USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
286
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
sign John Shute; 40. Vacant ; 41. Vacant ; 42. Capt. Joshua Abbot ; 43. Col. Aaron Kinsman; 44. Robert and Jonathan East- man ; 45. Josiah Farnum, Jr. and Daniel Farnum; 46. John Kim- ball ; 47. Lieut. Joseph Hall.
In Gallery. No. 1. David Carter; 2. Beriah Abbot; 3. Benja- min Davis; 4. Benjamin Elliot and Sarah Farnum ; 5. Benjamin Kimball ; 6. John Walker; 7. Richard Herbert, Jr .; 8. Richard Ayer; 9. Vacant ; 10. Isaac Hustone; 11. Vacant ; 12. Daniel Chase, Jr. ; 13. Jonathan Runnals; 14. Benjamin Kimball ; 15. Va- cant ; 16. Caleb Buswell ; 17. Isaac Dimond ; 18. Capt. Reuben Kimball; 19. John West; 20. Lieut. Joshua Thompson; 21. Daniel Abbot; 22. Vacant; 23. Jeremiah Stickney ; 24. James Walker; 25. Anthony Potter; 26. Vacant.
Funeral Expenses. The charges of the Rev. Timothy Walker's funeral, as defrayed by the parish, were as follows: Eight rings, £4 16s. ; two gallons wine, £1 4s .; a coffin, 9s .; biers, 1s. 6d .; a horse to Sanbornton, 3s .; do to Gilmanton, 3s .; do to Warner, 2s. 3d .; digging grave, 2s .; provisions, £1 2s. 3d .; gravestones, £4 4s. Total, £12 7s.
CHAPTER IX.
THE TOWN OF CONCORD .- POST-REVOLUTIONARY EVENTS .- CON- STITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES .- REVISED STATE CON- STITUTION .- TOWN AFFAIRS AND PROGRESS.
1784-1800.
As the new constitution was to go into full effect on the second day of June, 1784, a president of the state, senators, and members of the house of representatives were elected by the people in March. In Concord, Timothy Walker, who had been the first and the last to serve the parish as representative under the old constitution, was elected as the first to serve the town in the same capacity under the new. Of the ninety-eight votes cast for president, fifty-six were for Woodbury Langdon, and forty-two for Josiah Bartlett.1 But neither of these candidates was chosen to the chief magistracy, the venerable Meshech Weare being the choice of a large majority in the state. Only seven of the twelve senators having been elected by the people, the legislature made choice of Timothy Walker as one of the remaining five, and Peter Green 2 was chosen by the town to succeed him in the lower house.
The members elect of the two branches of the legislature convened at Concord on the first Wednesday of June. Their oaths of office were taken and subscribed before Josiah Bartlett, senior member of the old council, acting for President Weare of that body,3 detained by illness incident to the burden of years and the weight of public cares long borne. Thursday, the 3d of June, was the day on which popular interest in the inauguration of the government under the new constitution was especially manifested. "The occasion," it has been written, " was of great interest and importance, and attended with imposing ceremonies. A procession was formed, composed of members of the legislature, and civil authorities of the state, together with other persons of office and dignity ; also, of ministers of the gospel of various denominations, and a large body of citizens, who marched at the sound of music to the meeting-house. The Reverend Samuel McClintock, of Greenland, preached on the occasion, and a public dinner was given at the expense of the State." 4
This " Election Day " was typical of a holiday, which was, with
1 Town Records, 216-17.
3 Journals of House and Senate, 1784.
2 Ibid, 219.
* Bouton's Concord, 288.
288
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
changes, to celebrate for many a year the June organization of the legislative department of the state government, and especially the official induction of the chief executive. It was peculiarly a Concord day, and one anticipated with much preparation for fitly receiving the official guests, as well as throngs of visitants sure to be in town to witness and enjoy the enlivening holiday observance. Special interest in the day extended into all the country round about the capital, and "going to 'lection," in the popular abbreviation, was a favorite recreative feature of the people's life.
But the town was, and for some years would be, without a settled minister of the gospel. In October, 1782, a few weeks after the death of Mr. Walker, a committee of three was appointed " to supply the pulpit."1 In March, 1783, two were added to the committee. Later in the same year, certain arrearages of the late minister's sal- ary were " discharged " by leasing to his son Timothy, " for the term of nine hundred ninety-nine years, three acres of bog-meadow which " had been " laid out to the parsonage right for emendation." This question of salary arrearage had often been before the parish meet- ings, and ineffectual attempts had been made to effect a settlement. In March, 1782, " all former committees, chosen to settle with the Rev. Timothy Walker," were dismissed, and one was appointed " to request " him " to sue those persons who " were "delinquent in pay- ing his salary from the year 1749 to the year 1765." 2 The singular request was not complied with, and the town finally adjusted the matter by a lease of a portion of its parsonage land, as just mentioned. Another committee was selected, in March, 1785, for supplying the pulpit, and "one half the money raised to defray the expenses of the town" was appropriated to that purpose.3 The services of Mr. Daniel Story were temporarily employed ; but it is said that his Arminianism did not quite suit the ortho- dox views of his hearers. At any rate, in June, the committee was enlarged, and instructed to "procure a candidate on pro- bation the first opportunity."4 At length, Mr. Jonathan Wil- kins, a native of Marlborough, Massachusetts, and a graduate of Dartmouth college, in 1779, was engaged to preach as a candi- date; and on the 17th of December, 1786, he received from the church a unanimous call to settle. The next day the call was seconded by the town, with the offer of a salary of one hundred 'pounds, the use of the parsonage, and two hundred pounds "towards a settlement." But Mr. Wilkins declined the invitation, "in con- formity,"-as he said in his answer,-" to what appears duty and interest, which are inseparably connected." Though declining the
1 Town Records, 207.
2 Ibid, 202.
3 Ibid, 221.
‘ Ibid, 222-3.
289
FINANCIAL STRESS.
pastorate on what he deemed an inadequate salary, he became a permanent resident of Concord, useful and prominent in its church and eivil affairs.1
Nearly three years later, on the first day of September, 1788,- just six years after the death of Mr. Walker,-Israel Evans, a native of Pennsylvania, a graduate of Princeton, and an army chaplain dur- ing the Revolution, who had been preaching in Concord, as a candi- date, received the call of church and town "to settle in the work of the ministry,"2 with an annual salary of ninety pounds, the use of the parsonage, and "two hundred pounds-in materials for building a house-as a settlement."2 This vote was modified at an adjourned meeting in October, so as to make the salary fifteen dollars more " in lieu of the settlement." 2 Mr. Evans did not " approve of every- thing in the call," 3 and did not accept until the 17th of March, 1789,3 and was regularly installed on the first Wednesday of July, of that year.+
In those days, financial stress, more or less severe, was felt throughout the country. During the last years of the Revolution, . silver and gold had circulated largely, but had gradually, since peace, been returned to the countries from which necessary and unnecessary commodities 5 were imported; while no general system of impost 5 had been adopted, whereby some part of this money might have been retained.5 This scarcity of money was a grievance which legislation, in New Hampshire or elsewhere, failed to remedy ; and which also bred a morbid desire for inordinate issues of paper currency. In some localities, even in conservative New Hampshire, this desire manifested itself not only in misguided urgency as to its specific object, but also in clamorous opposition to laws obliging the payment of debts, and to courts and lawyers, as instrumental in enforcing those laws. The unhealthy sentiment ran into a high fever of excitement in 1786. It was determined to bring direct pressure upon the legislature. Thus, it was planned as an impressive stroke of policy, to hold a paper-money convention at Concord, during the early days of the June legislative session ; it being hoped that the personal presence of the convention might materially help to ensure for its petition the favor of the legislature. But a practical joke upset the fond hope. For when, at the commencement of the legis- lative session, only five delegates to the proposed convention were in town, sixteen members of the house, of a waggish turn, among whom were several young lawyers, bethought themselves to pretend that they, too, had been chosen as delegates from their towns. They
1 Bouton's Concord, 291-5; also, see note at elose of chapter. 4 Ibid, 253-4.
2 Town Records, 243-4.
3 Ibid, 251.
" Belknap, 395.
20
290
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
succeeded in persuading the five to go into convention with them at once ; urging that it was of the utmost importance to present a peti- tion to the legislature as early as possible. Thereupon, a convention of the real and pretended delegates was organized, with one of the former for president, and one of the latter for clerk. The proceed- ings and debates were conducted with much apparent solemnity.1 A petition was framed, complaining, in most extravagant terms, of their grievances, and praying for a loan of three millions of dollars, secured by real estate-the paper thus issued to be legal tender for all debts ; also praying for the abolition of inferior courts, and for a reduction of the number of lawyers to two only in a county.1 The members of the convention then marched in procession to the house of representatives,-some of whom, including the speaker, had been let into the secret,-and, with great formality, presented their peti- tion, which was suffered to lie on the table, and afterwards to be withdrawn.1 The convention quickly dissolved ; and when other real delegates arrived they were exceedingly mortified on finding their purpose, for that time, thwarted.
But the cause of fiat money, though having the laugh against it, continued to find more or less support in various quarters. County conventions were held, from two of which, and also from several towns, petitions were presented to the legislature at its September session held in Exeter. "To still the clamor," says Belknap,2 " and collect the real sense of the people on the subject of paper currency, the assembly formed a plan for the emission of fifty thousand pounds, to be let at four per cent. on land security, to be a tender in payment of state taxes, and for the fees and salaries of public officers. This plan"-adopted on the 14th of September-" was immediately printed, and sent to the several towns ; and the people were desired to give their opinions in town-meetings for and against it, and to make return of their votes to the assembly at the next session." This way of proceeding did not coincide with the radical views of the party, and an attempt was made to coerce the legislature by mob violence. This, however, signally failed.
The financial craze, with its violent craving for impracticable measures of relief, soon after subsided. This result was forwarded by the refusal of the people to consent to the plan for emitting a paper currency, submitted by the general court in September, a few · days before the riot at Exeter. The sense of the citizens of Concord upon the subject was emphatically expressed in town-meeting on the 30th of October, 1786, when it was voted " not to make paper money on any plan whatever." 3
1 Belknap, 399; also, see Life of William Plumer.
2 History of New Hampshire, 400.
$ Town Records, 228; also, see note at close of chapter.
291
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The financial troubles in the land, fraught with peril even to the stability of state governments, helped to hasten the popular convic- tion that the thirteen articles of confederation, adopted in 1778, afforded an utterly inadequate fundamental law for the thirteen independent states. A new constitution was felt to be requisite for securing, among other advantages, public and private credit as one of the blessings of liberty, by delegating to the congress of the Union certain exclusive rights, such as to coin money and emit bills of credit. Hence, in 1787, was framed the Constitution of the United States. With giant conflict of opinion, and with much of concession and compromise, the great instrument of Union had been adopted by the convention of delegates from the United States of America, over whose deliberations George Washington presided. Now it had to pass the ordeal of the conventions of the several states, the approval of nine of which was requisite to give it effect. On the 14th of December the general court passed a resolution calling upon the people of New Hampshire to choose delegates to meet in convention at Exeter, on the 13th of February, 1788, "to take under considera- tion the proceedings of the late Federal Convention, and investigate, discuss, and decide upon the same."1 Concord chose Captain Ben- jamin Emery " to sit in convention at Exeter." 2
This convention, having met at the time and place appointed and having selected General John Sullivan, at that time chief magistrate of the state, for its president, occupied ten days in discussing the proposed constitution. There were two parties, the one for adoption being led upon the floor by Samuel Livermore of Holderness ; the one against, by Joshua Atherton of Amherst-both men of distinguished ability and much personal influence. The opposition manifested such strength that the friends of ratification deemed it fortunate that an adjournment till June was effected, the convention then to meet at Concord. Here, accordingly, it met in second session on the 18th of June. "The convention," as it is recorded by another, " excited an interest with which the proceedings of no other deliberative body in this State have ever been regarded. The galleries of the church where it assembled were thronged with spectators, and its members were surrounded, not only by large numbers of their own constitu- ents, but by individuals from distant states, engaged, some of them, in watching their deliberations, and some of them, no doubt, in efforts to influence the result."3 The session continued three days. Fif- teen amendments were recommended on the report of a commit- tee of fifteen, of which John Langdon, recently elected president of the state, was chairman. An attempt to ratify, with the pro-
' Town Records, 238.
3 Barstow's New Hampshire, 279-80.
2 Ibid, 239.
292
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
viso that the constitution should not be operative in New Hamp- shire without the amendments, was defeated; and on the afternoon of the 21st of June, 1788, the constitution, as it came from the "Convention of Delegates from the United States of America, held at Philadelphia, on the seventeenth of September, 1787," was adopted by a vote of fifty-seven to forty-seven. Captain Benjamin Emery, the Concord delegate, voted in the negative ; but this action found, according to tradition, its offset in that of Judge Walker, a strong friend of ratification, who, anticipating a close vote, invited to dinner one or more delegates of the opposite opinion, and by prolonging his liberal entertainment beyond the hour of voting, helped to lessen the negative strength.1 Indeed, a great historic act had been done in the old North church at Concord; for, as announced in the triumphant voice of Sullivan from the chair, amid acclaims of joy from floor and gallery, New Hampshire had felicitously won the fadeless honor of being the ninth state to ratify the constitution, and thus to give it practical effect as the sure bond of "more perfect union," and the life of the nation's future government. The news from Concord, speeding over the country, by courier and other means, relieved the anxious hearts of Washington, Hamilton, Madison, and their like, and was welcomed by the people with the heartiest demonstrations of joy.2
During these, as well as previous and subsequent events, there existed, as evidenced by the town records, considerable educational interest in the public mind. Thus, in 1779, in the very stress of the Revolution, the expense of hiring a schoolmaster was allowed with other accounts for " the year past."3 When no special appropriation was made, sometimes, as in 1781, certain lands belonging to the school right were ordered to be "leased out "; 4 while, the same year, it was suggested, in the warrant for a special meeting, that "the parish excuse those persons who have kept constant schools in Con- cord from paying taxes the current year." 5 In March, 1785, it was voted " that a public school be kept in Concord the ensuing year." 6 Probably this school was wholly or partially supported from the gen- eral appropriation made " to defray the expenses of the town." 7 The next year forty pounds were specially appropriated for "a town school " 8 and, in 1789, the same amount was voted, " to be divided into several parts or districts, as usual." 9 From this time the annual appropriation was steadily increased, at short intervals, and within thirty years reached twelve hundred dollars, and the sum raised for
1 Bouton's Concord, 303.
2 See Centennial Observance of Ratification Day, 1888, in note at close of chapter.
3 Town Records, 175.
4 Ibid, 190.
5 Ibid, 195-6.
G Ibid, 220. ¡ Ibid, 221.
8 Ibid, 224.
9 Ibid, 250.
293
THE SCHOOL-POLITICAL FACTS.
the support of the school rose from less than two thirds of that raised for the supply of the pulpit to more than twice as much.
The " house lot belonging to the school-right," located on the southi side of the road running westerly by the Bradley estate, was, in 1790, exchanged for an acre and four fifths of land owned by Lieutenant Robert Davis, and situated southerly of the burying-ground and adjoining it.1 During the same year a schoolhouse was located on Main street, at a short distance easterly of the church. This was effected by the vote "that the pest-house be moved into the town street near the meeting-house for the use of a schoolhouse." The structure thus utilized had been erected in July, 1775, at an expense of forty pounds, when pestilence had suddenly entered the parish, amid the alarms of war. For the smallpox had been contracted by Dr. Philip Carrigain, on professional service in a neighboring town, and by him communicated to John, the son of Nathaniel West, a neighbor.2 It was on Saturday that the discovery of the real nature of the disease was made, creating intense alarm in the community. On Sabbath morning " the inhabitants assembled en masse and com- menced the erection of a pest-house in a grove west of the residence of Captain Benjamin Emery,"2 and before night " the timber for a convenient " structure, " to consist of four rooms, had been felled, hewed, framed, and raised," and "the boards for covering and the brick for the chimney " had been " drawn to the ground."3 To this house forthwith finished, the West family was removed, six or seven of the members of which were attacked, but all of whom recovered save the father. The doctor and his family of five remained in their own house, which was fenced off from all communication, and where inoculation was tried, and no death occurred. It was certainly a singular frugality of the citizens of Concord which has thus asso- ciated the story of a pest-house with that of a schoolhouse in a nar- rative of educational progress.
It is interesting to note the variety of personal preference ex- pressed by the voters of Concord at the first election of presidential electors under the new Constitution of the United States, held on the 15th of December, 1788. All were Federalists in that they were in favor of George Washington for president, but they were of many minds as to the men who should directly express the people's choice in the electoral college. Hence, their two hundred and ninety-one 4 votes were distributed among twenty-three candidates, though but five electors were to be chosen. There was no choice by the people of the state; but of the candidates subsequently elected by the legislature, two, Ebenezer Thompson and John Parker, reecived not
1 Town Records, 259-60.
3 Bouton's Concord, 282.
2 See note at close of chapter.
4 Town Records, 246.
294
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
a vote in Concord ; of three, John Pickering received forty-five-the highest number cast for any one-John Sullivan, forty-one, and Ben- jamin Bellows, two. Votes were given for three citizens of Concord ; ten for Timothy Walker, five for Peter Green, and one for John Bradley.1
A somewhat similar division oceurred in voting for electors at Washington's second election in 1792. It may be permissible to add here, that, at four successive elections for the presidency of the state, previous to the adoption of the national constitution, John Langdon had been Concord's favorite candidate; having in 1785 received one hundred and five of one hundred and thirteen votes cast. During the next three years, when Langdon and Sullivan were rival candidates, Concord steadily gave heavy majorities for the former ; though, in two of them, the latter won the presidency. But while both of those excellent, patriotic men had their earnest personal following, no essential political differences then existed to make clearly defined political parties.
The establishment of Printing in Concord has, for its date, the first year of the federal government under the administration of Washington. George Hough, a native of Connecticut, where he learned the printer's trade, and whence he had removed to Windsor, Vermont, and had there engaged for some time in publishing a newspaper, came to Concord, and, on the 8th of September, 1789, set up his printing-press in a small building situated on the west side of Main street, upon ground afterwards to be included in the front part of the state house yard.2 There he did the first printing done in New Hampshire north of Exeter; issuing, in October, Dodds- ley's Christian Economy. On the 6th of January was given to the public the first number of the first newspaper published in Concord, entitled The Concord Herald and New Hampshire Intelligencer -- a small weekly of four pages, each fourteen inches by nine,8 but bear- ing " marks of the care and correct taste of Mr. Hough, who became known throughout the state as a workman that 'needed not to be ashamed.' "4 The publication of this paper was continued some- what more than fifteen years-or until October, 1805-but not with- out a change of name; the title becoming, in 1794, the Courier of New Hampshire. The place of issuance had earlier been changed to the " Kinsman house," some rods south of the site of the subsequent " Eagle Coffee House," or the later " Eagle Hotel."
On the 29th of October, 1792, Elijah Russell began the publica-
1 Town Records, 246.
2 John Farmer's Letter; Proceedings of N. H. Press Association, January, 1882, 1833, p. 31.
3 Bouton's Concord, 310.
4 Asa McFarland in paper read before N. H. Printers' Association, January, 1873; Pro- ceedings, p. 34.
295
PRINTING AND NEWSPAPERS.
tion of the Mirrour, printed on a sheet of fourteen inches by eight, and issued from an office near Hannaford's tavern at the North End. The terms of subscription as announced were: "Five shillings per annum ; one shilling only to be paid yearly in money, on receiving the first paper of every year, and the remainder, in country produce, at the market cash price, any time in the course of the year. Of those who cannot pay one shilling in cash, produce will be received for the whole, at the end of the year." These terms of subscription, taken as a specimen of those exacted in the earliest period of Con- cord journalism, though vastly easier for subscribers than publishers, did not secure large or promptly paying lists of the former; for the newspaper appetite was yet but imperfectly formed in the mass of population, and expenditure for its gratification was scantily and tardily made. Hence, one finds John Lathrop, a post-rider, who carried the papers on his northerly route from Concord, urging, in the fall of 1791, subscribers " to pay up " by the beginning of next year, and persuasively suggesting that though he was ever willing to gratify his customers with a reasonable pay day, yet that, when " the earth yields her increase in abundance," it seemed to him a " happy presage " of punctuality among those who had "kindly become his debtors." "Cash, wheat, rye, or flax will be received," adds the post-rider; and, "for the convenience of every one," he appoints "places at which the pay may be delivered." Delinqueney still withstanding his accommodating offers, he puts forth the suggestive warning : "Delays are dangerous. Money, we all know, is always scarce. But when a grain debt is not paid in the season of it, the creditor says money. That will be disagreeable to the debtor ; and the post, while produce is plenty, puts off the harsh expression."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.