USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Lancaster > History of Lancaster, New Hampshire > Part 62
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Some of the Revolutionary heroes settled in Lancaster after the close of the war. I remember very well Major Moses White, of Rutland, Mass. He was a true gentleman, of the old Revolutionary school. He had filled many high posi- tions in the continental army with ability and honor, and was rewarded by a grant from the government, through General Hazen, of the Catbow tract of land in Lancaster, where he fixed his residence and passed the remainder of his life. He attained very great consideration in his adopted state, and was very widely and favorably known. Wherever his duty called him, he never lost his dignity or forgot the courtesies of life.
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When our independence was acknowledged and peace was restored, our settle- ment began to increase in numbers. But the country nowhere prospered as was confidently expected. We had no national credit and no commerce to bring us trade. Though we were independent upon the land, England was still mistress upon the sea, and it soon became apparent if we would prosper as a nation our flag must be respected and our commerce built up. The impressment of a few seamen was not of vast public importance, but the great principle that the flag of a nation shall protect its citizens on the land and sea was of inestimable value ; and for this the second war with England was waged. Its triumph was complete, and we came out from that controversy with our honor vindicated and our rights established.
In this second national war our citizens bore an important part. You all remember Major John W. Weeks. On the 5th day of July, A. D. 1814, by a brave and timely movement of his command, he turned the tide of victory at Chippewa. He was the captain of the first company, Eleventh regiment of infantry, and held the extreme right of our line. Having discovered the enemy advancing upon the centre with a heavy column, he threw his command, by a quick move- ment, upon their flank, and delivered a destructive fire, which broke their ranks and hurled them back in a disastrous retreat, leaving their dead and wounded upon the field. He was promoted for his gallantry to the rank of major. He came to this town in 1787, when only six years of age. He learned the trade of a house-joiner, and received his education from the scanty means the settlement afforded. He arose to various high positions in public life, and represented his district in congress with credit, at a time in our history when to be in congress was an honor, and men of the highest ability and character were chosen to the national councils. He was a man of strong and comprehensive mind, a great reader and close reasoner, whose opinions and judgment upon public questions were respected by our public men in the state and country.
By his side at Chippewa were other citizens of Lancaster. There was Alpheus Hutchins, of whose bravery and bearing I have often heard his commander speak in terms of great commendation. There was Benjamin Stephenson, also, who, now in a happy old age, is reaping the rich rewards of an honorable life.
Since the close of the second war the prosperity of the town, as well as of the country, for nearly fifty years, has been rapid and uninterrupted. The number of its voters and its material wealth have quadrupled, and to-day we find its hills and its valleys covered with handsome habitations and an industrious and a happy people. Would to God that the darkness which now hangs over our national prosperity would disappear and reveal a future as propitious as the past !
We celebrate to-day the termination of the first century of municipal life. One centennial space is filled in the history of Lancaster. We have arrived at a point of time convenient for the measurement of our prosperity. Standing, therefore, as we do at the end of a century, we can look across the chasm that separates us from its beginning, and contrast the difference in the appearance and condition of our town. Forgetting intervening events, we will look into the first years of its settlement, and place what we see beside the developments of this day, and mark the progress and the change.
The charters for the towns of Lancaster and of Lunenburg, opposite to us, bear the same date, were granted on the same day, to the same person, by the same hand; and these names were given to us in memory of the two towns similarly situated, near the early homes of the first settlers in Massachusetts, and thus they sanctified their new homes by the fond recollection of those of their youth. The whole country was then a dense wilderness ; not a highway had been constructed in or to our ancient town. The pioneer settlers found their way by marked trees through the woods. They drove before them some twenty head of cattle, with bags of salt, provisions, and farming tools fastened on their horns. They erected
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their first camp on the Holton meadows, and cleared, the first spring, twelve . acres of land on the old Stockwell place, which they planted with corn. It grew so luxuriantly that by the 25th of August it was twelve feet in height and full in the milk ; but on the fatal night which succeeded, it was utterly destroyed by the early frost. Although our town is 800 feet above the sea, in this high latitude and in the midst of lofty mountains such a calamity has happened but three times in sixty years. Our persevering settlers, not discouraged by this disaster, cut their grass on the open lands on Beaver brook, and thus kept their cattle through the winter, and were ready to renew the struggles of another year.
It was many years before any traveled public way was constructed. The near- est mill was perhaps at Plymouth, but the most accessible was at No. 4, in the town of Charlestown. From that place they brought their meal and grain, travel- ing on foot, on horseback, or upon the river in their bark and log canoes, which they paddled with wonderful skill; and many a joyous feast did our ancestors have from the rare luxury of brown bread and Indian pudding, the rewards of their perilous and arduous journeys. I can almost see the young Mrs. Stockwell preparing for some great occasion, sitting before her blazing wood fire, watching her baking bannock, which she had spread upon a huge chip, and set up between the great andirons, a style of cooking not quite obsolete in this ancient town twenty-five years ago.
The canoes were their only carriages, and were made with their own hands from the trunks of huge pines, or from bark peeled from their own trees. They were strong enough to be trusted on the deepest waters, and light enough to be carried upon their shoulders around the falls, or from pond to pond. The strong women rowed these same rude barks up and down these rivers, from settlement to settlement, from Stockwell's to Bucknam's, or whenever they went out to spend the afternoon, or on some errand of business. It will not be supposed that the settlers depended upon the food transported from Charlestown for their daily use. Their more common food was prepared by means contrived by themselves ; our ancestors had no patent for their invention which stood for a mill. Have you never heard of the good old-fashioned "thump?" Emmons Stockwell kept a huge mortar, which held about two bushels; into. this they put their corn, beans, and rye ; then they pounded it with a great wooden pestle, as none but they could pound. With this they mixed potatoes, well baked and peeled, and the varieties of vegetables their tastes might select, and the whole was baked together into magnificent thump. Seasoned with good appetites, it was found a delicious dish by the early inhabitants of our glorious old town.
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The tables of these hardy pioneers had other dainties. The rivers and streams were full of fishes, and the forest of moose and game; and our ancestors of both sexes could use the rifle and the fishing-rod with astonishing skill. It is some- what remarkable that no deer or wolves were found here till long after the coun- try was first settled, and it is said there were no eels in the river till the extermi- nation of the beaver. But the moose were abundant, and were most mercilessly slaughtered by the wicked hunters, for the mere pleasure of killing. One Nathan Caswell killed ninety-nine in a single season, and left most of them to decay in their native woods. All honor to those humane settlers who turned him out of their houses as a reward for this ignominious sport. I can never forgive those African and South American explorers for their wanton destruction of the noble beasts of the forests ; nor can I understand how they can wish to couple the his- tory of such exploits with that of their noble discoveries.
The first mill erected in our town was turned by horse power, and was but little better than the old Stockwell mortar. Major Jonas Wilder built the first grist- and sawmill. Major Wilder brought his large and very respectable family to Lancaster in 1780. He had acquired a little fortune for those days, in his native state, and some few years before had purchased here a tract of land one mile
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square, which included the present burying-ground. In 1779, being chosen on a committee to select a public burying-ground, he presented this mound to the town, to be used for that purpose. He commenced to build the cellar of the Hol- ton house on the famous dark day. The town-meeting was held at his house in 1779, and he was chosen one of the selectmen, which was his earliest appearance on the official records of Lancaster. He was a very valuable accession to this settlement, and has left a record of his life of which his descendants may well be proud.
Governor Page, so called by way of distinction merely, never was a resident of Lancaster, though named in the charter. He was only a sort of director of the settlement, making frequent journeys to visit the new colony, and by his coun- sel and his services rendering them great aid in the management of their affairs. His daughter, Ruth Page, came here a spinster. On the night of the great frost, the 25th of August, 1764, she slept in the woods in Orford. on her way to Lan- caster, where she arrived the last of that month. She came to cook the food and do the work for the little colony, then more than forty miles from their nearest neighbors. She was the first white woman who came to our town. The next year she married Emmons Stockwell, and began housekeeping on the old Stock- well place. She was then eighteen years of age, and he was twenty-three. They lived together more than fifty-five years, and had fifteen children-seven sons and eight daughters-all of whom grew to maturity ; and in her old age Mrs. Stock- well could call around her one hundred and ninety living descendants, three of whom yet survive-Ephraim, Emmons, and John Stockwell-whose combined ages are two hundred and forty-seven years. She died at the age of eighty-two ; her husband at seventy-eight. David Stockwell, their oldest child, was the first son of Lancaster. After a long and useful life, he perished a few years since in the conflagration of a portion of his dwelling.
Edwards Bucknam, a young follower of Governor Page, soon after married another of his daughters, and settled at the mouth of Beaver brook, where for many years Mr. Benjamin Adams resided. A hunter, named Martin, caught vast numbers of beaver, which abounded in the stream running through these mead- ows. The ingenious hunter gave his name to the meadows, and the ingenious animals to the stream they occupied. Bucknam was an accomplished surveyor, a man of unbounded hospitality, and of great usefulness to the colony. He could " let blood," "draw teeth," and perform the marriage service before the minister and doctor arrived. He did the business of the colony which required education. He laid out a large portion of the town, and many of the highways. At the beginning of the present century there was a very good road leading up the river by his residence. In a few years the settlers in that vicinity crept back from Martin's meadows, and cleared off the hills behind them. They all lived in log huts, quite rudely constructed, with roofs made of bark. They had no school, and what to them was an infinitely greater hardship, no place of worship. Buck- nam had six children, from whom have descended the Moores, the Howes, the McIntires, and Bucknams. His daughter Eunice, the first child of Lancaster, was born in 1767.
David Page, the son of the governor, so called, came here with the first settlers, married his cousin, of Haverhill, and had thirteen children. The Page family were highly respectable. Any alliance with them was honorable. It was not so difficult for Stockwell and Bucknam, poor as they were, and lowly as their condi- tion had been, to marry into high life. The young ladies, so elevated in society and beautiful in person, could have had no better overtures in this settlement than those, which the young gentlemen were emboldened to make and the young ladies to accept, because it was plainly the only change to which they seemed eligible.
Stockwell possessed prodigious strength, and was capable of great endurance. He could not read or write till he was taught by his accomplished wife. He had
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a firm and vigorous mind, with a large share of common sense. In the days of the Revolution he was the salvation of the colony. The hardships and dangers which surrounded them, the successive failure of their crops, the capture of two or three of the settlers by the hostile Indians, and the stormy future prospects of the country, shook the resolution of the settlers, and they met at Stockwell's house to discuss the abandonment of the town. The dauntless Stockwell declared, notwith- standing these things, " My family and I sha 'n't go." He had seen this valley in 1759, and was enamored with its loveliness. He had chosen it for his home, for the better or for the worse, and he knew of no such thing as failure. A few fam- ilies rallied around him, and the settlement was saved.
For many years there were no schoolhouses or schools. Mrs. Stockwell was a respectable scholar for those early days. She could read the Psalter, and write and cypher very well, and in her own house taught the children of the settlers. She had wonderful general capacity, which supplied all the wants of this new colony. She was one of those remarkable persons who could do everything that was necessary, and did everything well.
In 1791 the inhabitants of Lancaster voted to build a meeting-house, and in town-meeting chose, as a committee to locate and build it, Col. Edwards Buck- nam, Col. Jonas Wilder, Capt. John Weeks, Lieut. Emmons Stockwell, Lieut. Joseph Brackett, Lieut. Dennis Stanley, and Capt. David Page. From the military titles of the committee, one would expect great dispatch in this work; but the structure was not completed for some years afterward. Taxes were assessed, pay- able in wheat, rye, and corn, labor, and lumber at certain fixed prices, to aid in its construction. In 1794 the first town-meeting was held in this meeting-house. Previous to this date they met at private houses to transact their business, and, as their numbers increased, selected larger houses. Colonel Wilder's splendid new mansion answered well till the meeting-house was ready.
There was no regular preaching of the gospel, and no settled minister, till the eighteenth of September, 1794, when the Rev. Joseph Willard was settled here as pastor over a church " gathered " in July previous, consisting of twenty-four per- sons. He presided over the religious affairs of the town for twenty-eight years. He had been in the Continental army through the Revolutionary War. He had a noble, commanding presence, a firm and measured step, which he preserved through his lifetime. You may all thank God that in his providence he sent to the town of Lancaster such a man as Joseph Willard. He was a noble specimen of goodness and religious faith ; was wise in counsel, learned in doctrine, and full of true charity and grace. All honor to the memory of the Rev. Joseph Willard.
The church was an imposing structure for those days. It was erected upon the plain, on the very brow of the hill just south of the village. It had a tower at the west end, with two porches for entrance, and a broad entrance on the side. It had a high gallery, a lofty pulpit crowned with a high sounding-board, and, what is yet more characteristic, the seats were all so arranged in the square pews that they could be raised during prayer, when the congregation stood up, and when the prayer was over would fall, one after another, with a horrible clatter. The old church has passed away, or rather been moved away, down the hill, disman- tled of all its sacredness, and made into a house of merchandise, except the pleasant room which rejoices in the name of the town hall. Even its foundations have been dug away ; not a vestige of the long flight of stairs now remains, and the places that knew it shall know it no more forever. It will only live hereafter in the songs and chronicles of its exterminators.
It was many years after the first settlement of the town before schoolhouses were erected. I think the church preceded the schoolhouse. It was some years before they built even framed huts with a single room. The Stockwell and Buck- nam houses, of very moderate proportions, on the old homesteads, you will remember. The two first splendid mansions, as they then called them, were the
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famous Holton house and the old Wilson tavern, at the north end of the street. The latter, and the little red cottage on the opposite side of the street, below it, were the two first painted houses in Lancaster. I think a portion of the present Stockwell house and the Holton mansion are all that now remain of those very old structures.
The first town-meeting which assembled in Lancaster was at the house of David Page, in 1769. Capt. Thomas Burnside was moderator; Edwards Bucknam was chosen clerk, to which office he was reelected for twenty-one years. They chose five selectmen. Unfortunately, the dwelling-house of Mr. Bucknam was destroyed by fire in 1772, and with it perished the town records to that year. It is well known that Bucknam and Stockwell, Page, Wilder and Weeks, composed the town government for nearly thirty years. The salary of the " settled minister " was fixed at fifty pounds, one third of which was payable in cash and two thirds in produce. This was to increase as the inventory of the town increased, till it reached eighty pounds.
The first lawyer in Lancaster was Richard C. Everett. He was born in Provi- dence, R. I., and was left an orphan early in life. He was at one time, during the Revolutionary War, a servant of General Washington. He came to Lancaster in October, 1787, and with two other hardy men cut out the road through the Notch for the purpose of transporting salt to upper Coos. He saved his earnings, and went through Dartmouth college; studied law in New York and at Haverhill, in this state, and in 1793 began practice here. He rose to be district judge, and to a high position as a sound and honorable man, and has left a spotless character in the memory of men.
The first bridge erected was the old Stockwell bridge, across Isreals river, and the right to cross it first was put up at auction, and bid off by Emmons Stockwell for five gallons of brandy, which cost him forty-two shillings a gallon.
It was many years before any wheelwrights or wheels were found in Lancaster. The early settlers transported their merchandise upon two long poles, fastened together by a cross-piece. One end answered for shafts, to which the horse was attached, the other dragged upon the ground. It was similar in construction to the modern truck, without the wheels. There are many present who will remem- ber the caravans of farmers who, every winter, carried their produce to the Port- land market in sleighs, where they purchased their annual supply of luxuries for domestic use ; and they will remember, too, their adventures and frolics, when, snow-bound on the journey, they were compelled to wait, sometimes for days, till the fierce storms were over and the roads were passable.
I have thus given you, to-day, only the outlines of a picture of Lancaster a hun- dred years ago. The same heavens are indeed over our heads, the same moun- tains wall in the valley, and the same river winds gracefully through the meadows, but all else, how changed ! It will not be thought invidious, on an occasion entirely our own, to say, in compliment to ourselves, that we may defy the world to produce a lovelier village, or more beautiful farms, or a better and happier people, than are found in our noble town ; and with its natural scenery, embracing mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, what spot is there on the earth of which we could feel prouder, and to which we could return with more delight? And how can we wonder, as the summer approaches, that men leave the great cities, their business and their homes, to look on this scenery, and breathe the air of these mountains, and drink their inspirations ?
It may not be unprofitable to enter the chasm between the bounds of our cen- tury, and learn something of the causes of our municipal growth and success. We owe much, my friends, to the morality of our community. I am inclined to think that the theology of our early days was derived, in some measure, from the great Doctor Wheelwright, who, banished from Massachusetts, settled in the vicinity of Exeter, and there led the religious development of our northern New England.
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He was a little more tolerant and less bigoted than the full-blooded Puritan, but just as firm in his faith and unyielding in his opinions. They tried and hung the witches ; he only tried them. He had a mantle of charity, small as it was; they had none at all, and gloried in their severity. I am inclined to believe that we have enjoyed a softer persecution between religious sects, a more tolerant theology, for which we are indebted to this gifted preacher.
We owe much to the richness of our soil. The first settlers of this town regarded the productions of their meadows in their earliest cultivations as wonderful. The grass grew so luxuriantly that rakes were in disuse, and the pitchfork was only needed to gather up the enormous crops. All kinds of vegetation, when the spring was open, came forward with such rapidity, and with such a wealth of verdure, as they had never known before; and if a market were lying at your doors, to stimulate the use of modern applications to bring forward vegetation early, your meadows would now find no rivals in their productiveness and value.
We owe much to natural scenery ; and in this connection I will only say that the early settlers had a quick eye for the beautiful. I cannot help thinking that one of our oldest inhabitants-Mr. Edward Spaulding, a descendant of the famous Mrs. Dustin-who was brought here, when a mere child, in his mother's arms, afterward fixed his residence on the spot where he lived and where he died, because of the exceedingly lovely landscape there spread out before him ; and there is not a single spot in our beautiful town which exceeds in beauty that where Spaulding lived. He was a noble and generous man, too good ever to be unkind. He has gone to his repose, and left an honored memory.
I need not apologize for the distinction in saying to you now, that I believe we are largely indebted to the energy and principle, the faith and the works of Stockwell and Bucknam, for the prosperity and real value of our ancient town. They were good, and, in their way, great men. In our country, great and manly qualities are found in every class and condition of men. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty furnish most of the profligacy and licentiousness of society. Its chief strength, health, and vigor are derived from the great middle classes, which represent the labor and the sound judgment of the country. I have often heard it said that the race of great men is dying out in our land. This is not the fact ; but great ability seeks now the avenues of trade, commerce, and agriculture, because they yield a better reward than statesmanship, or the professions, and men of second-rate ability, with more cunning than wisdom, have been permitted to stand in the places of the giants of former years. You will recognize in the names of the descendants of these pioneers the large part they have borne in our material wealth and prosperity. How large a portion of our population can look back with distinguished pleasure to these, their worthy ancestors! Almost all of their descendants have settled among us. They have falsified the truth of history, which declares that a stock of virtue in a family will run out in three generations ; for the great qualities of these first settlers have come down through their chil- dren to this day unimpaired. All honor to the names of those noble pioneers ; and to the memory of that brave and noble-hearted woman, who, at that tender age, came through the wilderness to aid the infant settlement, and nursed it for more than threescore years into life and prosperity, and left such a long list of mourning descendants, we pay our grateful homage.
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