USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Peterborough > An address delivered at the centennial celebration, in Peterborough, N.H., Oct. 24, 1839 > Part 3
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* Henry Ferguson, a thoroughly excellent man. Not one of the name is now among us. Three of the sons removed to South Carolina, where the last of them, having accumulated a large property, died within a few years.
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and a petition for a bill of divorce, on the ground of extreme cruelty, was granted at once by the court with a feeling almost of horror at the disclosures then made.
The only organized mob, of which I find any evidence in our history, was against Mr. Annan. Just at the time of his wife's flight with her child, when stories were spread through the town, and every one was burning with indignation, the young men who were collected at a ball, talking over the cir- cumstances till they had wrought themselves into a perfect rage, determined to take the matter into their own hands. Blacking their faces with soot, disguising themselves in every uncouth dress, and provided with a rough spruce pole, at the dead of night, in the autumn of 1799, they knocked at the door of Mr. Annan's house, and when he, suspecting no harm, came to them as if from his bed, three* of the strongest among them seized him, placed him upon the pole, and the whole party with shouting and howling, the tinkling of cow-bells, the blowing of horns and pumpkin vines, carried him a full half mile and threw him into a muddy pond. An attempt was made by Mr. Annan, who always after went armed with pis- tols, to bring the rioters to justice. Writs were issued against them, and had he possessed a single friend, he might have suc- ceeded. But nothing could be proved ; the feelings of those who had been most severe against him began to relent, and they looked with pity on the solitary, friendless, dejected old man.
The provocation in this case undoubtedly was great. But never, we may safely say, in a well organized society, can an emergency arise where individuals may be justified in taking upon themselves that which it belongs to the natural retributions of Providence and the authorised laws of the land to inflict. It may pain and vex us to see the oppressor go untouched ; but sooner or later punishment will overtake him, and we know
* " What do ye want o' me ?" he inquired sternly. " Only a little of your good company," was the reply from a young man, whose name has since been known through the United States.
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not how severely he may suffer at the very moment when he seems most happy.
Mr. Morison and Mr. Annan were the only settled ministers in the place for fifty years. Two questions naturally come up : How could such men be tolerated so long ; and how could re- ligion be kept alive under such instructions ?
They were tolerated, in the first place, because of the great veneration which was then attached to the profession. " Min- isters," said one at the commencement of the difficulties with Mr. Morison, " are edged tools, and we maun aye be carefu' how we handle them." "Keep yoursel' to yoursel'," said an elder of the church with great solemnity to his son, who was beginning to intimate that Mr. Annan was not what he should be. Another reason which made many, and those among the . most rigid disciplinarians, more tolerant than they would other- wise have been was, that the ministers though wrong in prac- tice were yet sound in faith ; and error in belief was esteemed far more dangerous than in heart or life. This doctrine of anti- romianism was then carried to a degree of extravagance which finds no sympathy now. An illustration may be given. A Mr. Taggart, one of the straightest in faith, but who was in- temperate in his habits, had a remarkable gift in prayer, and this gift was rather increased than diminished by the exhilara- tion of ardent spirits. At funerals, where there was no minis- ter, he was usually called upon to pray ; and sometimes when unable to stand, would kneel by his chair and edify the assem- bly by the readiness and fervor of his devotions. Henry Ferguson once met him lying in the road, and after helping him up told him that this conduct was inconsistent with his place in the church. " Ah," said he, " but we are not our own keepers." Sometime after, Mr. Ferguson was nominated an elder, and Mr. Taggart, on the strength of this conversation, publicly opposed him as a man who trusted entirely to works. These two reasons in their influence upon some of our own people, and still more upon the Presbyteries with which they were connected, together with the personal influence of Robert
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Annan, who was a strong man in the church, will sufficiently account for the long infliction upon the patience and moral feel- ings of the community.
The next question, how could religion be kept alive under such circumstances, is readily answered. Our people were always readers, and the Bible was almost their only book. Here they went for counsel and support. It was to them prophet, and priest. With all their reverence for the public min- istrations of religion, their reverence for the written word was far greater. In the next place, the practice of family prayer was faithfully observed. Morning and evening the Scriptures were read ; and if the flame of devotion burnt dim in the house of public worship, it was not permitted to go out upon the family altar. Besides, they had preachers more powerful than man. They were strangers in a strange land ; in the midst of per- petual alarms and dangers ; sickness, death, and all the vicis- situdes of life entered their dwellings in the wilderness, and through its loneliness spoke to them as they never can speak in a more cultivated place. They had before coming here been well imbued with the principles of religion ; and besides, the hu- man soul is so constituted, that it cannot live and be at peace without a religious faith. Rites and ordinances are an important means of advancing the cause of religion. But they are not all. God has never left himself without witness among men. The success of his word does not rest upon a mortal priesthood. Re- ligion is an essential want of the soul, deeply fixed in its nature. Men may stifle i's cravings, may for a time suppress them, and unhallowed servants at the altar may help to keep them down. But they cannot be destroyed until the soul itself is crushed. Religion, dishonored by its ministers, degraded by the false ideas that have gathered round it, can never be banished so long as these human hearts, beating with hopes, anxieties and fears, look round upon a world of change and weakness, and find nowhere here the object that fills up their wants.
The church thus far had been Presbyterian. After Mr. Annan left, the late Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore was invited
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to remain, but declined, not wishing to settle as a Presbyterian. After he left, a paper * was handed round and signed by all, or nearly all, the church, expressing a willingness to settle Mr. Moore in the Congregational form ; but he, in the mean time, had found another place ; and the town continued without a settled minister till Oct. 23, 1799, when Rev. Elijah Dunbar was ordained. Originally the church had belonged to the Londonderry Presbytery. At the settlement of Mr. Annan, by his request, it received a dismission from this and joined the New-York Presbytery. When Mr. Dunbar was settled, that Presbytery had become extinct, and the church here was left an independent body. It then adopted the Congregational form, and though there were still some who preferred the Pres- byterian mode, all attended upon his ministry, with the under- standing however that once a year the communion should be administered by a Presbyterian, and in the Presbyterian manner. For many years the Rev. Dr. Wm. Morison, of Londonderry, administered the ordinance every autumn. It was always a day of uncommon interest; the house was crowded; and though but a child when he last came, I well remember the solemnity and awe with which I was impressed by the countenance, accent, and manner of that aged and faithful minister of Christ. Mr. Dunbar, with unsullied character, remained the minister of the town till June 19, 1822, when a portion of his people who had never liked the Congregational form, and others who had never been quite at ease under an Armenian preacher, withdrew and formed the Presbyterian Society. Mr. Dunbar continued pastor of the Congregational Society, till Feb. 1827. He was succeeded in June of the same year, by Rev. Abbot, D. D. who had preached in town a short time, thirty years before, and who is still the pastor.
The Presbyterian church was built in 1825, about half a mile north of the old meeting-house, and during the present year has been removed to the village. Rev. Peter Holt was installed pastor March, 1827, and resigned March, 1835 .-
* This paper, I understand, is now with Dea. Jonathan Smith.
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Rev. Mr. Pine was installed June, 1836, and dismissed Jan. 1837. Rev. Joshua Barret was pastor from Feb. 1837 till Feb. 1839.
The Baptist church was constituted, Nov., 1822, containing forty members. Rev. Charles Cumming's was the first pastor. Rev. Mr. Goodnow, from June, 1831 ; Rev. George Daland, from March 1834 till 1836 ; Rev. John Peacock, one year from Sept., 1837, have been the ministers. Rev. J. M. Will- morth, the present pastor, was settled Sept., 1838.
There has been for some years a Methodist Society ; and the Universalists have sometimes had preaching in the Congrega- tional meeting-house.
Of our public schools, important and vitally connected as they are with all the better prospects of our country, my limits will allow me to say but little. From 1760 till 1797, the annual appropriations were small, never more than one hundred dollars, seldom fifty dollars, and often nothing. I do not find that any school-houses were erected by the town, before 1790, when the town was divided into five districts, and provision made for the erection of five buildings .* From 1797 to 1805, three hundred dollars were annually raised for schools, except in 1801, when the appropriation was but two hundred dollars. From 1805 to 1808, four hundred dollars were raised annually ; and since then the town has uniformly raised what the law re- quired, and, I believe, no more, except that for a few years past one half the literary fund (about seventy-five dollars per an- num) has been given to aid the feeble districts. The school tax now, (and it has not materially varied for several years,) is eight hundred and eighty-one dollars and thirty-six cents.
The condition of the schools, public and private, during the last, and the first twenty years of the present century, was de-
* There were school-houses long before this, which had been erected by neighborhoods. In the same way schools also were supported. The public appropriations give a wrong idea of what has actually been paid for this pur- pose. The sum now paid for private schools is at least equal to what is paid by the town. There are now in town eleven districts, each with a brick school-house,
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cidedly bad. Some improvement has been made since then ; and great credit is due to the spirited exertions of a few indi- viduals in different parts of the town. Still, (for I should per- vert the purposes of this day, if I stood here only to flatter or to praise,) the subject has not received the attention which its importance demands, and our public schools do not take the place that we should expect, from the general intelligence of our citizens. They are peculiarly the property and province of the whole people, by whom they live and prosper, and without whose hearty assistance and co-operation, committees and teachers can accomplish nothing. All who take an interest in the welfare of their children or of society, will not be slow to do what can be done for these, the true nurseries of a nation's mind. They will not grudge to the teacher his hard earned pay, nor forget to do at home, that which alone can render his labors easy and effective.
Our Libraries demand a moment's attention. There had been previously a library of a similar character ; but as early as 1811 the Peterborough Social Library was got up, containing not far from one hundred volumes. So judicious a selection I have never seen. There was hardly a book which did not deserve its place. I well remember the astonishment with which, at the age of eleven, I first looked on what seemed to me such an immense collection of books ; nor can I soon forget the uniform kindness with which my early reading was encour- aged, and in some measure directed by the librarian, Daniel Abbot. In an intellectual point of view, I look back on no period of my life with so much satisfaction, as on the two years when, at the age of fourteen and fifteen, I lived with Samuel Templeton, as honest a man as this or any town has ever pro- duced. During the hour which he always gave me at noon, and in the evening by fire-light, I read the standard histories in our language, and made myself acquainted with the important events of the ancient world. When a volume was finished, I would set out at dark, after a hard day's work, walk three miles to the village, and, enriched with a new treasure, would return
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almost unmindful of the woods and their near vicinity to the grave-yard and old meeting-house, which especially on a wintry autumnal night, standing there naked, black, and lonely, was, as I know full well, a fearful object enough to a child. The Peterborough Social Library became gradually neglected, and was sold about 1830, when a new library on the same plan was got up, and contains now about three hundred volumes. The Union and Phonix Factories have each a library of about one hundred and fifty volumes. The Ministerial Library, (an ex- cellent institution,) contains five hundred, and the public town library about nine hundred volumes ; so that, besides private collections, there are now in town for the use of readers two thousand volumes.
One word let me here say to the young. These schools and libraries are for you. All that is most valuable in education is within your reach. Many have been the bitter but unavailing regrets of those, who, despising these precious advantages in youth, have found themselves, as men and women, ignorant and incompetent to the great duties that were before them. The busiest day has intervals of rest, and he who is in earnest for knowledge will receive it. Let your leisure moments be sacred- ly devoted to the improvement of your minds. You might not covet the honors of a professional life, if you knew its painful watchings, anxieties and toils ; but as you value the esteem of others, or your own happiness, as you would do your part to carry on the progress of the world, as you would be useful and respected in manhood, and escape a leafless, neglected, old age, do not fail now, while the time is, to use every means that is held out for your intellectual advancement.
Another subject of much interest in our history I can but just sketch out. Early in our history, the hand-card, the little wheel, and the loom with the hand-shuttle, were almost the only instruments of manufacture in the place. The grand- mother of Governor Miller paid for four hundred acres of land in fine linen, made entirely (except getting out the flax) by her own hands. With the exception of hats and the wedding
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gown, which was usually of satin, and handed down as a sort of heir-loom to children and grand-children, even (three genera- tions not unfrequently being married in the same dress) all the articles of clothing were manufactured at home. There the wool was carded, spun, woven, colored, and made up into gar- ments. The hides were indeed sent away to be tanned ; but the same hides were brought home as leather, and the shoe- maker came always to the house with his bench, lasts and awls. To use foreign goods was considered, as indeed it was, great extravagance. After the first store was opened here, in 1771, one hundred pounds of butter was the price usually paid for a calico gown. Almost every article of food and clothing was then prepared at home. The first clothier's shop for taking in wool to card and cloth to dress, was built by William Powers, in 1780, and this was the only factory in town till 1793; when, on the spot now occupied by the Phoenix factory, " a* wooden building two hundred feet long, and two stories high, was erected by Samuel Smith, and was the wonder of the whole country. Mr. Smith had in this building a paper-mill, a saw-mill, an oil- mill, a clothier's shop, a trip-hammer shop, a wool-carding ma- chine, and a dwelling-house." This bold step gave the first de- cided impulse to the manufacturing enterprise of the place. It brought into notice the great water privileges that were here possessed. The first cotton factory for the manufacture of yarn was started in 1810. And from that time to this, one after another place has been taken up, until the capital vested in and upon the different water privileges, - not forgetting the peg-mill in which twenty-five hundred bushels of shoe-pegs are made annually, -is now estimated at three hundred thousand dollars ; the cotton factories alone producing annually one million seven hundred and twenty-five thousand yards of cloth; and the amount of property annually imported and sold in our stores, it is estimated, cannot be less than seventy-five thousand dollars.
* I have received from John H. Steele, Esq. a very full and exact account of all our manufacturing establishments from the beginning, which, in a con- densed form, may be found in the Appendix.
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With this change there has been a great influx of people from abroad ; the habits and pursuits of the town have undergone an important revolution .*
But with all this show of enterprise and prosperity there is danger. Our young women, the future mothers, who are to form the character of the next generation, are not educated as their mothers were, at home, in comparative solitude, where the mind had leisure to mature, and the affections to expand, but are taken from their homes, work together in large companies, and board in crowded houses. It is surely a solemn responsi- bility that rests upon the owners and agents of these establish- ments. Thus far, their conduct has been marked by generosi- ty and high principle. But it is well for all to be awake; for the operatives to remember that they have rights and duties for themselves beyond the mere comforts and luxuries of an animal life. They have minds, they have hearts which require to be clothed and fed, and unless now in season they provide for their intellectual, inoral and spiritual wants, for the support of a re- fined intelligence, a modest but true moral independence, we shall repent the day that has clothed our bodies with improved garments, but left us with inferior minds, - with souls robbed of their pure affections, lofty freedom, and immortal hopes.
The notice of our early history would be incomplete with- out some scattered facts of a different character. Our ances- tors, with all the rest of the world, believed in the bodily mani- festation of the devil, in the existence of witches, and the ap- pearance of ghosts. It is not my purpose to do any thing more than relate what they believed. A small, lean, aged woman, by the name of Stinson, was uniformly regarded as a witch. A cat somewhere in town was observed to act strange-
* A Post-Office was established in town, about 1790; John Smith was the first Post-Master. A Mr. Balch first carried the mail. He was succeed- ed by Asa Gibbs, who for many years rode on horseback from Portsmouth to Brattleborough once a week. At last he rode in a little wagon and carried a few passengers. He was killed in 1824, by falling from a bridge. He was succeeded by his son. Stages began to run in 1826 or '27, and now a daily stage each way is crowded with passengers.
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ly, hot water was thrown upon her, and straightways Mrs. Stinson's back was dreadfully afflicted with the St. Anthony's fire. On another occasion, a good man near Sharon shot at a crow many times, but the bird only flew round and laughed at him. He at last took off a silver sleeve-button, and with it broke the crow's wing; whereupon Mrs. Stinson was found with a lame arm. At her funeral, which was about fifty years ago, though she was hardly more than a skeleton, the strong men who bore her to the grave were almost crushed to the earth by the weight of sin, and their shoulders remained for weeks black and blue.
There was also one Hannah Scott, who supposed herself be- witched by an old woman named Aspy, of Hancock. The girl lay more than a month without the power of opening her eyes any more than she could open a part of her cheek. While in this state, she could tell exactly who were passing, how they looked, what they had with them, and what was going on in different houses, and in different parts of the town. She always said that if old Aspy would come and bless her she should recover. The witch came, and passing her hands over the girl's forehead, with the words, "your God bless you and my God bless you," ended the charm. This, it will be seen at once, is but the counterpart of what has recently taken place under the name of Animal Magnetism.
All this was religiously believed. And we in our day have known one* who, to his dying hour, firmly believed that he had twice been honored by a personal interview with the devil. Old Baker- what child in Peterborough within the last sixty years has not danced to his fiddle, with an ecstasy which no other music ever gave ? Who does not remember the benevo-
" Baker Moore, a colored man, born in Boston, 1755, bought as a slave and brought to this town by Deacon Moore, in 1763. At the age of twenty-two, he purchased his freedom for two hundred dollars, which he never felt obliged to pay, nor was it exacted. He died January, 1839. There have been in this town eight slaves ; two, Baker and Rose, belonging to Deacon Moore ; two to David Steele; two to Samuel Aulds ; one to Isaac Mitchell ; one to Captain Robbe. There may possibly have been others.
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lent, complacent smile with which his honest black face and white teeth and eyes shone, as raising his instrument to his chin, and producing the first sweet notes, he looked about on the de- lighted children that were listening or romping round him ? But when we knew him, " the minstrel was infirm and old," and now he is gone - light may the turf rest upon his bosom. Such men are like fossil remains and petrifactions, which pre- serve the exact lineaments of plants and animals centuries per- haps after the living species has become extinct. Their minds receive in youth the impressions then current, and there remain fixed through life ; so that Baker in these matters may be con- sidered a fair sample of the belief which prevailed sixty or seventy years ago. It was seldom that he could be induced to speak upon the subject, and then with symptoms of terror, which it would be difficult to describe. I remember, however, to have heard him once, after casting round a fearful look to be sure that the doors were shut, and the evil spirit not actually in the room. As he was driving the cows to pasture, he said, one evening he met a man who very kindly accosted him, and in the course of the conversation told his fortune, mentioning things that no mortal could have known. He gave him a book, with the request that he would read it. Baker took the book ; but it hung like lead upon his spirits. He carried it constantly with him, for he was afraid to leave it behind, and at last having met " the man" again on horseback, in the northwest part of the town, he returned the book ; whereupon the man's eyes glistened like fire, his cloven foot appeared, and he was terribly angry. Baker looked up a moment after and he was gone. All this, our good friend as much believed as he believed in his own existence, and it is but a fair sample of what our fathers also believed. One man, William M'Nee, had horse-shoe nails driven into the horns of all his cattle, to save them from the witches, and it was generally believed that horse-shoes, witch- hazel rods, and silver, were effectual securities against their influence.
Another singular fact may be here added, to illustrate this
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part of their character. Wm. Robbe, - his mother was always supposed to have saved the life of the elder Wm. Smith, by sucking the wound made by a poisonous snake in Lunenburg, and both he and his parents were modest, excellent people,- Wm. Robbe was a seventh son ; and it was generally thought that certain diseases could be cured by him. He was not a quack ; - receiving pay destroyed the charm. He gave a small silver coin to those who came. The visits became so numerous, that he left the town in consequence, and went to Stoddard ; but being unfortunate there, was obliged to return and bear the onerous duties which the accident of being the seventh son im- posed upon him. The belief in his power was general, and borne out by reputed facts, which we cannot here stop to ex- amine or even specify.
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