USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Campton > The Centennial celebration of the town of Campton, N.H., September 12th, 1867 > Part 6
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It is eighty-eight years since my grandfather, a beard- less boy of nine years, came to Campton. How interest- ing to contemplate the scenes of that early day ; to go in imagination among the scattered settlers and see them laboring with their rude implements of agriculture, some specimens of which are here to-day, and then to enter their humble dwellings and partake of a Rebekah's veni- son served on wooden plates, or with a pewter spoon eat lucious bean-porridge. Or coming down nine years later in the history of the town, to the time my great-grand- father Giddings, moved from Newburyport, Massachusetts,
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to Campton, we find scenes strange and ludicrous. My great-grandmother rode on horseback, carrying her young- est child in her arms. The rest of the children either went on foot or rode, - not in a stage coach, or railroad car drawn by the boiling teakettle which has been men- tioned here to-day, - but in a cart propelled by ox power at the usual bovine speed.
They completed their journey in about a week, thus occupying more time than is now necessary in going from Maine to Kansas. Among the valuables which that cart contained was this book which I hold in my hand, entitled " The Fulfilling of the Scriptures." It was printed by Robert Fleming, in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1743, and is consequently one hundred and twenty-four years old. It was first owned by my grandmother's grandmother in the days of her girlhood, and her name, Abigail Bartlett, is legibly written on the first page. Among those that rode in the cart was a blushing maiden of sweet sixteen, named Polly. Miss Polly, notwithstanding her ride in the cart, was too dignified to give her hand in matrimony to the green boys of Campton, and as a reward for her folly she has been living an old maid for the last sixty- five years. Next Monday is her ninty-sixth birthday. Even these scenes, which we never saw only in imagina- tion, are dear to our hearts from the reverence we have for our ancestry. But in many respects the scenes of our fathers' were the scenes of our childhood. It is true the forests had fallen before the woodman's ax, the log houses with their huge fireplaces had given way to more comfort- able dwellings ; instead of the howl of the wolf there was heard the rattling of the stage coach or the whistling of the engine, but the everlasting hills remained with their rocky sides and rippling brooks. The same pure moun- tain breezes blow o'er these hills and through these vales now as then, the same varieties of flowers bud and blos-
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Remarks of Rev. Mr. Smith.
som, the same species of birds now as then make their annual visits and warble forth the same sweet songs of praise to Him who made them. The church organized in the days of our grand-parents had its existence in the days of our childhood and long may it thrive a nursery of piety, a blessing to the world.
Dearer to our hearts are these rugged hills with their beautiful and varied scenery, than the expansive prairies of the West or the rich cotton fields of the South. Here the first and most lasting impressions of our lives were made. The scenes of childhood, who can forget them? The solemnities of a funeral ; the festivity of a marriage ; how impressive. How bright are the sunny dreams of childhood ; the heart unacquainted with grief, unbroken by affliction's rod, is buoyant with hope. Pleasures and blessedness, unmixed with woe, gild the future pathway of life. When in after years experience has blasted many of our fond hopes, and pleasures for which we never look- ed have been ours to enjoy, how pleasant to bring to mind the anticipations of childhood. And the scenes of our childhood bring fresh to our memories the thoughts, sor- rows, joys, words and acts of our childhood, and those scenes also bring fresh to our memories parents and grandparents, schoolmates and youthful associates, many, very many of whom have gone to that land from whence no traveler returns. Go to the aged and perhaps the events of yesterday are forgotten, but if there is anything clear in their memories it is the scenes of their childhood. Go to the bed of the dying and they too are thinking up- on the scenes of their childhood and seem to derive satis- faction by being assured that they shall be buried by the graves of their fathers. Many of the sons and daughters of Campton who have died in distant towns or other States, have been brought to the scenes of their child- hood for interment. And this sentiment is no new princi-
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ple. We read that Israel charged his sons that they bury him with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah, saying " there they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife ; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife ; and there I bur- ied Rachel."
Dear, thrice dear to our hearts, are the scenes of our childhood, and long will we cherish a sacred memory of the town which contains the graves of our pious ancestry and gave us our birth. And when our " dust shall return to the earth as it was, and our spirits shall return unto God who gave them," then may our ashes repose in yon- der beautiful cemetery in this lovely valley of the Pemige- wasset, amid the scenes of our childhood.
THE SOLDIERS OF THE UNION.
BY H. W. BLAIR.
In reviewing the century which expires to-day and which comprises more than the whole period of the his- tory of the Union, we find that we have not been exempt from the common experience of nations. We have pass- ed through peace and war, through prosperity and adversi- ty. America has a better form of Government and of social organization, a higher type of civilization develop- ing, if not already developed, than exist anywhere else on the earth. Yet this day's retrospect reminds us that although in advance of all other nations, we are of the same common nature and subject to the operation of the same inexorable laws. Like that of the rest of mankind much of our history too is written in blood.
Some philosophers have taught that war is the natural
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Remarks by H. W. Blair.
condition of mankind, and it is certain that no great land- mark has been set up in the progress of the race without war.
The great epochs of history have been baptized in blood. Popular freedom has been born in battle, and reared amid " the clash of resounding arms." By means of war the greatest practical good has been realized by the masses of men, and a review of the century just past proves that relentless, devastating, terrible war, is still the chief agency employed by the Supreme Ruler of the universe in removing the hoary obstructions reared by ignorance, superstition and depravity in the pathway of man, to a more exalted destiny. Even the Prince of Peace came not to bring peace but by the sword, and the religious wars that have in their prosecution blasted the earth as flames of the pit might blast the gardens of para- dise, attest how true it is that such is the lamentable na- ture of man that Emanuel disseminates even the religion of love, by means of the organized destruction of human life.
The true soldier is one of the highest types of man. He fights only when inspired by a great cause. Battles, the physical combat, the bloody collision of armed masses of men, the torn field covered with ghastly corses and echoing with the agonies of the wounded,-the wail of defeat and the shout of triumph,-these are but the inci- dents, the sad and unavoidable incidents, not the reality of war. They may conceal from common vision the true nature of the contest, but the true soldier sees through and above it all, the desperate conflict of irreconcilable principles, the eternal struggle between right and wrong. Nor is it because death is less formidable to him than to others, that the ties and endearments of home and kin- dred are less precious,-that the fair green earth, the sublime forms of the mountains, mighty forests, happy
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valleys and smiling waters, the song of birds, zephyrs, and the requiems of the air, -- that nature with her ten thousand charms, has none for him, that he leads the im- petuous charge on and challenges the treacherous assaults of malignant disease. Insensibility to danger is not courage. The man who comprehends danger and by the power of superior motives conquers fear, alone is made of the true stuff and is a hero. And it is because his soul is blazing with the holy fire of a cause sacred and sublime, that he cares not for limb or life, or any of the bolts of fate.
It is eminently fitting on this centennial occasion, when our eyes are turned to behold the long train of wonderful events by which the wilderness has been transformed into the happy home of a civilized and christian common- wealth, that the " soldiers of the Union" be held in hon- orable remembrance.
The first soldiers of Campton were soldiers of the Union, and some of the first and bravest soldiers of the Union were from Campton.
The historian says that this town although so recently settled furnished ten men who upheld the Declaration with their " lives, their fortunes and their sacred honors." They shed their blood in the time that tried mens' souls. Rebels they were against tyrants, but the chosen warriors of the Most High God. While some of them left their bones on the battlefield in distant States, others returned to enjoy a ripe old age under the protection of that glor- ious banner whose ample folds their hands first flung to the breezes of heaven. Now they have passed away, and their sacred dust sleeps calmly beneath the soil their valor redeemed.
And Campton soldiers fought for the Union when the jealousy and impotent wrath of baffled Britain, her wound- ed pride still smarting under the mortifying memories of
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Remarks by H. W. Blair.
the revolutionary war, led her to attempt to sweep our commerce from the seas and chain the billows of the mighty deep. The struggle of 1776 liberated the conti- nent and set in motion a train of causes that seems des- tined to free every acre of land trodden by the foot of man.
The war of 1812 was to emancipate the waters of the world, and worthy sons reared by revolutionary sires, im- bibing freedom with every breath drawn among their na- tive hills hurried to die at the summons of their country, and by their consecrated valor they saved the priceless heritage the fathers had bequeathed, while the attentive world wondered to behold the heroism which triumphed at Lexington and Bunker Hill and Saratoga and York- town, again in the ascendant at Plattsburgh and New Or- leans, and on the slippery decks of our matchless men-of- war.
And in our last tremendous struggle for very life, many brave sons of Campton have fought, and alas ! some have fallen too, for the Union. Eight men of fourteen who enlisted in a single company gave up their lives within a year. Better men never fell for the rights of man; and many others equally worthy fell, of whom the time would fail us to speak their praise. It is enough, and all that on this brief occasion we can say, that sons of Campton have fought every foe of the Union and that the sod re- news its annual verdure above them on every battle-field of our land.
Departed spirits, - who have passed beyond the vi- cisitudes of time to partake the eternal rest of the bless- ed, - we cherish the recollection of your earthly forms with tears, while we hail your celestial presence with transcendant joy. For you death had no terrors. Filled with sacred enthusiasm in a noble cause your mortal career closed in a zenith of light, and as the thunders of
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battle vanished on your dying senses the music of the heavenly gates " on golden hinges turning and of beauti- fied choirs welcomed your ascending souls to the society of the long glorified father." Hushed be the tumult of life as with the eye of faith we gaze on your transfigured forms. Long shall your memory live on these mortal shores. Affection has embalmed you in her choicest shrine. The patriot shall emulate your example in life and in death, and the christian as he enters the valley of the shadow of death shall light his torch in the effulgent hope that glorified your exit. Peace be unto your ashes wherever they lie. God's guardian angels watch over them and bedew with tears of heaven the sacred flowers that bloom on your scattered graves.
" On fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead."
Nor on this occasion should we forget the living who endured or dared whatever has immortalized the dead ; and to-day our common country remembers with pride the gallantry and patriotism of her surviving sons, many of whom are before me, and I ask is there one of you who would exchange his record for that of dead Cæsar? Not one. To have been a common soldier of the Union is to outrank Cæsar wrapped in purple robes dyed in the blood of millions slain that he might
" wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind."
There is little left in this world which the humblest living soldier of the Union can desire to add to the hon- ors of his name. A country, aye in a larger sense a world, saved for humanity by the triumph and preservation of our national integrity through his toils and sufferings.
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Remarks by H. W. Blair.
He is in no unmeaning sense, "one of the army of the Lord." What more can he ask? What more can he re- ceive of honor at our hands ?
Give him when maimed and stricken in your service only the necessaries of life and he will not trouble you for its honors ; that certificate of honorable discharge from the army of the Union, proves him to be the peer of any of his countrymen. History will take care of him.
And in closing, allow me to say that I believe municipal patriotism can manifest itself in no more commendable form than in the erection of appropriate monuments to commemorate the self-sacrificing heroism of the soldiers of the Union.
By a recent act of the Legislature every town and city in New Hampshire is authorized to raise and expend money for that noble object, and I believe that in no other way can we perpetuate such an impressive sense of the inestimable worth of our free institutions and of this glorious Union by whose preservation alone they can be transmitted and made perpetual, as by ennobling our landscape with monuments whose silent, chaste yet ele- gant columns and simple epitaphs, shall forever repeat to the long succession of happy and grateful generations to come, that first great lesson of patriotic devotion, " 'Tis sweet, oh 'tis sweet for our country to die."
By doing honor to the soldier we honor and foster the cause for which he lays down his life. No country can or should long continue to exist when its obligations are forgotten to those who preserved its life by the sacrifice of their own, to its disabled, and to the widows and or- phans of its slain or when it ceases to cherish in grateful remembrance, the gallant deeds which constitute its na- tional renown.
America will not fail to honor those who in triumph or defeat have periled all in her defence, for in the language
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of the Great Athenian, " What was the part of gallant men they all performed? Their success was such as the Supreme Ruler of the universe dispensed to each."
All the " soldiers of the Union" have been its bulwark in the past, so under God are they its future hope. One century hence, - when every breathing thing that now moves in the light of heaven; when you, honored sir ; when the infant that prattles on its mother's arms uncon- scious of the profound solemnities we celebrate; when you venerable sires and matrons, who have gathered once more within the corporate precincts of our beloved old native town, to renew by sacred communings with the un- changing forms of nature, the tender associations that link you rather with the dead than with the living ; when all, all of us shall have moldered away and our names shall have been lost in the wide gulf of oblivion, or shall linger only in the faint voices of tradition, - may the sons of Campton at her next centennial celebration be able to transmit, as thank God we now bequeath it to them, untarnished the honor of her " soldiers of the Un- ion."
LETTER FROM REV. DR. STONE.
CONCORD, Sept. 11, 1867.
MR. BARTLETT-Dear Sir : I received a letter yester- day, dated at Campton Village, inviting me to attend your Centennial Celebration on the 12th. Please give my com- pliments to the Committee and say to them that it would give me great pleasure to be present on that occasion, but the state of my health will not permit.
I am a member of the Council which convenes here to- morrow to install a pastor over the First Church, but I
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Letters from Rev. Messrs. Stone and Willey.
should be much more interested in going to Campton, if I were able. My former residence among you as pastor, and my acquaintance with your people and history, give me a deep interest in your affairs and welfare. May the Lord be with you and make the occasion a blessing to all present, and to all future generations, at least for the next hundred years.
Grateful to the Committee for their kind invitation, Yours, respectfully,
BENJAMIN P. STONE.
LETTER FROM REV. AUSTIN WILLEY.
STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA, April, 1868. To the Committee of Arrangements for the Centennial Cele- bration at Campton, New Hampshire :
GENTLEMEN : It was with great pleasure that I learned of the design to celebrate the Centennial of the settle- ment of my honored native town. It was most appro- priate. The town was worthy of such commemoration and all its true sons, wherever scattered on the earth, will gladly respond to its honors. Nothing but impossi- bilities prevents my joining, personally, in that grand occasion. It is doubtful if another town can be found in New England of equal population and natural advantages, which has contributed more to human good. Its early history was marked by substantial intelligence, sound morality and religious principle, and its sons and daugh- ters have gone all over the continent diffusing these in- fluences of their native town. And whether on the shore of either ocean, among the Rocky Mountains or upon the
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praries of the West, the name of their dear native town awakens emotions which no time or distance can efface.
There was the old home which meant home. There the the scenes of childhood and associations of youth; there the meeting house and school house ; there the grand and beautiful in nature, commingled as almost nowhere else ; and there the graves of departed generations, watered with tears of affection ; there sleep the pious dead, an- gels perhaps still watching their dust. How can we re- member Campton without grateful affection, and thanking those who proposed and carried through this celebration.
But if that town is to be what it has been, the causes of its past distinction must be kept in vigorous activity. There certainly were an intelligent christian ministry, substantial books, good schools, little liquor traffic, close industry and sound religion. Let these control the taste and habits, and give character to the town, and its honor will still advance, while the good flowing from it to the world will be as living as the streams from its mountain sides.
Let me propose this sentiment :
CAMPTON : May its second Centennial Celebration pre- sent as pleasing a record as its first.
A. WILLEY.
LETTER FROM E. C. BAKER.
26 Barrister's Hall, Boston, Sept. 9, 1867. CHARLES CUTTER, EsQ-
Dear Sir : Your letter of August first, inviting me to be present at a Centennial Celebration of the town of Campton, on September 12th, was received in due course
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Letter from E. C. Baker, Esq.
of mail. I have delayed an answer, hoping to be able to respond in person at the time designated.
One hundred years of corporate life, fairly gives your town the right to call herself, and to be known as the old town of Campton. Not only this but her still earlier history, her name indicating it,-being as she was, if I am not mistaken, one of the earliest camping grounds of those noble men, whose efforts, labors and sufferings, as pioneers in the settlement of this Western continent, con- tributed so much to the development of the Anglo Saxon race and the establishment of a government, deriving all its powers from the governed,-gives you a still further right, with proud satisfaction, to hail this anniversary day.
One hundred years ! What mighty changes have marked their flight ! Who of that day, if now they could revisit you, would find anything which they then saw, or as they lay and slept in their rude camp, ever dreamed of seeing in the sweet valley or on the fertile hills of their quiet home? Who of them all foresaw or prophesied then the mighty Empire which they, and such as they, were building? Aye! "they builded wiser than they knew !" Deep and strong as the eternal granite of these hills, they laid the foundations, and in toil, in hardship, in privation, in weakness which became strength, they builded thereon. Strong, rugged, manly minds and na- tures, came as fruits of their labors, and to-day we have entered into their labors. It has been well said of our State of New Hampshire, that its principal products are ice, granite, and men !
The men of Campton will bear the examination of his- tory, without detriment in the comparison. It is well, therefore, that you celebrate your anniversary day. In our pride of the past; in our reverence for the fathers, let us not forget their hopes, their objects, the purposes
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of their struggles, the end of their works. The noblest monument we can raise to their memory is not of monu- mental stone or sculptured brass, but in institutions of government, which shall show to all time to come that we appreciate their designs, and guiding ourselves by their motives and teachings and following their example, will hereafter, as in the past, " march under the old flag, and keep step to the music of the Union !"
One hundred years ! how quickly fled ! and yet how great the results ! Then a few weak colonists ; now a mighty nation. Then a scattered population skirting the Atlantic coast. Now the hum of national industry min- gles its song with the roar of the Atlantic sea, and the peaceful music of the Pacific wave. Now from the cold regions of the North to the fragrant Savannahs of the sunny South the rivers run, bearing upon their broad bosoms the wealth of the productions of thirty millions of free, happy, prosperous and united people.
One hundred years ! Who can measure to-day the hun- dred years to come? Who can cast their horoscope? Are we in our day building as wisely and as well, as our fathers? Then, indeed, we may in this hour of our re- joicing, celebrate the past, and with confident hope look forward to the future.
Regretting that unavoidable circumstances will prevent me from enjoying with you the good time you will have, I beg to send you as a sentiment :
" As we of 1867 say to those of 1767, so may they of 1967 say of us, WORTHY SONS OF NOBLE SIRES."
I have the honor to be,
Very truly, your obedient servant,
ELIHU C. BAKER.
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Letter from B. Frank Palmer, LL.D.
LETTER FROM B. FRANK PALMER, LL. D.
PHILADELPHIA, September 9, 1867.
MY DEAR SIR : I had the honor to receive your kind invitation to attend the first Centennial Celebration of the town of Campton, and to read a poem on the occasion. The great pressure of my business engagements prevented me from arriving at a decision, as I hoped to be able to accept the esteemed invitation, and must now be my apology for this late reply.
To revisit the home of my childhood on such an occa- sion,-which cannot be repeated in one day,-to mingle with my once young friends and kindred at our old gate way, and listen to the voices of the most honored among those who were my " birds of a feather," friends of my youth ; friends of my evil days ; friends in those light- winged hours, when the fire of aspiration flashed, to light the entrance of the labyrinth through whose devious ways my feet must pass among the realities of opening life-to recount with them there some of the earlier joys and later realities of active life, and earnest endeavors to mark the advancement, almost fabulous, of your now noted and beautiful town, and contribute, however little I might be able, to the interest of the immortal hour which the re- turning rounds of centuries will bear along the ages, would afford me sweet and lasting joy. But the duties of the day, its claims upon me, aye, its promised joys at my happy home in the great city of my adoption, constrain me to forego the pleasure that such a reunion would af- ford.
I cannot, however, permit the great occasion to pass without congratulating you, citizens of Campton, friends and kindred, one and all, upon the happy auspices of
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Centennial Celebration.
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