USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Peterborough > Historical sketches of Peterborough, New Hampshire : portraying events and data contributing to the history of the town > Part 30
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More distinctly than all clse I recall the appearance in March of that year of Ench's comet, the brightest I ever saw. The nucleus was visible by daylight, distinctly, in the southwest,
behind the sun. The tail. extended towards northeast nearly to the zenith. Of course, it tended to in- crease the feeling that possibly Mr. Miller might be right. In 1910, it became my duty to observe the next following appearance of the same comet, and to report it to Mr. Moorc, the head of the U. S. wcather bureau at Washington. I was American Consul, and my vice consul and I sat up two nights, taking turns at watch- ing, all night, for any peculiar fcaturcs. We had the best possible opportunity. It was at the observatory of the U. S. weather bureau office in Curacao. It was awe-inspiring. There, in latitude 12, it rose nearly due east, a little north, tail foremost. When the nucleus was on the horizon the tail extended fully and clearly to the zenith, there losing itself in the there splendid milky way, forming a mag- nificent celestial letter Y. I reportcd it to Washington.
UNITARIAN CHURCH.
The Unitarian church in Peter- borough has ever been my ideal of a house of worship. It was the wonder of my boyhood days. Many tender associations are connected with it, and with old friends who used to worship there while I found that which fed my soul across the street. I used to go over there once in a while. Usually I heard nothing that might not have been uttercd in any Christian pulpit. To a boy of my early instincts there is something that compels true worship in the house itself in which one worships. The very sight of a symmetrical church spire, and the every peal of a musical church bell, often make more impression on a human soul than the average sermon. My father was liberal; hc forced no belicf of his on son or daughter; left · us free. Roger Williams' soul liberty
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was more his reason for being a Bap- tist than the mode of baptism. For himself, he simply wanted "to bc baptised just as Jesus was." That was all. He was a Free Willer, most of all. The denomination to which he belonged is fast merging with the larger Baptist body today. It is because not that body alone, but all the evangelical churches are getting over essentially to Frce Will beliefs and methods. For instance: Wherc is the Congregational church today in which a woman who has anything to say is afraid to say it?
I early saw that the attitude of the ministers of the other three churches towards the one who, in the sym- metrical brick church with the ideal steeple, and the bell that called us all to worship, said things I liked to hear, was different from their attitude towards each other. I was more in sympathy with the way in which, for instance, Deacon Nathaniel H. Moore would state his convictions than with that in which Deacon Samuel Miller would state his. But I saw that both lives were just as sweet as they could be. I saw little difference in the lives of the membership, on the average. It happened once, in the late fiftics, that the Unitarians were without a minister for several Sabbaths. None of their faith was handy. My brother- in-law, Rev. Stephen G. Abbott, a Baptist minister, was at liberty and at Antrim; his wife sick there. The Unitarian church committee, to fill a gap, hircd him. It hurt neither party. He was broader minded ever after.
I became intensely interested in the bell; went over often to see it rung, especially in the days of kind-hearted scxton Cram, who was kind to us boys. I rigged up a bell of my own, with a string to it, in the old Cheney & Morrison paper mill. I remember
when the old bell cracked; how ugly it sounded; how glad we were when the larger and sweeter new one began to call Unitarians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Free Will Bap- tists and Mormons to worship. When not long after the new Presbyterian bell doubled and varied the bell music, I found a new delight. From those bells I drew the inspiration which lcd me to donate a bell to my own church four years ago.
Rev. Elijah Dunbar and Rev. Abial Abbott, D. D., were still factors in Peterborough life in my early boy- hood. Rev. Curtis Cutler was pastor. I saw little of Mr. Dunbar. He ap- peared in public on a few occasions; but his day was passed. I learned to reverc and love Abial Abbott. No- body could help loving such a man. He, as well as Mr. Cutler, was taking an interest in all that promised good to Peterborough schools, library, and every moral advancement. I used to watch him come across the bridge Sunday mornings, till he entered the church. He seemed a saint to me. With him was often Samuel Abbott Smith, his nephew, a young man of whom my brother Person, afterwards governor, used to say he could not sin. It really seemed it. He became a very much loved clergyman, whom God called early homc as if too good for this world. Yes. All thesc churches were in all those old days training boys and girls for useful careers, mostly lived elsewhere.
There was a flourishing Sunday school in this church at my earliest recollection. I remember that Albert Smith, M. D., the town historian, had much to do with and was a popular teacher in it. I recall onc or two Independence days when the Sunday schools paradcd separately for the picnic. Wc met in the Unitarian church, and my impression is that that
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school was the largest, as it was likely to be.
The Unitarian church is dear to me again because there I saw Revolu- tionary soldiers participating in 4th of July celebrations; John Scott, John Todd, David Smiley, and others.
It is dear to me again for the courses of lectures, by the best platform speakers in the country, that used to be given therein.
It is dear for the concerts which used to be given there at the close of singing schools. These churches did not neglect musical culture. They co-operated in it.
THE FREE WILL BAPTIST MOVEMENT
During that great revival year 1842, Elder David Harriman, a Free Will Baptist, a grand man and a good preacher, came here and held a series of revival meetings, in the houses of my father, John Dickinson, Joseph Ames, Frederick Livingston, and a few Sundays in the little old Town Hall. Possibly he preached at some of the revival meetings of other churches. Peterborough was pros- perous, likely to be more so; there were quite a number with Baptist sentiments who did not relish the then existing practice of the regular Baptists as to the Lord's Supper. It was thought possibly there was room for a Free Will Baptist church. These organized into what was to be a church, as such heard the experiences of converts, and approved baptism. Fifteen or more were baptised. The first baptismal scene was late in January or early in February, 1843, in the Contoocook river, very near the house of John Dickinson, where candidates were prepared. It was a bitter cold day. A large congregation stood round on the ice and on the bank. There were seven candidates, of whom Frederick Livingston was first, Joseph Ames and wife next, and I think Jonathan Bononnan and wife
next, then Julia Buss, a sister of N. B. Buss, myself last. It was strenuous baptism, but we thought nothing of it in those days, when everybody slept in freezing rooms, and bathed in ice water, as I certainly did. There was no baptistry, the King's business we thought urgent; we could not and did not wait. Seven or eight others were baptised by Elder Harriman later that winter; Mrs. Frederick Livings- ton, Mr. and Mrs. Alvah Ames, Granville French, son of Whitcomb French, John Parker, an overseer in the Phoenix factory, Moses Cheney Jr., Eleanor Fairbanks, Eliza Law- rence. I think there were two or three others, but cannot recall who. Subsequent baptisms were in the "Little Jordan," in the Phoenix yard, where the Baptists usually administered the ordinance. As I remember it, 27 were enrolled for the proposed new church. They were as earnest and sincere a band of believers as Peterborough ever saw. I alone remain. When the time came to organize, counsel was taken of church- es and pastors near by. The con- clusion was that the prospects of the town did not warrant the formation of another church. The baptised believers were left to choose their church relationship. Joseph Ames, a very lovable man, and wife went back to the Unitarians, and became a most worthy and exemplary deacon of that church. I know of none more esteemed for his works' sake.
He often attended and took part in the social meetings of other church- es. Thirty years later, he came to Lebanon as a delegate to a council to recognize a Unitarian church. He visited me; asked me if I ever was sorry. I said, "No"; and he said, "Neither was I." Others affiliated with other churches in or out of town. I, after seven years, united in 1850 with the Baptists. And now the
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dénomination in which I was brought up and that in which I found my home are coming together. At Franklin, a self-supporting church of each has just abandoned its organization, and united in a new and larger "Union Baptist Church," every member of both going into it.
"From whence doth this union arise?"-as both often used to sing. It illustrates the spirit of the times. All of us are getting nearer to the Master, and so to each other. The law of gravitation is not stronger or surer in the physical than in the spiritual world.
THE MORMONS
It remains to speak of the Mormon propaganda, which convulsed the town and won to its belief at least 150 adherents, probably more. Nearly all were excellent citizens. That was before Joseph Smith had his revela- tion sanctifying polygamy. Mormon services really differed little from a Methodist or Free Will Baptist serv- ice. I often attended. For the most part, it was a plain evangelical ser- mon. The sect took the scripture a little more literally, and practiced feet washing. Their hymns were fervid, much like modern gospel hymns. I recall one; could sing a verse if I had the voice in which I sang it often up to a recent period.
We'll wash and be washed, and with oil be anointed,
Withal not omitting the washing of feet,
For he who receiveth the penny ap- pointed
Must surely be clean at the harvest of wheat.
We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven,
Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb;
Let glory to Him in the highest be given,
Henceforth and forever, amen and amen."
The irreverent oft sang it in the street substituting for "Amen and amen," "Jo Smith and McGin."
Mormonism rested, as you know, on certain mysterious inscriptions found at Manchester, New York, by one Joseph Smith, a native of Sharon, Vt., about twenty miles from my home. A monument was erected to him there about a year ago. I recall a brief sensation caused by the dis- covery of some earthen tablets found buried in the sand, in the side hill at the junction of Main, Union, High and Elm streets, near the old brick school house. For a few days, it was half believed by many that the plates carried a still newer revelation. Fi- nally some one remembered how and when and for what the plates were put there; and that delusion ended. The migration of many Mormons, the relapse of many more into the world in the next following years, are known to most of you. Jesse C. Little, a prominent wide-awake mer- chant, was the most important ac- quisition, the only one whom I re- member as becoming an elder and business manager in Salt Lake City. His children, by three wives, one a Peterborough girl, are there yet, cousins to the mother of my children. Mormons preached probation after death. Elder Little used to tell his kindred they would be saved for his sake. I am not basing my hope of salvation on his assurance. On the "Solid Rock," rather.
[From page 238 to here was published in the Peterborough TRANSCRIPT, September 16. 1915.]
FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY
BY JAMES F. BRENNAN .
In the Boston Herald of the 11th inst. there appeared a letter from the artist, William Jackson Leonard of Norwell, Mass., a grand-son of the late Rev. Levi W. Leonard of Dublin, N. H., on a subject of gen- eral public interest on which I ask the favor of the publication of some suggestions. Mr. Leonard, with con- siderable severity, born I am certain of a lack of historical knowledge, rather than any desire to pervert facts, writes:
"The rotogravure section of The Sunday Herald contained a picture of a tablet in Wayland commemorating the establish- ment by that town of "the first free public library in Massa- chusetts and the second in the United States, Aug. 7, 1850." Slight investigation would have enabled its sponsors to avoid perpetuating in enduring bronze so glaring a misstatement. The first free public library in the United States, still in existence, was established in Dublin, N. H., in 1822, its centenary having been appropriately celebrated by that town last year.
A full account of the event appeared in the Boston Tran- script of Oct. 11. The second free public library in the United States was founded in Peter- borough, near Dublin, in 1833."
Margaret E. Wheeler, librarian of the Wayland (Mass.) Free Public Library, upon reading the foregoing, wrote to me: "I was quite dis- turbed when I saw that article in last week's Boston Herald, for I was sure at the American Library Association meeting in Swampscott,
Mass., it was publicly announced that the Peterborough library was the first and ours the second free public library, to be managed and supported by public tax in the United States."
I, too, commend that excellent article of Oct. 11, 1922, written by such high authority as James Ernest King (wondering indeed if Mr. Leon- ard had really read it at all). What Prof. King there writes, however, does not prove that the Wayland bronze has a "glaring misstatement": quite the contrary, and, I confidently commend this very article as an able confirmation of the now uni- versally admitted fact that Peter- borough had the first free public library, supported by public tax, among English speaking people; this is what Prof. King writes in the Boston Transcript article: "But to find through the length and breadth of these United States, the first free public library ever main- tained by taxation, one needs look no farther than Dublin's immediate neighbor, the town of Peterborough; there in 1833, unique in its time, a free public library was voted as a charge in the general tax fund."
Again, in connection with this subject, Williard P. Lewis, librarian of the University of New Hampshire, in the Boston Transcript of Oct. 25, 1922, in "The Librarian" col- umn, wrote: "The fact that Dub- lin's library as established in 1822 did not include the feature of support by taxation plainly left the way open for a very handsome rival claim on behalf of Dublin's neighbor, the town of Peterborough; there in 1833 the element of tax-support was intro-
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duced, to be maintained continuously until this time."
A library from which all can freely get books (as was the case in Dublin) Is not enough to constitute, in any correct or accepted sense, a Public Library. Peterborough, for example, had just such a library, which was incorporated by the legislature Dec. 21, 1799, and Dublin had one incor- porated in 1797, but the essential element of maintenance by public tax and control and management by vote of the town, was wholly lack- ing as was the case in Dublin in 1822 and in all the many other free libraries, wherever situated, up to the year 1833. This support and management was and is the vital distinguishing mark between the pub- lic library and all other free libraries and it was this feature that in 1833 placed the Peterborough Town Li- brary in a class by itself, disassociat- ing it in this important way from all other libraries of that time. It was not merely that it was a free library, because from time immemorial such libraries existed, in which churches, monasteries, religious and social so- cieties, corporations, voluntary asso- ciations, subscribers to funds and individuals, established free libra- ries, in the use of which all the people were permitted to freely participate.
The term "public library" is a well defined classification and it was because of the recognition of the fact that The Peterborough Town library was the pioneer of that class, as he expressed it, that Andrew Carnegie in 1902 gave to it, unconditionally, a $5,000 fund. W. F. Poole in a vol- ume on Public Libraries, published by the United States Bureau of Education (1876) page 477, states: "The term public library has come to have a restricted and technical meaning. It is established by state laws, is supported by local taxation
and voluntary gifts, is managed as a public trust, and every citizen of the city or town which maintains it has an equal share in its privileges." And in England, Edward Edwards (London 1869) on page 214 of his Memoirs of Libraries, states: "By town library I mean a library which is the property of the town itself and enjoyable by all the townspeople. Such a library must be both freely, and, of right accessible and securely permanent. It must unite direct responsibility of management with assured means of support. No such library existed in the United King- dom of England until after the pass- ing of the Libraries Act in 1850."
None of the libraries of one hun- dred years ago were public libraries in the proper and accepted sense and not until April 9, 1833, did the full fruition of the idea of a public library obtain by the establishment of the Peterborough Town Library as the pioneer and progenitor, which library has since been supported from Town appropriations and managed through officers elected by the town; a free public library patronized by all the people and supported and managed by them.
The new idea exemplified in the establishment of this library was not merely that it was a library to which the public had free access; such libra- ries indeed existed for many centuries; but the grand idea then born into existence was the direct identifica- tion of the library with the people who became at once its supporters as well as its patrons; it was indeed the first recognization anywhere, among English speaking people, of the library as an institution, like the school, worthy of maintenance by public tax, owned and managed by the people, who thereby ceased to be dependents or mendicants upon private munificence and tastes. It
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was the first step to take the library. from the less comprehensive and less staple private control and place it with the schools as a public institution upon the broad and secure plane of municipal care; it was, in short, the first free public library, as the term has since that time been universally ac- cepted and adopted in the United States and elsewhere. Thus the unquestioned honor of having the first public library among English speaking people belongs to the town of Peterborough.
United States Commissioner of Education, John Eaton, LL.D., in 1876, in Part 1, Page 447, "Public Libraries of America," wrote, "Peter- borough may rightly claim the honor of having established the first free town library in the United States." Prof. Nathaniel H. Morison, Provost of the Peabody Institute, Baltimore, stated in the Christian Register of Jan. 17, 1884: "The honor of having founded the first free public library
on this planet cannot be taken from Peterborough, the town that passed the vote April 9, 1833." See also Herbert W. Denio in Granite Monthly "Libraries Legislation of New Hamp- shire," Vol. 26, page 176; William I. Fletcher, "Public Libraries of Ameri- ca," pages 102 and 103; "Library . Movements i in New Hampshire," Louise Fitts, Granite Monthly, Vol. 15, page 349; an illustrated article by the writer, Granite Monthly, (May, 1900) Vol. 28, page 281, and the History of Peterborough, page 114; Funk and Wagnall's Standard Encyclopedia, Vol. 16, page 131, and innumerable other authorities, confirms and sub- stantiates the incontrovertible and uncontroverted historical fact that the Peterborough Public Library was the first. Thus the Wayland bronze tablet very properly leaves the first place of honor for the town of Peter- borough, which in 1833 became the pio- neer to raise money by tax and elect officers to manage its town library.
[From page 251 to here was published in the Peterborough TRANSCRIPT, July 26, 1923.]
·
LIFE IN PETERBOROUGH DURING THE CIVIL WAR
BY JONATHAN SMITH
We begin the publication in this issue of the interesting and historically valuable address of Hon. Jonathan Smith of Clinton, Mass., on the above subject delivered before the Peter- borough Historical Society at their annual meeting on the 10th inst.
Judge Smith is a native of Peter- borough and lived here during his early manhood on the old Smith Homestead, now known as “Elm Hill." On Nov. 1, 1861, at the age. of 19 years, he enlisted in Co. E, 6th N. H. Infantry, was discharged for disability Dec. 20, 1862, but again enlisted Aug. 16, 1864, in the 1st N. H. Cavalry, serving until mustered out as Sergeant July 15, 1865. He has written many valuable historical ar- ticles on Peterborough which have been published in the TRANSCRIPT and the Collections of the Historical Society.
LIFE IN PETERBOROUGH DURING THE CIVIL WAR BY JONATHAN SMITH
To the Present Generation the Civil War is ancient history, and is read and studied with as little emo- tion and interest as the story of the Revolution. And yet from the adoption of the federal constitution to the present hour it was the greatest and most tragic event that ever had or ever will occur in this country down to the hour of its national dissolution. We thought in 1917 we were living in strenuous times, and so indeed we were. We then had a population of over 100,000,000. We raised an army of 4,000,000 men, one in twenty-
five of our population. The Govern- ment for a few months limited our sup- plies of fuel and curtailed our use of certain articles of food. Several times we were called upon to lend money to the government at fair rates of interest, and our social ac- tivities were largely directed to work connected with the World War. This state of affairs lasted from April, 1917 to November, 1918, about nine- teen months, and the seat of war was 3,000 miles away, across a broad ocean. And yet, excepting the tem- porary limitation placed on fuel and a few articles of domestic supply, all these conditions existed during the war of the Rebellion in a far greater and more intense degree. That struggle was almost three times as long and was carried on within a few hundred miles of the homes you now occupy. It was not between the civilized nations of the whole world, ranged on one side or the other, but was between two parts of one nation, which altogether numbered but 31,- 000,000 people. The north, excluding Kentucky and Missouri, the popula- tions of which were about equally divided, had 19,500,000, with 4,550,- 000 men of military age; and it en- listed, organized and put into the field an army of 2,320,000 men, more than ten per cent of its entire popu- lation, and more than fifty per cent of all its men between 18 and 45 years of age. This army fought 2,261 bat- tles and skirmishes in which men were killed or wounded on either side. Its field of military operations covered a territory as large as that lying between Paris and Petrograd
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and Denmark and the Mediterranean Sea, substantially the whole of Europe, and almost as extensive as that covered by the World War it- self. The rebellion cost the North alone 359,000 lives, and when it closed "the blood of the first-born" was on the door-post of more than half the homes in the land.
The issues at stake in our Civil War were the greatest that could by any possibility be presented to a free people. They involved the very existence and life of the nation, as well as the freedom or continued slavery of 4,000,000 people. They also included the tremendous ques- tion of whether a Democracy-the government of the people and for the people-could long abide. It is certain that if a nation organized and carried on as ours was under the favorable conditions then existing here could not stand for one hundred years without disruption and failure, then democratic government could not endure anywhere nor under any circumstances. The experiment had been tried many times and had always failed. If this republic could not live for a century there was no hope for a successful democracy in the wide earth. This the people knew and fully understood, and so they fought on for four long, weary and terrible years, sacrificing their best- born to the country, and giving their services and thoughts to the struggle without stint, with a courage and fortitude that never faltered.
No war ever resulted in so complete and so sweeping a triumph for the victor. Not only was the Union saved, a most dangerous political heresy extinguished and 4,000,000 slaves set free, but the victory led directly, within a very few years, to the abolition of slavery throughout the civilized world; above all it was conclusively shown that a democratic
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