USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Candia > History of Candia: once known as Charmingfare; with notices of some of the early families > Part 7
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One wonder-loving negro, who sometimes was hired by various farmers in the neighborhood, as a day la- borer, is said, on his own authority, to have seen no less a personage than the Evil One himself. Be this as it may, the spirits that our colored friend evoked, from the vasty bottom of his quart measure, inclined him, at particular times, to narrate the event with great minuteness and apparent belief.
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In another part of the town, was an old gentle- 'man of rubicund visage and jovial temperament, who came in early times from some of the eastern seaport places. One evening when the clouds hung in thick masses in the sky, and a sudden gust of wind 'now and then shook his house to its foundations; " suddenly there came a tapping" at our friend's door, on going to which, he saw, standing on the step, a tall and swarthy individual. The old gentleman ob- served that his eyes were like coals of fire. Half suspecting who his visitor was, he asked him in, and with an extreme sense of propriety, invited him to drink. A mug of flip, hissing hot, slipped down his throat, as though he was used to it, and he left seem- ingly in a high state of satisfaction. There is said to have been a strong smell of brimstone about the premises for some time after. Of course the reader must judge how much of this story is true, and how much owing to the excited imagination of the worthy old gentleman, who took a drop now and then.
The enchantments of other generations are passing away, and although some very respectable and good old people do now carry witch-wood in their pockets; or avail themselves of the never failing protection of a horse shoe, yet these practices are, by no means, common. True it is, that the " mediums " and other modern notions bring to mind the diableric of old Sa- lem, when our fathers were so sorely tried ; but they
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do n't go for much except as a means of speculation in money matters.
In the olden time when all the world believed in witches, ghosts and enchanted castles, the inhabitants of frontier settlements, it seems to me, were just the people to indulge such fancies.
There were wild haunts from which the elves and fairies had never been driven. When Night threw its dark shadow over the great wood, and the wind sighed mournfully through its many branches, the most untu- tored imagination found little difficulty in peopling it with unheard of forms. Giants stalked among the grim, huge bodies of the oaks. Jack o' lanterns hurried away among the treacherous stamps, and withered old crones charged in battallions through the tops of the pines, on those never failing servitors, the broomsticks. Many a one-eyed, prowling cat has had numerous misdeeds laid at its door, and inspired more terror than would the monarch of the forest. In good faith; we have little reason to laugh at these notions of our ancestors. We have lost their fear of witches, and, it may be, their reverence for many better things.
Let us go on, and in time of year when Charming- fare looks best, when dame Nature jauntily displaying her green mantle, bedecked with the golden dandelion and the modest violet, ' tis no unpleasant place in which to walk.
The gentle slopes cosily spreading out to the morn
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ing sun, invite us to linger. We cross the fields, the meadows, the brooks and the flowing mill streams, which under an Italian sky would have been called rivers and rendered sacred by countless legends. Anon rough granite boulders and countless pieces of sparkling mica meet the eye. Here sharp and bristling little hemlocks skirt the hill sides, or sturdy beeches are putting forth their tender acid leaves, while in the distant meadows the elm waves its graceful limbs. Yonder awkward bird of the marshes, slowly working his way southward through the air, is an ill-favored specimen of the heron tribe, sometimes yclept stake-driver.
We are now approaching " Fiddlers' Green," on the eastern extremity of the town, whose dwellers are bor- der men, and whose limits have been the scene of many a hard fought battle in the mad militia days of yore, ere the glory was shorn from the brows of Mars or univer- sal sanction taken from the potent cask. It was in such a time that the keeper of a diminutive hostelrie, a man in size somewhat the smallest, was called to his door before the dawn of day one muster morn, seized by a stout trooper not unknown in Charmingfare, and carried full three miles across the saddle-bow, all thinly clad as he was, at a furious pace, and then dropped, to pick his way home, over the sharp stones, as best he might.
Peace to thy bones, Jeremy, thou whilom the butt for cruel jokes, and caterer for dry stomachs, thy cabin 16
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in the Burrough would hardly withstand a charge of horse now-a-days, as when they galloped over thy fences and incontinently demolished pig-pen and carrot bed.
The best place one can find hereabouts for sight- seeing, is Patten's hill. It costs no trouble to get to the top of it, for we are already on it. Before us lies the Green ; around among the hundred hills, that rise between us and the horizon, are nestled many towns and villages. One could stand here for hours and gaze on the inimitable display. The pretty ponds, the soli- tary winding road, and even the moss-covered stone · wall at our feet, each contributes a share of beauty to the scene.
The top of that cabin or shanty, which you can just discern, tells that soon the silence of the groves will be broken by the shrill scream of the steam horse, and that these rough hills give no check to the builders of railroads.
The Green, - does it not bring to your mind dim notions of Gretna and its renowned blacksmith, of run- away matches, of joyous country dances, and merry May-days ? Alas ! with all its beauty of appearance "neath this morning sun and clear sky, it would be hazardous to attempt to throw over it the veil of ro- mance, and so we will even leave it and walk on. We climb the wall, and the road soon brings us into the vicinity of the first settlement in town. A hundred
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years and eight have passed away sinee this old eellar was seooped out of the earth. The owner of this place; I dare say, would rather lose the coat from his back than these old foundation walls from his farm. If there was more of such reverence for the relies of olden time, Charmingfare would never need go begging for materials to fill a history - a history of common every day life, such as one sees in his neighbors, such as one wishes to know about his fathers.
We find as we go on in this vieinity that the ground is ledgy in places, and broad strips of stone peer out on the surface. We go down the hill, eross the mill- stream, and up the next height, and soon come upon a fine view of the little church and neatly painted houses of the village ; of Deerfield South Road, and its three places of worship, with the old and first built church lifting up its weather-beaten walls like an aneient cas- tle. Sometimes I have seen that old house, when some dense and heavy thunder cloud seemed to lift, with its fantastic mists, the hills behind it into very Alps for size, suddenly loom up like a thing enchanted.
Eastward the seene is bounded by the abrupt and circular eminenees, Saddleback and Tuekaway ; around whose bases are heard in quiet summer days subterra- nean thunders, not unlike those rolling sounds, which awakencd Rip Van Winkle among the crew of Hen: drick Hudson, in the heights of the Donderberg, to the great fear and perplexity of divers good people.
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lest their places become like Pompeii and Herculaneum, monuments to be unearthed in some future age. West- ward, toward the region of the grand Monadnock, whose hoary head is visible in some clear days, our vision is lost among the hills, some bearing in a few scattered fields the marks of human toil, others in the wild. ma- jesty of rock and forest.
At the next corner, we turn our backs to the setting sun. The road we are on runs through the town in a direction a little south of east. We soon turn to the left ; alternately, on the one side and the other, fields, pasture land, rocky steeps grown with shrubs and trees, meet the view.
Now we see a small, round, gravel hill ; then catch a glimpse of water and a roof or two, and a thriving and busy little village rushes out upon you. The clear stream, pouring from the mill-courses, over its pebbly bed through the rich verdure below, hurries and fidgets along with an air of great importance, while the noise of hammers, the whizzing of saws, and the hum of the grist-mill give quite a thriving appear- ance to the place. What unlucky utilitarian ever chris- tened it Slab Island, I know not ; although such a name may, perhaps, indicate the industrial pursuits of its in- habitants, a prettier one would do quite as well. A little way from this, on the left of the road as you go towards Raymond, is a small wood-crowned eminence, of no great height, but with masses of granite rising
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from its sides and near its top, like the palisades of the Hudson, or the walls of some ruined castle. A few steps beyond, on the right, is a small burial place.
Let us now "wheel to the right about," and, pass- ing again the grist-mill, walk toward the "Village." In a tangled thicket by the road side, swollen and im- portant with the spring rains, like some little man elate with the pride of station, a turbulent and roaring brook hurries along. We soon espy a sheep cote, a school house, and a post guide, each of no small im- portance in its place. Every thing here has a quiet and secluded aspect, all around are little wood or rock covered hills, with green shady dells and glens, with now and then a farm house or cottage. The scenery for a mile or two is pretty much of the same char- acter, and we soon come in sight of the village from the northeast, with an occasional glimpse of the meet- ing house cupola on the hill, about which we have made a sweep of nearly ten miles. Quite a walk for a Yankee, who never goes on foot if he can ride, but just a fair morning's excursion for an English man or wo- man, so do n't complain of being tired; at this loiter- ing rate, we shall hardly get round by night.
Ahead of us is a long low belt of swampy land, which drainage aud cultivation will some day convert into fine meadows and green fields. There the north branch of the Lamprey winds its dark and crooked folds along, covered with weeds and lilly pads. From
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the brow of this hill, we walk on into what seems like the bed of an ancient stream, whose giant banks stretch far and wide on cither hand. The road is narrow and fringed with alders, and it is but a few rods to the little bridge over the branch of the Lamprey. We keep on up to the Walnut Hill, where if it were in the Fall of the year, one might see plenty of walnuts half hidden in the splendid green foliage of the tree, which is one of the prettiest ornaments of an Ameri- can forest. The nuts, when gathered and dried, are very sweet; and are brought from the garret in the long winter evenings. Both walnuts and jokes are crack- ed by huge roaring fires, and swallowed together at the risk of choking the merry partakers.
I once remember to have heard some account of a le- gend about buried treasure concealed near this hill, but all I could learn only served to excite my curiosity. The veracious old lady who heard it related, some forty years ago, in the days when stories were stories, and great fire-places, with whole loads of wood in them, opened one's heart to the belief of any thing marvel- ous, can only tell that there was money found, and strange men concerned in the business. This much is sure, that some men by digging about that hill and its vicinity, have found money, and do continue to find it unto this day.
Look down here through the trees into the valley of the Lamprey branch. This is as nice a summer
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retreat as one would wish. It is said that long time ago, the valiant artillery company, which had a gun and gun-house near the meeting-house, with " 17th Reg. N. H. Militia," inscribed on a semicircular board over the door, once marched up the hill, very much as the king of France marched up another hill. Before marching down again, however, the worthy captain, full of courage, charged the brass four pounder with a wood- en plug, and began a bombardment of the parade ground they had left. Fortunately nobody's brains were knoeked out by the hair-brained experiment, and the block was never heard from again.
Yonder is the school house, where many a rising genius has made his or her debût at teaching. Who knows but you, now mayhap surrounded by children of your own, with a grey hair now and then starting out among its darker fellows on your head, who knows, I say, but you once " kept school" on Walnut Hill, and " boarded round." How your knees smote together, as you thought of the examination, your first, perhaps, when the doctor and the minister, dignitaries of the town, sat in awful state, in the desk, and some half dozen fathers and mothers eame in to witness the astonishing per- formances of their children, with a sprinkling, perhaps, of teachers from other districts to see that they were not beaten. What a shout was there when school was done and the rewards of merit duly distributed ! Char- mingfare was always rather proud of its sehools, and
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no doubt with reason ; few towns in the vicinity could boast of better. As the eye from this hill follows the road westward, another and a higher meets the view ; though the ascent be somewhat toilsome, we will even try it. There are good farmers along the way, who turn out great oxen and sleek horses - strong hard- working men, who live well and tell good stories.
This is the vicinity of the first settlement in this section of Charmingfare. Not far ahead is another school house, and a post guide, for the school house, mind you, is geometrically situated on a triangular point of land bounded by two roads. If we take the one leading to the right, it will take us where all the thunder storms came from when you and I went to the summer school, down at No. Two, say twenty years ago. Then turning left through a cowyard, for the romance of the thing, we get up in a very puffy and exhausted state, to the top of what they call Hall's Mountain, once known as Beech Hill. It is said to be the highest ridge of land between the Merrimack River and the ocean. Be this as it may, we can dis- cern the snowy summits of the White Mountains, like clouds of silver against the clear sky, while the golden and flashing waves of the Atlantic gleam along the hor- izon, eastward, like the burnished spears of an advan- cing host. Around, for many miles, are nestled the snug villages and quiet towns of old Rockingham. At a distance on her river banks, is the Capital of our
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Yankee Switzerland, fairy like in the blush of the set- ting sun, while in almost every direction, a church spire rears its form. With a tolerably good glass, one may watch the chance of invasion from Gosport, or spy out the clippers and smacks from the Isle of Shoals, with, perhaps, especially if aided by a good imagination, a glimpse of the bristles on the back of Hog Island.
Around, at our feet, as it were, are farms, irregu- larly shaped pieces of woodland, small streams, and some pretty ponds ; that, for instance, which you can see over your right shoulder, is Sawyer's pond. There are many strips of meadow, covered with waving grass. It is said that people used to come a great distance, to get this coarse hay, which they stacked and remov- ed in the winter on sleds. Deer were sometimes found purloining the hay, which no doubt rightfully belonged to them.
While sitting here on this ledge, kicking about with careless feet the little pieces of crystal, or shying stones down into the tree tops below us, our lengthen- ing shadows warn us that twilight approaches. We hear the tinkling of distant sheep bells, the cow boys whistling hasten along the winding path, driving their cattle faster than they would, if under the farmer's eye. That dog, away to the left, seems certainly to have treed a squirrel ; the frogs are singing, and we shall have little time to talk, ere the dew begins to fall.
Not many years since, and the whole scene before 17
.
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us was one dense forest. Just over there, where we passed, on the right, a large square house, with a flock of fat geese near the wall, there was a house and small clearing nigh a hundred years ago, with no neighbors until you get down a mile or so, where among the woods and the hills was another house. A brisk little brook ran by it and an acre or two of land was clear- ed. There lived Deacon Burpee, who had been a ran- ger in the French War, while the former location was settled by Mr. Obed Hall.
One morning very early, when the Deacon's eldest son was going out to fodder the cattle, he thought he heard a voice crying for help. Listening a moment, he became convinced that it was Mrs. Hall. Calling his father, the two, with dog and gun, hurried away, to ascertain the cause of trouble. As they came to. a cross path, Mr. Jethro Hill and Mr. Sherburne Rowe, then living on High Street, joined them. They, it seems, had heard the alarm, and were on their way to give assistance. As the four men, breathless from their ex- ertions, neared the house, they beheld Mrs. Hall stand- ing in the door, calling loudly for help, while an old bear and two cubs were trampling down and destroy- ing the corn. Mr. Hall was away from home. They soon drove out the troublesome animals, and one of the cubs, being an unwieldly traveler, fell behind, and was attacked by the dogs. Mr. Jethro Hill, " who was pretty ambitious," and a mighty hunter, ran up and
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got upon his back ; then laying hold on the ears, he directed them to call off the dogs. It was no sooner done than bruin, not having been trained a la Van- Amburgh, brushed off the hands, with his fore paws; and scrambled into the bushes, leaving his rider on the ground, whose comrades were altogether too much ex- hausted with laughter to afford any help.
The twilight deepens as we rise to descend the moun- tain's side ; the distant hills grow indistinct and dim ; here and there a star struggles into sight, and it is fairly evening. It is said that some fifty years ago, the people on this road, a mile below where we now are, were one day seriously frightened, by the appari- tion of a strangely constructed vehicle rumbling along the road. The geese flew screaming to the wood; the dogs were in a storm, the hens, startled by a gruff note of warning from their leader, ran for life ; and all, dear reader, was caused by the advent of a modern (to them) invention. Some gallant swain from the towns below had come up in a chaise to see his lady love, and that "was the first chaise ever seen in these parts."
As we lag wearily along, let us summon to our aid imagination, and, flying over bog and ditch, stump and stone, where many a Jack-o'lantern has been before us, alight down on the turnpike, at the head of High Street. There have been some changes on this road since the first settlers came. How strangely would one, could he
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awaken from his sleep of half a century, walk down the way, no welcome and well known door to receive him. The boys he left are now stout men; the stout men he remembers are palsied with age, or no more seen among their fellows. In the place of one or two log cabins, or small framed houses, built a century ago, many a neat building meets his eye. Moss has overgrown a few roofs, some orchards are going to decay, and new ones taking their places.
Once, when the fields we may see before us were hardly cleared, a couple of worthies were overseeing the operation of a coal-pit ; scarcely had night come over them, when the melancholy howl of the wolf struck on their ears, as they sat in the camp ; soon a pack of the creatures surrounded them. One of the men, expect- ing momentarily to be devoured, fell to praying, while the other, equally terrified but less devout, began swear- ing. The singular trio of men and beasts was kept up until the day drove the wolves to their dens ; whereupon the swearing man was thrown into a state of great perplexity not knowing whether he should ascribe his safety to his own exertions or those of his companion.
We stand upon the hill where once the spire of the old meeting house pointed up to heaven. There is hardly a more beautiful landscape than that which stretches away south and east. The Massabesic, like a
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mirror, hangs before us, amid its surrounding hills and forests, in the bosom of the old West Parish. There, too, the Devil's Den rears its bristly back, while west- ward rise the Uncannoonucs, the New Boston hills, and where sky and earth bend into one, the eye can just discern, eastward, in the fairest of days, Wachusett and the hoary head of Mount Tom. Over the left shoulder, as we stand, are the Saddleback and Tucka- way hills, from whose bases, the scene, for two-thirds the circle of the horizon, seems a heaving ocean, rol- ling away from us on some far distant shore.
Not far from where we stand, " low roofed and red," was the old school house. There, you and I, mayhap, made the grand entrance, with all the solemnities of birch and ferule, into the mysteries of learning. There we together tugged through the blue covered spelling book, blundered upon the English Reader, and had fearful struggles with that remorseless bluebeard, Lind- ley Murray. There we got lost in a wilderness of fractions, armed with no better weapons than quill pop-guns. There, in the summer days, were the yel- low butterflies on the thistle blows, and there were blows we sometimes caught, on which the birds and butterflies never came. There were commercial trans- actions, when we exchanged the products of neighbor- ing orchards for a due amount of flogging. There were immense maritime excursions, to sundry islands in the frog-pond, and numberless stars evolved through un-
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lucky heads, from its frozen surface in winter. There, of old, met the Battle Axe Club, renowned in the annals of temperance. There were debating societies, the high schools, and the singing schools. There, on the quiet Sabbath afternoon met those who seemed to us old men, to hold prayer meetings, when we heard words of ad- monition and advice, which, perhaps, might have been better followed by all of us. All is gone now.
" Mute is the bell that rang at peep of dawn, Quickening my truant feet across the lawn ; Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air, When the slow dial gave a pause to care. Up springs, at every step, to elaim a tear, Some little friendship formed and cherished here ; And not the slightest leaf, but trembling teems With golden visions, and romantie dreams !"
School house and scholars, all scattered to the ends of the earth. In the West, in the sunny South, on the golden shores of California, on the ocean's wave, in the cities by the seaboard, under the green turf in the near church yard, or in their last resting place by some far lake or river, many leagues from home and the scenes of youth, are they.
God grant you, reader, pleasant memories of the past, and golden hopes for the future. We must stop this chapter, dedicated with sincere good will to those, once citizens of Charmingfare, who have wandered to other places and found other homes.
APPENDIX.
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APPENDIX.
TOPOGRAPHY .- CENSUS STATISTICS.
Candia is situated in longitude 6° 20/ East from Washington; latitude 43° 8/. It is in form nearly a parallelogram, the southern boundary line 6 miles 223 rods in length, running North 65° 10/ West ; its eastern, 4 miles 122 rods, South 31° 45/ West; bounded North by Deerfield, South by Chester, 1 mile 118 rods, and Auburn, 5 miles 105 rods, East by Raymond, and West by Hooksett.
It is 18 miles southeast from Concord, about 35 miles west from Portsmouth, and 10 miles northeast from the city of Manchester. The soil is hard of cultivation, the land rough and uneven. The town was laid out in squares, and many of the roads intersect each other at right angles. The thoroughfares are convenient and gen- erally kept in good repair. The Portsmouth and Concord Railroad runs through the town in a direction varying not much from East to West, affording rapid communication with the seaboard on the one hand, and the Capital on the other. In the westerly part of the town is a ridge of land, one elevation of which is ealled Hall's Mountain, This is said to be the highest point of land between Merrimack river and the ocean. Near this ridge two branches of the Lamprey river take their rise, and supply water for a considerable mnumber of saw and grain mills, besides carrying other machinery. There are 11 mills driven by water for the manufacture of various articles from wood ; 4 grain mills ; 1 tanning and eurrying establishment ; 4 stores.
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