USA > New Hampshire > Colony, province, state, 1623-1888: history of New Hampshire > Part 38
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Of a strong and original intellect, Governor Gilman was a keen observer and logical reasoner. Few men could see so far as he could, and he was al- ways ready to act upon any and all occasions. As a man, he was ardent, im. petuous, and unreserved in his acts and feelings. A true patriot and an ardent lover of his country, he was ever wont to freely canvass the policy and motives involved in the old national struggles. Life's warfare over, he sleeps ". now near the home of his youth, among the friends of his boyhood and noble manhood. But the turf rests lightly above his grave, and his name is sacredly linked with the other illustrious dead of our early history.
Of Governor Gilman's personal appearance we have several descriptions.
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He was six feet high, of a portly figure, and weighed about two hundred pounds. He had keen blue eyes, a fair complexion, light brown hair, a lion- like jaw, and a nose of composite order. being neither Roman, Greek, or Jew- ish. He was a most dignified old man, and preserved his straightness and vigor to the last. He died in August, 1828.
Colonel Gilman, as we have said, died in 1783. His large property was di- vided among his sons. The youngest, Nathaniel, had married Miss Abigail Odlin, relative of Dr. Odlin, and he now became the owner of the original Odlin property. It was his home for the remainder of his life. Nathaniel was a boy of sixteen when the Revolution commenced, and did not go to the field at all. But he did useful service at home, in assisting his father in his manifold employments. He succeeded his father as financial agent for the State, and was a prosperous and prominent citizen. Though he did not fill the nation's eye like his older brothers, Colonel Nathaniel Gilman filled many important offices in his day. He was prominent in the State militia, was a State senator, and served as State treasurer for many years. He died in 1847, at the age of eighty-seven. He was the father of four daughters and seven sons.
Nathaniel Gilman was the tallest and the stoutest of the three brothers. He was the Roman of them all, six feet and two inches in height, of remark- ably muscular and vigorous mold, with a Roman nose, light hair, and the fair complexion of the Gilmans. Grave and sober in his look, we can imagine the fear with which he was regarded by the urchins who used to pilfer his fruit. His older brother, Senator Nicholas, was the most elegant man of his day in New Hampshire. He had the fine physique of Ezekiel Webster, and the winning grace of Aaron Burr. His height was five feet and ten inches, the height of a gentleman, according to Chesterfield. He had a nearly straight nose, mild blue eyes, a handsome chin, and wore his hair in a queue. Blonde, superb in carriage, of striking dignity, he was the perfect ideal gentleman of the old school.
Nicholas, like his brother, John Taylor, was a soldier of the Revolution. His whole term of service included six years and three months. During the latter part of the war he was deputy adjutant-general, and in that capacity was at Yorktown, where he received from Lord Cornwallis, to whom he was sent for the purpose by Washington, the return of exactly seven thousand and fifty men surrendered. He held the commission of captain, and was for a time a member of General Washington's military family. After the suspen- sion of hostilities, Nicholas Gilman was a delegate, from his State, to the Con- tinental Congress for two consecutive years -1786 and 1787. Under the new constitution he was a member of the House of Representatives in Congress eight years, and a United States senator for nine years. He died before the completion of his second term, at Philadelphia, while returning from Wash- ington, May 2, 1814. He was never married. He resided all his life with his brother Colonel Nathaniel.
At the death of the latter the house and estate came into the hands of one of his sons, Joseph Taylor Gilman. He married Miss Mary E. Gray, daughter of Harrison Gray, of Boston. In 1862 Mr. Gilman died, compara-
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tively a young man. His widow, after due time, married again -a man not unknown to fame, - Hon. Charles II. Bell, in ISSI the chief execu- tive of New Hampshire. Governor Bell is a son of Hon. John Bell, who was governor of the State in 1828. He bears a noble name. a name scarcely second to that of the Gilmans in age and honor. Two brothers of the name have been governors of the state during a period of five years; one was a United States senator from New Hampshire for twelve years, and a justice of the Supreme Court for three years. Another of the name was chief justice of New Hampshire from 1859 to 1864, and one of the most eminent lawyers in the State. They have been speakers of the house, presidents of the Senate, and congressmen, filling every office with ability, honesty, and honor.1
In 1794 a post-rider went between Boston and Concord each way once a week. A weekly linc of stages was advertised, run- ning from Concord, through Pembroke, Allenstown, Chester, and Haverhill, to Boston. Two days' time was allowed for the mail to make the trip one way. The advertisements of this year mention no public conveyance in other directions. The notice appeared October I.
In November the stage line made a connection at Haverhill with stages for Exeter and Portsmouth. Passengers were allowed to carry fourteen pounds of baggage free.
Walpole was at that time a place of more business than any in that vicinity, and was much resorted to by the people of the neighboring towns. There was also a considerable travel from a distance passing on what was called the great river road. The inhabitants of that part of the valley of the Connecticut river were then just passing from the rude and boisterous manners of first settlers to a more civilized, orderly and composed state.2 A set of young men, mostly of the legal profession, gathering from many miles up and down the river, were much in the habit of familiar intercourse for the sake of amusement and recreation. They occasionally met at village taverns, but more commonly at the sessions of the courts, and freely indulged in gaming, excessive drinking, and such like dissipations. The most of them were gentlemanly in manners, and some talented. The ruin of some served as a warning to others.2
" Mr. West was by far the first and best lawyer, and in all re- spects the most respectable man, in that region of country. He
I Fred Myron Colby. 2 Jeremiah Mason.
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was educated at Princeton College, and commenced the practice of law at Charlestown before the close of the Revolutionary war. He had good natural powers of mind, a quick and clear perception, a delicate taste, highly refined, a sound judgment, and lively imagination. His style of speaking was simple, nat- ural, smooth, and mild ; always pure and neat, and sometimes elegant ; with a good person, clear and pleasant voice, much earnestness and apparent sincerity, - he was altogether a most persuasive speaker." 1 In arguing cases of complicated and doubtful evidence before a jury he had few or no superiors. In the discussion of questions of law, and in argumentation of mere abstract propositions, he was less powerful, for he was deficient in law learning. "This he was fully sensible of, and attributed it to his having quitted the study when he began the practice of the law. He said of the elder Judge Livermore, who had been attorney-general of the Province before the Revolution, and chief justice of the Supreme Court, that, having no law learning himself, he did not like to be pestered with it at his courts ; that when he (Mr. West) attempted to read law books in a law argument, the chief justice asked him why he read them ; if he thought that he and his brethren did not know as much as those musty old worm-eaten books? Mr. West answered, " These books contain the wisdom of the ancient sages of the law." The reply was, " Well, do you think we do not under- stand the principles of justice as well as the old wigged lawyers of the dark ages did ?" Thus his law books were laughed out of court. This was surely but poor encouragement for the dry study of law books.1 Mr. West was a member of the conven- tion of New Hampshire for adopting the constitution of the United States, when from his known talents much was expected from him ; but his modesty and diffidence kept him from speak- ing although he was very much interested in the result, which was for a long time in suspense.
Joseph Dennis, a graduate of Harvard College, 1790, was also practising law at Walpole at this time, although "his legal knowledge consisted wholly in a choice selection of quaint, obso-
I Jeremiah Mason.
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lete, and queer phrases from 'Plowden's Commentaries,' the only book he ever read with any attention. These phrases he often repeated in ridicule of the law, to the great amusement of his auditors. He was the most aerial, refined, and highly sub- limited spirit,"1 with "a good share of native genius, and a delicate and accurate taste, cultivated by an ardent study of the English classics." He afterwards edited the Portfolio in Phil- adelphia.
1 " Another of the extraordinary men who then ranged that country was William Coleman, afterwards so greatly distin- guished as the editor of the New York Evening Post, under the patronage of General Hamilton, that his opponents gave him the title of field-marshal of Federal editors. By great industry and persevering diligence he acquired a good education. As a lawyer he was respectable, but his chief excellence consisted in a critical knowledge of the English language, and the adroit management of political discussions. His paper for several years gave the leading tone to the press of the Federal party." He freely admitted the assistance he received from Alexander Hamilton in writing his most powerful editorials.
2 In contradistinction to most of the places in the valley of the Souhegan, Milford boasts of no antiquity and will not celebrate its centennial until 1894. For its origin it is indebted to a genuine outburst of human nature in the form of dissatisfaction, which took place in the old town of Monson. That ancient, now extinct, town was incorporated April 1, 1746, and was bounded on the north by the Souhegan river and south by Hollis. Its corporate exis- tence lasted for twenty-four years, during which time it regularly held annual town meetings, elected its town clerks, selectmen, tithingmen, hogreeves and other town officers ; but there is no evidence that it ever had a school-house, meeting-house, or a "learned orthodox " or other minister. The only public structure ever owned by the town was a pound built for the confinement of disorderly cattle. At the first town-meeting, held in May, 1746, it was voted to build a pound and also buy a suitable "book to record votes in, and other things as the town shall see fit." The people of Monson, however, like their neighbors of Hollis, do not at any time seem to have been well content with their chartered boundaries. Several expedients in different years came before the annual meetings proposing changes in the chartered limits, some of them favoring additions to its territory, others a division of it in various ways. Among the rest was a proposal adopted at the March meeting in 1760, to
I Jeremiah Mason. 2 J. B. Conner.
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annex the land on the south side of Monson to Ilollis, and to petition the governor and Council for such part of Souhegan west to be added to Monson as would be sufficient to maintain the Gospel and other incidental charges. Again, in 1761 the town voted to set off a mile and a half on the south to Hollis. This last was passed to favor a petition of Hollis to the General Court for the like purpose. After this date all questions looking to a change in the boundaries of the town seem to have rested until 1770, when the people of Monson, having abandoned all hope of maintaining preaching, or of " settling the Gospel among them," petitioned the General Court to put a final end to their unhappy and troubled corporate life by a repeal of their charter. In this petition they gave as a reason the barrenness of the soil about the centre of the town, and their inability to establish the Gospel or even to build a meet- ing-house. The consent of Hollis to accept of two miles in width of the south side of the suppliant town, and of Amherst all the residue, having been ob- tained, an Act was passed by the General Court in 1770, dividing Monson by a line extending east and west, passing very near its centre, and annexing the south part to Hollis and the north to Amherst.
In 1793, the town of Milford was incorporated, the Act chartering it being entitled : "An Act to incorporate the south-westerly part of Amherst, the north-westerly part of Hollis, the Mile Slip, and Duxbuy school farm into a town. Milford as incorporated included a small part of Amherst north of the Souhegan, much the largest portion of that part of the old town of Mon- son which was ceded to Amherst in 1770, all of the Mile Slip not included in. Raby, with the Duxbuy school farm, and an area of one thousand acres taken from Hollis. Thus it will be seen that Monson, after having been carved into many slices and served up in a variety of ways, was finally collected, moulded into a different form, given another name, and in its new dress graces one of the most beautiful spots on the Souhegan river.
The charter for the first New Hampshire turnpike, extend- ing from Concord to the Piscataqua bridge, in the vicinity of Portsmouth, was granted by the legislature in 1796, and was promptly commenced and completed, running through the ex- treme northern section of Pembroke. This was the first of a series of these thoroughfares, extended by the enterprise of a few public-spirited individuals into every section of the State.
1 Turnpikes are not of American origin. They existed in the mother country long before the days of Mansfield and Black- stone. The first turnpike road was between the West Riding of Yorkshire and London. This Act was passed in the fifteenth year of the reign of Charles the Second. It was an innovation that excited great hostility. The people benefited by it tore
1 John M. Shirley.
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down the toll-bars, and the new enterprise was baptized in blood before the people would submit to it. The new system tri- umphed by slow degrees.
Macaulay graphically describes the condition of that country with respect to communication before such roads became accept- able to the public.
Capital seeking an outlet saw its opportunity, and under a swarm of Turnpike Acts the country was at last gridironed with these roads.
The turnpike craze in this State is almost forgotten ; we caught it from Massachusetts ; it began in 1795 and culminated about twenty years after ; it wrought a revolution in public travel, relatively, nearly as great as that brought about by the railway craze between 1840 and 1850. The system with us did not originate in the local want or demand along the lines contem- plated. Other and more far-reaching causes, as we shall see, were at the bottom of the movement. The settlement of the State was necessarily by progressive, though at times apparently simultaneous, steps. First came the settlement and location of the four towns, and the opening of communication between them ; then the advent of the trapper, hunter, and scout into the unsettled portion ; then came the land grants, and the set- tlement in isolated locations ; then the blazed path to the parent towns and to the cabin of the pioneer or the outposts ; then the drift-ways, cart-ways, and the local roads winding from cabin to cabin ; then the town-ways and session or county roads, with here and there the "provincial " roads like that which passes through Gilmanton and that which was laid out and built from the Gerrish place - now the county farm at Boscawen - to the college at Hanover in 1784-86 by legislative committee, and that laid out by a like committee from Hale's Bridge, in Wal- pole, in the county of Cheshire, running sixty miles to a pitch- pine tree on Deerneck in Chester.
Fifty-three turnpike companies were incorporated in this State. The Acts of corporation in Massachusetts were in fact based on English models, but the Bay State mind, then as now, felt itself competent to improve upon any model, irrespec-
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tive of whether it was the work of human hands or of the Divine Architect ; and as minds differed even in Massachusetts there was a marked diversity in these Acts ; and the New Hampshire Acts were little less consistent or coherent.
" The New Hampshire turnpike road" is commonly known as "the first New Hampshire turnpike," because it was the first Act of the kind in this State. John Hale, Arthur Livermore, Isaac Waldron, John Goddard, Thomas Leavitt, William Hale, and Peter Green, all notable men, were the corporators espe- cially named in the Act. This Act was passed June 16, 1796. The road ran from Piscataqua bridge in Durham to the Merri- mack river in Concord, passing through Lee, Barrington, Not -. tingham, Northwood, Epsom, and Chichester. The distance was thirty-six miles.
The elaborate plan or survey of this pioneer turnpike in this State may still be seen in the State House in Concord. The Act contains in effect eleven sec- tions. The first gave the names of the corporators, the name of the corpora- tion, and conferred upon it the inestimable privilege of suing and being sued ; the second provided for the organization and the establishment of regulations and by-laws for the government thereof; the third empowered the corpora- tion " to survey, lay out, make, and keep in repair a turnpike road or highway of four rods wide, in such route or track as in the let of their judgment and skill will combine shortness of distance with the most practicable ground between the termini; the fourth provides that the damages to landowners should be fixed by the Court of Common Pleas, if the parties could not agree ; the fifth in relation to "gates" and "turnpikes", to prevent trespass : the sixth authorized the appointment of toll-gatherers and fixed the rates of toll; the seventh authorized the purchase of one thousand acres of land in fee simple, and provided that the shares be assigned by deed, and that the shares bought be sold for non-payment or assessments; the eighth prohibits the taking of toll prior to the expenditure of six hundred dollars upon each mile of the road, a proportionate sum upon the whole number of miles; by the ninth the corporation was liable to be indicted and fined the same as towns for defective highways, with a proviso that if the turnpike road ran over any part of the road then used the company should neither collect toll for that part nor be liable to repair it; the tenth provided that an account of the ex- penditures and profits should be laid before the Superior Court at the end of twenty years, under penalty of forfeiture of charter, that if the net profits for the twenty years should exceed twelve per cent. per annum the court might reduce the tolls so that it should not exceed that rate, and if the profit was less than six per cent. the judges might raise the toll so that the rate should not be less than six nor more than twelve per cent. ; the eleventh provides
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that the charter should be void unless the road should be completed in ten years, with the proviso that the State, after the expiration of forty years, might convert the same into a public highway by repaying what had been expended by the company, with interest at the rate of twelve per cent. per annum thereon, after deducting the amount of the toll actually received.
Some of the provisions of this Act and that of the fourth are in marked con- trast. The preamble to this Act and the petition for the fourth should be read together; they were both the work of comprehensive minds having the same objects in view.
The preamble is as follows : -
" Whereas a petition has been presented to the General Court, setting forth that the communication between the sea coast and the interior parts of the State might be made much more easy, convenient, and less expensive, by a direct road from Concord to Piscataqua bridge than it now is, between the country and any commercial seaport ; that the expensiveness of an undertak- ing of this kind, however useful to the community, would burthen the towns through which it may pass so heavily as to render it difficult to effect so im- portant a purpose, otherwise than by an incorporated company, who might ·De indemnified by a toll for the sums that should be expended by them : there- tore it was prayed by the petitioners that they and their associates might be incorporated into a body corporate for the aforesaid purpose, under such limi- tations, and with such tolls as might be thought fit, which prayer being rea- sonable, etc."
At the meeting of the legislature in June, 1797, John God- dard had three votes for speaker ; Woodbury Langdon, seven ; Russell Freeman, forty-one; and William Plumer, seventy- three ; and William Plumer, who for six years had held aloof from the legislature, practising his profession, was thus wel- comed back to public life. He was at that time a Federalist.1
2 Edward St. Loe Livermore, at the head of the Rockingham county bar, having accepted a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, Portsmouth offered a fair field to a rising young lawyer, Jeremiah Mason, to enter. It was relatively a place of more importance than now. Its chief sources of prosperity were shipbuilding, for which it had peculiar facilities in its noble harbor, and in its proximity to extensive forests, and the carry- ing trade,-for both of which it was mainly indebted to the wars of the French Revolution, which were desolating Europe. It had many prosperous and enterprising merchants, and an active, thrifty, and energetic population. Its ships were known in every
1 William Plumer, Jr.
Jeremiah Masen's Life.
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· clime, and the commerce which enriched it gave an improved tone to the manners and social habits of its inhabitants.1 Many men of good judgment entertained the belief that the future progress and prosperity of Portsmouth were more assured than those of Boston.
Portsmouth was also at that time a place of more than com- mon social attractions. Even before the Revolution, in days of wigs, cocked hats, and flowered waistcoats, it was the residence of many cultivated families and the seat of a generous hospitality, and at the close of the last century its old character remained, indeed made more marked by the wealth which commerce had poured into its lap. The Marquis of Chastellux, who was there in 1782, speaks of seeing handsome women elegantly dressed, of dinners and suppers, and of fine houses richly furnished. There must have been an easy, agreeable, and somewhat refined society. Travelling was slow, difficult, and expensive. For society, the inhabitants were mainly dependent upon them- selves ; the ties of social life were closely drawn. Men were not
so busy and time was not so precious as now. Books, news- papers, and magazines were rare; men and women read less, but talked more, and wrote longer and more elaborate letters, than now. 'Cheap postage has spoiled letter writing.' Much time was spent in social visits ; tea parties and supper parties were common. The gentlemen had their clubs and exclusive social gatherings, sometimes too convivial in their character; and " occasionally a youth of promise fell a victim to the temptations of a mistaken hospitality." Gaming was more common among respectable people than now.1
2 There are different divisions of Methodists, but those most common in this section of the country, and the largest body of them, are called Episcopal Methodists. The denomination originated in England in 1739, mainly under the labors of Rev. John Wesley.
The first Methodist Society in this country was organized in New York city in 1766. It was composed of immigrants from Ireland, who had been won to the faith by the preaching of Mr. ' Jeremiah Mason's Life. 2 Joseph Fullonton.
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Wesley. The first Methodist preacher in that city was Philip Embury. New England was visited by several preachers, among them being Rev. Jason Lee, a pioneer often on the frontiers, travelling on horseback, and addressing, with great earnestness, zeal, and fervor, multitudes that came to hear him. He was in Boston, where he preached once under the great elm on the Common.
No sooner had a foothold been gained in Massachusetts than New Hampshire was considered a field to be cultivated. In 1794 the New England Conference appointed John Hill to labor in this State. What came of this is not known, as there is no record of his work. Possibly he did not come into the State. Yet, through the efforts of some one, a society was soon after formed in Chesterfield, which in 1797 had ninety-two mem- bers, and that year Smith Weeks was appointed to that place. The church there still exists, and is probably the oldest in the State. Two years later Elijah Batchelder was appointed there.
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