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 4
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J. H. Bufford's Lith. Boston.
Lemuel P. Cooper.
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1777 marched to the war from this town, he commanded a company composed mainly of men of gigantic stature, and many of them of herculian strength. Without tents, and destitute of baggage-wagons, they carried their arms, equip- ments and provisions across the Green Mountains on their backs. When the militia was re-organized at the close of the war, he was appointed Colonel of the 15th Regiment. In 1786 he was appointed one of the " Conservators of the Peace" to quell the insurrectionary spirit which had sur- rounded our Legislature with an armed mob, and threatened the State with anarchy and ruin. In 1814, a year memora- ble for the success of the American arms in the second war for independence, he was gathered to the tomb "like a shock of corn fully ripe."
Catherine Forbush early became the wife of Moses Whip- ple, and shared with him all the toils and privations of the early settlement. The next summer after their arrival, she called all the children to her house and established a school, which she continued for a long time without money and without price, and laid the foundation on which the old schoolmasters, Stephen Powers, Martin Griswold, and Elea- zer Jackson built; and on which others of a later day have reared a superstructure so eminent for usefulness. The mother of fourteen children, she died in 1829.
THE PRESIDENT. You will now listen to a farmer, and a descendant of the honest Coopers-the Hon. LEMUEL P. COOPER, of Croydon, in whom it is to be presumed all the virtues of his ancestors " still live."
Mr Cooper said :
Ladies and Gentlemen :
I am unexpectedly called upon to speak a word for the
..
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" Cooper Family," and also a word for the farmers of Croydon. As regards the race whose name I bear, a very few words will suffice. Since their first landing in this country to the present time, I think their record stands second to none for honesty and integrity of purpose. Esteem- ing others more highly than themselves they have never been aspiring. Being religiously inclined, they have ever labored to sustain the institutions of the gospel, and to promote the well-being of the community in which they have resided. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, and perhaps still further back, were deacons in the Congregational Church, and so far as I have been able to learn, they have all been men of good reputation and ornaments to their professions. My father, grandfather and uncles were among the early emigrants to this town, and shared largely in the hardships and perils of the early settlement. They are all gathered to their fathers. It is a pleasing reflection that they were numbered with that noble band, who, periling their lives, marched shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy during the Revolutionary struggle. Few can review their family records with less fear of shame or more just pride and satisfaction than the Coopers. They have all acted well their parts in life. Thus much for the Coopers.
You will now indulge me in a word in relation to the farmers. I believe if there is any man since King David after God's own heart, it is the honest, steady, persevering farmer. For fifty years in succession I have been laboring on a farm, and gaining my bread by the sweat of my brow. I know something of its operations, but nothing of its hard- ships when compared with the pioneers of the town. I am filled with astonishment when I reflect upon the vast amount
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of labor performed by our fathers during the first half cent- ury. Their farms were covered with a heavy growth of trees ; the soil was hard and forbidding; their implements were few and rudely made; and their resources small, save their own strong and persevering wills and their resolute and contented wives. During that time, houses were erected; the trees disappear; the stones are rolled up into fences; roads are made; bridges are thrown across the streams; school-houses are built; churches are erected; a minister is settled-and what is more, is paid; and large families are raised and edu- cated. In short the "wilderness is made to bud and blossom like the rose." And while the father and older sons were doing this, the mother and daughters were in-doors manu- facturing with their own hands the fabrics wherewith to clothe the household. There was then no Lowell or Man- chester with their mammoth factories throwing off their thousands of yards a day. I remember the process-the carding, the spinning, the twisting, the reeling, the sizing, the bucking, the spooling, the sleiding, the drawing in, and the quilling. Then the mother takes the loom-seat, and throwing the shuttle alternately with one hand and catching it with the other, swinging the lathe with the liberated hand, and springing the treadles with her feet, and thus she rolled up from five to twenty yards a day; and thus was wool and flax and tow converted into cloth for our fathers. It was a labor honorable to our sainted mothers. Poorly can the young of our day appreciate their labors and sacrifices, and how much our fathers and mothers have done to promote their comfort and happiness. Honorable mention might be made of many prominent and enterprising farmers that have passed away since my recollection. The Whipples,
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the Wheelers, the Stows, the Jacobses, the Putnams, the Ryders, the Powerses, the Bartons, the Humphreys, and others equally worthy.
One or two instances will serve to give us an insight into the actual life of the first settlers.
I see before me the descendants of a couple that early commenced life here. They had but just purchased them a farm and cleared up a small portion of land, when by acci- dent the husband was disabled. He lingered a helpless man for three years, and then died. And now what shall the wife with a sick husband, five small children, an unsubdued farm, and no apparent means of subsistence do ? What but call upon public charity or her friends for help ? She did no such thing. While the larger children took care of the smaller ones she plied herself to her loom with an assiduity which enabled her not only to furnish medicine and advice to her husband, but to feed, clothe and educate her children. Those boys grew to manhood, and were among our most worthy and skillful farmers. That farm remained in their hands for more than sixty years. And the name of the heroine, " grandmarm" Sanger, deserves to be cherished among the dearest household words.
Mrs. Fisher, another of the early matrons of the town, while her husband-who was necessarily much away labor- ing to procure the means of subsistence-was gone, would tie one child in the chair, while with her infant on the one arm, and her milk-pail on the other, she would wend her way through the woods to her cow,-a mile off in the nearest grass plot,-milk it, and recrossing Sugar River (then a bold and rapid stream) on a log, hasten back to her child.
One more, Peter Powers, not yet twenty-one years of age,
-
J. H. Buffard's Lith. Boston.
Moses Sternfihnen
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purchased his time, and was married to Lois Cooper, a lady still younger than himself. An axe, a spinning-wheel and a loom constituted their capital stock. At the end of twenty- five years they had cleared up three hundred acres of land, and covered it with luxuriant grass, waving grain, and bleat- ing herds. They had erected three houses, two mills, a number of barns and other buildings,-and what is more, had reared and most thoroughly educated a family of six children.
But I must not dwell longer upon these reminiscences of the past. As I close, let us all remember how truly and wisely it has been said, " He that maketh two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, is a benefactor of his race."
THE PRESIDENT. We have been listening to the sons of Croydon. I propose that we now listen to one of the sons- in-law. I perceive we have among us an honored guest who was so unfortunate as not to be born in town, but who, nev- ertheless, has made the best amends he could by taking a wife who was. You will listen to the Hon. MOSES HUMPHREY, Ex-Mayor of Concord.
Mr. Humphrey said :
Mr. President, and Citizens of Croydon :
It is with pleasure that I meet with you on this occasion. This anniversary does not come often, and hence, when it does occur, it is all the more pleasant for us to meet together and recall past scenes and renew old acquaintances. In re- sponse to the sentiment with which your President saw fit to introduce me, I would say, I am happy to acknowledge myself largely indebted to the influence and advice of one
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of your girls, who has shared with me the joys and trials of life for thirty-four years. Let me say to you, sir, that my success in life is in a great measure due to the good practical common sense and right influence which has come to me through my wife, who is a native of this good old town of Croydon. In 1843 I became a citizen of this place, and remained with you nine years. Coming from the old Plym- outh Colony, down on the seaboard, I found your ways and habits widely different from those to which I had been ac- customed. I found here a farming community. The one which I left had but little of agriculture-there the people were mainly engaged in commercial and mechanical pur- suits. I am greatly indebted to you for many valuable hints which I received while here and which have been of great advantage to me in the various positions of trust and honor to which I have been called since I left you. Another thing which perhaps served still more strongly to attach me to this place, was the fact that then, as now and all along, our political views have been in perfect harmony. In conclusion, let me thank you for the opportunity of being with you on this pleasant occasion. The remembrance of this day I shall carry with me to my grave.
THE PRESIDENT .- I think that we ought not to proceed further this afternoon without the " benefit of clergy." I now call upon one to whose voice we all listen with pleasure, a native of this town, and whose presence we are glad to welcome here-Rev. LUTHER J. FLETCHER, of Maine.
Mr. Fletcher said :
Our brothers and sisters, who have remained upon the soil where we all sported in childhood, but from which many
JH. Bufford's Lith
Truly yours & Fletcher.
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of us have been induced to wander, have invited us all home again, that we may join them in congratulations to the dear old Mother, who observes to-day her diamond wedding. Their invitations we heard from afar ; and with long-cher- ished fondness for the place which gave us birth, with broth- erly and sisterly affection for those who sent us such friendly greetings, we gather here from the North and the South, the East and the West, on the spot where the first settlers wedded the bride of their choice, to deposit our gifts and speak our rejoicings.
I am sorry that Croydon receives us to-day with tears in her eyes ;" but aged mothers do this, sometimes, when as their sons and daughters come home after a long absence, their hearts overflow with gladness, and they weep for joy. There is something of sadness in such a welcome, yet none the less of love. Let us therefore accept these tears as the best welcome which, under the circumstances, we could ex- pect, and only hope that when, a hundred years from this, we come to her second Centennial, the good mother will give us nothing but smiles.
I repeat that we have come to exchange the expressions of an exalted friendship. That is most exalted which is most pure, and the friendships formed in youth are the purest and most lasting of any we enjoy or exercise, in this life. That they are lasting, we have, to-day, many demonstrations. Such friendships have lived, while we have been unconscious of their presence in the heart, and though thrust aside for a time, into some obscure corner, and almost forgotten, they have been awakened by the power of association and made to act with such force as to sway all
*When the speech was made, the sky was overcast, and it began to rain.
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the purposes of the soul. We have met with those, this morning, very dear to us in childhood or youth, but who, be- cause of long absence, had not been present to our thoughts for many years ; yet our love for them had not expired, but only waited to be called into action, when we found it as fresh, warm and gushing as in auld Lang Syne.
This is a day of unusual re-awakenings, and as the past gives back to us its treasures of long forgotten scenes, we are rejuvenated and live once more in the long ago. O, how the sight of a familiar face,-changed, indeed, by twenty or thirty years, yet still familiar,-or the sound of a voice unlike any other we have heard for a quarter of a century, has this day taken us back to the scenes of our childhood, and flood- ed the soul with sweet remembrances ! There is one who was our schoolmate ! How many times have we striven to- gether for the head of the class ! How many days, sitting side by side in the old red school-house, have we conspired to elude the vigilance of the teacher, and cheat him of a part of the study he had required of us, little thinking that we were only cheating ourselves ! How we coasted, skated, fished and swam together, from year to year ! He is not the boy he then was. A young man at his side calls him father. Can it be possible ? And have we changed, in his sight, as he in ours ?
Ah! there is one, who was a young man when I was a boy. Many a time I listened to his voice as he sang with my father,-now a member of the choir above,-and though he has exchanged the red roses of blooming cheeks for the white lilies of age, his countenance bears its familiar ex- pression, and his smile is the same as it was full thirty years ago ! How many scenes are revived by that smile ! How
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many faces appear in the halls of memory, summoned from the obscurity in which they have long been hanging, by the presence of that well-remembered face! Welcome, wel- come, old friends !
Shadowy as are many of your forms and faces, unsubstan- tial as is the vision in which ye seem to rise before me, I bid you all welcome to this grand festival-this renewal of old friendships-this first Centennial of our native town !
And may we not believe that those whom memory does not recall-those who lived here before the days of our earli- est years, the first settlers in this beautiful valley-are with us here to-day, though we see them not, smiling upon the achievements of a century, more fully apparent to them than to us, and happy in the thought, that like Old Mortality, we, their descendants, are relettering their tombstones, and helping by these ceremonies to give their name and fame to another hundred years ? If it be so, then happy are those who, standing in the presence of assembled generations, can feel that by noble efforts and virtuous lives, they command the benedictions of their honored sires.
But Croydon is, to-day, impartial in her favors to those who call her mother. Her invitation went forth to all her children, and those who came home at her call are cordially welcome. She does not ask if all are equally worthy. She does not admit us to seats of exaltation determined by the measure of our intellect, or by our past good deeds. She does not inquire if we be orthodox or heterodox, rich or poor, democrats or republicans. It is enough, if at our birth we were sealed as her children. Some may have been indolent, some unfortunate, some prodigals ; but the dear old mother welcomes all to-day as her sons and daughters, and the tears
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she may have shed for our past misdeeds are all forgotten in the joy that we have kept her in fond remembrance, and at her call have all come home again.
Oh, happy, suggestive thought ! We have all been wan- derers from the home of youthful purity-from a higher and diviner Parent than is the mother of whom I have been speaking; and when the cycle of His century shall be com- plete, and the jubilee of redemption shall come, will not his impartial grace extend invitations to all his children, and as the prodigals obey the summons and hasten home, will He not bid them welcome, and in the joy of their return, remember their misdeeds no more forever ?
For such a consummation let us both hope and pray ; and in joyous anticipation of a universal re-union, cherish the memory of all our loved ones in the earth, that the joy of our meeting in the spirit-land shall be enhanced by our enlarged and ever-growing affection for each other in the present life.
As I have looked on the assemblage of the sons and daughters of Croydon, and have felt the power of an unseen influence attaching me to this place of my birth, as to no other spot on earth, the question has more than once arisen in my mind touching the cause of the sweet attraction, and just now the satisfactory answer comes to me. It is not that Croydon is a town remarkable for its beautiful scenery, classic grounds or famous institutions,-not that her fields are richer, or her children nobler than those of other towns in the dear old Granite State, but chiefly, as it seems to me, because this was our cradle-the place in which we first knew the blessing of parental love-in which, beneath the fond nursings and unremitted watchfulness of father and
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mother, we made our first essays in observation, opened our eyes to behold the light of surrounding objects, and com- menced the development of our infant powers-the place where our feeble thoughts were first turned towards God, and in which with little hands clasped and eyes uplifted, we were taught to say our infant prayers.
There are no thoughts of a whole life so sacred as those which go back to such beginnings, and they hallow every thing associated with them. In our manhood and woman- hood we sometimes overhaul the rubbish of our father's back-chamber or the attic, until we come upon the cradle in which we were rocked. It may be old-fashioned and out of repair ; it may be covered with dust and cobwebs ; the smoke of the old kitchen may be seen upon its paint ; and its rockers, by much use, be worn almost flat ; but the sight of it awakens fond and sacred recollections, and as we bring it out into the light and sit down to gaze upon it, sweet words and loved faces are given us from the past, the song of the mother's hushaby is in our ears again, and that old cradle, not for what it is, but for what it has been to us, is the dearest thing on earth. So, in a certain sense, is this old town to those who were born here. It is not in any sense a splendid place. It has not been extensively mod- ernized. The dust of old usages clings to it, and some who are being cradled here may think that it rocks hard ; yet the sight of it brings back the days of our earliest recollections, and we love it because it is our cradle.
Imagination may have an undue influence in the processes of my mind at the present time, but it seems to me that all around us, floating on the breath of this June morning, and echoing on these hills, are the words of her, now singing
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with the angels,-words which we have sung to our own children, or taught them as their evening prayer- .
" Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber, .
Holy angels guard thy bed,"
or :
" Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep."
I believe there is a saving power in the associations which flood the soul with such memories,-and let me say, in con- clusion, that those of us who carry the most of the spirit of this hour into the days and years of our future lives in the earth, will best do justice to the past, and honor our native town in years to come.
God bless the dear old cradle of our infancy ! May holy angels watch its future destiny from the summits of the sur- rounding mountain towers, that it may be beautiful, honor- able, prosperous, when, in spirit if not in flesh, we assemble here again at the end of another hundred years !
THE PRESIDENT .- We have present a guest from the queen city of New England, and a son of Benjamin Barton, junior, who I trust will give us some account of the Barton family and their early adventures. You will hear ALEXAN- DER BARTON, EsQ., of Boston.
Mr. Barton said :
Mr. President, Gentlemen and Ladies :
Under other circumstances I should ask to be excused, but as you ask me to respond in behalf of the descendants of Benjamin Barton, I will do so as briefly as I may. My grandfather Benjamin Barton, senior, lived at Sutton, Mass., entered the army of the Revolution, and died at Bunker Hill.
Alexa Barton
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My father Benjamin Barton, Jr., was born at Sutton, Mass., in 1755. He had few early advantages, no opportunity for schooling ; learned to write and cipher on birch bark. At the age of eighteen he entered the Revolutionary army and was at Bunker Hill, Bennington, West Point and New York city. In 1779 he returned to Royalston, Mass., and married Mehitable Fry. The next year he went to New- bury, Vt., to look for a new home. After a vain search of three weeks, traveling by the aid of marked trees, he return- ed as far as Croydon, and here purchased him a farm. In 1783, he spent six weeks clearing up the land and making preparations for a settlement, with a hollow log only for a shelter, and bears and wolves for his nearest and most numerous, if not most intimate neighbors. In March, 1784, they started for their wilderness-home. Behold the picture ! A young wife, who had been as tenderly reared as any of her day, seated on an ox sled, her three children with her,-on the one side, a daughter of four years, on the other, a lad of two, and in her arms an infant son ; on that sled were all their household effects, and behind was tied the cow. After surmounting many difficulties they arrived at Unity. Here the roads were so drifted that they were obliged to make a change and harness their oxen tandem. They arrived at Croydon on the ninth day, accomplishing a journey of sixty- five miles.
They had occupied their log cabin but a short time, when a rude storm scattered the bark, of which the roof was com- posed, to the four winds and obliged them, through snow waist deep, with their children in their arms, to seek shelter in a neighboring cabin three-fourths of a mile away.
My father commenced public life in 1786, two years after
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his arrival. He was elected Representative a number of years, was Selectman some twenty, Moderator and Town Clerk a great number, and was Justice of the Peace from 1798 to the period of his death which occurred July 9, 1834.
CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN BARTON .- Phebe born Apr. 21, 1780. Benj. born Feb. 22, 1782. John born Feb. 17, 1784. Peter born May 17, 1785. Ruth born Aug. 6, 1788. Fry born Oct. 30, 1790. Susan born Sept. 16, 1792. Phila born Aug. 17, 1794. Cyrus born Dec. 25. 1795. David born March 23, 1800. Reuben born June 5, 1802. Alexander born June 14, 1804.
THE PRESIDENT .- The name of Rev. Jacob Haven will be known and reverenced while these hills and valleys are inhabited. For half a century he did not fail to speak the words of truth and soberness to this people. His voice is now silent, but you will be glad to listen to his son, Capt. MOSES HAVEN, of Plainfield.
Mr. Haven responded :
Mr. President :
No spot on earth is so dear to man as the place where he was born and where were spent the hours of his infancy and childhood. In common with you all, ladies and gentlemen, I partake most fully of this sentiment to-day. Here were spent the hours of my boyhood. These hills witnessed my childish sports and pleasures. These fields and meadows and ponds and mountains, seem almost my brothers.
It was here that, at the age of sixteen, I entered the militia and was shortly after elected sergeant, and by regular gradations rose to be Captain, and thought I had achieved wonders. When I was chosen chorister, a position which I held for a long time, I felt greatly honored; and when by the partiality of my fellow-townsmen I was elected one of the selectmen of the town, I felt I had reached almost the last round in the ladder of my ambition.
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These achievements in the eyes of the world may not seem much, but to my young fancy it was far otherwise. Since then I have been out into the world doing battle with the stern duties of maturer life, until the weight of years now presses heavily upon me ; and yet, I must say, no after achievements have afforded me a pleasure like these. I have mingled in no other scenes so sweet, have found no other spot so dear.
Around yonder hill, in the grave-yard, rests my reverend and venerated father, that sainted mother who dandled me in my infancy, two loved companions and many other cher- ished friends. It is a dear spot to me. And there, beside them, I have directed shall be my last earthly resting place.
I now close by thanking God that I have been permitted to live until this day, so that I may meet so many of my old companions, and mingle in these joyous scenes.
KEENE, Aug. 24th, 1866.
DEAR BROTHER :- If, as you suggest, the Committee of Arrangements, who carried through the Croydon Centennial Celebration so successfully, desire to have the fragments of our Feast gathered up for preservation, I can see no objec- tion to it. And I will furnish a sketch of what was said by me in the opening. But the whole loaves should be saved, as well as what remains of those distributed. And the speeches prepared by Dr. Whipple and yourself, and per- haps others,-but not delivered on account of the inclemency of the day,-should be included, as well as the portions omit- ted by other speakers for the same reason. I shall set the example by sending what was said and what was omitted, at the outset.
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