USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Peterborough > History of the town of Peterborough, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire > Part 22
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* His brother, Robert Annan, was first at Wallkill, N. Y., then pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston, then of a society in Philadelphia, where he died. He was a man of uncom- mon power and of great austerity.
t Henry Ferguson, a thoroughly excellent man. Not one of the name is now among us. Three of the sons removed to South Carolina, where the last of them, having accumulated a large prop- erty, died within a few years.
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threats which left to her scarcely a hope that her life would be spared till morning, and sometimes she passed the whole night with her children in the woods. After the birth of their last child his conduct towards her and her children was so brutal that it could no longer be borne. She fled from his house with her child, and a petition for a bill of divorce, on the ground of extreme cruelty, was granted at once by the court, with a feeling almost of horror at the disclosures then made.
The only organized mob, of which I find any evidence in our history, was against Mr. Annan. Just at the time of his wife's flight with her child, when stories were spread through the town, and every one was burning with indignation, the young men who were collected at a ball, talking over the cir- cumstances till they had wrought themselves into a perfect rage, determined to take the matter into their own hands. Blacking their faces with soot, disguising themselves in every uncouth dress, and provided with a rough spruce pole, at the dead of night, in the autumn of 1799, they knocked at the door of Mr. Annan's house, and when he, suspecting no harm, came to them as if from his bed, three* of the strongest among them seized him, placed him upon the pole, and the whole party, with shouting and howling, the tinkling of cow- bells, the blowing of horns and pumpkin-vines, carried him a full half mile, and threw him into a muddy pond. An attempt was made by Mr. Annan, who always after went armed with pistols, to bring the rioters to justice. Writs were issued against them, and had he possessed a single friend, he might have succeeded. But nothing could be proved; the feelings of those who had been most severe against him began to re- lent, and they looked with pity on the solitary, friendless, de- jected old man.
The provocation in this case undoubtedly was great. But never, we may safely say, in a well organized society, can an emergency arise where individuals may be justified in taking
*" What do you want o' me?" he inquired, sternly. "Only a little of your good company," was the reply from a young man, whose name has since been known through the United States (Gov. James Miller, from whom I received the account).
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upon themselves that which belongs to the natural retribu- tions of Providence and the authorized laws of the land to inflict. It may pain and vex us to see the oppressor go un- touched ; but sooner or later punishment will overtake him, and we know not how severely he may suffer at the very mo- ment when he seems most happy.
Mr. Morrison and Mr. Annan were the only settled minis- ters in the place for fifty years. Two questions naturally come up : How could such men be tolerated so long ; and how could religion be kept alive under such instructions ?
They were tolerated, in the first place, because of the great veneration which was then attached to the profession. "Min- isters," said one, at the commencement of the difficulties with Mr. Morrison, "are edged tools, and we maun aye be carefu' how we handle them." "Keep yoursel' to yoursel'," said an elder of the church, with great solemnity, to his son, who was beginning to intimate that Mr. Annan was not what he should be. Another reason which made many, and those among the most rigid disciplinarians, more tolerant than they would otherwise have been was that the ministers, though wrong in practice, were yet sound in faith; and error in belief was esteemed far more dangerous than in heart or life. This doc- trine of antinomianism was then carried to a degree of ex- travagance which finds no sympathy now. An illustration may be given. A Mr. Taggart, one of the straightest in faith, but who was intemperate in his habits, had a remarkable gift in prayer, and this gift was rather increased than diminished by the exhilaration of ardent spirits. At funerals, where there was no minister, he was usually called upon to pray ; and sometimes when unable to stand would kneel by his chair, and edify the assembly by the readiness and fervor of his devotions. Henry Ferguson once met him lying in thé road, and after helping him up told him that this conduct was inconsistent with his place in the church. "Ah," said he, " but we are not our own keepers." Some time after, Mr. Ferguson was nominated an elder, and Mr. Taggart, on the strength of this conversation, publicly opposed him as a man who trusted entirely to works. These two reasons, in their
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influence upon some of our own people, and still more upon the presbyteries with which they were connected, together with the personal influence of Robert Annan, who was a strong man in the church, will sufficiently account for the long infliction upon the patience and moral feelings of the community.
The next question, How could religion be kept alive under such circumstances, is readily answered. Our people were always readers, and the Bible was almost their only book. Here they went for counsel and support. It was, to them, prophet and priest. With all their reverence for the public ministrations of religion, their reverence for the written word was far greater. In the next place, the practice of family prayer was faithfully observed. Morning and evening the Scriptures were read ; and if the flame of devotion burnt dim in the house of public worship, it was not permitted to go out upon the family altar. Besides, they had preachers more powerful than man. They were strangers in a strange land, in the midst of perpetual alarms and dangers; sickness, death, and all the vicissitudes of life entered their dwellings in the wilderness, and through its loneliness spoke to them as they never can speak in a more cultivated place. They had, before coming here, been well imbued with the principles of religion ; and, besides, the human soul is so constituted that it cannot live and be at peace without a religious faith. Rites and ordinances are an important means of advancing the cause of religion. But they are not all. God has never left himself without witness among men. The success of his word does not rest upon a mortal priesthood. Religion is an essential want of the soul, deeply fixed in its nature. Men may stifle its cravings, may, for a time, suppress them, and unhallowed servants at the altar may help to keep them down. But they cannot be destroyed until the soul itself is crushed. Relig- ion, dishonored by its ministers, degraded by the false ideas that have gathered round it, can never be banished, so long as these human hearts, beating with hopes, anxieties, and fears, look round upon a world of change and weakness, and find nowhere here the object that fills up their wants.
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The church thus far had been Presbyterian. After Mr. Annan left, the late Rev. Zephaniah Swift Moore was invited to remain, but declined, not wishing to settle as a Presbyte- rian. After he left, a paper was handed round and signed by all, or nearly all, the church, expressing a willingness to settle Mr. Moore in the Congregational form ; but he, in the mean- time, had found another place, and the town continued with- out a settled minister till Oct. 23, 1799, when Rev. Elijah Dunbar was ordained. Originally the church had belonged to the Londonderry Presbytery. At the settlement of Mr. Annan, by his request, it received a dismission from this and joined the New York Presbytery. When Mr. Dunbar was settled, that Presbytery had become extinct, and the church here was left an independent body. It then adopted the Con- gregational form, and though there were still some who pre- ferred the Presbyterian mode, all attended upon his ministry, with the understanding, however, that once a year the com- munion should be administered by a Presbyterian, and in the Presbyterian manner. For many years the Rev. Dr. Wm. Morison, of Londonderry, administered the ordinance every autumn. It was always a day of uncommon interest; the · house was crowded; and though but a child when he last came, I well remember the solemnity and awe with which I was impressed by the countenance, accent, and manner of that aged and faithful minister of Christ. Mr. Dunbar, with unsul- lied character, remained the minister of the town till June 19, 1822, when a portion of his people who had never liked the Congregational form, and others who had never been quite at ease under an Armenian preacher, withdrew and formed the Presbyterian society. Mr. Dunbar continued pastor of the Congregational society till February, 1827. He was succeeded, in June of the same year, by Rev. Abiel Abbot, D. D., who had preached in town a short time, thirty years before, and who is still the pastor.
The Presbyterian Church was built in 1825, about half a mile north of the old meeting-house, and during the present year has been removed to the village. Rev. Peter Holt was installed pastor, March, 1827, and resigned, March, 1835.
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Rev. Mr. Pine was installed, June, 1836, and dismissed, Janu- ary, 1837. Rev. Joshua Barret was pastor from February, 1837, till February, 1839.
The Baptist Church was constituted, November, 1822, con- taining forty members. Rev. Charles Cummings was the first pastor ; Rev. Mr. Goodnow, from June, 1831 ; Rev. George. Daland, from March, 1834, till 1836; Rev. John Peacock, one year, from September, 1837, have been the ministers. Rev. J. M. Willmorth, the present pastor, was settled September, 1838.
There has been for some years a Methodist society ; ; and the Universalists have sometimes had preaching in the Congrega- tional meeting-house.
Of our public schools, important and vitally connected as they are with all the better prospects of our country, my limits will allow me to say but little. From 1760 till 1797, the annual appropriations were small, never more than one hundred dollars, seldom fifty dollars, and often nothing. I do not find that any school-houses were erected by the town before 1790, when the town was divided into five districts, and provision made for the erection of five buildings .* . From 1797 to 1805, three hundred dollars were annually raised for . schools, except in 1801, when the appropriation was but two hundred dollars. From 1805 to 1808, four hundred dollars were raised annually ; and since then the town has uniformly raised what the law required, and, I believe, no more, except that, for a few years past, one-half the literary fund, about seventy-five dollars per annum, has been given to aid the fee- ble districts. The school-taxe now, and it has not materially varied for several years, is eight hundred and eighty-one dol- lars and thirty-six cents.
The condition of the schools, public and private, during the last, and the first twenty years of the present, century, was
* There were school-houses long before this, which had been erected by neighborhoods. In the same way schools also were supported. The public appropriations give a wrong idea of what has actually been paid for this purpose. The sum now paid for private schools is at least equal to what is paid by the town. There are now in town eleven districts, each with a brick school- house.
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decidedly bad. Some improvement has been made since then ; and great credit is due to the spirited exertions of a few individuals in different parts of the town. Still, for I should pervert the purposes of this day, if I stood here only to flatter or to praise, the subject has not received the attention which its importance demands, and our public schools do not take the place that we should expect, from the general intelli- gence of our citizens. They are peculiarly the property and province of the whole people, by whom they live and prosper, and without whose hearty assistance and cooperation com- mittees and teachers can accomplish nothing. All who take an interest in the welfare of their children or of society will not be slow to do what can be done for these, the true nurser- ies of a nation's mind. They will not grudge to the teacher his hard-earned pay, nor forget to do at home that which alone can render his labors easy and effective.
Our libraries demand a moment's attention. There had been, previously, a library of a similar character ; but as early as 18II, the Peterborough Social Library was gotten up, contain- ing not far from one hundred volumes. So judicious a selec- tion I have never seen. There was hardly a book which did not deserve its place. I well remember the astonishment with which, at the age of eleven, I first looked on what seemed to me such an immense collection of books; nor can I soon forget the uniform kindness with which my early reading was encouraged, and in some measure directed, by the librarian, Daniel Abbot. In an intellectual point of view, I look back on no period of my life with so much satisfaction, as on the two years when, at the age of fourteen and fifteen, I lived with Samuel Templeton, as honest a man as this or any town has ever produced. During the hour which he always gave me at noon, and in the evening by fire-light, I read the stand- ard histories in our language, and made myself acquainted with the important events of the ancient world. When a volume was finished, I would set out at dark, after a hard day's work, walk three miles to the village, and, enriched with a new treasure, would return almost unmindful of the woods and their near vicinity to the graveyard and old meeting-house,
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which, especially on a wintry, autumnal night, standing there naked, black, and lonely, was, as I know full well, a fearful object enough to a child. The Peterborough Social Library became gradually neglected, and was sold about 1830, when a new library on the same plan was gotten up, and contains now about three hundred volumes. The Union and Phoenix Fac- tories have each a library of about one hundred and fifty vol- umes. The Ministerial Library (an excellent institution) contains five hundred, and the public town-library about nine hundred volumes; so that, besides private collections, there are now in town, for the use of readers, two thousand vol- umes.
One word let me here say to the young. These schools and libraries are for you. All that is most valuable in educa- tion is within your reach. Many have been the bitter but unavailing regrets of those who, despising these precious advantages in youth, have found themselves, as men and women, ignorant and incompetent to the great duties that were before them. The busiest day has intervals of rest, and he who is in earnest for knowledge will receive it. Let your leisure moments be sacredly devoted to the improvement of your minds. You might not covet the honors of a profes- sional life, if you knew its painful watchings, anxieties, and toils; but as you value the esteem of others, or your own hap- piness, as you would do your part to carry on the progress of the world, as you would be useful and respected in manhood, and escape a leafless, neglected, old age, do not fail now, while the time is, to use every means that is held out for your intel- lectual advancement.
Another subject of much interest in our history I can but just sketch out. Early in our history, the hand-card, the little wheel, and the loom with the hand-shuttle, were almost the only instruments of manufacture in the place. The grand- mother of Gov. Miller paid for four hundred acres of land in fine linen, made entirely, except getting out the flax, by her own hands. With the exception of hats and the wedding gown, which was usually of satin, and handed down as a sort
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of heir-loom to children and grandchildren, even three gen- erations not unfrequently being married in the same dress, all the articles of clothing were manufactured at home. There the wool was carded, spun, woven, colored, and made up into garments. The hides were indeed sent away to be tanned ; but the same hides were brought home as leather, and the shoe- maker came always to the house, with his bench, lasts, and awls. To use foreign goods was considered, as indeed it was, great extravagance. After the first store was opened here, in 1771, one hundred pounds of butter was the price usually paid for a calico gown. Almost every article of food and clothing was then prepared at home. The first clothier's shop, for taking in wool to card and cloth to dress, was built by William Powers, in 1780, and this was the only factory in town till 1793; when, on the spot now occupied by the Phoenix Factory, "a* wooden building two hundred feet long, and two stories high, was erected by Samuel Smith, and was the wonder of the whole country. Mr. Smith had in this building a paper-mill, a saw-mill, an oil-mill, a clothier's shop, a trip-hammer shop, a wool-carding machine, and a dwelling- house." This bold step gave the first decided impulse to the manufacturing enterprise of the place. It brought into notice the great water-privileges that were here possessed. The first cotton factory for the manufacture of yarn was started in 1810. And from that time to this, one after another place has been taken up, until the capital vested in and upon the different water-privileges -not forgetting the peg-mill, in which twenty-five hundred bushels of shoe-pegs are made an- nually - is now estimated at three hundred thousand dollars ; the cotton factories alone producing, annually, one million seven hundred and twenty-five thousand yards of cloth; and the amount of property annually imported and sold in our stores, it is estimated, cannot be less than seventy-five thousand dollars. With this change there has been a great influx of
* I have received from John H. Steele, Esq., a very full and exact account of all our manufact- uring establishments from the beginning, which, in a condensed form, may be found in the Notes.
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people from abroad ; the habits and pursuits of the town have undergone an important revolution .*
But with all this show of enterprise and prosperity there is danger. Our young women, the future mothers, who are to form the character of the next generation, are not educated as their mothers were, at home, in comparative solitude, where the mind had leisure to mature, and the affections to expand, but are taken from their homes, work together in large com- panies, and board in crowded houses. It is surely a solemn re- sponsibility that rests upon the owners and agents of these establishments. Thus far, their conduct has been marked by generosity and high principle. But it is well for all to be awake; for the operatives to remember that they have rights and duties for themselves beyond the mere comforts and lux- uries of an animal life. They have minds, they have hearts, which require to be clothed and fed, and unless now, in season, they provide for their intellectual, moral, and spiritual wants, for the support of a refined intelligence, a modest but true moral independence, we shall repent the day that has clothed our bodies with improved garments, but left us with inferior minds, - with souls robbed of their pure affections, lofty free- dom, and immortal hopes.
The notice of our early history would be incomplete with- out some scattered facts of a different character. Our ances- tors, with all the rest of the world, believed in the bodily manifestation of the devil, in the existence of witches, and the appearance of ghosts. It is not my purpose to do anything more than relate what they believed. A small, lean, aged woman, by the name of Stinson, was uniformly regarded as a witch. A cat somewhere in town was observed to act strangely, hot water was thrown upon her, and straightway Mrs. Stinson's back was dreadfully afflicted with the St. Anthony's fire. On another occasion, a good man near
* A post-office was established in town about 1795; John Smith was the first postmaster. A Mr. Balch first carried the mail. William Thayer was carrier from 1803 to 1807. He was suc- ceeded by Daniel Gibbs, who for many years rode on horseback from Portsmouth to Brattle- boro once a week. At last he rode in a little wagon, and carried a few passengers. He was killed in 1824, by falling from a bridge. He was succeeded by his son. Stages began to run in 1826 or '27, and now a daily stage each way is crowded with passengers.
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Sharon shot at a crow many times, but the bird only flew round and laughed at him. He at last took off a silver sleeve- button, and with it broke the crow's wing; whereupon Mrs. Stinson was found with a lame arm. At her funeral, which was about fifty years ago, though she was hardly more than a skeleton, the strong men who bore her to the grave were al- most crushed to the earth by the weight of sin, and their shoulders remained for weeks black and blue.
There was also one Hannah Scott, who supposed herself bewitched by an old woman named Aspy, of Hancock. The girl lay more than a month without the power of opening her eyes, any more than she could open a part of her cheek. While in this state, she could tell exactly who were passing, how they looked, what they had with them, and what was going on in different houses, and in different parts of the
town. She always said that if old Aspy would come and bless her she should recover. The witch came, and passing her hands over the girl's forehead, with the words, "Your God bless you and my God bless you," ended the charm. This, it will be seen at once, is but the counterpart of what has recently taken place under the name of Animal Magnet- ism.
All this was religiously believed. And we in our day have known one* who, to his dying hour, firmly believed that he had twice been honored by a personal interview with the devil. Old Baker -what child in Peterborough within the last sixty years has not danced to his fiddle, with an ecstasy which no other music ever gave? Who does not remember the benevolent, complacent smile with which his honest, black face and white teeth and eyes shone, as raising his instrument to his chin, and producing the first sweet notes, he looked about on the delighted children that were listen- ing or romping round him ? But when we knew him, "the
* Baker Moore, a colored man, born in Boston, 1755, bought as a slave and brought to this town by Deacon Moore, in 1763. At the age of twenty-two, he purchased his freedom for two hundred dollars, which he never felt obliged to pay, nor was it exacted. He died January, 1839. There have been in this town eight slaves; two, Baker and Rose, belonging to Deacon Moore ; two to David Steele; two to Samuel Alld ; one to Isaac Mitchell ; one to Capt. Robbe. There may possibly have been others.
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minstrel was infirm and old," and now he is gone, - light may the turf rest upon his bosom. Such men are like fossil remains and petrifactions, which preserve the exact lineaments of plants and animals centuries perhaps after the living species has become extinct. Their minds re- ceive in youth the impressions then current, and there remain fixed through life; so that Baker, in these matters, may be considered a fair sample of the belief which pre- vailed sixty or seventy years ago. It was seldom that he could be induced to speak upon the subject, and then with symptoms of terror which it would be difficult to describe. I remember, however, to have heard him once, after casting round a fearful look to be sure that the doors were shut, and the evil spirit not actually in the room. As he was driving the cows to pasture, he said, one evening he met a man who very kindly accosted him, and in the course of the conversa- tion told his fortune, mentioning things that no mortal could have known. He gave him a book, with the request that he would read it. Baker took the book; but it hung like lead upon his spirits. He carried it constantly with him, for he was afraid to leave it behind, and at last, having met "the man " again on horseback, in the north-west part of the town, he returned the book; whereupon the man's eyes glistened like fire, his cloven foot appeared, and he was terribly angry. Baker looked up a moment after and he was gone. All this our good friend as much believed as he believed in his own existence, and it is but a fair sample of what our fathers also believed. One man, William M'Nee, had horse-shoe nails driven into the horns of all his cattle, to save them from the witches, and it was generally believed that horse-shoes, witch- hazel rods, and silver, were effectual securities against their influence.
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