USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Croydon > Croydon, N.H., 1866. Proceedings at the centennial celebration, June 13, 1866. A brief account of the leading men of the first century Together with historical and statistical sketches of the town > Part 2
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Breck, Hall, Kempton, Whipple, Ferrin, Nelson, Partridge, Cooper, Paul, Newell, Rider, Melendy, Haven, Durkee, Humphrey, Clement, Sanger ; and of some of these names ยท several families. I remembered how common it was to reduce discriminating names to convenient, familiar mono- syllables, as Sam, Ben, Jock, Tim, Joe, Bije, Ned, Jake, Jim, Pete, Sol, Nat, Tom, Nate, Steve, Dave, Josh, Zeke, Lem, Rias, Bill, Reub, Mose, Frank ; but I did not recall one Sammie, or Bennie, or Eddie, or Willie, or Johnnie, or Charlie, or Freddie, or Joey, or Jamie, or Frankie or Georgie, or Hezzie. Among the girls, not then styled young ladies, were Patty, Judy, Tempe, Speedy, Peggy, Nabby, Lize, Sukey, Viney, Milly, Betsey, Fanny, Prudy, Roxy, Sally, Polly, Cindy, Listy, Jinny ; but not, as I recollect, one Hattie, or Susie, or Nannie, or Josie, or Bessie, or Lillie, or Addie, or Tillie, or Celestie, or Lulu, or Katie, or Minnie, or Rosie, or Libbie, or Maggie or Carrie. Couples were married by priest Haven, not as gentlemen and ladies, but as men and women. Father was not "pa" or "papa," but quite generally " dad" or "daddy." Mother was not "ma," but " mammy." Brother was not "bubby," or sister "sissy." The modern refinements in nomenclature and terms of endearment had not then reached so far as Croydon. Are they now here ? If they are, do you count them improvements ? Do they convey more heart than the old styles of familiar address ?
I remembered the June training, and the one Croydon company of militia ; and the muster days, and the thirty- first regiment, and its field officers, and its " troopers," and " Springfield grenadiers," and its regimental flag, and its sham fights, brave and bloodless. I remembered the town
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meetings, and the spelling schools, and the squirrel hunts, and the working on the highways, and the house-warmings, and the huskings and the quiltings-not all yet as I am told, quite obsolete institutions. And I remembered the one house of Christian worship, and also the one tavern and two stores, the one carding machine and here and there a smithery, the one tannery and a few grist and saw-mills. But I remembered no lawyer or sheriff-no law officers but two justices of the peace and the tything-men, the latter the special terror of Sabbath-desecrating boys. Some of you, like myself, may recollect those keen-eyed detectives, Samuel Metcalf and Sherman Cooper.
I remembered the burial place, " God's Acre,"
"Where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep ;"
imperfectly inclosed, showing little of the hand of care, overgrown with mullens and briers, and far more repulsive than attractive. There were grassy mounds and significant hollows, and an occasional headstone of blue slate, but not one of marble ; and fresh in my memory were names and quaint inscriptions, closing with the monitory couplet,
" Death is a debt to Nature due, Which I have paid, and so must you ;"
or with a fuller statement,
"As you are now, so once was I, As I am now, you soon must be ; Remember, you are born to die; Therefore, prepare to follow me."
Say not that all this was a waking dream or a reverie, for it was neither ; it was a simple look into the " picture- gallery" of the soul, and the key that unlocked the partic- ular apartment where the Croydon of my childhood was permanently portrayed, was that little flower which had
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done for me what no other of all the flora of Europe could have done. The process was rapid. I sat not long on that grassy hillock, for the sun was declining, and a cold wind was setting in from the frozen Alps, and, plucking that suggestive flower, I hastened back to my lodgings. From that hour I hoped that you would, in 1866, do what you are so effectively doing to-day, and that I might be permit- ted to join you in commemorating the worth and the deeds of our ancestors who here made the first settlement, and commenced for the town the history you are passing in review.
Be assured, Mr. President and fellow-townsmen, I speak with intense sincerity ; I count it a special privilege to be here to-day. And why should I not ? Though long absent, I return with memories fresh and vivid. I am living over the first eight years of my varied, eventful life. I have seen many parts of the world, the New and the Old ; but no spot on either continent, in city or country, is so dear to me as my native town. I stop not to analyze this feeling of preference ; probably it defies all analysis and explanation ; but I know it to be a fixed fact in my being, and only by the annihilation of that being can it be dislodged. My spirit is mellow and tender with reminiscences of the place and the people as they were when this was my home. What I have described as lying far back im my memory, is, I presume, but a representative of what is depicted with equal clearness in the memories of others. The Wheelers, the Metcalfs, the Halls, the Powers, the Whipples, the Havens, the Carrolls, the Putnams, and all the rest of you who have lived fifty years and more, have your own picture-galleries,
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open to-day and filled with images of the past. You are thinking of old homesteads, and parents, and neighbors, and the events of your early days. Some of you, natives of Croydon, are older than myself, and can remember farther back ; but none of you who have been long away, I am sure, have returned with a stronger love for our native hills, or a heart warmer with gratitude that this was our birth-place, or that here we were trained to commence life in earnest. I join you fervently in these commemorative services, and cordially lay on this altar of reunion my small contri- bution.
Of those who, one hundred years ago, commenced here a settlement, all have long since passed away. Since I left the town, nearly two generations have come and gone. Were the first two children who were born near this spot-Cath- arine Whipple and Joshua Chase-now living, they would be ninety-nine years old. Very few born in the last century are present to-day. As I visit other places where I have resided, and inquire for old acquaintances, I am directed to the cemeteries. The same would be done, more or less, in Croydon ; and yet fewer in number, in proportion to the population, have closed their mission here, for more than two-thirds of those born here have emigrated, and their graves are to be found in many States, all the way from the Penobscot to the regions beyond the Father of Waters.
I remember a few of the pioneers-more especially Moses Whipple, the veteran deacon, the man of large heart, and upright character, the genial peace-maker, respected and beloved by all ; and Ezekiel Powers, the man of large bodily proportions, whose inventive faculties and achieve-
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ments of muscular strength and sterling common sense made him the hero of many a tradition. The men of the first half century were a hardy race, enterprising, adven- turous, made robust by toil and exposure, with great powers of endurance, and renowned for uncommon triumphs over rugged obstacles. Nowhere else have I seen men of such physical frames and such executive energies as some whom I remember. With what rapt interest and admiration I listened, as a child, by the hour to stories of their hardships and exploits in land-clearing, river-bridging, road-making, house-building, sugar-manufacturing, bear-hunting, otter and beaver-trapping, snow-shoe-traveling ! How unpro- ductive was often the soil they cultivated ; how unfriendly were the late spring and early autumnal frosts ; how obstructing were the terrific snow-storms ; how short and capricious were their summers, and long and rigorous their winters ; how difficult to protect their scanty crops and live stock from the depredations of wild beasts ; how coarse and often restricted were their means of sustenance ; how stringent were their privations during the Revolutionary War ; how great their sufferings from a depreciated cur- rency, from the lack of groceries, clothing, and medical supplies ! What an unwritten history ! Traditions, once fresh and thrilling, how faded already, and soon to be wholly forgotten ! Young as I was, I listened eagerly, and my memory was charged to repletion with narratives, original and second-hand, from my paternal grandmother, from Samuel Powers, Sherman Cooper, Aaron Whipple, and, may I not add, from that venerable spinster, "aunt Lizzie Sanger." I was fond of the captivating detail of Jewish, Grecian, Roman and English history ; but nothing
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that I read struck roots so deeply in my inner being, and fixed there so permanent a lodgment, as those oral narratives heard by childhood's ear during the long winter evenings nearly sixty years ago. Often since have I coveted the descriptive powers of those strong-minded stalwart veterans, some of whom were actors in the rough scenes they graphi- cally portrayed. They had the elements of first-class orators. And among those narrated marvels were not a few of the heroic achievements of Croydon women, the great- grandmothers of many now before me ; of what they effect- ively did and bravely suffered, when their husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, were away contending for their country's independence. I remember some of those women, of uncommon brain and muscle, giantesses and the mothers of giants ; and few of the sex have I since seen who .equaled them in strength of intellect and executive accomplishment. None of them are here ; but memory holds in the " picture- gallery" their forms and features and intonations of speech.
Mr. President, by some unaccountable process, I have had the misfortune to be announced for an " oration" on this festive occasion. That is what your Committee never asked of me, and what I never promised or contemplated. I am here no more to pronounce an oration than I am to preach a sermon. I consented, as one of the speakers, to contribute something in the way of reminiscences. Twenty years ago, I was more formal in a memorial service at Newport, when there was a reunion, not of natives merely, but of past and present residents. And, nineteen years ago, at Sherburne, Mass., I addressed, in quite another style,
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the descendants of Henry Leland, some of whose posterity, at an early period, settled in Croydon. But this is neither Newport nor Sherburne ; it is MY BIRTHPLACE, the home of my progenitors, full to overflow of the tenderest associations, and the affections here burn with an intensity that forbids all intellectual elaboration.
To say much of persons might be deemed invidious ; but of a very few I may speak particularly without incurring the imputation of partiality.
Foremost among those remembered, I mention Jacob Haven, uniformly called " Priest," as were all Congrega- tional ministers in this region, while Baptist and Freewill Baptist ministers were as uniformly known by the title of " Elder." For more than half a century he was prominently identified with the history of the town. A native of Fram- ingham, Mass., he was here ordained in 1788, and here he died in 1845. He was called to the pastorate by the legal voters of the town, who determined his salary ; and, being the first minister settled, he was the recipient of the share of land reserved for that purpose by the grantor, Governor Wentworth. In 1805, he ceased to be the minister of the town, and became the pastor of such as adhered to him by similarity of religious views or affinity of personal feeling, and were willing to support him.
You who are not past forty do not remember the old meeting-house, a very plain structure, never finished, and too cold to be occupied in the winter. I recollect how the plates, beams and king-posts were exposed on the inside. The pews were square, with perpendicular partitions, and with turn-up seats which, at the close of the " long prayer,"
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were let down with a famous clatter, sometimes before the " Amen." The seats were uncushioned, the aisles were uncarpeted, and many panes in the numerous windows were broken. The pulpit, behind which was the royal window, was very elevated, and contained a square block for a rest to the shorter limb of the Priest as he stood at his work. Overhanging was a clumsy " canopy" or " sounding-board." Half way up the pulpit, at the first landing, were the " Deacon's seats," graced, as I well remember, by such worthies as Moses Whipple, Stephen Powers, and Sherman Cooper. In the front gallery was the choir of singers, un- sustained by organ or seraphine or even a "big fiddle," but conducted by Samuel Metcalf, who gave the key-note with his pitch-pipe, and then, in unison with the rest, sounded out the initial " fa-sol-la-mi-fa." In some of the old fugue tunes, O, how they raced in mazy confusion, all coming out nearly together! At one end of the house was a tower surmounted by a belfry, from which never a bell sent its peals among these hills. Around the house was a profusion of mayweed, milkweed, and huge thistles with fragrant blossoms and sharp thorns. In my earlier years, no vehicle with wheels ever visited that sanctuary. Some of the people went on foot, others on horseback. Now and then there was a side-saddle ; but the " pillion" was the more common convenience for the women. It was nothing unusual for the husband and wife to arrive on one horse, she behind bearing an infant in her arms, and he an older child upon a pillow on the pommel of the saddle. This various burden was conveniently dismounted at the " horse-block."
In that house, with the exception of the winter months, Priest Haven officiated from 1794 to 1826. He was a good
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preacher, not brilliantly rhetorical, but serious in manner, clear in statement, logical in reasoning, and forcible in appeal. A few weeks since, a gentleman from this vicinity, speaking of a lady of this town, said to me that she was " the most intelligible lady in Croydon." It was not exactly the compliment he intended ; but of Priest Haven it was true that he was both intelligible and intelligent. He made himself understood. That he was impressive, I have occasion to know, for I remember well a sermon I heard him deliver more than fifty years ago, on a communion day, from the words, " I will wash mine hands in innocency ; so will I compass thine altar, O Lord." He never had a liberal salary. When settled, the town voted him forty pounds, to be increased, in certain contingences, to sixty pounds ; "the sum to be paid in neat stock, equal to good grass-fed beef, at twenty shillings per hundred weight, or good rye at four shillings per bushel." He manifested a deep interest in the schools, and was an earnest promoter of all efforts to improve the morals of the town. He solemnized, for a long period, nearly all the marriages, and officiated at nearly all the funerals ; but he never grew rich by the compensation for such services, any more than by his scanty salary. For thirty-two years he was Town Clerk, and few municipal records will more creditably bear inspection. He died beloved and lamented.
I remember only one physician-Reuben Carroll-who practiced here forty-seven years, and had largely the confi- dence of the people. His personal appearance, and his figure on horseback, are distinct in my memory ; yes, and those large black saddle-bags, redolent of odors not all from Cashmere or Damascus. His physiognomy was peculiar,
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intensely medical, and, in my simplicity, I inferred that the configuration of his facial muscles was influenced by his smelling his own drugs. He was physician, surgeon and apothecary, with a varied but not very lucrative practice. One cold winter day, as I returned from school, I was informed that I had a little brother in the house. Though less than five years old, I loved knowledge, and earnestly inquired as to the origin of the important stranger. My grandmother, who was sometimes a little waggish, for she was a Powers, bantered me with evasive answers. Not to be foiled, I pressed my inquiry, and she then told me, " Dr. Carroll brought him." Well, that was, for the time being, satisfactory, for it was definitive, and I had at once a solution of the mystery as to the required capacity of those odorifer- ous saddle-bags. How wise was I in my reasoning that Dr. Carroll kept a supply of the little folks ready-made, and dispensed them about town, wherever wanted.
Let me mention one other individual who has a large place in my recollections-the negro, Scipio Page, always on hand at town meetings and military trainings, grand caterer for the appetites of all who would pay their coppers for fruits, cakes and pastry. He was dismally black as if right from Congo, and his name was freely used in family discipline. "Old Scip will catch you," was the climax of threats to refractory children, and planted in many a mind a prejudice against color that was all but ineradicable. Really, " Old Scip" was one of the most harmless of men, doing what many of his despisers did not-honestly earning his own bread, and minding his own business.
I remember the schools as few, and not of a very high or- der. How well do I recollect one, with short terms, summer
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and winter, and with Vashti Hagar and Ezra Gustin as teachers-the former still living, in Illinois, and, at the age of eighty-one, a correspondent whom I value for her deep piety and vigorous good sense. The prejudice here against education, more advanced than the product of common schools, was almost universal, and a desire for more was set down to the account of indolence or misdirected ambition. The boy who ventured to look towards a College, declined at once in position among his fellows.
The only public work of those days was the Croydon Turnpike, and I remember how the share-holders, many of whom worked out their subscriptions to the stock by build- ing each a section of the road, and who were promised large dividends, received their income mostly in the shape of assessments for repairs and the support of turnpike gates.
The politics of the town were then strongly Democratic, of the Jeffersonian type, and party-spirit acrimoniously divided the men, women and children. I had an aunt, living with one of the meekest of husbands in yonder house, who could talk on public affairs more intelligently and smartly than some of the men whom we now send to Washington.
As we had no mails, newspapers were brought weekly by post-riders from Concord and Walpole ; and, though few were taken, they were read with avidity, and loaned from hand to hand, and their contents were talked over at Edward Hall's and James Breck's stores, and Benjamin Barton's tavern, and sometimes at "intermissions" of Sabbath services.
The first settlers were chiefly from Worcester County, Mass., and were decidedly, stringently puritanical. Tradi-
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tion has brought down many a fact, showing how severely conscientious they were in the observance of the Sabbath, and all this while they had no church, no minister, no gath- ering place for Christian worship. But most certainly the next generation, as I knew it, was more lax in morals. Religious dissensions and political bitterness had their influ- ence in the deteriorating process ; but the copious influx and fearful consumption of New England rum did far more in the work of degeneracy. Terrible was the havoc made by that fiery agent among the bodies, minds, morals and estates of the population. Some of you remember those days of declining industry, mortgaged farms, absconding debtors, and deplorable indifference to the Sabbath and Christian proprieties. Many vices, such as horse-racing, gambling, licentiousness, were among the natural concom- itants of the radical evil. But, in the third generation, there was happily a change in the habits of the people; the temperance reform wrought beneficent transformations ; and the favorable result was seen in their persons and their manners, in their dwellings and their farms-in the general aspect of the town both physical and moral. What may now be the condition of things, I am incompetent to speak ; but I look to-day with delight upon your countenances, so different from many that I remember, inflamed, bloated, scarred with the furnace-fires of imbibed alcohol. God bless you all my relatives and friends, and mercifully pre- serve you from another such volcanic devastation !
But I must not trespass upon time that belongs to others. The representatives of many families are present, and their reminiscences must be as full and as interesting as my own. We are here after a long separation, that we may have one
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earthly reunion, and bring together the treasures of quick- ened memories ; and especially that we may garland the graves of the intrepid few who, on these hill-sides and along these water-courses, laid good foundations for the thrift of their successors. I have done what I could. You may do immensely better.
What now of the future ? Three generations have passed away. What shall be the character and achieve- ments of the next three ? Who will gather here, in 1966, and rehearse the story of two centuries ? Long ere that second centennial, we shall all have joined the congregation of the departed, and our dust will repose in stillness as now reposes the dust of our revered ancestors .. May we so live, and so fulfill the trusts of life, as that we may have a joyous reunion in the Better Land.
After the Address, and music by the Band, the procession was again formed under the direction of the Chief Marshal and escorted to the table, which had been bountifully spread by the people of the town, and was free to all. The Divine blessing was invoked by the Rev. C. M. Dinsmore, of New- port, and more than two thousand persons partook of the repast. The table, some thousand feet in length, was divided into seven sections. One section was entirely pro- vided for by the liberality of the Hon. Lemuel P. Cooper, and was most tastefully arranged and decorated by the ladies of his household. On its center was " a fatted calf," roasted whole. The town had been divided into six districts, and as each district was to furnish one section of the table, there arose, at once, a generous rivalry, as to which should surpass the other in the amount and excellence of its sup- plies and the beauty of its ornaments, and the result was
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most happy and alike honorable to the liberality and taste of the town. When all had been fed, many a basket was taken away unopened.
After dinner the procession was re-formed and marched back to the stand. The assembly was called to order and listened to music by the band.
THE PRESIDENT .- Although much has been done since we left the stand, there are things yet to be said to which you will be glad to listen. I see before me one belonging to what is supposed to be the talking fraternity, with whose voice and manly proportions I have long been familiar in the Court-Room, and who, I doubt not, can say something out of doors. We expect to hear from the Bartons and Pow- ers in combination and separately ; and first in combination, I now call for a speech from LEVI W. BARTON, Esq., of Newport.
Mr. Barton said :
MR. PRESIDENT : I could wish, Sir, that you had called upon some other son of Croydon to speak, at this time, in my stead. The entertainment from which we have just re- turned, which has so generously contributed to our physical comfort, has but poorly fitted me to take a part, however humble, in the exercises in which we are now to engage. Besides, Sir, the scene before me, the remembrance of for- mer days, and the sacred memories of the past, have so wrought upon my feelings, that my tongue falters, and my eyes are in full sympathy with the weeping clouds over us. Gladly would I sit in silence, and yield myself to the re- flections which the hour suggests. Though belonging to the " speaking fraternity," as you have announced, I confess,
J. H. Bufford's Lith. Boston
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Sir, that my best selected words are all too poor to express the deep emotion of my heart. Before me are the sons and daughters of my own native town, who scattered by the events of life have come back to visit the place of their birth and the home of their childhood. Yes, like pilgrims we have come back with our wives, children and friends, to en- joy mutual congratulations, and share with each other the sacred associations of a place made dear to us by a thousand tender recollections.
Many of us are standing upon the play-ground of our childhood. Here was the arena of athletic sports-of ex- citing games and innocent amusements. How distinct the remembrance-how fond the recollections. Around us, on all sides, are the dear old hills and valleys-fond remembran- ces of by-gone pleasures, for here we cherished many a pleasant dream of life, all unmindful of life's thorny road. Before us is the old, familiar river, along whose banks we so often roamed and in whose waters we have so often sport- ed. Yonder is the spot where stood the old village school- house, around which clusters the most interesting and abid- ing recollections. Beyond stands the same old wood, still vocal with the sweet carol of the forest bird, which so de- lighted our ear in school-boy days. How sweet in the warm summer days was the water which gushed, cool and spark- ling from yonder hill-side. How beautiful from the rocky summit above was the view below of the meandering river, the placid ponds where grew the pure, sweet-scented lily, the rich green meadows, and beyond all, my own sunny home ; where with brothers and sisters I was watched over and cared for by my then youthful but now aged mother. You will pardon me, if I say that around all these haunts
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