USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, from its first discovery to the year 1830; with dissertations upon the rise of opinions and institutions, the growth of agriculture and manufactures, and the influence of leading families and distinguished men, to the year 1874; > Part 25
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of the Bible, were not extensively read. Religious papers were unknown, and biographies of children of precocious piety and sainted christians too good for earth had not then been written. A large proportion of the entire population attended church. No blinds excluded the blazing suns of summer ; no fires soft- ened the intense cold of winter. The hearers listened devoutly to long, doctrinal sermons, even when the breath of the preacher was frozen as it escaped his lips. "The minister of the stand- ing order," possibly the only thoroughly educated man in the town, " mighty in the scriptures " and austere in morals, was re- garded by the children of his flock with awe, by the parents with reverence. If a warm heart beat beneath his clerical robes, if the love of souls beamed from his eye, shone in his face and dropped from his tongue, then
"Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray."
CHAPTER LXVII.
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THE EARLY FARM-HOUSE WITH ITS FURNITURE AND SURROUNDINGS.
The primitive log-house, dark, dirty and dismal, rarely out- lived its first occupant. With the progress of society in a new town, it would look like premeditated poverty for the son to be content with the first shelter that his father reared in the wilder- ness. The first framed houses were usually small, low and cold. The half house, about twenty feet square, satisfied the unam- bitious. The double house, forty by twenty feet in dimensions, indicated progress and wealth. It was designed for shelter, not for comfort or elegance. The windows were small, without blinds or shutters. The fire-place was sufficiently spacious to receive logs of three or four feet in diameter, with an oven in the back and a flue nearly large enough to allow the ascent of a balloon. A person might literally sit in the chimney-corner and study as- tronomy. All the cooking was done by this fire. Around it, also, gathered the family at evening, often numbering six to twelve children, and the cricket in the hearth kept company to their prattle. Thus with the hardships came the comforts of life, in the days "lang syne."
The furniture was simple and useful, all made of the wood
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of the native forest-trees. Pine, birch, cherry, walnut and the curled maple were most frequently chosen by the " cabinet- maker." Vessels of iron, copper and tin were used in cooking. The dressers, extending from floor to ceiling in the kitchen, con- tained the mugs, basins and plates of pewter which shone upon the farmer's board at the time of meals. A writer for the New Hampshire Patriot has recently given his recollections of the kind of life I am here describing. I will quote a few para- graphs.
"In 1815, travel was mostly on horseback, the mail being so carried in many places. Hotels were found in every four to eight miles. Feed for travelers' teams was, half baiting of hay, four cents; whole baiting, eight cents; two quarts of oats, six cents. The bar-room fire-place was furnished with a 'loggerhead,' hot, at all times, for making 'flip.' The flip was made of beer made from pumpkin dried .on the crane in the kitchen fire-place, and a few dried apple-skins and a little bran. Half mug of flip, or half gill 'sling,' six cents. On the table was to be found a 'shortcake,' the manu- facture of which is now among the lost arts; our 'book' cooks can't make them. Woman's labor was fifty cents per week. They spun and wove most of the cloth that was worn. Flannel that was dressed at the mill, for women's wear, was fifty cents a yard; men's wear, one dollar.
Farmers hired their help for nine or ten dollars a month-some clothing and the rest cash. Carpenters' wages, one dollar a day; journeymen car- penters, fifteen dollars a month; and apprentices, to serve six or seven years, had ten dollars the first year, twenty the second, and so on, and to clothe themselves. Breakfast generally consisted of potatoes roasted in the ashes, a 'bannock' made of meal and water and baked on a maple chip set before the fire. Pork was plenty. If 'hash' was had for breakfast, all ate from the platter, without plates or table-spread. Apprentices and farm boys had for supper a bowl of scalded milk and a brown crust, or bean porridge, or pop-robbin. There was no such thing as tumblers, nor were they asked if they would have tea or coffee; it was 'Please pass the mug.' "
The post of the housewife was no sinecure. She had charge
. both of the dairy and kitchen, besides spinning and weaving, sewing and knitting, washing and mending for the "men folks." The best room, often called "the square room," contained a bed, a bureau or desk, or a chest of drawers, a clock, and possibly a brass fire-set. Its walls were as naked of ornaments as the cave of Macpelah. We are describing a period which antedates the advent of pictures, pianos, carpets, lace curtains and Vene- tian blinds. It was an age of simple manners, industrious hab- its and untarnished morals. Contentment, enjoyment and lon- gevity were prominent characteristics of that age. The second volume of the New Hampshire Historical Collections contains a list of nearly four hundred persons, who died in New Hampshire prior to 1826 between the ages of ninety and a hundred and five years. The average age of a hundred and thirty-three coun- cilors who lived in the early history of the state was seventy years. It deserves notice, also, that many of the provincial gov- ernors and Revolutionary officers of the state lived to extreme
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old age. Fevers and epidemics sometimes swept away the peo- ple ; but consumption and neuralgia were then almost unknown. The people were generally healthy. Their simple diet and active habits produced neither "fever nor phlegm."
After preparing comfortable shelters for their families, the early settlers in every town turned their thoughts to the house of God. Most of the townships were granted on condition that "a convenient house for the worship of God" should be built within two years from the date of the grant. Even when the pro- prietors lived in "log huts, " the "meeting-house " was a framed building. Its site was some high hill ; possibly because the tem- ple stood on a mountain, but probably because it must be a watch-tower against the Indians as well as a "house of prayer." In shape it was a rectangle flanked with heavy porticos, with seven windows upon each side. Here every family was repre- sented on the Sabbath. During the hour of intermission, the farmers and mechanics gathered round some merchant or pro- fessional man, whose means of information exceeded theirs, to learn the important events of the week. The clergymen were then settled by major vote of the town and all tax-payers were assessed for his salary according to their ability. The people went to church on foot or on horseback, the wife riding behind the husband on a " pillion." Chaises, wagons and sleighs were unknown. Sometimes whole families were taken to "meeting" on an ox-sled.
The Sabbath developed the social as well as religious senti- ments. The ordinary visits of neighbors, like those of angels, were "rare." The people lived like the parishioners of Chaucer's "pore Personn," "fer asondur." Traveling was difficult and la- borious. Neither men nor women were ever idle. Books were few ; newspapers and letters were seldom seen at the country fireside. News from England did not reach the inland towns till five or six months after the occurrence of the events re- ported. Intelligence from New York was traveling a whole week before it reached New Hampshire. In 1764 the mail was carried only twice in a week from New York to Philadel- . phia, and, after the close of the Revolutionary war, the mail was carried between those cities by a post-boy on horseback. Now tons of mailed matter are daily passing on the same route. Men and women dressed in home-made fabrics and ate the pro- duce of their own farms. A quotation from "Forefathers' song," written in the seventeenth century, will reveal many facts in a few words :
"The place where we live is a wilderness wood
Where grass is much wanting that's fruitful and good;
Our mountains and hills, and our valleys below,
Being commonly covered with ice and with snow :
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And when the north-west wind with violence blows, Then every man pulls his cap over his nose ; But if any's so hardy and will it withstand, He forfeits a finger, a foot or a hand."
Another stanza describes their daily food, not their "daily bread," with more truth than poetry :
" If fresh meat be wanting to fill up our dish, We have carrots and pumpkins and turnips and fish ; And, is there a mind for a delicate dish, We repair to the clam-banks and there we catch fish. Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies, Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies ; We have pumpkins at morning, and pumpkins at noon, If it was not for pumpkins, we should be undone."
CHAPTER LXVIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL PARTIES.
In the dark ages, when the people, groaning under the iron heels of petty despots, asked for relief or reform, the old barons used to say : "We are unwilling to change the laws of England." When the king and his nobles called on the church to conform to the laws of the land, the prelates were wont to reply: "We consent, saving our order"; and when anxious litigants peti- tioned against "the law's delay " for speedy justice, the courts replied with one consent : " We must stand by the decisions." These maxims were too sacred to be expressed in English, so they were embalmed in Latin. A dead language aptly repre- sented a dead law. Every age and nation has its conservatives and reformers ; its progressive and stationary politicians. Writ- ten constitutions for societies, institutions and nations rarely satisfy more than one generation. Jefferson doubted whether it . was right for one generation to legislate for another ; for a youth- ful people to make organic laws for those who should live in its maturity and hoary age. The numerous amendments already made and demanded in our own constitution indicate the truth of his remark. The English constitution consists of laws, cus- toms, charters and precedents. It is not written except in the entire history of the country, civil, judicial and ecclesiastical. Yet, under this varying and uncertain instrument, the most im- portant reforms have been made by legislation. So slavery was abolished in England. We cut the Gordian knot with the sword, and possibly a whole century will be required to staunch the
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bleeding wounds of the nation. No new cause of controversy has arisen since the adoption of the federal constitution. Some causes of dissension were incorporated in its very substance. In the infancy of the nation the questions of finance, tariff, slavery and state rights were as prominent as they are to-day, and it is remarkable that secession was broached very early in New Eng- land. Many eminent northern men about the beginning of this century favored it, and some secretly, some openly, advocated it. Among these secessionists were some of the most eminent men of New Hampshire. The late Governor Plumer, writing to John Quincy Adams in 1828, says : "During the long and eventful session of congress of 1803-4 I was a member of the senate, and was at the city of Washington every day of that session. In the course of the session, at different times and places, several of the federalists, senators and representatives from the. New England states informed me that they thought it necessary to establish a separate government in New England, and if it should be found practicable to extend as far south as to include Penn- sylvania ; but in all events to establish one in New England. They complained that the slave-holding states had acquired, by means of their slaves, a greater increase of representatives in the house than was just or equal ; that too great a portion of the public revenue was raised in the northern states ; and that the acquisition of Louisiana and the new states that were formed and those to be formed in the west and in the ceded territory would soon annihilate the weight and influence of the northern states in the government." Mr. Plumer also adds: "I was myself in favor of forming a separate government in New Eng- land, and wrote several confidential letters to a few of my friends recommending the measure." This letter was written in conse- quence of the published assertion of President Adams that the object of "certain leaders" of the federal party in Massachu- setts in 1805 " was, and had been for several years, the dissolu- tion of the Union and the establishment of a separate confed- eracy." The biographer of Governor Plumer has quoted from the published letters of many New England statesmen, jurists and divines similar sentiments, so as to place the fact beyond a doubt that secession was meditated at the north in the very in- fancy of our national life. It deserves notice that the clergy of that period were generally federalists, and when the southern states, under the lead of Jefferson, gained the supremacy in the national councils, they took a decided stand against the doctrines and measures of the republican party. Hon. William Plumer, jr., writes in the life of his father : "In 1793 Timothy Dwight, of Yale college, and, like most of the eminent New England di- vines of that day, a leading politician, wrote thus to a friend :
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'A war with Great Britain we at least in New England will not enter into. Sooner would ninety-nine out of a hundred separate from the Union than plunge ourselves into such an abyss of mis- ery.'" Oliver Wolcott, lieutenant-governor of Connecticut, re- peatedly advocated a separation of the New England states from the Union. In 1796 he wrote : " I sincerely declare that I wish the northern states would separate from the southern the mo- ment that event [the election of Jefferson] shall take effect." Mr. Plumer adds : "This plan of disunion thus rife in Con- necticut in 1796 may not improbably be regarded as the germ of that which appeared at Washington in 1808-9, and which showed itself for the last time where it was first disclosed, in the Hart- ford convention of 1814."
Parties are the natural outgrowth of free thought. They are necessary to the perpetuity of free institutions. Irresponsible power cannot be safely intrusted to any man or any body of men. Majorities are often as tyrannical as despots. Hence our own liberties will ever be most secure when the advocates and opponents of measures of mere expediency are quite equally balanced. The federal party maintained the supremacy for twelve years after the adoption of the constitution. The suc- cessor of Washington, John Adams, was a man of sterling integ- rity, a profound statesman, a true patriot and an eminent orator. Jefferson styles him "the colossus of debate" in the constitu- tional convention. He possessed less popular talent and less political sagacity than his illustrious rival. Adams approached the object of his desires by a straightforward course. Jefferson was more facile, yielding and devious in his march to victory. He was a man of the world ; his enemies say an "intriguer," an "infidel " and a "demagogue." These are hard names ; they are bestowed on him by men who opposed and hated him. He was certainly successful in his plans, and became the founder of a party which has ruled the country for more than one half the period of its existence. No finite mind of to-day can positively affirm that he did not administer the affairs of the country with as much wisdom, integrity and patriotism as the great leader of the federalists would have exhibited. Mr. Jefferson undoubtedly made mistakes. So did Mr. Adams; and posterity still points to those mistakes as the true cause of his loss of power. New Hampshire adhered implicitly to the doctrines of the federalists till 1805, then the republicans were victors. Senator Plumer then wrote to Uriah Tracy : "Democracy has obtained its long expected triumph in New Hampshire. John Langdon is gov- ernor elect. His success is not owing to snow, rain, hail or bad roads, but to the incontrovertible fact that the federalists of this state do not compose the majority. Many good men have grown
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weary of constant exertions to support a system whose labors bear a close affinity to those of Sisyphus." Governor Plumer was then wavering. He had held the most important offices in the gift of the state, and had executed their duties as an uncom- promising federalist. He became in a few years the leader, the honored and trusted standard-bearer, of the democratic party, whose every measure he had previously opposed and whose very name he hated. The fact that such conversions are common in party politics shows that neither party is so wise or good as its advocates would have us believe, nor so wicked and corrupt as its opponents would represent them. Burke in his old age re- sisted the opinions he advocated in his youth, so that it has been said of him that his mind resembled some mighty conti- nent rent asunder by internal convulsions, each division being peopled with its own giant race of inhabitants. It is a difficult task for a man to undo the work of years and conquer his own overgrown reputation, but politicians are frequently called to perform that unwelcome service, and, what is still worse, to be- come the assailants of those whose votes and voices have lifted them into the sunlight of popular favor.
John Langdon was a man of untarnished reputation, a true patriot and a wise statesman. He was first nominated as a can- didate for the chief magistracy of the state in 1802. He then received eight thousand seven hundred and fifty-three votes. After three years of trial he was triumphantly elected, in 1805, by a majority of four thousand. The senate, house and council were all the same party. The state was completely revolution- ized in politics. Hon. Samuel Bell, whose name afterwards be- came so illustrious in high official stations, was that year elected speaker of the house. The party which then came into power maintained their position, with slight interruptions, for more than thirty years.
It is generally supposed that high culture, whether of the head or heart, tends to repress party spirit ; and that prejudice and intolerance are always associated with ignorance and bru- tality. Hence, political parties which are sustained by the edu- cated and religious portion of the community assume to be su- perior to their opponents on that very account. Thucydides maintains, in his history, that " as long as human nature remains the same, like causes will produce like effects." The masses who suffer understand their own wants better than their rulers or teachers. Scribes and Pharisees, monarchs and nobles, are not apt to favor reforms or to lift from men's shoulders the bur- dens they have imposed. If the voice of the people is ever the voice of God, it is when they cry for bread or plead for rights. Jack Cade was a better patriot than Richard II., when, as the
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advocate for the people, he demanded " the abolition of slavery, freedom of commerce in market towns without toll or impost, and a fixed rent on lands instead of service due by villenage." Revolutions usually begin with the lowest classes of society. The men over whom David became captain were "poor, discon- tented and in debt." Cromwell describes the first recruits of the army of the Puritans as "old, decayed serving-men, tapsters and such kind of fellows." When the Corsican lieutenant com- menced his brilliant career, his army was formed of the canaille of Paris. To-day, the chartists in England demand "universal suffrage, annual parliaments, vote by ballot, electoral districts and payment of members of parliament," and who in our coun- try would pronounce their claims unjust? Politics travel up- ward ; morals and manners downward. Whigs, in opposition, often become tories in power. The same has repeatedly proved true of hostile parties in our country. It is the very nature of a government to be avaricious of power ; and rulers are inclined to use, in the promotion of their own interests, more than has been delegated to them. The republicans at first were in favor of a strict construction of the constitution ; yet in the purchase of Louisiana, Jefferson himself admitted that he exceeded his constitutional authority. When the national bank was estab- lished in 1791, a warm debate arose between federalists and re- publicans with regard to the constitutionality and expediency of such an institution. This question caused the first important division of opinion in the cabinet of Washington. Hamilton and Knox supported the measure ; Jefferson and Randolph op- posed it. In subsequent years, the parties of which Hamilton and Jefferson were founders battled for the same views, till the hostility of General Jackson worked the ruin of the bank. The other leading measures of the federal party, the funding system, the proclamation of neutrality, Jay's treaty, the internal taxes, the alien and sedition laws, had all been more or less unpopular. Mr. Jefferson, on his accession to office, sought to allay the vio- lence of party feelings by the declaration : "We are all republi- cans ; we are all federalists ;" still the spirit he had raised would not down at his bidding. The late administration party, now in the opposition, became bitter assailants of every measure proposed by Jefferson and his supporters. The foreign rela- tions of our country excited the most bitter controversies.
From 1805 to 1815, the people in every state had no rest from these disturbing questions. The administration of Mr. Jefferson, so prosperous at its commencement, was clouded and overcast toward its close by the injustice of foreign powers. This rendered necessary, in the opinion of the government, a system of non-intercourse and embargo laws, and led finally to
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a war with England. The entire commerce of the United States was annihilated by the British Orders in Council and the Decrees of Napoleon, between May, 1806, and December, 1807. There was no safety upon the high seas. Between the French Scylla and the English Charybdis ruin was inevitable. The Americans lost more than one hundred millions of property by these maritime robbers. England was then the proud mistress of the seas. She dictated international laws to less powerful navigators. She claimed the right to board and search Ameri- can vessels and to take from them not merely contraband goods, but sailors whom she claimed as her subjects. On the twenty- second of June, 1807, without provocation, she attacked and crippled the Chesapeake, an American man-of-war, and took from her by force four of her seamen. Such acts, repeatedly committed and arrogantly defended, kindled the resentment of every patriotic American ; still party ties were so strong that the federalists rather apologized for English aggressions than con- demned them. Among these lovers of fatherland were found many of the literati and clergymen. The ministers regarded England as the bulwark of the Protestant faith, and France as the hot-bed of atheism. There was truth in these assertions ; but neither of them could justify the outrages of England upon our citizens or our commerce. England has maintained, till the year 1868, that no subject of hers could alienate his allegiance to his native country. "Once a subject always a subject" was her doctrine. Under this plea she ordered her cruisers to board American vessels and seize all English subjects found there. Previous to the declaration of war in 1812, more than six thou- sand seamen had been thus forcibly abstracted from American vessels. Sometimes American citizens were seized.
CHAPTER LXIX.
POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF THE CLERGY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.
The aristocracy of New England were the ministers and mag- istrates. Much of the hereditary reverence of the old world for these officials, sacred and secular, still clung to them in the new. Mrs. Stowe, in her " Minister's Wooing" and in " Oldtown Folks," has very graphically illustrated the influence of both classes in the early history of our country. The ministers of
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Massachusetts created, guided and controlled public opinion, both religious and political. In fact they made the two identi- cal. James Otis, the popular leader, who was denounced by royalists as an "incendiary, a seditious firebrand and leveler," was defended from the pulpit by the burning eloquence of May- hew, who cried on the annual Thanksgiving day of 1762, "I do not say our invaluable rights have been struck at; but if they have, they are not wrested from us ; and may righteous Heaven blast the designs, though not the soul, of that man, whoever he may be among us, that shall have the hardiness to attack them." The same patriotic, heroic advocate of the people's rights wrote to James Otis in 1766: "You have heard of the communion of the churches. While I was thinking of this in my bed, the great use and importance of a communion of colonies appeared to me in a strong light." He proceeded to suggest the sending of circulars to all the colonies, "expressing a desire to cement union among ourselves." "A good foundation for this," he added, "has been laid by the congress of New York ; never losing sight of it may be the only means of perpetuating our liberties." This first suggestion of a political union of all the colonies was almost the dying message of the good old man. It was written on the last day of health. Through the whole period of our revolutionary struggle, the Congregationalists were not only loyal to the best interests of the people, but the most effective promoters of them. Bancroft says of the clergy of Boston, in 1768 : "Its ministers were still its prophets ; its pul- pits, in which, now that Mayhew was no more, Cooper was ad- mired above all others for eloquence and patriotism, by weekly appeals inflamed alike the fervor of piety and liberty."
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