verify the I was genuinely surprised to receive, stuff. In this way we both got in as I did a few days later, my appoint- much excellent practice. ment to the night trick at Bartlett, a As the fall freight season opened " small town up in the mountains. It in I found but small time for novice was here that my hero was to win work," so termed by the C. T. D. DEMPSEY'S TRICK. 71

The real work was beginning for all night with me. He was off duty me, and the heavy freight traflfiic kept for a few days and was well rested. me pretty well occupied throughout The night before it had begun my trick. Nothing outside the de- snowing, and continued to snow spatcher's office is called a "trick," all through the day following. but I had fallen into Dempsey's- When I went on at 6 a blizzard was phonology readily. raging. Coal and live stock and grain All day long empty cars had been went up the line, and lumber and piling into the yard. The chief stone came down. A lot of mixed despatcher evidently realized the in- traffic was sprinkled in, but this con- expediency of sending them further stituted the principal business on the into the mountains in the face of road. what promised to be the biggest Just why I never could determine, storm occurring in years. but the Bartlett freight yard seemed It was none too warm, even in the the dumping ground for all the empty office, yet sweat was pouring off my freight cars north and east of Phila- face as the strain increased. delphia. My predecessor informed It was near midnight. me that on one occasion, in mid- I had no time for sociability. But winter, there had been a thousand Dempsey did not need entertaining. " cars in the yard at once, and they Despite his assurances that he felt made a nasty snarl," said he, adding "fresh as that young fireman on '71," significantly, "they changed opera- he was now fast asleep. tors next day." As the season's The snow was now man}' feet deep work advanced I began to realize and still falling fast. A double- what a "nasty snarl" might be, for header had just pulled in with thirty several times my wits, and speed at empty cars. The sidings were all the ticker, were taxed to the ut- full, .so there she stood on the main most to keep things out of a hopeless track, fast losing her outlines beneath tangle. the heav)', clinging flakes which fell A snowstorm in the White Moun- with amazing rapidity. I had booked tains means something. December every car so far, and had reported had come and gone, and still no snow 983 in the yard. I had done a hard —only a few inches. No genuine night's work, and weak from the ex- snowstorm had appeared. I was old ertion and rush, lounged back in my for m}'' years, and accepted this as a chair watching the snow as it drove warning before disaster, for an "old by the window. I could scarcely timer" meant business for the ope- distinguish the train on the track rators. There w^ere always blockades in front of me, only a few feet and rear-end collisions and such like away. to — — ' ' keep the poor fellows on nerv^e's The relay snapped "B tt, rather end. viciously, I thought. The wire had Dempsey—came up to see me early been talking some stuff about a spe- in January— I think it was of a Fri- cial, but I had scarcely heard. It day and as my trick began at 6 in was with some misgivings that I the afternoon, he said he would stay opened. I was horrified when Liver- 72 A FACT. more, next above, told me that special were, in the roundhouse across the train No. 5 had just passed. yard, about twenty-five men, I forgot all about Dempsey. hands and accustomed to rough work. Opening on the C. T. D. I told him In a few moments he had these men the situation. He swore in red-hot with shovels releasing the work train, English and it snapped over the wire rear and front. In the meantime the in an ugly way. donkey engine was started, and one " "Flag her! by one the empty cars of train 86 She had a snow plow in front and were picked up and dumped gently could n't see a red barn on fire. over the embankment. " Back 86 [the double-header just It takes some time to handle thirty in] down to Conway." cars in this way. Dempsey had the " 86 stalled and can't move." job completed including the locomo- " the of cars . No. 5 is lost and you ." tive, with exception two I don't believe I heard him finish, filled with hay, when up the line

for I sprang across the room at Demp- sounded a whistle. No time to lose ! sey. Both he and the chair went to While the derrick grappled one of the the floor together. I had been a little remaining cars, Dempsey sprang to But I and of the other. A lurid blaze shot hasty. was helpless ; sky- course Dempsey would find a way out. ward through the thickly falling snow. You see I had boundless confidence Above the storm came the rushing of in my benefactor. He sprang up and steam and hissing of brakes, and spe- plied me with questions. He said, cial No. 5 came to a standstill, with ^' I have twenty minutes yet," grab- her engine half way through the burn- bed a lantern and rushed out the ing car. The wreckage was cleared door. away in a few minutes, and the special, Opposite the depot and parallel with clear track, passed on down the with the main track, on which stood line. freight train No. 86, ran a steep em- Dempsey is now at Portland, and I a at bankment. Between this track and am holding down good job W , embankment lay another track, a sid- one of the best positions on the road. ing. On this stood a work train with This, however, is several years after derrick. Dempsey took this all in at Dempsey did his "trick" in the a glance, though he was somewhat mountains. familiar with the ground. There

A FACT.

By Laura Garland Carr. Who does not earn, by work of brain or hand.— His place in life, wherever that may be Is but a useless cumberer of the land And lives—by charity. JOHN STARK, THE HERO OF BENNINGTON.

By Gilbert Patten Brown.

I.ive free or die—death is not the worst of evils.—John Stark.

From the lives of many of the prom- fled to Scotland, where they had the inent men of past generations, we of protection of the Scottish king. this progressive age can profit much. Among that large body of soldiers While their forms are unseen by the were several men, mighty in stature human eye, their deeds of valor are and intellect, bearing the name of monuments in modern civilization. Stark. From one of those men of Empires of the old world have been Germany's best blood the subject of born and destroyed by the children of this memoir descended. In the books men. In the new world a republic of heraldry we find mention as has been formed, as a home for the to one of this distinguished name of all races and creeds saved the life of the of oppressed ; having king and in that home the Declaration of Scotland. Archibald Stark was born Independence will serve as a Bible for at Glasgow, Scotland, in 1697, and the rights of human kind forever. was graduated from the university of In 1493 the Duchess of Burgundy, that city. While he was young, the widow of Charles the Bold, sent under family moved to Londonderry, Ire- Gen. Martin Swart a distinguished land, at which place he married Miss body of German grenadiers to take Eleanor Nichols. In 1720 they, to- part in the invasion of England, in gether with other Scotch-Irish fami- support of the claim of a pretender to lies, came to the new world and set- the throne of Henry VII. The in- tled in the old town of Nutfield, among^ vading forces were defeated, and those the forests of the New Hampshire whose good fortune it was to survive colony. 74 JOHN STARK.

The warlike hand of the red man when the dark cloud of the war of the seemed to cause a cloud of gloom to Revolution came, no family in all hang over that part of the country, New England took a more firm stand and giant Archibald Stark at once against the British longer ruling the took up arms in defense of the king American colonies than this one against the natives. family. Excitement ran throughout The inhabitants of I^ondonderr}^ that town, and they were foremost in were in some instances protected from the new and most vital issue. After the savages through the influence of the battle of Lexington (1775) John Father Rallee, the Catholic friar of Stark was appointed colonel in the Norridgewock, who informed the In- "Massachusetts' Line," and on the dians that they would surely go to following month was appointed by the hell if they meddled with the Irish. general court of New Hampshire, John Stark, his son, was born in colonel to command the First New Nutfield (now Londonderry), New Hampshire regiment, which body, Hampshire, August 28, 1726. He with Colonel Stark at its head, was in received but little education, yet the the thickest of the fray at the battle best the town at that time could af- of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775. ford. But like Franklin "improved In 1776 he served in the Canada himself in books," so when arriving campaign under Maj.-Gen. John Sul- at manhood the hunter boy of Lon- livan, LL. D. In the battles of Tren- donderry possessed the rudiments of ton and Princeton his regiment played an ordinary English education. He, a most conspicuous part. He being together with his brothers, William, of modest disposition, therefore, Samuel, and Archibald, held commis- claimed but little credit for his vast sions in the king's service during the achievements, and was superseded by " Seven Years," or so, often called the congress. This grieved the great- "French War," of 1754 to 1760. hearted patriot, who at once resigned On August 20, 1758, he married Miss his commission and quietly retired to Elizabeth Page of old Dunbarton, his farm at old Merrimack, where he " N. H. She was of sweet manners, patiently bided his time." of rare beauty, and of Norman and Much grieved were the New Hamp- Celt extraction. The following chil- shire people, as they had seen the dren were the fruit of that marriage : mistake made by their honorable and Caleb, Archibald, John, Jr., Eleanor, patriotic body in failing at a very Eleanor, 2d, Sarah, Elizabeth, Mary, early date to appoint the hunter boy of Charles, Benjamin Franklin, and wild Londonderry a colonel, thus per- Sophia. The emigrant is buried in mitting the Massachusetts colony to the beauteous city of Manchester, commission him. In 1777 he again N. H., where a rude .stone is seen, left his loving wife and family amid bearing the following epitaph : the granite hills and took up the Here lies tlie body of ISIr. sword of human justice and fought at Archibald Stark. He with results well known Departed this life June 25th, Bennington 61 Years. 1758, Aged to history. As a volunteer he had Although the Starks had served the joined General Gates and had fought crown faithfully in colonial times, with distinction and bravery at the JOHN STARK 75 battle of Saratoga. After having the volunteer of Saratoga. In 1780 been ordered by General Gates to he served with marked bravery in the send away his troops (and somewhat New Jersey campaign, and in 1781 doubting the patriotism of Gates) he had command of the Northern depart- wrote the following letter : ment. On October the continental Albany, June i, 1778. 4, 1777,

To the Mayor and Council of Albany : congress passed the following act : " Gentlemen : Resolved, That the thanks of con- As I am ordered b\- the Hon. Major-General be to General Stark Gates to send to Fishkill all the Continental gress presented troops from this place, with the British of the New Hampshire militia, and I must the favor of to mount Hospital, beg you to the officers and troops under his the guards for the security of the city and the command, for their brave and suc- stores in it. Your compliance will much oblige cessful attack upon and signal victory Your friend and verj- humble servant, over the enemy in their lines at Ben- John Stark. nington, and that Brigadier-General General Gates had not acted in a Stark be appointed a Brigadier-Gen- manner to General as eral in the of the United States. ' friendly Stark, army ; he well knew the New Hampshire From the above date he bore a com- veteran to be an honest man, and mission of a regular brigadier-general Gates was not so. General Stark, and served to the close of the war, like the majority of those foremost in when he was brevetted a major-gen- the patriot cause, was a member of eral September 30, 1783. General the Masonic institution. It had been Stark was noted for his unique his wish for many years to be a phrases. Just before the battle of Mason (some of his dearest friends Bennington things looked critical to were members of the army lodges). Americans ; he there addressed In the busy and then much troubled his soldiers in a most fitting manner. town of Albany, N. Y., was old His words gave them fresh courage, " " 2 " ^Masters' lodge, No. (now Mas- and in concluding, he said : We ters' lodge, No. 5), among whose rolls must conquer, my boys, or to-night of membership were the names of Molly Stark sleeps a widow." Those many men distinguished in colonial last words reminded them of their and Revolutionary life. The name of homes, and all that was dear to them. "John Stark, Brigadier-General," Just previous to the battle of Bunker was proposed by a fellow-ofhcer to Hill, a British officer asked General " Masters' lodge," and on January 9, Gage if he thought the provincials 1778, he was initiated into the ancient would stand the fire of the king's craft. There gathered upon that oc- forces? He replied: "Yes, if one casion at this fraternal shrine many of John Stark is amongst them— he " his military compeers. Repaid 5L, served under n-ie at Lake George, and

' ' for initiation, 8s. to Tyler, and 4s. for was a brave fellow. At Bunker Hill

' ' extra lodge, and after his being there an old soldier cried in tears to General entered, crafted, and raised to the Stark: "My son has fallen dead." degree of a Master Mason, no prouder The giant warrior replied : "Is this of member the fraternity could be a time for private grief, with the foe " found in all the Continental army than in our face? 76 THE HOPE PLANT.

In his official account of the battle Northern department, and the name of Bennington, General Stark thus of vStark was upon the lips of all writes: "It lasted two hours, the patriots. I in life it At the end of the war he retired to hottest ever saw my ; pre- of thunder his farm in New He sented one continued clap ; Hampshire. however, the enemy were obliged to was popular only as a soldier. By give way and leave their field pieces his youthful training he had become behind them well skilled in the art of warfare. As and all their baggage ; they were all environed within two a farmer he was unsuccessful, and in but our he took no He died breastworks with artillery ; politics part. martial courage proved too strong for May 8, 1822. In Manchester, New them. I then gave orders to rally Hampshire, upon the banks cA. the again, in order to secure the victory : Merrimack, on a high bluff of land, but in a few minutes was informed stands a monument to the "Hero of that there was a large reinforcement Bennington." The inscription is on its march within two miles. Col- simply stark. onel Warner's regiment, luckily com- Major-Generai ing up at the moment, renewed the Gentle reader, there rests all that is attack with fresh vigor. I pushed for- earthly of the scout of rural London- ward as many of the men as I could derry, in whose veins there flowed the battle contin- of Ger- to their assistance ; blood of the chivalry early ued obstinate on both sides until sun- many. The pine-covered hills of the to retreat as set; theenemj' was obliged ; town of his nativity seem, each we pursued them till dark, and had springtime comes around, to sing a the day lasted an hour longer should requiem to a sacred memory : have taken the whole of them." body sleep on, thou warrior, ever bold; Since the death of General Mont- Men think of thee no shame. like could ne'er be with this was the first event ^'o^r gained gold, gomery , victory ,, Nor insults touch thy name ! that had proved encouraging in the

THE HOPE PLANT. By A. H. H.

My little hope plant, promised much of the In the spring opening year ; I've tried so hard, to nourish it right To my heart was its life so dear. The sun has tended the garden flowers, full of bloom And they have been ; But not one bud has ray little plant had And my heart is filled with gloom.

The seeds are scattering over the earth. is done Nature's perfect work ; little I misunderstood But my plant have ; The lot of many a one. HIvSTORY AND POETRY FROM THR IvIFE OF F. B. SANBORN OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS.

English, but from more northern CHAPTER II. —HEREDITARY INFLU- and eastern counties, —Lincoln or ENCES. SANBORNS, TOWLES Yorkshire, instead of Wilts and AND LEAVITTS. Hampshire. No Irish strain ap- Having established my own ex- pears in either line until some gene- istence in the first chapter, with some rations after the migration. Bach- account of the immediate environ- ilers and Sambornes and Husseys, ment around my childhood and all kindred, were among the found- youth, it is proper next to consider ers of Hampton; Eeavitts, of two the antecedents. Everj^ person, by different stocks, were among the inheritance, is but a kind of net re- founders of the next town, Exeter. sult of thousands of ancestors, both A certain connection by affinity for his physical and mental structure. seems to have existed between my We understand heredity, as yet, very ancestor, Thomas Leavitt, and his little in its details; but of its general pastor, Rev. John Wheelwright, who, -effect there can be no doubt. The with the first Wentworth, and two- puzzle is to reconcile multiplicity score others, founded Exeter. But the individual is not in that with unity ; one, nothing English appears his forefathers are innumerable. Is line; the wife of the first Eeavitt he, am I, a composite photograph being the daughter of John Bland, a of the multitude, or has some syndi- good English name. cate, or some powerful antecedent Now about 1650 there appeared in unit, impressed on me characteristics Hampton, N. H., a stalwart Irish- not of the generality, but specially man, Philip Towle, called a "sea- traceable to him or them? I incline man," and of course a Protestant, to the latter alternative, not only who in 1657 married a daughter of from a general survey of the field of the same Isabella Bland from whom, heredity, but from special facts in through the Leavitts, I am de- my own genealogy. scended. At the age of sixty-two The Sambornes of England, who he had a son Caleb, who mar- came over with their grandfather, ried Zipporah, daughter of Anthony the Puritan ejected minister. Rev. Brackett (an Indian fighter whom Stephen Bachiler, were purely Eng- the Indians slew), and had eleven so far as but all but one families. lish, knowm ; possibly children, leaving Norman rather than Saxon, and per- Caleb's son Philip,. grandson of Cap- haps with a comparatively recent tain Brackett, married Li'dia Dow, French admixture, through the Bach- and had a daughter Esther, who ilers, with their kindred, the Merci- married Benjamin Eeavitt, great- ^rs, Priaulx, etc. The Eeavitts, my grandson of Isabella Bland, and mother's ancestors, were also purely therefore second cousin of Esther 78 FRANK B. SANBORN.

Towle. About the same time VL\y Moreover, this slight Irish admix- other great-grandfather, Benjamin ture seems to have introduced a gay Sanborn, married Anna Towle, sec- and active turn of mind, often verg- ond cousin of Esther, so that by ing on eccentricity, which was hardly those two marriages the Towle in- natural eithei" to the Sanborn or the fluence gave me a double chance of Leavitt stock. From old Parson inheritance. Bachiler the Sanborns might have From the Towles came the great derived, and doubtless did, vigor and height and size which some of the independence, which were his traits; Sanborns and some of the Leavitts but liveliness, ambition, black hair have since shown. A son of Anna and fair complexions, with an occasional turn for music, and escapades, came to the Eeavitts from old Philip Tawle. When an old lady, recently, looking at me carefully, and hearing me talk with something of the Hibernian liveliness, said to me: "You were

ijiietided ior a. rogue," I said to myself, as Emerson did on a different " occasion, This is a saying in which I find a household relationship." Therefore, when Colonel Higginson, Mrs. Dall, and others fancy they see in me some outward signs of descent " from Daniel Webster's black Bach- " iler ancestor, the old parson, I cannot deny the fact; but know in my own mind that my complexion and physical traits come from the Leavitts. When Esther Eeavitt en- Hon. Moses Norns, Jr. tered the Hampton Falls meeting- (Towle) Sanborn, my great-uncle house with her sons Jonathan, Reu- John, was about the stature of ben, Brackett, and her daughter Abraham Lincoln, and of enormous Lydia, for whom my mother was strength. From Esther's daughter, named, she could not help showing in her children and Comfort Eeavitt, who married Moses pride handsome ; Norris of Pittsfield, my mother's her deep religious sentiment did not cousin, Norris the Congressman and make her regard it as a sin. My Senator, derived his height and physi- mother, as I remember her, to the cal strength. My own stature, and age of sixty had the traditional Irish such strength as I have had, evi- beauty—^jet-black hair of great length dently came from the same source, and thickness, clear blue eyes with for neither the Sanborns nor the long lashes, and a complexion of Eeavitts, in their own lines, were clear white and red, which descended above the common size. to several of her children. Others of FRANK B. SANBORN. 79

them followed the Sanborn type, with terest of the planters and merchants equally fair complexions, but with- of the province, secured the resigna- out the sparkling eyes and thick tion of Cranfield through the influ- dark hair. ence of Savile, Lord Halifax; and There was an earl}' admixture soon after, the pardon and return from another source in the Sanborn of Gove to that part of Hampton line, by the marriage of Mary Gove which is now Seabrook. He recov- (daughter of Edward Gove, the pris- ered his forfeited estate, some part of oner of London Tower) to Joseph which seems to have come to his Samborne, son of the first John, and daughter by way of dowry. She the first of the name to reside where was married at the age of sixteen to I was born. Although Edward my ancestor, two short months only Gove's descendants became peaceful before her father's sentence to death, Quakers in considerable number, his and in the foot companj^ of Hampton own temper was far from peaceful which arrested him, and put his at times, and he had involved him- mounted men in custody, her father- self in a dispute with his powerful in-law, Lieut. John Samborne, was neighbor, Nathaniel Weare, who was an oSicer. long active in the magistracy of New Thirty years before, when this Hampshire. Notwithstanding this, Lieut. John and Edward Gove were Gove was often chosen to important young men, they had joined Sam- local ofi&ce, was a captain in the mili- borne's uncle, Christopher Hussey of tia, and a man of property enough Hampton, in a petition to the Massa- to make the confiscation of it a mat- chusetts General Court in favor of ter of interest to Governor Cranfield, Robert Pike of vSalisbury (where who in 1683 procured his arrest, trial Gove was then living), who had and sentence to death for high trea- given offence by his free speech to son. It was an absurd name for his the Puritan oligarchy. For this offence, which was an armed demon- Hussey and Samborne were fined, stration against James II and the but Gove seems to have escaped Tories who then held sway in the notice. He had been a member of new Province of the Weares, Cutts, the Provincial Assembly just before Husseys and Sambornes. his arrest in 1683, and was a lead- He was sent to England under the ing man. escort of Edward Randolph, the great After his return to Hampton he enemy of Puritan rule in New Eng- was chosen, along with Weare and land, and lodged in the Tower under others, to frame a temporary consti- strict guard, about the time that the tution for the Province, after the leaders of his party in England, Lord imprisonment of Sir Edmund Andros, Russell and Algernon Sidnej^, were and his name is signed, January 24, imprisoned there, preliminary to their 1690, to the only copy of this brief execution. But Gove was soon seen and sensible document known to to be a harmless man, and nobody in exist. Little more than a j^ear later England, even in that bloody time, (May 29. 1 691) he died. Various urged his beheading. His neighbor, legends and traditions survived him, Weare, visiting England in the in- and are still kept alive by credulity 8o FRANK B. SANBORN.

or ignorance, —that he was a hard lycavitt, and his father, Benjamin, drinker, was insane after leaving the were land surveyors, as George Tower, and believed himself to have Washington, St. John de Creve- been in his food Brown and Tho- slowly poisoned coeur, John— Henry there. His important offices before reau were, a pursuit that implied and after his imprisonment discredit education, accuracy, and some knowl- these stories. He was probably a edge of the world. 'Squire Tom's person of excitable and rather eccen- oldest brother, Jonathan Leavitt, was tric temper, and in other respects a an officer in the Revolution, after- good citizen, of more than ordinary wards a merchant, and one of the intelligence. His son and his ser- first citizens of Passamaquoddy, now vant, William Healey, joined in his Eastport, Me. There he came into demonstration, and were long in acquaintance with the Eesdernier, or prison for it. Delesdernier, family, of Swiss origin, His contemporary, lyieutenant Sam- and still keeping up the French lan- borne, had been briefly imprisoned guage, which was that of their na- by Cranfield in 1684, for refusing to tive Geneva. pay quitrents on his land in Hamp- When the celebrated Albert Galla- ton, which Robert Mason claimed to tin, adventuring to America in 1780, own. He escaped from the Hampton reached Boston from Gloucester, jail, probably by the connivance of where he landed, he was taken in the jailer. charge by the Lesderniers, went with I thought of these imprisoned an- some of them to Machias, and spent cestors when the United States Sen- a year on the Maine coast, trading ate had me illegally arrested in i860, with Indians, paddling in canoes, but I was discharged by the Massa- and learning English from the Les- chusetts court the next day, without derniers and their friends. Then he going to prision. I have since visited got an appointment in Harv^ard Col- many prisons as their official inspector. lege to teach French, and soon found By my maternal grandmother's his way to Virginia and Pennsylva- line (Hannah Melcher, descended nia, where be became a Democratic from Edward Melcher of Portsmouth) leader. I am connected by descent with The Leavitts were also Democrats, nearly all those early Hampton fami- as most of the Revolutionar}' soldiers lies from whom I am not descended in New Hampshire were, and my through the Sanborns, Leavitts and grandfather, appointed a justice of Towles. But I still hold the chief the peace by John Langdon, soon part of my heredity as coming from became a local leader of the party in the lycavitts and their Irish kin. his region. As a young man he was My other ancestors were yeomen, active and ga3^ and his sons, Ben- deacons, petty officers in the towns, son, Joseph and Anthon}' Brackett and industrious farmers tilling their (named by his Grandmother Esther own land; but the Leavitts, after the for her ancestor, the slain Indian Irish infusion, began to get more fighter) had the same activity, and education and push their fortunes soon left the little town to seek for- farther. My grandfather, Thomas tune elsewhere. FRANK B. SANBORN. 8r

Joseph was to be the heir of his California gold fever in i848-'49 childless Brackett in attacked too left his uncle, Leavitt, my uncle, ; he Pittsfield, where his cousin Norris, wife and young family near Peoria, afterwards senator, was growing up 111., and cros.sed the Plains to Cali- and getting an education. But the fornia, where he was prospering, as uncle was cut oflf he wrote but of by sudden death, ; presently tidings and the boy returned home till he him ceased. Long afterwards it was was old enough to be taken in charge learned that he had been murdered, by another uncle, his mother's broth- and his property taken. Not even er, in Boston. Benson also went to the place of his death is certainly Boston in time the brothers to his one of ; two known children, whom, became merchants in a prosperous Thomas Eeavitt, has been a state way at the North End, and in 1843, official of Illinois, after an honorable when I first visited my cousins, their career in the Civil War. children, they were living in the two Another Thomas Eeavitt, son of tenements of a double house in Fleet my Uncle Joseph, and named, like Street, not far from Father Taylor's Brackett's son, for his grandfather, Seamen's Chapel. A few years after was killed in an Indian fight in what Dr. Edward Beecher was living in is now Dakota, as a lieutenant of Charter Street, opposite my Uncle an Iowa regiment, enlisted for the Benson's house at that time, and Civil War, but turned aside to fight I called on Mrs. Stowe there, fresh the Sioux in the Northwest. from her success in "Uncle Tom's His father, whom I was said much Cabin." to resemble in stature and features, A certain sad romance, which had died of consumption after a long could not extinguish my Uncle illness, when I was about sixteen. Brackett's natural gaiety of heart, This uncle had the same cheerful followed his efforts to establish him- turn of mind, and endured his mal- self in the world. He married early ady with great patience. and migrated to Ann Arbor in Michi- My grandfather, the old 'Squire, attacked there born in gan ; was by the fever 1774, was by 1844 verging of the re- on the loss of his the region, nearly died, and seventy ; sons, turned wdth his wife and son to his illness of his wife, and the compara- father's house to recover health. tive neglect of his affairs by his ab- There I remember him with his sorption in politics, where he did not violin, playing and singing—the find the official promotion he hoped family all having that gift—and for, had combined with increasing amusing a child like me. Then he age to diminish his natural high disappeared, going this time to spirits. He was somewhat given to Orange, near Hanover, N. H., w^here bewailing the degeneracy of the he a farm and carried it on times his looked bought ; sons, who faithfully wdthout much success. Presently he after his affairs, were Whigs, his tried a new move, and w^ent to Illi- grandsons, Charles and myself, were ten he remained a nois, some years after Ellerj^ anti-slavery youths ; Channing had done the same thing Jackson Democrat, as did my father. in a more northern county. The This caused the old gentleman some 82 FRANK B. SANBORN. pangs, but his kindness of heart and So much for the chapter of hered- his interest in the family continued. ity. I quite agree, however, with old He visited his descendants in Boston, Master John Sullivan, father of two and carried his snuffbox into their state governors, John of New Hamp-' parlors and those of their friends. shire (the General), and James of On his last visit, about 1850, he sat Massachusetts, and grandson, as he for his daguerreotype, as he had sat said, of four Irish countesses, that more than forty years before, to his men must be valued for what they are, Carolina friend, James Akin, and this not for what their forefathers may final portrait, as I chiefl}^ remember have been. Writing at the age of 93 him, adorns this page. He died in to his son, the General, the retired schoolmaster quoted a Latin pair of

distichs, which in English run thus :

Was Adam all men's sire, and Eve their mother ? Then how can one be nobler than another ? Ennobled are we not by sire or dame, Till life and conduct give us noble fame.

Philosophers, who seek to know the causes of things, are apt to be interested, however, in the manifold influences that make men individuals, — no two alike, even in the same household, —and it is in the ancestry that we must look for certain determining causes, before environment and education begin to do their modifying work on the newly-arrived inhabitant of earth. Of that environment it is now time to say something. As I re- " marked in a chapter on The New T. Leavitt, /Et. 75. Hampshire Way of Eife," which mj' son, Mr. Victor Sanborn of Kemil- 1852, when I was fitting for college worth, 111., induced me to write for at Exeter, and I was struck, in look- " " his copious Sanborn Genealogy : ing at his dead face in the coffin, to see so much of the 3'outhful expres- "For man}' j-ears the bulk of the New were farmers sion there (at 77) which Akin had Hampshire people or farm laborers ; the mechanics, caught in his slight sketch of 1808. except in the largest towns, worked The fair and smooth cheek, the clear- on their own land, or some neigh- cut features, had taken on an earlier a of bor's, part the year ; and the expression ; and much of this 3'outh- parish minister, the country doctor, ful look was afterwards reproduced in and lawyer, and the village schoolmaster all had farms, large or small. the features and air of my son Victor, Originall3^ each had its par- who has the parish investigated genealogy sonage or manse, to which more or of his ancestors in Old and less land was attached this the England ; par- New. son and his sons, with a hired man, FRANK B. SANBORN. 83 cultivated, like his parishioners. emy,' a sectarian high school, but not first sectarian so that for a town The shoemaker who made my specially ; pair of boots had a few acres, at- of 700 people and small wealth, tached to the old house in which he Hampton Falls was well equipped lived and had his bench the black- with the means of education. ; " smith at the corner of the road might The old-fashioned district school also a farmer and the was in full when I was a ; be ; carpenters swing boy and cabinet-makers, if they prospered in it everything might be taught, at all, became landowners. At first from the alphabet upwards, to both less this ' ter- sexes and there there may have been of many ages ; might ritorial democracy,' as Lord Beacons- be pupils of 20 taught in winter by a in of often a stu- field styled it, New Hampshire youth 15 ; by college than in Plymouth and some other dent, released in the winter term to colonies. A considerable tendency pay his college bills by the money raahifested itself among the Cutts, earned as schoolmaster. Francis Champernowns, Atkinsons, Wal- Bowen, the professor and author, drons, Gilmans, Dudleys, Weares, while a student in Harvard, taught in ' etc. to establish a distinct class of our Red Schoolhouse,' and boarded , as existed in with Deacon gentry, such England ; Eane, my grandfather's and the Wentworths and their con- cousin, whose father had inherited nections maintained an offshoot of Dr. Eangdon's globes and wig. The the Anglican church in Portsmouth, advantages of such a school were ob- the and others vious for the teacher as did roj^al governors ; though might in Boston. But the influences of a have 40 pupils in 30 classes, to be new country, combining with Calvin- taught in 340 minutes, at the— rate of ism, especially where the settlers 13 minutes to each class, yet the were chiefly from the yeomanry and younger learned so much from hear- tradesmen of England and Northern ing their elders recite, that perhaps Ireland, as in New Hampshire, soon as much knowledge, irregularly brought about a virtual democracy. gained, got into the heads of bright Education, however, was always scholars as is now insinuated more highly valued there, and most of the methodically by young women skilled towns in Rockingham county had a in the newer modes of teaching. learned minister or two, preaching to The terms were short, and arranged the majority of the people, catechis- to meet the necessities of farm-labor, ing the children in church and school, in which most children, even girls, and often promoting the higher edu- took some part. They weeded gar- cation by opening libraries, giving dens, picked apples and potatoes, instruction in Eatin, and encouraging husked corn, carried grain to mill, the brighter boys to go to the acad- and with their mothers did much of emy or to college. the marketing, both buying and sell- ' ' In ni}^ own town much was done ing. In berry time they gathered in this way by Dr. Eangdon, a re- raspberries, huckleberries, blueber- tired president of Harvard College, ries, wild blackberries, cranberries in barberries and the of and his successor the ministry, and ; women Rev. Jacob Abbot, a first cousin of poorer families carried these about to Dr. Abbot of Exeter Academy, — the farmhouses for sale, taking in both good scholars of wide reading payment provisions or clothing for and public spirit, who from 1781 to their families, as did the Barrington 1827 preached in the meeting house basket-making gypsies, in their semi- near by, and lived in the old parson- annual rounds. One of the latter ' ' age, which was burnt in 1859. At class, Hippin Pat Leathers (a the southern end of the town, after w^oman) of Whittier's ' Yankee Zin- Parson Abbot's retirement, the Bap- cali,' used to whine at my grand- ' tists set up their ' Rockingham Acad- father's door, Haint ye got nerry 84 FRANK B. SANBORN. nold jacket, nerry nold gaownd, or fiction I cannot say with confi- nold traowses fur tu it was told and believed nerry pair gimme dence ; but fur this 'ere basket?' The huckle- among his kindred. He was skip- berry women from Seabrook carried of a coaster, which in the War of away from the same door salt pork in per 1812 was by a British frig- a pail, butter and cheese, and other captured ' ' means of stocking the Byfield larder. ate. A prize crew was put on board, and she was headed for Halifax.

still watched his All this I have seen surviving ; Captain Leavitt chance, but the worst of the rum-drinking and at night, when only the watch times had yielded, before my recollec- and the man at the wheel were on tion, to the efforts of the early tem- deck, he applied his great strength perance reformers. I have seen simi- to them, threw them successively lar cases, but it was in Essex county down the hatchway, fastened the that Arthur Gilman, the architect hatches down, took the wheel him- (born in Newburyport), used to place self, and steered his schooner into a the scene of his hero who went about friendly port. He was Esther Towle's sawing wood for the "forehanded grandson. folks," and took his pay in rum. In simple communities such as I re- One Saturday he had worked for the member, maiden aunts were a power of in the village 'squire, and was offered for and a blessing. One them, the task a pint of the beverage. "Oh, neighborhood of Boston, once told of now, 'Squire, can't ye make it a Theodore Parker, "The position quart ? Haow kin a man keep Sun- a maiden aunt is not to be despised, " " Mr. Parker without maiden aunts day on a pinto' rum? Nonsense, ; Jem; you haven't earned more 'n a the world could not be peopled, sir." — of New pint, can't you keep the Sabbath on In the nursing and pupilage a that much?" "Wa-al, 'Squire, ef Hampshire children the aunt bore I three maiden you say so, I s'pose I must : but jest great part. had — " — think on 't, haow will it be kep' ? aunts, my mother's youngest sister, The seafaring class, who were who stayed at home and kept her rather numerous in the old town of father's house, and after his death in carried on the farm and two elder Hampton, and Seabrook, Salisbury ; and Rye, were specially liable to the sisters of my father, who lived with habit and when went him in the old house where they were tippling ; they long voyages were apt to come back born. Aunt Dolly, his half sister, with their morals injured. But they had been brought up, as I have men- were notable seamen, and great fight- tioned, by her grandmother, Anne ers when any naval war gave them a Towle Sanborn, who humored her, chance. My mother's cousin, Lewis but kept her in a narrow domestic Leavitt, perhaps named for Lewis circle, from which courtship and Delesdernier of Ouoddy, where he marriage never emancipated her. lived, was famous in the annals of the She had the ways of the i8th cen- family for his skill in navigating from tury, just as she had its dishes and Eastport to Boston in the worst warming-pans, and ideas of costume. weather and the darkest night. Never did she go farther from the Whether this anecdote of him is fact houses of her relatives than to Ken- FRANK B. SANBORN. 85

singtou, whence ber mother, whom she spent her later years (when alone even I knew in for others. she never knew, had come ; her), caring " " Exeter, the Suffield of Miss As a child she had been a favorite Alice Brown, was almost unknown at Dr. Langdon's, who lived just to her, though but five miles away. across a little common and died when had she was but old but the She was purely domestic ; eight years ; " " certain cooking resaits that had family, including Miss Betsy I^ang- come down to her, and that nobody don, the granddaughter, remained in sat in her room the A little Italian else could manage ; parish longer. or lay in her bed, and knew the engraving from the parsonage was

' ' ' ownership of every horse that passed alwa^'S hung in her 'parlor chamber. the house, by his step. "I wonder She continued intimate at the parson- this in the time of the Abbots and where Major Godfrey was gwine age, ; mornin' ? His horse went down the and their children, of whom there Hampton road about half-past four." were many, grew up under her eye, She watched tlie passer-by with an and were cared for by her in their interest hard for the young to under- earlier and after years. Aunt Rachel narrow limits of her exis- was skilled in all household stand ; the arts, par- tence developed curiosity in a micro- ticularly in spinning, weaving and had her beds of and scopic degree. The wayfarer, though gardening ; sage a fool, as she was apt to think him, lavender, her flowers of the older was not an indifferent object to her. kinds, introduced from Dr. Langdon's I and was the She kept track, too, of the minutest garden, suppose ; incidents would remind me maker of remedies from family ; simple herbs, the next morning, when I came in delicious wines from currants, and late at night from some visit, or a metheglin from honey and other for- private cooking-party in the pine- gotten ingredients. Mr. Treadwell's woods, "The clock struck two jest "Herb-Gatherer," that pleasing after you shet the door, Frank." But poem which he sent from Connecticut i&ne had sympathy with youth, and to Ellery Channing, and which Chan- withheld such revelations from the ning revised until it seemed almost of the his and to me to in head family ; though you own, gave print would not have said that discretion the Springfield Republican, had was her strong point. She outlived touches that recalled my dear aunt to all her brothers and sisters but one, me, after many years. and was a neighborhood oracle as to Aunt Rachel had her romance in a she had births, deaths and marriages, without youth ; pretty creature, ever leaving the fireside in her latest been wooed by one who, wandering years. about in the wider world little seen by Aunt Rachel was a very different her, found sojne richer or more bril- person. Born five years later (1789) liant match, and broke off the engage- and dying some years earlier, she had ment. This happened long before I at- I him but a most sympathetic, pathetic and was born, and never saw ; tractive character. Fair and delicate I believe the fine musket in which I of complexion, blue-eyed, with pleas- learned to insert the bullets I had run ing features, a sweet, rather sad voice. in the wooden mould, and sometimes 86 FRANK B. SANBORN.

had the wool made in hit the target with them, was his June ; then up once, and had his initials in the silver great bundles, wrapt in old linen mounting. He had wounded a tender sheets, spun and woven by an earlier with thorns heart with a more cruel weapon : and generation, and pinned up I fancied I read regrets for the dream from the bush of white thorn in the of youth in the tears I sometimes saw pasture, to be carried to the carding- It home in falling, as my aunt spun in the long mill. was then brought garret at the west window of which I "rolls," spun into yarn by the women sat and read my Waverley Novels. of the house, and woven into cloth or for Her sister, nine years younger, had knit into socks, buskins and mittens made an unluckj^ marriage, with the family. This homespun cloth was " " then sent to the to be many children and much hardship ; fulling-mill fulled back and Aunt Rachel w^as often called to dyed and ; finally brought go to Brentwood and look after the to be cut by the neighborhood tailor young family and the delicate mother, and made up into suits for the family, " who seemed to have inherited con- by the tailoress," who went about sumption (according to theories then from house to house for the purpose. prevailing) from her mother, my Of the children at the district school, grandmother Sanborn, who died eight not more than one in twenty wore any- years before I was born. She per- thing in winter but this home-made had cloth. In summer wore the formed this duty cheerfully ; they cheap taken care of her own mother in her cotton from the New England factories

last illness, then of her father and and calicoes of the "ninepenny" vari- of invalids who died The w'ent barefoot sister ; and many ety. boys mostly or recovered. These charities called till twelve, and the girls sometimes. her much from home, and I saw far Gradually, after 1840, the town be- less of her than of Aunt Dolly, her came dotted with shoe shops, where half-sister, who was as much a part of the young men and some of their the old house as the oak arm-chair in elders made sale shoes for the manu- of Haverhill the the kitchen, or the chimney corner facturers Lynn and ; cat. But she impressed my imagina- women in the houses "binding" the tion she nature before the soles were stitched more ; was gentle by uppers and by grace, and deserves not to be on in the shoe shops. My brother I this art he to forgotten. Had I been blessed with and learned ; perfec- I and it was a daughter, I would have named her tion, rather awkwardly ; Rachel. from the profits of my first box of I have mentioned her spinning. shoes that I paid the cost of my foot Of the hundred farmhouses in the journey to the White Mountains, in town w^hen I was ten years old, more September, 1850. Soon after this I than fifty must have had looms, and began to prepare for Harvard College, all had the large spinning wheel for at the suggestion of dear friends, and wool spinning. The garret of every had no difficulty in entering a 3'ear in one contained disused flax wheels, al- advance, in July, 1852. Up to that though a few farmers still grew flax, time I had mostly lived at home in lovely with its blue flowers. But all the surroundings described, taking kept sheep, and sheared them in part in the labors and the leisure por- FRANK B. SANBORN. 87

Frank Sanborn (August, 1853), /Et. 21 trayed in my first chapter. The ac- was happ3', b}' reason o the romantic companying portrait, from a daguer- love which my next chapter will reotype taken in 1853, represents the relate. It was a part, and an idyllic I of life student and lover that was, during part, my New Hampshire ; and

' ' this period of my obscure and golden with its close I became a citizen of youth," as Thoreau says. Amid Massachusetts and the world. many anxieties and mortifications, I [TV be cotitinued.^

MIDSUMMER.

By Eva J. Beede.

Soft the song the leaves are singing. Tufted is the waving grass ; Butterflies, like air flowers, winging Where the earth flowers may not pass.

Golden cups, the crowfoot swaying, Catch the sunshine and the dew ; Balmy zephyrs, gently playing, Coy and blushing roses woo.

Cool the tents the elm trees, spreading Forth their grateful leaf shade, make Witching beams, the bright moon shedding, All the sleeping fairies wake. EDITORIAL NOTES.

" ?

1f«' ! ^ ' li rsfcr ! U H I

4.- ii 'I » " '1 II,:. , , ,i N'-'iiu »w*..,-,, i^hiHi^t 'K^f ,:,, vv '7;^!:"' » •» « « tl«,.> I ., ,i ,1

Autos at Bretton Woods.

The cut will demonstrate the favor the White Mountain region has received at the hands of automobilists this season. The photograph was taken in front of the New Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods and shows one of the good roads on this estate and a party enjoying a short run. The first car is a Winton, being driven by Harry Fosdick of Boston, Mass. In it are seated Governor and Mrs. Bachelder.

inconsiderate, and because of him, An Automobile Law. definite and stringent regulations are It is generally agreed that the next necessar}^ for his restraint or for his Legislature will pass some sort of a law punishment. In the framing of a law establishing the maximum speed of that shall fairly meet all of the vary- automobiles upon the highways of the ing conditions, much consideration state. Several bills of that nature should be given. Some weeks ago were introduced at the last session, this paper printed the views of some but all failed of passage. Since then, of the leading automobilists of Man- the automobile has been a more com- chester as to the provisions such a bill mon user of our highways. It can be should contain, which attracted much safely said that the great majority of attention and some comment. the drivers of such vehicles conduct The real centre of motor cars in New them reasonably and wuth regard for Hampshire this season has been Bret- the rights of others upon the avenues ton Woods. They have been there of travel. But there is now and then by scores and of all styles and descrip- an auto-car driver who is reckless and tions. Discussions pertaining to all EDITORIAL. 89 phases of the business have been gen- onment for second offense (one half to eral. Now at the close of the sea- constable if he wants it)." —Manches- son, John Anderson gives the follow- ter Union, Sept. 28, 1904. of his views ing interesting summary * * * as to the provisions of such a law, in the editorial columns of The Bziglc, " Road Improvement Under under the of "A Starter : caption State Sopervision. ' ' Bretton Woods favors a state law FOREvST LAKE ROAD IN WHITK- to restrict speed of motor cars to FIELD AND DALTON. eighteen miles in the lowlands and twelve miles in the mountains, and This is a road to a beautiful little half speed in passing houses or within lake, and a favorite resort for peo- 100 yards of the vanishing point of a ple of Littleton and vicinity. The road on curves or the point beyond road was built by the state of New is is in full in it is one and one which the road not view ; Hampshire 1901 ; and the same provision where a short half miles long, and by the appropria- hill hides the road beyond. A full tions of the last Legislature, has in stop for frightened horses, and the as- the past two seasons been made a sistance of the chauffeur or other mem- model country road. Good ditches ber of the auto party to help lead the have been dug and the drainage horse or team by, when such as- perfected. Mud holes have been sistance may be needed or asked. filled and the entire length rounded ' ' The horn to be sounded three up and surfaced with good material, times at each point where the road is and this summer the road was hard not seen to be clear at least one hun- and in perfect condition. The sur- dred yards ahead. face is as good, hard and smooth as

* 'Twenty'- dollars fine for first of- that of any macadamized road in the half to con.stable fense, one ; impris- country.

On Forest Lake Road 90 EDITORIAL.

Before.

The cuts will give some idea of work done by the state of New Hampshire on its roads the past two seasons. The photographs were taken at a point about one mile from Bretton Woods, on the new state road between Fabyans and Twin Mountain, at what is known as the rock cut. The first picture shows the condition after the blasting, and before the re- moval of the rock. Steam-power drills were used, and the holes charged with hundreds of pounds of dynamite. EDITORIAL. 91

After.

The second picture shows the finished road, the rock having been removed and the roadway surfaced. The bridge shown in both pictures crosses the Animonoosuc River, and is built of steel, strong enough to sustain a train of railroad cars. The abutments are built of Portland cement concrete. This is probably the first concrete masonry used in highway work in New Hampshire. This makes the whole a beautiful and thoroughly strong and permanent structure. From a point just beyond this bridge may be seen the Ammonoosuc Lower Falls and the great gorge in the solid rock, which is one of the many attractions in this White Mountain region. SPORTSi^EN . . .

I do everything in Taxidermy. Send me your trophies for mounting. Deer Heads a Specialty.

GEO. P. WELLINGTON, The Reliable Taxidermist, Send for Price List. EAST JAFFREY, N. H.

RUMFORD PRINTING COMPANY,

Railroad Square > CONCORD, N. H.

Reproduced by Czleiitoii, A^as/iua, N. H .

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, The Granite Monthly.

Vol. XXXVH, (X^TOBER-DECEMBEK, 1904. Nos. 4-().

A Section of the Jefferson Notch Road.

lmpro7'ed by State Highiuay Commission, rgo3-''04. This road was formerly a mass of mud, hiib»dee/>.

STATE HIGHWAY WORK IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

By John W. Storrs, Civil Engineer.

The report of the state highway satisfactory results of their under- commission, of which John Anderson taking. of Bretton Woods, Charles F. East- The bill as passed by the last Legis- man of Littleton and George E. Cum- lature made an appropriation of $32,- mings of Woodsville were members, 000, to be expended by this commis- is so modest in tone that it gives but sion on the improvements of certain an indefinite idea of what has actually roads that then had been started, but been accomplished in highway work not finished, and for the building of and improvement under their direc- new roads. tion. The bill authorized the commis- The people of New Hampshire are sioners to survey and locate a high- certainly entitled to know more fully way, beginning at the base of IMount the details of the work done and the Washington, at a point in the Thomp- 96 STATE HIGHWAY WORK. sou and Meserve purchase, at the being a distance of eight and a half easterly terminus of what is known miles. as the Mount Washington Turnpike, It was provided, however, that this thence over said turnpike as it now last part should be built, not for a exists, to the point of its intersection carriage road, and specified that only with the Porthmd road, so called, $5,000 should be used in its construc- near the Fabyau House, thence over tion. The entire distance covered by said road to an iron pin driven in the the survey and location of this road ground. From here the bill provided is about twenty-two miles. That the for building a new road, about a mile commission faithfull.v performed this

Profile Bridle Trail, Eight and One Half Miles Long.

Built by State Hi^liway Coviiiiission, rgoj-''04 This was >iot httejidcdfor a carriage road.

in length, and then to cross the Am- part of their duty is shown by an ele- monoosuc River, and use the old road gant and accurate set of plans which for a distance of about a mile, then they caused to be filed with the secre- cross the river again, building a new tary of state. These plans are* on road about two and a half miles in twelve different sheets of heavy length, and coming again on to the old mounted white paper and bound with road near the Twin Mountain House, cloth cover in such a way that they thence over an old road, a distance of may be easily taken out and used about two miles, and then build a new separately. road to the Chase farm, or Profile The plans show the location of the House golf links, this last stretch old roads as thev now exist and the STATE HIGHWAY WORK 97 new roads as located and bnilt, with The road follows down the southerly curves, distances, etc., and a record of slope, crossing various brooks, large the hmdowners and reference to deeds and small, to what is known as Twin of the rights of way as conveyed to River farm. This division is about the state. These plans give definite ten miles in length. information, so valuable to the engin- The Southern division begins here eer for reference and future opera- and follows along (at about the same tions, and make a permanent record. general elevation of 1,900 feet above The bill authorized improvements the sea) the base of the Presidential

Another View on Profile Bridle Trail. on the Jefferson Notch road. This Range from Mount Washington to I'oad may properly be divided into the Crawford House, at the famous two parts, and locally is called the Crawford Notch. This division cov- Northern and Southern division. The ers a distance of about four miles. former begins at the E. A. Crawford This road was originally put through house at- Jefferson Highlands, and (and was passable, but never fin- winds down the hill into the valley of ished), and was a difficult undertak- the Israels River, and then follows up ing. It was through a rough, rugged the south branch to the summit of country and away from habitation. Jefferson Notch, where it reaches an Rocks, trees and stumps were abund- elevation of 3,000 feet above the sea. ant, but dirt or anything suitable for 98 STATE HIGHWAY WORK.

Section of Road between Fabyans and Twin Mountain House, Showing Side-Hill Cut. road building was scarce and hard to and shavings had been used to fill or get. cover this mud up, but without good This commission found a bit? results. In fact, the conditions were amount of work to be done here, and probably worse. the question was how to begin and The commissioners decided that the what to do that could be done. only way to do was to shovel out the The Southern division seemed to Avhole mess,—^brush, shavings, mud demand attention first, as it was and all. This was done, good ditches needed most. Here was a continua- were dug, good under drainage pro- tion of mud and mud-holes. One of vided, the roadway was filled with these was about one quarter of a mile brolcen rocks and stones, and finally long, while another was over half a surfaced with good road material. mile in length—real mud, too. Where This latter had to be drawn in some in ordinary dry times a wagon wheel eases over a mile. would go down clear to the hub, at The whole of this division was care- some previous time brush, tree tops fully gone over, and this past season STATE HIGHWAY WORK 99

has been in good condition. The the amount of woi'lc done here and parts of the road that were the worst the good results accomplished. What are now the best. has been done may be considered as On the Northern division long permanent, but, like all roads, must stretches were rounded up and sur- be taken care of to be maintained in faced, obstructions removed from its present condition. The appropri- ditches and water-ways. This latter ation that they recommend is princi- required lots of blasting, and hun- pally for completing and finishing dreds of pounds of dj^namite were those parts of the road that were used. destroyed by the cloudburst, and for Good material, or in fact any kind building two bridges. of dirt, was not handy and it was The new road, not a carriage road, necessary to go long distances for built from near the Twin Mountain proper surfacing material. To add House to the Chase farm or Profile to the troubles of the commission, the House golf links, is in the mountains cloudburst of June, 1903, destroyed called the Profile bridle trail, and at completely parts of this road. the golf links connects wdth a road to No one who was not familiar with Franconia, Sugar Hill and Littleton, the conditions as this commission and with another road to the Profile found them can realize or appreciate House, a distance of three miles.

Road between Fabyans and Twin Mountain House.

Built by the State Hi'gh^uay Coiinntssiou, rgoj-'o^. lOO STATE HIGHWAY WORK.

The Profile bridle trail is eight and Fabyans and Twin Mountain. The a half miles long and opens up a length of this new road is about three beautiful, heavily wooded country, and a half miles. The bill author- and when improved for carriages will ized its location between definite be one of the most delightful drives points marked by iron pins. in the mountains, and the connecting The road crosses the Ammonoosuc link between the base of Mount River four times, and there are two Washington and Bretton Woods, and bridges over the Zealand River. The the Profile House in the famous Fran- bridges are pile trestles, with one ex- conia Notch with its lakes, the Old ception, and this, at the lower falls ]Man of the ]\Iountain and other scenic of the Ammonoosuc, is a beautiful attractions. and substantial steel bridge with The commission laid out this road massive concrete masonry abutments. with regard to its probable future im- The maximum grade on this road is provement for carriages, and care- ten per cent. fully located it with reference to The work was in places heavy, in avoiding steep grades, railroads, etc. one place a deep ledge cut, where If the road is ever completed along hundreds of pounds of dynamite had the lines proposed, there will be no to be used in blasting out the rock; place that a team of horses cannot in other places deep cuts and heavy trot at a good pace. There will be side hill work. The trestle bridges two bridges, one across Gale River, are built with oak piles and Georgia and the other, an overhead bridge, hard pine stringers covered with over the tracks of a branch of the hemlock plank. They are eighteen Boston & Llaine Railroad. The com- feet wide. mission obtained the right of wav The roadway is sixteen feet wide, four rods Avide, and took deeds from besides the ditches, and was surfaced the landowners which are on file with with material at hand. This road the state treasurer. They cleared the was built in part to avoid four rail- timber, stumps, rocks and boulders road crossings, and in all places keeps for a width of twenty feet, and used well away from the railroad. This quantities of dynamite in these oper- adds very materially to its attractive- ations. ness as a pleasure drive to visitors at They made a good road for horse- the mountain hotels. back riding, and a road that it has The scenery from this road includes been possible to get over with teams. a grand view of the Presidential Governor Bachelder and his council Range, a view up the Zealand River drove over this road on their inspec- Valley from Glacial Ridge, the lower tion with a four-horse mountain falls of the Ammonoosuc, and the wagon. This party were well pleased many beautiful little glimpses of the and satisfied with the character and river which it follows, in part, as it amount of work done. winds around at the base of foothills The pride of the mountains is the of the Sugar Loaf Mountain. road built by this commission between CRAYON I'OirrKAIT ()F ABRAHAM J.LNC'OLN.

H)! Willi'ini <). ('/()n;//i

A few months ago one of the pop- tician, the statesman with acumen to ular magazines* of the day pub- grasp the intricate problems of gov- lished the accompanying portrait of ernment, and mould seemingly widely Abraham Lincoln, and with it a brief divergent forces into their proper re- statement, and nothing more of im- lation to the destiny of our country. portance, that a New York gentleman It is also Lincoln in whom is discover- is the owner of the only artist 's proof able the genial and kindly bearing of known to be in existence. There is, the child of the prairie, the individ- however, another copy, and it is the uality that caused him to be loved and property of the writer. trusted by men and women of his gen- This portrait of the martyred pres- eration, and whose memory will be ident was made at Springfield, 111., in cherished so long as history is written 1860, following his nomination to the and read. presidency, by C. A. Barry, a noted This crayon portrait of Mr. Lincoln Massachusetts artist of that day. It was a gift to the writer some twenty is, as artists of today must admit, a years ago by a physician", who, by striking likeness in bold treatment, reason of age and infirmities, was dis- and so unlike any of the many por- mantling his office. He saw that I traits of the great emancipator that admired it, whereupon he related to have been given to the public in late me the circumstances under which he years as to attract attention and ad- obtained it, and also gave me the art- miration. ist's story that accompanied it. Later, The student of art will be impressed much to my gratification and sur- with the gracefulness of the pose, prise, he sent it to my residence with the unaffected expression in which his compliments. character is brought out, and also by "It was presented to me," he said, the breeziness of the IMiddle West, "by a patient of mine*, a relative which gives tone to it. Rigiclness, of Artist Barry. There is not the which minimizes the effect of many of shadow of a doubt of its genuineness. the portraits of Mr. Lincoln, is made I was her family physician for many flexible, and to emphasize the intel- years, and it was made mine in rec- lectual mind and sterling qualities of ognition of my attention to her in a head and heart that made him a man

t The late Dr. T. H. Gibby, Nashua. of the people, the unerring judge win:) t Mrs. Eben Mclntire, Nashua. It is a singular estimated his fellow men at their pre- circum.stance that the last member of the family —a former Nashua shoe-dealer, noted vocalist cise value to a cause, the astute poli- and Knijjht Templar Mason—died at his home in Philadelphia since this article was prepared. It i.s also a circumstance that Dr. Qibby's only daughter, only child as well, is a resident of *The National Magazine. Philadelphia. I02 ABRAHAM LINCOLX. protracted illness. There are proba- one foot and vanished through the bly other copies in existence, but of end of the hall somewhere, leaving that I have no information. ' ' me as he found me, standing in Artist Barry's account of his visit the doorway. But I had not long to Springfield, and the circumstances to wait, for the good, the immortal and conditions under which he ob- Lincoln immediately came down- tained the sittings and made the por- stairs, holding out a great hand trait was as follows : of welcome towards me. 'They want "It was late in the afternoon of the my head, do they? Well, if you can it that if last Saturday in June, 1860, when I get it you may have ; is, you found myself in front of a small, two- are able to take it off while I am on in nose storied house, almost entirely sur- the jump. But no quills my ;

't rounded by a plain white paling, in I have had enough of that ; and don ' the City of Springfield, 111. I had fasten me into a chair !

' ' journeyed from Boston at the request I learned afterwards from his own of certain prominent Republicans of lips that he had never sat for a por- Massachusetts, bearing a letter of in- trait, except photographic ones, bnt troduction from Governor N. P. that Sculptor Folk of Chicago had

Banks to solicit sittings from Abra- 'plastered' him, so he termed it, some- ham Lincoln. time in 1858, for a bust. The ar- "My intention was to make a rangement, as made between Mr. Lin- crayon drawing (portrait) from life coln and myself, was that we were to that could be used on my return to meet at his room in the court house Boston as a study for reproduction on on the following Monday morning at stone by an eminent lithographer. It seven o'clock, and this is the way was quite late in the afternoon, as I the said arrangement came about. have said, when I arrived in Spring- Twisting Governor Banks' letter in field, so I went at once to the front his large furrowed hands, he said: " ' door of the now well known house and I suppose you Boston folks don 't rang the bell, little suspecting the get up at cock-crowing as we do out amusing bit of experience that came here. I'm an early riser, and my ris- next. Suddenly the door was thrown ing don't mean nine o'clock in the violently against the wall, revealing morning, by any means. Now, I "11' to my notice a very small boy strad- tell you what we'll do. You come to dling across the passagewa5^ my room at the court house on ]\Ion- " 'Hallo, mister!' screamed the day at seven sharp, and I will be there

' ' small boy, what der want ? to let you in.' " 'I want,' I replied, 'to see Mr. "The good man evidently thought Lincoln. I have come all the way he had me on the hip, so to speak, as from Boston to talk with him.' In he said this, for he shook his side most

an instant, before my lips closed, in heartily with suppressed laughter fact, the small boy shouted out: when he was bidding me good night. " 'Come down, "Pop,"; here's a "But Monday morning came, and man from Boston to see you,' and seven o'clock came, and at precisely thus saying, he wheeled himself upon that hour I turned the corner of the ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 103 street upon which the court house to him and to the American people faced to see, coming towards me from straight from the hand of God. A the other end of the sidewalk, my, marked look of depression upon his queer sitter. face at times gave me no end of trou- " 'Well done, my boy,' he said, as ble. There was a far-away look about we shook hands, 'y.ou are an early the eyes very often, as if the great bird, after all, if you do hail from spirit behind them was conscious of ' Boston. terrible trials to come, as if there was

' ' I told him I was rarely in bed af- a mighty struggle going on in the ter daybreak and nuich of my best bosom of the living man that living work was done before breakfast. And men must not know of until the time so. pleasantly chatting, we went up was ripe for them to know; such a to his room together. struggle as Jesus knew in his agony " 'Now, then, what shall I do?' he after the arrest; as Savonarola knew inquired, pointing to a large pile of when he was fighting single-handed unopened letters upon a table. the church of Rome; as Luther knew " 'Absolutely nothing,' I replied, when he stood before his judge at the 'but to allow me to Avalk around you Diet of Worms; as Cromwell knew occasionally and once in a while meas- at the head of his thousands of men; ure a distance upon your face. I as Theodore Parker knew when the will not disturb you in the least other- whole Christian world, with one or wise.' two exceptions, held him in utter ab- " 'Capital,' said my distinguished horrence.

' ' sitter, smiling pleasantly, 'I won't be I worked faithfully upon the por- in the least bit scared; go right trait, studying every feature most

' ahead. carefully for ten days, and was more "Then he threw off his coat and, than fully rewarded for my labor sitting in front of the table in his when Mr. Lincoln, pointing to the

' shirt sleeves, plunged his hand into picture, said : Even my enemies must the great heap of letters before him, declare that to be a true likeness of " leaving me to begin my task. How "old Abe".' vividly it all comes back to me as I The portrait was exhibited in Chi- write. The lonely room, the great cago at the Tremont House, in New bony figure with its long arms, and York at the room of George Ward legs that seemed to be continually Nichols, and Boston at the rooms of twisting themselves together; the the old Mercantile Library Associa- long, wiry neck, the narrow chest, the tion on Summer Street. It was litho- uncombed hair, the cavernous sockets graphed most excellently for those beneath the high forehead, the bushy days and could have been seen in eyebrows hanging like curtains over many places in. Boston and elsewhere the bright, dreamy eyes, the awkward on the w^eek following the assassina- speech, the pronounced truthfulness tion. A month later not a copy was and and the sure feel- to be obtained for love nor patience ; lastly, money, ing in his heart that coming events, and therefore it is more than prob- whatever they might be, would come able that there are more copies in ex- I04 COL. AMOS A. PARKER. istence than is believed by "the New while, then—I had turned my head to York gentleman." look at him—stepped forward and, Artist Bany related this as a part folding his arms across his breast, said

' of his experience in connection with slowly with clear utterance : An hon-

' ' the portrait : When it was on exhibi est man, God knows.' The next in- tion in Mr. Nichols' room in New stant he passed out of the room. It York and standing on an easel in the was Stephen A. Douglass." The last middle of the room facing Broadway, that was known of the original por- a short, thick-set gentleman walked in. trait—made in 1860, and the first He did not speak to me; I did not made of Mr. Lincoln from life—it speak to him. He stood a short dis- was owned by Mrs. E. A. Hilton, tance from the picture for a little Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF COL. AMOS A. PARKER.

By Atnos J. Blake, Esq.

Amos Andrew Parker was born in name of Jonas Parker is on the Lexing- Fitzwilliam, October 8, 1791. At the ton monument. time of his death he was the oldest living Amos Parker was born July 26, 1723, graduate of any American college and and died at Shrewsbury, December 23, member of the bar in New England. He 1790. His wife was Anna Stone, born died at the home of his youngest son, October 21, 1726, and died November

Hon. M. in 1 had nine children the lohn Parker, Fitzwilliam, 3) 1799- They ; Ma}' 12, 1893, aged loi years, 7 months two oldest were born in Lexington, the and 4 days. others in Shrewsbury. He was the fourth of the nine child- Nahum was their seventh child and ren of Hon. Nahum Parker, a United at the early age of sixteen he entered the States senator, and for twenty years a Revolutionary Army from Shrewsbury. judge of the Court of Common Pleas of How long he remained in the army we this state. A brief sketch of his distin- have no means at hand to determine. guished father and of his public services He kept a diary at the time and if that rendered to the state and nation will not could be consulted, the question might be out of place at this time. possiby be settled. Hon. Nahum Parker was born in In the year 1817, when pensions Shrewsbury, Mass., March 4, 1760. His were granted to all Revolutionary sol- father was Amos Parker of Lexington, diers, he applied for a pension, and as Mass., a brother of Jonas Parker, who evidence of services performed he sent was one of the eight men killed in Cap- to the secretary of war, John C. Calhoun, tain Parker's company of Minute Men his diary, accompanied by an affidavit on Lexington Common on the memora- stating that he was the identical man ble nineteenth of April, 1775. The who performed the services mentioned COL, AMOS A, PARKER. io6 COL. AMOS A. PARKER. therein, and at once received his pension chosen to represent this town in the state certificate; the secretary remarking that legislature, and was re-elected annually the evidence was conclusive, for no man till 1804, or for the period of ten years. could make such a diary without having In 1806 he was again chosen representa- performed the services. He was pres- tive." ent at the surrender of Burgoyne at Sara- He had eleven commissions as justice toga in 1777. of the peace and quorum throughout the After the war he married Mary Deeth state. His first commission is dated of Gerry (now Phillipston), Mass., Au- January 9, 1794, and signed by Josiah gust II, 1783. After living a short time Bartlett, governor, and the last is dated in Gerry, he moved to Shrewsbury in December 20, 1836, and signed by 1784, and in March, 1786, he came to Isaac Hill, governor. Fitzwilliam and settled on a farm, now Of the eleven commissions three were owned by Harvey A. Clark, on the east signed by John Langdon, three by John side of the town. He resided thereuntil Taylor Oilman and one each by Josiah the day of his death. Bartlett, Samuel Bell, Davil L. Morrill, The "History of Fitzwilliam" truth- Matthew Harvey and Isaac Hill. He fully says of him : "The ability and had three commissions as judge of the fidelity of Mr. Parker were at once recog- Court of Common Pleas. The first is a nized by the people of Fitzwilliam, and commission as "Chief Justice of the he was soon called to fill offices of trust. Court of Common Pleas for the County October 17, 1792, the proprietors of this of Cheshire," dated February 3, 1807, township elected him as their clerk and and signed by John Langdon. treasurer, and he held these offices till The second is a commission as "An the closing up of the business of the Associate Justice of our Circuit Court proprietors in 1815. Though not edu- of Common Pleas for the Western Cir- cated as a lawyer, he was well acquainted cuit," dated July 13, 1813, and signed with the forms and merits of civil pro- by John T. Oilman. ceedings, and brought to all his public The third is a commission as "An duties a well-trained mind a habit of Associate of the Court of Com- ; Justice exactness in all the calls issued by him mon Pleas for the County of Cheshire," for legal meetings, and in the record of signed by William Plummer, governor, the same, and the utmost fidelity in and dated July 5, 18 16. During all the accounting for the funds in his posses- years in which Judge Parker held the sion. To all these qualifications for a office, and discharged the duties of judge, public servant he added an almost fault- Cheshire county included within its lim- less penmanship, so that from the date its the present county of Sullivan. of his election as clerk of the proprie- Cheshire county, incorporated March tors, their record books become easy of 19, 1 77 1, was one of the five original comprehension. counties into which the province was "In 1790 Mr. Parker's name first then divided, Keene and Charlestown appears upon the records of Fitzwilliam being the shire towns. as one of the selectmen, and he held this July 5, 1827, the county of Cheshire office for four successive was divided its northern years. Begin- ; portion being ning with 1792 he was often moderator taken to form the county of Sullivan, of the town meetings. In 1794 he was which was named in honor of Hon. Tohn COL. AMOS A. PARKER. 107

Sullivan of Durham. In 18 13 the NAIIUM PARKER. "Western Circuit," as it was called, iJorn March 4, 1760. included the then counties of Cheshire, M>pointed Chief Justice of the Court of Com- (irafton and Coos; the largest in the • "1"" Pleas in . T 1 T, 1 , 1 >^- 1807. and Parker "rode his Cir- state, Judge y,^^-^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ j^^^ ^^^^, Hampsiiire cuit" (as it was then termed) on horse- from 1806 to rSio. his in one of back with saddle , bags,° Died,^. ^. ^ November 12, 1839. which he carried the famous "Green Bag," containing his court papers. The subject of this sketch, Amos reports, statutes and other law books Andrew Parker, attended the district for reference, and in the other his change school in Fitzwilliam during the short of wardrobe and other articles, being terms kept in his district, and when the absent from home frequently during the school was not in session, worked upon terms of court in his district, from five his father's farm until 15 years of age, to ten weeks at a time. In 1805 and when he formed the purpose of obtain- 1806 he was elected and served as coun- ing a collegiate eduction. He took a cilor from the "Old Fifth Councilor preparatory course of one year under District." In i828-'29 he was senator the instruction of his pastor, the Rev. to the General Court from District No. John Sabin, and a three years' course at g, and was one of the leading members New Ipswich Academy, under the tuition of that body. June 13, 1806, he was of Oliver Swain Taylor, who at that time elected a senator from New Hampshire was principal of the institution, in the United States Congress for the In June, 18 10, he entered the Univer- his full term of six years, but finding sity of Vermont in the Sophomore year, duties as judge and senator too onerous, and graduated in 18 13 at the age of and moreover, sometimes conflicting in 22 years, ranking second in his class, point of time, he resigned his ofiice as He was appointed to deliver an English senator after a service of three years, oration, with the place of honor in the and continued to hold the office of joint exhibition of the Junior and Senior judge. classes; the Greek oration at the Junior In all the civil, social and religious exhibition and the salutatory address in affairs of the town. Judge Parker was Latin at Commencement, prominent for a long series of years. Soon after graduation he went to His honesty, ability and fidelity being Fredericksburg, Va., and was engaged universally acknowledged by his towns- as a teacher in the family of a wealthy men, and in fact throughout the state, planter, where he remained three years. Of his kindness to the poor and afflicted He then returned to New Hampshire many instances are related by aged citi- and commenced the study of law in the zens, and his influence was invariably office of James Wilson, Sr., of Keene, in favor of the culture and good morals completing his course with Hon. Levi of the people. Chamberlain, who was at that time in the He died at his homestead November practice of law at Fitzwilliam. He was

12, 1839, aged 80 years; and a substan- admitted to the bar in 182 1, and coni- tial granite monument marks his resting menced the practice of his profession in place in our public cemetery, with the Epping immediately after, where he following inscription thereon : remained until 1823, when he moved io8 COL. AMOS A. PARKER.

to Concord to accept the editor- wrote many stories, articles for maga- ship of the New Hampshire Statesman. zines, and newspaper contributions. In In 1824 and 1825 he was commis- his native town after 1837. he held nearly sioned and served as aid on the stafif of every office in the gift of the people, and Governor Morrill, from which office he took a very active part in the measures received his title of colonel. While re- adopted to suppress the Rebellion, fur- siding at Concord, he was delegated as nishing three sons for the Union Army, one of the governor's aids to proceed to one of whom died in the service. He Boston and invite General Lafayette to had received and held 15 commis- visit New Hampshire. This was in sions as a justice of the peace and quo- June, 1824. The General kindly ac- rum of five years each, covering a space cepted the invitation, but desired that of 75 years, his first commission bearing his visit to New Hampshire be deferred date June 22, 1^22. a of until the following year, and accordingly For several years he was trustee in June, 1825, Colonel Parker made the the New Hampshire Asylum for the same journey to Boston with proper Insane, a director of the Ashuelot Fire equipage to convey the distinguished Insurance Company, a director of the French soldier and statesman to Con- Cheshire County Bank (now Keene Na- cord. tional Bank), was a member of the Bar The equipage consisted of a ba- Association of New York City, and of rouche with four horses, an elegant the New Hampshire Historical Society. stage-coach with four horses, and a two- He served as representative from Fitz- horse carriage for the baggage. The william during thirteen sessions of the was his the his first election to that General accompanied by son, Legislature ; George Washington Lafayette, and his office was at the March election in 1839. select- private secretary and a body-servant. He occupied the position of first General Lafayette was then 67 years of man in Fitzwilliam for ten years, and for meet- age, well preserved, and in good health. many years was moderator of town

After Colonel Parker's retirement from ings, town agent and town treasurer ; he was chairman of active professional life, he published a during the Civil War work of 150 pages entitled "Recollec- a committee of three for funding the tions of Lafayette and his Visit to war debt of the town, which was very America." After leaving Concord he efficiently and promptly accomplished. a of the practised his profession at Exeter and For 72 years he was member at Kingston, and returned from the bar, and engaged in the practice of the latter place to his native town in 1837, law the greater portion of that time. and continued the practice of the law. In i844-'45 he was actively engaged railroad be- While residing at Exeter Colonel Par- in forwarding the projected ker made a long excursion to the West, tween Boston and Burlington by way of and on his return, published a valuable Rutland. After aiding in obtaining " " book (which was one of the first of its charters for the Fitchburg and " " he the kind), entitled "A Trip to the West and Cheshire railroads, brought Texas." It was published in three edi- matter before the people of Vermont, at Bellows tions of 5,000 copies each, and had a addressing large crowds Falls, rapid sale. He also published a book Brandon, Rutland, Vergennes, Burling- other The Rutland and of poems in his eightieth year, and ton and places. COL. AMOS A. PARKER. 109

Burlington Railroad was soon built, and his conversations and addresses, with is today the Rutland Division of the great ease and fluency. He was quite Central Vermont System. a wit, and at times enjoyed a good Colonel Parker was a man of splendid joke. physique, tall, remarkably erect through A short anecdote illustrating his ready life, and in all respects well proportioned. wit was recently related to the author of As a public speaker he also made his this sketch, by Hon. Albert S. Waite of mark. In addition to Fast Day ad- Newport. While attending the session dresses, railroad, political, educational _of the court at Keene, between 40 and and miscellaneous speeches, Colonel 50 years ago, the judges and lawyers Parker delivered five Fourth of July made their headquarters at "Col. orations, one in 18 13 at Falmouth in Harrington's Tavern," as it was com- Virginia, one in Rockingham county, one monly called in those days, and more in Vermont and two in Fitzwilliam. recently the Eagle Hotel; at the familiar One of the finest gems of its kind was sound of the dinner bell, the presiding " an address on Education," delivered at judge and the lawyers from the various Rindge on October 17, 1843, before the towns in the county and other parts of Cheshire County Common School Asso- the state attending the term of court, ciation. filed into the spacious dining room and In his boyhood days he was too studi- took their seats at the well-loaded table, ous and busy to engage in any of the which was assigned by the good host to sports and dissipations which often un- the judge and members of the bar. dermine the constitutions of the more Among the prominent members of the favored youths, and the temperate habits bar of Cheshire county at that time was he then formed greatly augmented and Judge Frederick Vose of Walpole, who preserved his constitution for work and was invariably punctual and constant in a long life. his attendance at court, the sessions of At 80 he had the vigor, endurance and which generally lasted from five to six of a man of and at that and he was also strength 50 ; 90 weeks, equally punctual of a man of 60. He was always re- in his attendance at the dinner table. garded as a well-read lawyer, a safe On one occasion there were seated at counselor, and when engaged in the trial the head of the table, His Honor John of causes, a successful advocate. He was James Gilchrist, the presiding justice, a good citizen and an honest man. E. L. Cusheon of Charlestown, Aldis He was a ready writer and a good Lovell of Alstead, A. H. Bennett of thinker, and his success at the bar, upon Winchester, Col. Amos A. Parker of the stump, and in the halls of Legisla- Fitzwilliam and several other members ture attested his power and influence as of the bar from other portions of the a speaker and debater. His was an state, including himself, who was seated

active life, and he was long interested in at the table directly opposite Colonel the cause of education and temperance. Parker, who, after looking up and down Colonel Parker was a good Latin and the long table for several minutes, failed Greek scholar he retained his knowl- to see Vose of in his ac- ; Judge Walpole edge of the classics to a remarkable customed seat. Colonel Parker, turning " degree during his whole life, and quoted to Brother Waite, ejaculated, Inter " in ? is ere- Latin and Greek phrases and maxims, Nos (Where Vose ?) which no COL. AMOS A. PARKER.

ated great merriment among all those Her fame was in no wise diminished seated at the table, by her marriage to Colonel Parker at Colonel Parker was married three her advanced age. It was a nine days"

times, —first, to Miranda W., eldest wonder at the time, and more or less daughter of Rev. Daniel C. Sanders, noticed by the newspaper press through- president of Vermont University at the out the country, but it really proved to time of Mr. Parker's graduation, by be followed by seven years of happy mar- whom he had three children, two of ried life, during which time they resided whom still survive, George W., who re- at Glastonbury, and at Hartford, Con- sides at Halifax, Mass., and Andrew, necticut. who resides in Brooklyn, N. Y. He She died March 6, 1886, and soon married second, Mary, daughter of after Colonel Parker returned to his United States Marshal McClary of native town and resided with his youngest Epsom, by whom he had four children, son, Hon. John M. Parker, as before two of whom are still living, Mrs. stated, where he received all the care Miranda S. Smith, widow of Anson B. and attention necessary to make his de- Smith, formerly a hardware merchant of clining years pleasant and happy. He Winchendon, Mass., and Hon. John was buried in our public cemetery, and McClary Parker, now engaged in trade a substantial headstone of native granite at Fitzwilliam, and who has served in marks his final resting-place. At the both branches of the New Hampshire time of his death the following editorial Legislature. H« married third, Julia E. appeared in the Independent Statesman,

Smith of Glastonbury, Conn., April 9, printed at Concord, N. H. : "Colonel 1879, he being at that time 88 and Miss Amos A. Parker, once editor of the Smith 86 years of age. Statesman, has closed his more than a Miss Smith had become famous some century of usefulness. Colonel Parker 20 years before her marriage for resist- has lived a life marked by conscientious ing taxation without representation, or faithfulness to many a trust. As an in other words, by refusing to pay taxes editor, as a lawyer, as an official, he gave because she did not have the privilege the best he had to the fulfilment of his of and also a translation of and went down the of a voting ; by duties, path the Bible from the original Hebrew and green old age with powers unimpaired, Greek into English unaided and alone with faculties undiminished, to a reward after seven years of severe labor and laid up by years of honesty with him- study, and publishing 1,000 copies at self, his fellow-men and his God." her own expense. HISTORY AND POKTRY FROM THE LIFE OF F. B. SANBORN OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS.

sent back to the house of the tea- CHAPTER THIRD. —YOUTHFUL LOVE and little scheme of endow- AND MARRIAGE. party, my ing her with my worldly goods was Up to my eighteenth year I had discovered, to my confusion. lived fancy free, though very suscep- There had been other fancies, but tible to the beauty of girls, and slight- nothing serious until the year 1850, ly attached, at school and in the when I was just eighteen. Nor had society of my companions, to this I taken the burden of life very seri- maiden or that who had fine eyes, a ously in other directions. I had fair complexion and a social gift. To formed no scheme of life ; my educa- one pair of sisters, indeed, I was tion had been going on as already specially drawn by their loveliness described, with no particular plan on and gentle ways. Toward the younger my part or that of my family. My of the two, of my own age almost ex- mother's cousin, Senator Norris, be- actly, I had early manifested this in- ing in Congress from 1843 until his terest when my years could not have death in 1855, it had been suggested exceeded seven. They had come with that he should appoint me a cadet in their also the school I cousin, who was my cousin, West Point military ; but to spend the afternoon and take tea had no turn for a soldier's life, and with two sisters it have done to his my ; may nothing was obtain pat- been the first time I had noticed the ronage, which my grandfather, a vet- sweet beauty of Sarah C, who was eran Democrat, could have secured, the granddaughter of the former par- perhaps. So I drifted along, working son of the parish. So strongly was I on the farm perhaps half my time, impressed by it, that while they were studying, shooting, wandering about taking tea by themselves, boys not the pastures and woods with comrades; being expected to enjoy their com- and spending my evenings in lively pany, I went to my strong box, which company, playing chess, cards, or, for contained all my little stock of silver, a few years in the summer, joining a took from it a shining half dollar, the cooking club which met weekly in largest coin I had, and deftly trans- the thick woods far from houses, and ferred it to the reticule of Sarah, got up a fine supper of chicken and on the back of a chair in the with a dessert of cake hanging coffee, sponge ; " parlor chamber," all without telling which one of our number, afterwards anybody what I had done. The two Capt. John Sanborn Godfrey, of Gen- girls (aged seven and ten) went home eral Hooker's staff in the Civil War, unsuspecting what had occurred, but had the secret of preparing to perfec- in emptying the reticule that night, tion. the coin was found, and Sarah know- This entertainment had begun with ing nothing about it, the gift was my schoolmates, William Healey and 112 FRANK B. SANBORN.

March I don't know that I should Charles Brown, and two or three stu- 30. 1850. have written you today if I had not wanted to dents of the Rockingham Academy, send you the enclosed. It purports to be a " Cavender of St. Louis, Vanderveer of newly discovered scene from Festus," and is written a who does not New York, and another, but was then by person altogether like the book, as you will see from the last transferred to an unfrequented pine part, especially. I want you to read \\.first, and wood, near the boundaries of Exeter, then read the little note which will tell you about the author, /think it is tell me Hampton and Hampton Falls, and capital; how it strikes Please return it to me in included two Tiltons and other school- you. your next. A. S. W. mates on that part of the Exeter road. A few weeks she After I left home to enter college the later, April 26,

added : Exeter congressman. Oilman Mars- ton, afterwards a in the war, I send you herewith some poetry of Frank S., general " and some others from Exeter were the author of the new scene from Festus." The little ballad, is, I think, very pretty. He admitted to the but I never " mysteries, called it Night Thoughts," but I like "The " met with them later than 1850, I Taper better, —do not you? And now I will he is a Falls and think. tell you that Hampton boy, that his name is Sanborne. I will send you all A more exacting literary society I can of his writing, and I want you to write a " criticism the for the Stat had been established about 1848 in upon Festus," etc., , a written by the j-oung people at H. Falls. the upper hall of the schoolhouse paper it but won't They shan't know who writes ; you I the where had been a pupil, under sometime send me a yort of laughing notice of " name of the "Anti-Tobacco Society," this new Poet "? I want you to, very much. Do you not get a pretty picture of the via id at the instance, I suppose, of the good " who her needle plies," etc.? It reminded ine minister of the Unitarian " parish. We of your Gretchen." helddebates, and soon established a The ballad was the after- MS. monthly journal, Star of Social subject, of a notice in Reform, which received contributions, wards, commendator}' the Star A. S. W. which supposed to be anonymous, from the by pleased the and led him to antici- members, male or female, and these young poet, the arrival of the who also were read at the monthly meetings. pate critic; had some to see the I early became a contributor, both in curiosity youth about whom her friend had told her prose and verse, and in the summer When first saw of 1849 wrote a burlesque on the many things. they " each other in the small church at poem of Festus," then much read she was be- in New England, in mild ridicule of Hampton Falls, sitting side her friend in the and I was the English author, Philip Bailey. pew, but feet The following winter the editor of the opposite, facing them, only 30 our met. She Star (now Mrs. S. H. Folsom of away, so that eyes wrote on her with a Winchester, Mass.), her folding fan, pin, visiting " at Frank he friend. Miss Ariana Smith Walker I don't dare look S.; has a face." In her next let- at Peterborough, showed her the poetic "Festus" verses and some others, ter to Ednah she said (July 22, 1850):

which she was to like, good enough I have seen F. S., the young poet,—a face and sent them to her dearest friend. like the early portrait of Raphael, only Frank's I now Miss Ednah Eittlehale of Boston, the eyes and hair are very dark. don't care, I have seen him, to speak or meet with him. late Mrs. E. D. Cheney, with this [In fact two days after he called on her and was note: welcome.] When we began to talk earnestly I B. FRANK SANBORN. 113

'::^:J

Birthplace of George and Anna Walker.

else in forgot everything ray surprise and pleas- The New Scene oj Feslus. ure. I was astonished and delighted. There was a charm The is the similes are about everything he said, because burlesque capital ; " " he has thought more zvlioUy for himself than some of them so like Festus one could easi- any one I ever met. ... In books, too, I ly cheat another into the reality of certain pas- was astonished at his preferences. It seemed sages. Who this young devotee of St. Crispin strange that S/ielley should be the favorite poet is, we cannot divine. The lines show an admi- of an uncultivated, I should say, self-cultivated rable tact at verse making; we hope to see

boy; but so it is, and he talked of him and of something which has the writer's soul in it, too. the poems as I never heard any one talk, after So promising a genius should be cultivated, not his . . . own fashion. He stayed until 11, spoiled. and yet I was neither weary nor sleepy, rather refreshed and invigorated. I have elsewhere spoken of this love- " vision of and The "laughing notice of the Fes- ly youth spiritual grace first seen me in the tus scenes, obligingly written by Miss fairly by Hamp- ton Falls lyittlehale, and sent to the editor of church, July 20, 1850. She was the of Walker of the Star, was this, followed by Miss daughter James Walker's comment on the ballad: Peterborough, a first cousin of Presi- dent Walker of Harvard College, and The notices following of recent effusions we her mother, Sarah Smith, was the take the liberty of quoting for the benefit of the favorite niece of Smith of Exe- readers of the Star. This first,—a very brief Judge extract (from the London Enquirer) from a ter. She had died in and Mr. " 1841, notice of The Scene to Fes- Supplementary Walker had remarried a daughter of tus," which appeared in the July (1849) num- " Rev. Abbot of Falls. ber of the Star; the second Night Thoughts," Jacob Hampton from a source less foreign. Ariana, named for Judge Smith's 114 FRANK B. SANBORN. daughter, was born in the Carter two houses once had belonged to house on the steep Peterborough hill- the Cram family, with only a garden side, overlooking the river Contoocook between them; the later built of the from the northeast, and commanding, two being more than a hundred years as all the hills thereabout do, a noble old, and soon to give place to a new prospect of Monadnock. Her brother, house, in which many of vay inter- George Walker, afterwards bank views with Miss Walker were after- commissioner of Massachusetts and wards held. But the old house, in its consul-general of the United States large parlor, was the memorable at Paris, was born five years earlier scene of our first interview, briefly in the same house, and the brother described above by Anna herself. In and sister tripped down this hill in a fuller entry in her journal she said : early childhood, near the mansion of F. staj'cd until 11 and yet I was neither weary their Samuel the uncle, Smith, judge's nor sleepj^, but rather refreshed and invigora- manufacturing brother, to attend the ted. He excused himself for staying so late, but said the time had passed rapidly. C. seemed private school of Miss A.bbot, now very much surprised that he had spoken so Mrs. Horatio of whose Wood Lowell, a I will freely to stranger ; think he himself younger sister James Walker married wonder at it. The conversation covered so that I could not help laughing in 1844. Her uncle, Rev. Dr. Abiel many subjects on looking back upon it; he might have discov- at had Abbot, pastor Peterborough, ered the great fault of my mind, a want of earlier in his ministry, at Coventry in method in my thoughts, as clearly as I saw his to be a want of But with a new Connecticut, persuaded Jared Sparks, hope. talking person is to me like going for the first time into a the future then a historian, carpenter gallery of pictures. We wander from one paintin Mr. Abbot's parish, to go to the ing to another, wishing to see all, lest something finest should escape us, and in truth see- Phillips Academy at E^xeter in 1809. ing no one perfectly and appreciatingly. Only Mr. Abbot to make a visit to going after many visits and long familiarit3' can we his brother, the successor of President learn which are really the best, most suggestive full of and it is before and most meaning ; then Langdon in the Hampton Falls pul- two or three that one passes the hours. So we the man's box un- pit, slung young wander at first from one topic of conversation to der his parson's chaise, while Sparks another, until we find which are those reaching farthest and and then it is these of himself walked all the way to ICxeter; deepest, which we talk most. My interest in Frank S. whither his box to the preceded him, is peculiar; it is his intellectual and spiritual care of Dr. Benjamin Abbot (a cousin nature, and not hitiiself that I feel so much drawn to. I can't say it rightly in words, but I of the Hampton Falls pastor), then never was so strongly interested in one where of the famous It Principal Academy. the feeling was so little personal. was this intermarriage between the Abbot and Walker families that led, This was by no means my own as above mentioned, to my first ac- case. I had the strongest personal quaintance with Anna Walker. Her interest in this young lady, whose stepmother had a sister, Mrs. Cram, life had been so unlike my own, but married in their father's old parish, who had reached in many points and living next door to the old house the same conclusions, literary, social then occupied by Mrs. Joseph San- and religious, which were my own, born, my uncle's widow, with her so far as a youth of less than nineteen two children, who were cousins of can be said to have reached conclu- Mrs. Cram's children. Indeed the sions. We met again and again, and FRANK' B. SANBORN. "5

when discussed not only Shelley, but Plato simple strength. I go to him, therefore, I am weak and feeble, — not when I am full and Emerson, of whom we were both of unrest and disquiet. My soul is at times eager readers. She had received from the echo of his; like the echo, however, it can her father the winter before Emer- only give back a single word. I bow in quiet joy at his grander thought; but, like him, I do son's Men," just "Representative not therefore yield my own. The light of his after she had been reading Plato with spirit does not dazzle my eyes so that all seems dark on the the world Ednah Littlehale, and she was also elsewhere; contrary, around me, reflecting back that radiance, familiar with several of the other smiles in a new-born glory. I love the whole characters in that volume, —her stud- earth more, that I know him more truly. ies in German having advanced fur- Of the crayon by Morse, here en- ther than mine. Two years earlier she which remained in Boston had read Emerson's first book, "Na- graved, some weeks after it was finished, that ture," more than once, and at the winter of 1 847-' 48, she thus wrote to age of 1 8 thus wrote of it to Ednah : Ednah, February 6, 1848 : April I, 1848. I am glad you have read "Na- ture." It has long been one of my books. It George Walker is very enthusiastic about lies at this moment on my little table, and sel- Morse and the picture. "It is almost too fine," dom does a day pass without my finding there etc. From what he told me I should think it something that chimes with the day's thought. decidedly the finest of Morse's pictures. Tell Emerson always gives me a feeling of quiet, him I could not have been more glad if the pic- F. B. SANBORN IN COLLEGE, 1853. FRANK B. SANBORN. 117 ture had been my own. Greenough, the sculp- enervating. He is vigorous, living, strong. in of is a element of his tor, says it is the finest crayon ever done Calmness thought large Boston. Shall I tell you what I felt when I nature; it extends to the feelings as well as the read George's letter?—a deep regret that I was intellect. Yet there is fire under the ice, and I not beautiful. I could wish myself lovely for imagine if it should be reached it would flame Morse's sake, for the sake of his fame; because forth with great power and intensity. then the piciure would have been finer. We talked of Plato and Herbert and Shelley, and many others. He says it is not the thought of that makes it his but the No one ever found this portrait "Alastor" favorite, versification. I do not think now that he is other than beautiful. When I first wanting in severity. He went away after eleven. saw her, two years after Alpheus "I have stayed even later than the other night," said too late." "Oh, no, not at all," Morse had finished it, her expression he, "quite said I. I think he liked to come again. It had changed from the serene, saintly may seem vain to saj' so, but I suspect he had look which Morse depicted, to one of seldom talked with anyone exactly as he did more vivacity and gayety, which in with us tonight. C. is the only person here who would care to talk with him on such sub- her periods of comparative health was jects; and her gentle modesty would not allow her natural expression, and which her to sit deliberately down to draw any one made her even more charming than out as I have done with Frank. C. said she did not know he could talk so finely. I belief that in the earlier portrait. She had just to him it was a relief. He has a rich nature, 18 it it reached when was drawn, and and yet my interest in him has little to do with was made for her brother, herself re- feelings, less so than I could have supposed possible for me. taining only a daguerre from it. Our second evening was that of Ah, how little do we at such times

August I, and this is the record of it know ourselves ! The next few weeks

in her journal : showed that nothing so interested her as the fortunes of this youth. Last night F. S. was here again. We had feelings been wishing he would come but did not expect As I wrote the above, Mrs. Cram asked me him. He was in a fine mood, but one or two why, if I felt that F. had misunderstood what I I in the evening's talk. He had things regret said of his becoming a minister, I did not write of things earnestly, and at last spoken many him a no\e, and tell him what I then wished so he mentioned James Richardson's proposal that much to say. She urged my doing so, and at he should enter into the ministry. We all last I wrote the following, which I showed to laughed. I wanted to say something of his her, and which she advised my sending: future life; but I seemed to have no right. He said "That is the last thing I should chose." NOTF. said with is not "No," I, decision, "preaching Whtn you spoke last night of Mr. R.'s prop- your mission." I felt as if I must go on, but I osition that you should enter the ministry,! have I and must restrained myself and was silent. He must thought that what replied might have given you a wrong impression. When I have thought we ridiculed the idea of his becom- said with decision that I did not think preach- un- ing a minister, because we thought him ing your mission, it was not because I feared equal to the work. I did not feel this so fully you would fail in that or, in anything for which should strive; but because it seems then as I did after he was gone; but it hurts me you heartily to me as if no one should take such a mission to Lave so for I think he wished repulsed him, upon himself unless he feels a decided call, and us to say something more—to talk with him of is sensible of a peculiar fitness. more himself and of his future. O golden opportu- Your work in life seems to me clearly pointed out than that of most men; it comes I fear it is lost and will not come again. " nity! — under that last head in Representative Men ;" We talked of many things I more of peo- we need you as a writer. I know how much ple than formerly. His mind is analytic, the in- of struggle and even of suffering such a life one is and the heart must contain, but Plato says, "When tellect predominating governing ; attempting noble things it is surely noble also do not often the He is feelings get mastery. to suffer whatever it may befall bini to suffer." calm and searching, with a very keen insight I feel that there is that within you which be and success into the merits or demerits of a style. This is cannot rightfully hidden; your seems to me sure, if you will but bend your characteristic of his mind. He is unsparingly whole energies to this end. I wish I were wise just to his own thought. He is not at all a enough to suggest something more than the goal sure will have dreamer; or, if he is ever so, his dreams are not to be reached; but I am you ii8 FRANK B. SANBORN. other and more efficient friends who will give And such methinks, have they bestowed on you the aid of experience. Thee. will think I a Perhaps you presume upon Or shall I say ? o'er all things base and low short to all this; but it is often acquaintance say Thou hast the blessed of given to us "to foresee the destiny of another power alchemy, more clearly than that other can," and it seems Changing their dross and baseness into gold; to me only truth to strive "by heroic encour- And in all vulgar things on earth that be. to hold him to his task." Will agements you Awakening beauty, as the Greek of old pardon my boldness? I give you God-speed. vase urn of Your friend, Wrought and matchless sj'mmetry Anna W. From the downtrodden and unvalued mould.

August 6, 1850. F. B. S. The next day the journal goes on: Wednesday, Aug. 7. I went to the Sewing We rode to the Hill (the post-ofBce) and left Circle on Munt Hill. I had three reasons for Frank's note with his little brother, Josey, at going—to be with Gate, to sit under the green school. I felt sorry I had sent it the moment it trees once again, and to see Frank, who I felt was fairly gone, and if I could have recalled it sure would be there. I had a beautiful but I certainly should. It contained little of mj' wearisome afternoon. I liked to sit under the thought, and would do harm if not received green arches of the oaks and maples, and to earnestly. It is difficult to do good. I hope I watch the play of faces, and read through them shall see and talk with F. before I go to Glou- in the souls of those around me. Cate is the cester. best, and most beautiful and worthj- to be

August 3. This evening, as I lay wearily on loved; and next to her I was drawn to Helen the sofa, for I had been sick all day, Charles Sanborn. She iscold and self-centered, but she Healey came in, and immediately afterward, interests me. I want to know what all that Frank. I felt not at ease, for we could say coldness covers and conceals. Frank came; he nothing of what was in both our thoughts greeted me last, and then almost distantly^ often and often, I am sure. I seemed stupid, certainly coldly. He was gay and witty, and we talked, but said nothing. Frank was gay—he had a little talk together, sitting after tea in the is seldom that; C. said when he had gone, doorway. Miss (Nanc5') Sanborn's house* is I saw influence in all F'. said to- but there is "Anna,— your prettily located, something reallj* night, he was happy." I don't know what to mournful in such a lonely life as hers. Heaven think. Why did he come and why has he said save me from so vacant, so desolate a life as nothing about my note? It requires speedy that of most unmarried women! answer. We had a pleasant ride home, and I thought August 6, Tuesday. I felt all day as if some- F. might come up in the evening. If he does thing was going to happtn to me, and in the not I shall probably not see him again. I hope afternoon F. C. brought me a letter from he will come. Frank. It was calm, manly, kind, sincere, ear- August 8. He did come up last night, and we — it I nest ; not warm apart from feeling. I felt very talked very earnestly and freely together. much. A note which came with it, and which think I never spoke with more openness to contained little in words, gave me an impres- any one; we forgot we were Frank and Anna, sion of feeling which the letter did not. A son- and talked as one immortal soul to another. net F. sent me also, which I like. He added The conversation began by Gate's showing some marginal notes which rather made a jest him my Analyses. I sat in a low chair at C.'s of it; but I think the sonnet was written ear- feet, and w^atched his face while he read. It was

nestly, and the notes were an afterthought steady; I could not read it, and I admired his to conceal that earnestness. How deeply, how composure, because I do not think it arose from strongly I am interested in Frank! I feel as if a want of feeling. He said, when he had fin- 1 must help him. He has hardly been out of ished, that he should not like to say whose the my thoughts an hour since I wrote the note. first analysis was; it might apply in parts to his and to And now his frankness gives a new tone to my many ; and then turned to own, began for I feel as if I do talk of not but with and re- thought ; might perhaps it; easily, difficulty something for him. serve. I gave him a pencil and asked him to he untrue. He made three or THE SONNET. mark what thought four marks, and explained why he did so; but Our life —a casket of mean outward show, not for some time did he say that it was himself Hides countless rich and treasures, jewels rare. of whom he spoke. He said I overrated him; Whose whose won- splendid worth, beauty, he was quick but confused, and he complained drous fair, of a want of method, strictness and steadiness Only the favored few may see and know On whom the Gods in love bestow. partial *The old Sanborn house near Munt Hill, in Chap- To ope the stubborn lid, the silver key; ter 1. FRANK B. SANBORN. 119 of purpose, in his intellectual nature. 1 thought private lessons or school would be the best these rather faults of habit than of nature; few thing open to him. minds left so wholly to themselves, with so In looking again at the Analysis,*— I told him little opportunity, would have been other than that it would not bear severe intellectual crit desultory. icism; it must necessarily have many and great To be overestimated, or to feel himself so, is faults. He said, "It is almost perfect, except extremely painful to Frank, and he constantly that you stood at too high a point of view, referred to it. "I shall not, I think, be injured so that some defects were concealed,"—and by your praises," said he atone time; "I have seemed surprised that he should have laid him- " a mirror always near me which shows me to self open so far in so short a time. But I see mj'self as I really am." In referring to that that I must have done so, unless you have part of the analysis where I spoke of his much clearer eyes than most people." "Not being less self-dependent than he thought tliHt," said I, "but I have a habit of studying himself, he said, "Yes, I want some superior souls; persons are more to me than to most. friend to whom I can go at all times, and who I read in them as you read in books. I have will never fail me." Who of us does not need seen in you tonight some new traits of charac such a friend? I thought of Ednah gratefully. ter." He then asked me to add them to the In talking of the ways and means of life analysis; but I would not promise to do so. " " before him, I told him how deeply I felt my own I hope," he said, that you are not going to want of practical ability; it seemed idle to conceal anything. Talk to me as if I were a suggest only the goal to be reached, and to chair or a table; I can bear any truth, —do not " say nothing of the paths leading thereto. fear to wound me." I am not afraid to be "After all," said I, with real feeling. "I have severe with you," said I. not "I am he "that The conversation turned helped you." afraid," said, —upon many things you suffer as I do, from a want of self-confi- which I cannot write here, upon pride, upon dence." Cate urged me to greater freedom, for faith in a future life, etc. It was not till after I was embarrassed, and I said in reply, "I wish midnight that he said he must go; and then it I were wise." "I hope it is not my wisdom was evidently only because he felt he ought; " that restrains you," he said with great gentle- the conversation held him. When," heasked, ness, "a little child might lead me." The tone "shall you be in Hampton Falls again?" " of feeling touched me, I looked at him quietly, Perhaps in one year, perhaps not for several," and talked more clearly of school and college, said I. "Then it is doubtful when we shall and all the possibilities which the future held see one another again. I shall not be likely to out to him, and the probabilities. meet you anywhere else." "Yes," said I, " I told him it was the discipline he needed when I see you next, your destiny will prob most, —not so much the books he would study ably be decided." "I will promise you," he as the power he would obtain over his own said, "that my choice shall be made as quicklj- thoughts, and the opportunities which such as possible." a life would open to him. He then spoke of I told him I hoped I should hear of it when himself, and said that he feared a sedentary he did so. He said he might not be in Hamp- life would "only hasten what would come soon ton Falls at that time, and seemed, I half enough of itself." And for the first time I thought, to wish me to ask him to tell me him- observed the hollow chest and the bright color self of his decision; but I hesitated to do so. which indicate consumptive tendencies in him. and so said nothing. "And so," he said again, " Health must not be sacrificed; his work in life as he bade me good-by, it is uncertain must not be hindered by bodily weakness; this whether we shall see each other again for is an important consideration. He then spoke of Mr. R.'s proposition, and, finally, all solved * " " The close of this is as follows : Has itself in the question, What is really my work many noble aspirations yet unsatisfied.' Still seeking, in life?" seeking, groping in the dark. He wants a definite " " end for which to strive then his success I think," said I in reply, that there might heailily; would be SURE. Much executive power, executes be a person wise enough to decide for you." better than he plans. " Loves the beautiful in all things. He has much "I think so, too," said he quickly, "and I —" originality; his thoughts and tastes are peculiarly wish that person would decide," or those hisown. Is impatientof wrong, and almost equally so oi Is in of a certain cold- persons," he added, after a moment. I thought inability. gentle spite ness about him;" has strong passions in spite of it possible he might mean Cate or myself by his general calmness of intellect and affection. A nature not to find is its "that person"; but I did not feel capable of likely rest, struggle native element; wants a steady &\xa^, must work, for even if he had of me still is but a choosing him, thought standing impossible ; he must have — motive for which to strive. when he spoke, and of that I greatly doubt. great Aug. sift, 1850. So no reply was made,—but the final result " Many contradictions in this analysis, but not seemed to be, that if his health would allow, more than there are in the character itself." I20 FRANK B. SANBORN. — years. Well, I shall always remember that while the night wore away. I rose ill and fee- there is one person in the world who thinks ble, and all day have suffered much; though more highly of me than I do of myself." We not more than I expected last night. I have shook hands, and he went awaj-. written F. a note, the principal object of which Intellectually, or by a certain fitness between is to ask him to tell me himself when his deci- us, I seemed to draw near to him, and I think sion is made as to his future life. I shall send he was sorry that our acquaintance should have it with the Analysis. Mrs. C. has seen and

been so transient, and should have terminated approved of it, and I trust to her judgment. so suddenly. It seems strange to think of There is much more feeling in it than in his now, and not quite real to me; but I feel it has letter; but it seemed to me not to touch upon been of great service to me, however little sentiment. Beside, F. is not vain, —the strange

I have done to help him. I have never seen boy ! any one like Frank. It is good to have a new- interest in and in him I shall feel life, always There was no occasion to doubt strongly interested. I believe the journal of how I had received all this this evening is very poor; it gives not the least inspira- idea of what I consider as almost the most sin- tion and encouragement to a more conversation in —and the end of gular my life, active life. It had been taken exactly a strange experience. as it was meant, and no thought un- of the most ideal Ah, no ! it was the beginning of worthy friendship occurred to me. But the arrow of that experience of which Dante wrote " Love had wounded me and I in his Vita Nuova, — Behold a Spirit also, was not so unconscious of it as Anna Cometh mightier than thou, who shall was. We continued to rule over thee." This gentle maiden correspond, had not been averse to Love, but now and I went on my projected trip to in he came in his full armor. The tell- the White Mountains early Sep- with head and heart both tale journal goes on: tember, my enlisted in her service. In one of my When he was gone I felt so full of regret that letters I sent her these lines, which, I had not spoken more wisely to him that I covered my face with my hands and let the after the avowal of my love in Novem- warm tears flow —but it was for a fast, only ber, I completed to a sonnet, by the moment. I was excited as I seldom am; felt lines of the final couplet: strong and free, and as I looked out of the window had an inclination to throw myself SONNET II. down on the cool grass below. The girls would not let me talk; they went to their rooms, — As calmest waters mirror Heaven the best. but I lay waking all the night through. How So best befit remembrances of Thee I wished for some to me from divining power give Calm, holy hours, — earthly passion free, a knowledge of Frank's thoughts ! Had I Sweet twilight musing, Sabbaths in the breast: helped him ? was this meeting of ours to have No stooping thought, nor any groveling care any influence upon his life? and if so, would it The sacred whiteness of that place shall stain. work for good or evil ? was this the beginning Where, far from heartless joys and rites pro- or the end of some new life? Lastly, how had fane. he thought of me? finelj' and highly, or had I Memory has reared to Thee an altar fair; seemed poor and bold ? Upon his thought of Yet frequent visitors shall kiss the shrine, rae all the power of this evening to help him And ever keep its vestal lamp alight, — must depend; and I felt doubtful what it had All noble thoughts, all dreams divinely bright. been. Are we really to see each other no That waken or delight this soul of mine. more ? and is this to end our acquaintance ? SoL,ove, meek pilgrim ! his young vows did pa j'. Have I been forbearing enough ? Should I not With glowing eyes that must his lips gainsay. have waited to be sought, and not have gone out to meet him? But my motive was pure and disinterested; does he know that? Of In the meanwhile she had gone to course he could not seek me. There certainly spend the rest of August with her was feeling in him tonight, — I saw it in his face. dear Ednah at Gloucester the sea- It is true then that he loves X. ? These and a by thousand other questions I went on asking. side, and from there, two weeks after FRANK B. SANBORN. 121

this at enthusiasm but not — parting Hampton Falls, she possessed hy \i, and ready and to its wealth wrote to her friend Cate what I may- willing impart to others. Such a man Mr. K. is not, and I do not this from call say my own knowledge, merely, but from the better of those ADVICE TO A YOUNG STUDENT. knowledge who have known him long and intimately. (twenty to eighteen.) And now, after all this, dear, I want to make a new Gloucester, August 22nd, 1850. suggestion to Frank,—which is that in-

. . . And now, dear,— I want to talk to you stead of either of these things he should remain — at about Frank, about whose future I have had Hampton Falls, and take private lessons of Mr. much anxious thought. There seem to me to Hoyt at Exeter, during this winter at least. be many objections to both the plans we men- Going into Exeter once or twice a week would tioned in that evening's conversation, which were be easy for him, and all that would be needful — in his case. not as clear to me then as now, I mean the go- And from all I hear of Mr. Hoyt to or he is ing college the studying with Mr. Richard- admirably fitted to be Frank's guide. Ed- son.* the who Amid sedentary habits of Cambridge nah, knows him, says he is just the person, I fear for Frank's — she should to really health, so many have think, do F. good; I only judge of I seen sink under them who were more vigorous him through others. If I were Frank I should than and so often I to Mr. H. and tell he; — have mourned over go — him just how it was with earthly promise lost, ruthlessly thrown away,— me, that it was the discipline of education that amid influences like I and to those, where everything wanted, not be fitted for any particular was sacrificed to I the mtellect. With all the ex- profession ; and should ask his advice as to ternal struggles which Frank would be forced to the studies best to pursue. If Frank would do undergo in addition to these, I feel as if it were this, I do not fear for the result; if I am not hardly possible for him to go through a course mistaken in my opinion of Mr. H. at the end of at Cambridge without impaired health, —and, as the winter he would no longer stand in need of a necessary consequence, inevitable, diminished that friend who is wise enough to choose for him for let his future course in life. powers ; no one dream that he can break otie of God's laws without the wkoie being suffer- Does not this seem to you the best and most ing therefrom. Frank's health tntisthe. preserved; possible present course for Frank } It does his work in life tniist not be hindered or marred seem so to me; and I have thought of this with by bodily weakness. He owes it to the good far more anxiety and effort than I have bestowed even God who has given so much to him not to "lay upon 7ny own winter, and all that must de- waste his — powers," that he may remain here pend thereon. Can I say more ? or will you with understand us, and help us to live, as long as he can. fully that this is tny best judgment,— Is it not } which can for it is so, darling only pass what worth .? though With regard to Mr. Richardson, even if that I would it were of a thousand times more value should than it is. . . . be open to Frank, I doubt if it would After all, this can only be a really hQ for the best. James Richardson's faults suggestion,—for it is made without a full knowl- of mind are so of exactly those which F. complains edge facts, and there may be many objections of in himself, that I fear he would not obtain known to Frank, of which I am wholly ignorant. from him that I would it discipline which he most needs. only offer as all that I have to give. There is not Frank's course in it enough rd-rt/z/j/ about J. R. to satisfy life, as lies clearly in my the wants of a true and strong nature; not that thought, seems to be this : To devote the next I fear cotitagion, for Frank has more power of four or five years to as severe study (and I do not self-preservation than any person I ever met, mean by study mere getting of lessons) as a and he might as well cease to be, as cease to be strict obedience to the laws of health will allow; true: to for but his teacher should be a man of strict take this time intellectual discipline as the and accurate mind, with an element even of principal, though not the exclusive end and aim intellectual — of — severity in it, with a soul open to life, and for this purpose to make use of all and the best means in his power. At the end of those years he may work with his hands at any- *Rev. James Richardson, a classmate of Thoreau he at Harvard, was then settled at Haverhill, Mass., thing pleases; there is no labor which a and, preaching- at Falls the Hampton preceding noble soul cannot dignify. He shall make shoes April had met F. B. S. and urged him to go to col- or lege,—promising to aid him, if ueedful. Nothing be a farmer, or whatever else he finds easiest, had come of this, or was to. Prof. G. likely J. Hoyt — if he will us his best was the teacher of Greek and mathematics at Exe- give thoughts through ter an Academy,— active anti-slavery man also. pen and paper,— if he does also his appointed 122 FRANK B. SANBORN.

" " spiritual and intellectual work. He shall even must go upward by the steep but terrible way if — VnQ —and not the settle clown quietly in H. F. so his choice lead —by precipice by zvinding path, him (for place will be little to him when he has and I say God speed. —so that he There is one other in Exeter who would obtained full possession of himself), person — do but let his light so shine before men that they take Frank as a pupil, I have no doubt, and may see his good works and give thanks to the that is Mr. Hitchcock.* In belles lettres he is Father therefor. I would not condenm him to far superior to Mr. Hoyt, and indeed to most

— I the hard struggles of the merely literary man, men, and think he might gratify Frank's tastes more I if strict if his would allow for in ; but doubt he has so even physical strength ; fully this money-loving Yankee land want and suffer- and accurate a mind as Mr. Hoyt, or would ing are the sure accompaniments of such a life; prove so good a guide for F. I should like him but I ivould have him fitted to use to ihe fiiH to be Frank'sy;7>«(/, and not his teacher. those powers of mind which God has given him for the benefit of others; and I would have this I followed this very wise counsel, work of a writer the end and aim of life, highest took lessons in Greek of Mr. Hoyt —although other things may be the needful and for a and then entered even beautiful accessories. year, Phillips And now I wish you to s/toiu this part of my Exeter Academy for seven months, letter to Frank; and I should hke him to con- and from that entered at Harvard a sider it without reference to its being my any year in advance, —having read much opinion (for I think it would have not viore but lyatin before going to Exeter, The less weight, perhaps, on that account), but sim- had the incidental ad- ply as a suggestion worthy of thought, while he arrangement is making his decision with regard to his future vantage, not foreseen by either of us, immediate to be taken therein. life, and the steps that I could receive letters and " my If I were to proffer an earnest prayer to the parcels from Anna, and send my own gods for the greatest of earthly privileges," says " without too much notice Mr. Alcott in his Journal, it should be for a attracting — severely candid friend." That, at least, I am and from friends and relatives, who were have been to and even should he think Frank; generally excluded from knowledge me inclined to force and intrude my opinions of the correspondence. upon him, I will not selfishly shrink from doing I have sometimes that a what I think right, because I may thereby suffer thought the loss of his good opinion. I am very anxious young man of less vanity than F. B. S. that Frank should now and quickly have some might be excused for hoping that a intellectual and friend and I guide ; such, hope, lady, who evidently took so deep an Mr. H. might become to him. Hitherto he has interest in his character and future stood alone, for he is strong and cheerfiil,—but now he wants a helping hand, though it do but career, had at least a slight personal touch him gently, so that he may feel himself a reason for so doing. But that would link in the chain that binds humanity to- great have been unjust to this rare person- gether. For this he appears to me not yet to " who certainly was the most un- have felt quite clearly. He himself says A age, little child lead me —but he cannot be altruistic and of all women. might — ", selfish, just led,—only guided, and even that must be by The disclosure of love was truly as his superior. great a surprise to her three months I incline to think he has never learned much after this as could have from one soul for his life has been rather anything any ; been but that it was not unwelcome in thoughts than persons; but all things, ani- ; mate and inanimate, have been his unconscious the event proved. teachers; and should I seem to flatter if I said " that, like his own Pilgrim, he has in him some- " * Rev. Ro.swell Hitchcock was then pleaching' at of the of Nature herself ? thing universality the old church in Kxeter, but afterwards became I think I do but use the expression with his own the head of the Calviuistic linion Theological Sem- inary at New York. Anna's judgment of him was I have to of meaning. spoken you dear, often, very just; what her observation had been I know not; but once taking tea with him would have the suffering of Frank's probable life, —but not given her this perception, so remarkable was her from any feeble wish to hold him from it. He insight. FRANK B. SANBORN. 123

Soon after my return from the at Hampton Falls, she wrote me a White Mountains I made the arrange- letter early in November, asking my ment with Prof. J. G. Hoyt of the confidence in the matter. To con- Exeter Academy, by which I was to vince her what the truth was, I con- recite to him in Greek for a year be- fessed my ardent love for her. She fore entering regularly as a student in received the avowal as it was meant, Exeter. but in a spirit of self-denial, she de- My visits to his study were weekly, ferred the acceptance for a time. The and this was the beginning of a friend- journal, as formerly, received her con- ship with a noble man, which contin- fession : ued so long as he lived. Years I opened the note (November "21, 1850) and afterward he wished me to take a po- read the first two or three lines, and covered my sition with him in the Washington face with my hands. It seemed impossible to as the late in of I University at St. Louis ; believe the reality what saw. That

:T^

Exeter Street in I 850.

Frank love — Amos Eawrence had offered me, a few could tiie, weak, feeble, unworthy as I am,— I had never even dreamed. When I years earlier, the head mastership of could read the little note, it was so clear, so like the Eawrence in Academy Kansas, Frank, that I could only thank God that he loved which has become the State Univer- me. Had he been near me then,—could not but told him that I loved him. the sity. For good reasons, I declined have, I, felt no more alone and life both offers. lonely, myself ; looked fair to me in this new radiance. Miss Eittlehale, whom I first met at Exeter in the spring of 1852, was in So early and so bold an avowal fixed the of ill for a the fate of could never autumn 1850 seriously both ; they long time at her father's house, 44 afterward be other than lovers, how- Bowdoin of the street, Boston ; and there ever much the wisdom world Miss Walker visited her in October pleaded against a relation closer than and November of that year. Misap- friendship. But the world must not at prehending some circumstances in my first know the footing upon which they relations with her friends stood even the father and brother particular ; 124 FRANK B. SANBORN. must imagine it a close friendship, ment of marriage, to be fulfilled such as her expansive nature was when my college course should be so apt to form, and so faithful to ended, and my position in the world maintain. One family in Hampton established. The announcement was Falls and one friend in Boston. Miss made in i

how shall it George was her confidant after a Frank; be with us? Will you help me as much as human love can and tell me little. His relation to his sister after aid, of what you think all this ? I, your child, ask it the death of their mother, and in the of you as I would have done of my mother, were feeble health and engrossing occupa- she living and near me; will you refuse me? " Will F. be able to tions of their father, was peculiarly like you "? Yes, yes, yes,— as much as I — admirable. When she found herself do; he would love you, you would suit ; only you must see each other first more closely bound to another, this \nuler favorable circumstances,—not in Town, new tie was not allowed to weaken not ceremoniously. I send you inclosed F.'s

letters: I wish to return ^?/ the fraternal affection. He adopted you them <7//(V, and write to me of them some — the youth who had so unexpectedly time, frankly, just what feel, — dearest, at leisure. become as a brother you this, your dear, younger ; . . . Believe me that I do not muse and and his delicate in circum- generosity dream; the only time when I am ever guilty of stances w'hich often produce estrange- this is in the very early morning,—when I have waked sometimes from dreams of half ment was never forgotten. In pub- F., and, waking, half sleeping, have fancied what we lic life he was the same consider- should say to one another when we met. ate and high-minded gentleman ; not regardless of the advantages which And to show that I was no better in social position and moderate wealth that respect, she enclosed to Ednah

give, but ever ready to share his my last sonnet : blessings, instead of all engrossing SONNET III. within reach to himself and his circle. Being absent yet thou art not wholly gone, Without the commanding talents or For thou hast stamped thine image on the decisive character which make men world ; illustrious, and secure unchanging It shines before me in the blushing dawn. And sunset clouds about its are curled fortune, he had, as Chauning said of grace ; And thou hast burthened every summer breeze Henry Thoreau, "what is better, — With the remembered music of thy voice, the old Roman belief that there is Sweeter than linnet's song in garden trees, And all more in this life than applause and making wearisome other joys. strives to bar thee from his — the best seat at the dinner table, — Sleep vainly hall, Thou win'st light entrance in a dream's dis- to have moments to spare to thought guise, and and to those who imagination, And there with gentlest sway thou rulest all need His visions and fantasies you." gliding quick ; Yet this affectionate brother seemed The busy day is thine; the quiet night in Sleeps thy radiance, as the skies in light. at first to stand like a lion in the path that was to two lovers bring together. "These I thought you would like," " A month after the declaration, Anna she adds at the foot tell if ; me you wrote to Ednah her dear- lyittlehale, do." The topic was never far from

est friend : her mind, wherever she might be. At Westford, visiting her stepmoth- And yet, my Ednah. even you are not dearer er's the aunt of her to me than Frank is. I cannot bear to tell sister, Hampton George of all this until F. has achieved for him- Falls confidante, she wrote to Ednah self so much that it will not seem mere madness (Jan. 20, 1851) : to George. I think I cannot speak of this to him until this is so. I cannot expose F. more One thing Cate tells me, that I am very glad than to the that would follow and of. She that last Frank all myself pain ; says summer gave yet you say it would not be right to keep this a the letters he had had from me to his sister —and I could not ask a of and asked her to tell secret, longer waiting Sarah ; read them, and him. 126 FRANK B. SANBORN.

him. I if there was any peculiar feeling in them ? She difticult to turn my thoughts from did so, and said to him that she did not think believe he is dearer to me now than ever before. he I hear often from him he writes two letters to there was. Then he told her the way was ; — is I to going,—that he felt he had no power to resist, my one, generally; he not good? said " that he saw himself daily passing into deeper to C, I did not suppose Frank's pride would let " waters that he loved me more and him do that." said his is ; every day "Ah," she, pride great, more, and could not go back a single step. And but his love is greater, and has quite overcome he asked her to read the letters again, with refer- it." She has seen all the letters. F. thinks it ence to his feeling for me, and tell him what she not right to send them through her otherwise, thought of them. She gave them back to him, and it is through him that it has been so. I told as and only said, "Frank, you must watch over your- her I did nor dare to speak to him as warmly self unceasingly." It is a help to me that Sarah I felt; that by great effort I had compelled my- knows of this. I can be truer with frank judg- self to answer quietly, when he had lavished love

. . to I truer ing of actions and words through her. . upon me. This is show you that am

. . to be It is possible that I may not go to H. Falls at than I feared. His winter seems it is that I much to him he writes of his life out- all next summer; and possible may ; fully spend some weeks there. wardly as well as inwardly. I can't well realize that the Frank who cuts wood all day in the " This last she did. Among the pine woods where the birds are not afraid to and where the crows so near that one verses of the first year were these, come, fly can hear their wings creak and rustle as they which she also copied atid sent to and the sun shines the hurry along ; through another mood of Kdnah ; indicating trees, and over their tops at noon," is the same her young admirer : person who sits at night studying Greek, or talking with me of Schiller and Emerson, Shelley IV. SONNET Plato doesn't it seem to too .' and ; strange you, If it is finally decided that I One with sad, wrinkled brow said unto me : (March 19, 1851.) " do not to H. Falls next summer, as seems Why will thou strive, since Struggle is so go I see no other but for F. to come vain ? likely now, way here in The excuse must be a Thou dost but fret and chafe thee with thy June. pilgrimage to —not difficult to see through, chain,— Monadnock, very but sufficient to make no necessary. Thou canst not break it. No, —still waits for explanations I I forced to it and thee hate equivocation, but am ; if it is for F. to come, it would be The common sorrow of mortality, — possible for me to receive him. There is another Restless to live, unsatisfied to die. possible which be open to me. I might go to Pining for freedom, and yet never free." way may " H. F. and two or three weeks, spending Yet will I never weep," calm answered I, stay " a with at the beach. If 15ut wreathe these heavy fetters round with only fortnight you any- should to with flowers; thing happen prevent my being or if were in Dublin, I should And through my grated window from the sky your family, you think this the best for me, from Catch cheering glimpses of the heaven's great plan apart of F. But if I went to H. Falls, eye. any thoughts I know would it was for F.'s To shorten or to gladden my dull hours." busy tongues say sake, and would occupy itself about ! walls no more report And lo the prison bound me ; for that ? What do One breath of Hope has opened wide the us both. Should I hesitate door. you say ?

Our correspondence was incessant, There could be but one issue to all and the Exeter post-office gave the the heart in such mat- this ; governs to mail and receive letters opportunity ters, and I knew very early that her without exciting gossip. Something heart was mine. Nevertheless, there like valentines passed in February, was the usual alternation of hope and

and on the she wrote to Ednah : 24th fear, of jealousies and misunderstand- ings, out of which we always emerged May I talk to you of F. .- I find him mingling increased affection. I have more and more in my life; find it daily more with FRANK B. SANBORN. 127 " never heard of a love more roman- had inspired. Kmerson's Hernii- " no one the : tic and unselfish ; permanent pictured process thought of ways and means, of foes I am of a lineage or friends, came between us. I had That each for each doth fast engage; been with the of gifted power— winning In old Bassora's walls I seemed friends without eflfort, a gift that in Hermit vowed to books and gloom,— 111 bested for her was carried to its highest point. gay bridegroom. I was touch redeemed She was beloved wherever she was by thy ; When thy meteor glances came, and had no but her own seen, enemy We talked at large of worldly fate. self-accusing tenderness. Her life And drew truly every tract.

Peterborough in 1854. had been such as to arouse compas- It was so from the beginning sion for one so endowed, and so fet- with her. At her first visit to my tered illness but that afflic- I she by ; very town, years before saw her, tion had chastened her to a saintliness wrote to a Boston friend: that was charmingly mingled with I reached Hampton Falls safely and found "I love to be coquetry. praised," friend Gate tlie same—dear good girl! " my just she said "I love to be as herself to see ; loved ; and ever, and professing very glad few were ever more beloved. By me. Here have I been, therefore, during the last week, living in true farmer-like style, with Heaven's direction her favor lighted but two or three and no on neighbors, village me ; as she and, usual, exagger- within three miles. The situation is a pleasant ated the qualities in me that herself one. There is a pretty autumn landscape seen 128 FRANK B. SANBORN.

£?3i.*ti

" The Little Wood Opposite."

from the window at my side, whose gentle are sweeter without an instrument than with it; beauty does me good. There is much of bless- so I did not miss the piano at all. ing in Nature's silent At toe sympathy. night, This was written in the tame and we have a wide view of the glori'ous stars, which of a seem to have been peculiarly beautiful these last lovely scenery Hampton Falls, two evenings. I have thought of you all as I few miles from the seashore, in which looked for my favorite constellations. Dear, this lover of nature always delighted, you showed me the Scorpion,—you, Corny, Cas- and which she needed to visit every siopeia, and Ednah the Pleiades. All these were summer. Her own native of visible last night, and I am glad I can never region look upon them without thoughts of you; is it swift streams and mountains she once not a pleasant association. Here too (as every- described thus: where else), have I met much kindly sympathy. Yesterday I walked out for the first time for Strangers greet me like a long expected friend; a long season. (February 24, 1851.) I went on rough, old farmers speak with a softened tone the snovvcrust into the grove by the river, part to the invalid stranger; and though the way over the steep hill; and rested on a great grasp of their hand be somewhat rough, it is full rock which juts out over a high bank, and from of heart-warmth, and, therefore very pleasant which I looked down into the water just below to me. One evening I had a treat which I had me. Great twisted pines grow out of this bank, not anticipated here,—really good music. A huge old sons of the forest; and thro' their pretty Mrs. Tilton* sang like a woodland bird, thick branches I could see the gleaming of the and with Cate's sweet low voice for a second, it first fall, which was close to me. The river is was beautiful. I love music dearly, 2^\\Agood voices beautiful now, very full and swift; not a brook, as it is in the summer, but a rapid, rushing *This was Su.san Jordan from Boston, who had river. The sunshine coming into where I was been living at the ."-ame farmhouse (now gone), a one of the oldest in the township, but was now mar- sitting, through the pines overhead, made ried to a neighbor-farmer; she was a of protcgt-e kind of checquered light on the snow, and bright- the late Dr. Henry Bowditch. and died in this hamlet, halfway from Kxeter to Hampton Falls village. ened into rainbow colors the icicles which fell FRANK D. SANBORN. 129 from the trees yesterday and lay still on the both now owned by the Livingston crust. Add to this a stillness of the win- perfect family. But when we visited the ter woods, broken only by the noise of the Walkers there, it had a bank water; and you will have the best of my Sun- green down to the unobstruct- day. So much, darling, for the outward world. sloping river, Our French progresses pretty well. Mr. Krone ed by the railway and its apparatus; is my principal amusement; oh, that man! he is across the amber water was the flower- too funny for anything, as Mrs. Thompson encircled cottage of Miss Putnam, the would say. I have read the life of Dr. Chal- Bountiful" of mers, which contains much that you would en- "Lady thevillage then, I it is too a com- joy. think, however, long, who gave Putnam Park to the public, mon fault with Memoirs. He was a fiery spirit. and preserved the fine trees on her T am reading Agassiz too. terraced river bank. On the oppo- It was this house, in Grove Street, site side from this west front was the Peterborough, with its "little wood garden, — small but neatly kept, and opposite" upon which her windows blooming in the season with Anna's looked out, which is associated with favorite roses; while the pine trees her in my memory, and that of her overhung the narrow street, and surviving sister and her friends, — waved a sober welcome. now alas! but few, out of the many This fac-simile of one of her small who rejoiced in her love. The engrav- pages to Edna shows how she passed ing shows it much as it then was,— from one topic to another, in her let- one of two houses built b)^ McKean, ters; and how uncertain was her spell- a skilful carpenter, about 1844, and ing and punctuation. In our four

Residence oi Anna Walker. Gro>/e Street. Ravine and Caicade, PtterDorough.

Oi^ty^-

^ ^^<^ /ri^^

z:^/ i-^^x-i-^ FRANK B. SANBORN. 131

years' correspondence she never quite tact with graces like hers, native mastered— the difficult spelling of Tues- and untaught, but lacking in nothing day, indeed, her education had been of the perfection of good breeding. In interrupted by frequent illness, and no company, high or low, was she ever was desultory, though remarkable out of place. She was the delight of for the many fields into which it every circle in which she moved; and led her, in five languages, —English, would have been, had her range of Italian, French, German and Latin. experience been world-wide. Her But in the reading of human life and praise and her blame were equally character she was unsurpassed, and useful and courteous; the impatience that, as she told me, was her chief of which she complained in herself, study. To quote again from "Her- and which had been a fault of her

The "Little Lake Near By." mione" (for Emerson was our daily wayward childhood, was now trained library) : to a fascinating caprice, which made Once I dwelt apart; her ever a surprise to her friends. In Now I live with all; one of my visits, when she thought As shepherd's lamp, on far hillside, she was withdrawing herself into the Seems, by the traveler espied, cool of she A door into the mountain's heart, — grotto friendship (which So didst thou quarry and unlock kept saying was what she wished), Highways for me through the rock. suddenly she became as attractive as To love this daughter of rural New any of the Sirens, and I said to her, Hampshire w^as more than "a liberal "Anna, how little I expected this; I as did not for it what has education," Sir Richard Steele said even hope ; of Lady Elizabeth Hastings; nothing, brought you into this dear mood? I the .same when as mere intellectual training, was more never find you twice ; stimulating and elevating than con- I think I have become sure of you, 132 FRANK B. SANBORN. and accustomed to some phase of you, in Germany. Yet the pressure of the —thinking it to be you^ —suddenly conflict between Freedom and Slavery you seem to me wholly other than in Kansas, after I had graduated at I thought, and I feel as if I had never Harvard in July, 1855, kept me in known you." Amid all these chang- America, and brought me into relations ing moods, she never failed to be what with one as remarkable among men, —as the French quaintl}'' term attachaiite ; she I had loved was among women and it was of her own sweet will that— John Brown, of Kansas and Virginia. she was so. Never, in a long life, Of him and the events of his last three now half a century since her death, — years my next chapter will treat. have I found another so truly a woman. I have given much space to this Meantime my actual education at four years' episode in my career, went on I because I write for readers in school and college ; though New was often called away by the phases Hampshire. This romance of our of like lives of her illness, which, everything was wholly New Hampshire ; about her, was strange and unexpect- Boston was only an occasional scene ed. From the depths of what seemed for its development, when we met a mortal illness, and which no physi- there at the houses of her friends or cian thoroughly understood, she would mine. Nearly all of them are now dead, rally to a hopeful prospect of full recov- —Mrs. Cheney, one of the last to pass ery. But at last the forces of nature away, after a long life of public and and her will were exhausted; she private usefulness. gradually passed through the Valley I have often said of my Ariana, — of the Shadow of Death, and perished what Ivandor so modestly sung of his in my arms, August 31, 1854. We lanthe, —Jane Swift, —in that verse had been married eight days before, addressed to the River Swift: at her wish, and in her father's Peter- Thou mindest me of her whose radiant morn where I had attended borough house, Lighted my path to love; she bore thy name; all the changes of her last summer on She whofii HO grace was tardy to adorn, W/iotn one lo7v 7'oice tiiore than louder earth, and done all that true love pleased could do to make the pathway easier. fame. It w^as long before I could return Or that perfect distich in honor of the to my college studies; but she had for- same lantlie: seen and directed all that, and even Vita brevi fugitura! prior fugitura veniistas) Hoc saltern diiret amor. provided in her will that I should study exiguo tempore

\'ro be contiiiHC(1.\ EDITORIAL NOTES.

SOME LESSONS FROM THE r>El{LIX, X. IL. LIRE. TWO VIEWS OF THE SAME.

fire occasioned a financial loss of it started in the This $160,000.00 ; Opera Block and consumed a number of other buildings, including two hotels. The Opera Block (shown in above cut) was a frame building covered with galvanized iron. The top floor was used by tenants who roomed there. Many of these tenants were compelled to jump from the fourth story win-

.ZS-I^TEI^ 134 EDITORIAL.

dows in order to get out at all : one was killed and several were injured in so doing. There Was no Fire Escape on the Building. The Opera House had seats for 1,500,—or 400 more than White's Opera House in Concord. The alarm was sounded at 9.15 p. ni. Supposing that there had been a show in the Opera House that night, what do you think would have been the fatality in that case? It's simply appalling to think of. There are still left a plenty' of such buildings in this state, and there ought to be stringent ordinances to prevent the public use of such fire traps. It's nothing but luck that the loss of life was not 100, or more.

tem in part of the town, and this past Road Improvement in summer has macadamized the main Some of Our Smaller Towns. street and village square. They have Comparatively few people know of converted a rough and worn-out old the work that has been done by some road into a modern improved road that of the smaller towns in the state in way it is a pleasure to do business on, and of building good roads and improving is a credit to the town. their village streets. Within a few Many other instances of road im- years the town of Littleton had their main provement in our smaller towns might street all rebuilt. The street was wid- be mentioned. This all goes to show ened and straightened. New curbing the desire and determination of the peo- was set where necessary, and between ple to have better roads in the state. the curbing (which forms the edge of This work is being started and done the sidewalk), the whole roadway was where, as it is thought, it will do the concreted with tar and gravel concrete. greatest good to the greatest number,

Now from the railroad depot, across the and so it is, but from these beginnings, river, over a magnificent steel bridge, from these trunks as it were, will start and down through Main street, is a the branches, and a little will be built good, wide concrete pavement. from year to year until finally the roads The town of Woodsville has also improved will reach to the town lines, put in tar concrete the whole length of and good roads and a continuous sys- the Main street, and what was at one tem of good roads will be the result. time a rough and, at times, a deep mud It is a good sign to see the people road, is now a smoother and beautiful waking up to the importance of better driveway. roads. The people will demand of their Ashland and Meredith have recently road agents better results for the money is sure improved their village streets by putting they are spending, and the time in a permanent pavement. Berlin has to come when those who have to do with been rebuilding its main street this past our road work, and who spend our season. money, must give something to show Lancaster repaired its main street a for it. The people will demand a road few years ago by putting in crushed builder for road agent and not, as is stone. now too often the case, a political In 1903 Lisbon relaid its sewer sys- boss.

Durham Library Association.

No.

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