USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Manchester > The Londonderry celebration. Exercises on the 150th anniversary of the settlement of old Nutfield, comprising the towns of Londonderry, Derry, Windham, and parts of Manchester, Hudson and Salem, N.H., June 10, 1869. > Part 2
USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Hudson > The Londonderry celebration. Exercises on the 150th anniversary of the settlement of old Nutfield, comprising the towns of Londonderry, Derry, Windham, and parts of Manchester, Hudson and Salem, N.H., June 10, 1869. > Part 2
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Londonderry > The Londonderry celebration. Exercises on the 150th anniversary of the settlement of old Nutfield, comprising the towns of Londonderry, Derry, Windham, and parts of Manchester, Hudson and Salem, N.H., June 10, 1869. > Part 2
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Derry > The Londonderry celebration. Exercises on the 150th anniversary of the settlement of old Nutfield, comprising the towns of Londonderry, Derry, Windham, and parts of Manchester, Hudson and Salem, N.H., June 10, 1869. > Part 2
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Windham > The Londonderry celebration. Exercises on the 150th anniversary of the settlement of old Nutfield, comprising the towns of Londonderry, Derry, Windham, and parts of Manchester, Hudson and Salem, N.H., June 10, 1869. > Part 2
USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > Salem > The Londonderry celebration. Exercises on the 150th anniversary of the settlement of old Nutfield, comprising the towns of Londonderry, Derry, Windham, and parts of Manchester, Hudson and Salem, N.H., June 10, 1869. > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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persons of very decided points of character. They belonged to the middle rank of life, and had neither great wealth, high connections nor distinguished position. Their im- press upon their own and succeeding ages was produced by the unaided force of their own intellectual and moral qualities.
In noting the leading characteristics of the Londonderry settlers, our attention is naturally directed first to their deep respect for the observances of religion. It may well be supposed that they were exemplary in meeting the requirements of the faith for which they had sacrificed and suffered so much. They made religion a most important part of their every day life. Not only were the public worship of Sunday and the preparatory service on a prior day punctually attended by young and old, but there were devotional exercises on all occasions of interest in the little community. Family prayers were daily offered up in every dwelling ; the children were carefully trained to the acqui- sition of biblical knowledge and the speculative theology contained in the elaborate catechism of the day, and were . periodically examined by the ministers, to test their profi- ciency in these studies ; and so universal was the interest in spiritual concerns, that in four years after the settlement was commenced, no fewer than two hundred and thirty persons were assembled as church communicants.
No clergyman accompanied the first installment of immi- grants, but in one month after their arrival here they had secured one, who passed the remainder of his useful life among them. In two years they had completed and opened an ample and commodious house of public worship, while yet the inhabitants were content to live in humble struc- tures of logs ; and the first framed house in the township was erected, shortly after, for their minister. These facts demonstrate, more forcibly than volumes of description, the deep attachment of the settlers to the ordinances and teach- ers of their religion.
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In those times, the church and its elders and minister constituted a sort of religious tribunal, before which a myriad of questions, temporal as well as spiritual, were brought for counsel and determination. Their jurisdiction was not confined to cases of infraction of the laws of religion and morality, it embraced also mocted questions of discretion and propriety ; and the judgment of the Session, as it was called, was pronounced, with much gravity and submitted to with great patience, upon matters which could now hardly be introduced at a church meeting without a smile, and if attempted to be adjudicated upon there, a plea to the jurisdiction, as the lawyers phrase it, would be quite certain to throw the case out of court.
The next public enterprise in the infant settlement was to make provision for the instruction of the young. The settlers were fully alive to the importance of learning. They were themselves remarkably intelligent for their times and situation in life, and several of their number had received the advantages of a university training. They speedily erected a suitable school-house, and made arrange- ments that it should be opened for the rising generation, under a competent teacher, for a large portion of the year.
The facilities for moral and intellectual improvement being thus early, provided, the place soon began to advance in numbers and consequence. Roads and mills were soon in serviceable condition, and log houses began to give place to more pretending and comfortable habitations.
The character of our ancestors for industry and frugality was a sure guarantee of the success and prosperity of their community. Idleness was only another name for wicked- ness, in their vocabulary. The men toiled diligently through the livelong day in the improvement of their homesteads, or upon works for the general benefit, and the women, when not employed in strictly household duties, turned the busy wheel, or plied the glancing shuttle.
As for the lads and lasses, we can hardly believe that
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equal diligence was required of them. If there is truth in the adage that " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," then they must have had their share of fun, for the Jacks of Londonderry were by no means dull boys. It is highly probable, however, that when the little hands became strong enough to render useful service, the lessons of in- dustry were conscientiously and practically inculcated.
But tlie men of Londonderry were not without their sea- sons of relaxation. At the annual fairs, and at other gatherings such as are of frequent occurrence in a small and friendly neighborhood, they partook heartily in the atlıletic exercises and the rude sports of the time. Wed- ding ceremonies were made the occasions of great and general festivity, and even a death and burial did not pass without scenes of hilarity that ill accord with our ideas of decorum.
Their greater faults seem to have been mainly the results of the habits of their generation upon a people of exuber- ant vitality, and leading a life somewhat austere, while affording few opportunities of rational amusement. They were of vigorous and robust constitution, bodily and men- tally ; capable of much endurance, and with equal capacity of enjoyment. Their ordinary life was liard and circum- scribed ; and strong natures, long repressed, are always prone, in the hour of license, to shake themselves free from all restraints. If our fathers had possessed the means of a higher class of gratifications in the attractive walks of literature and art, they needed but little cultivation to ap- preciate them; but the esthetic part of their life was well nigh a blank. It is not strange, therefore, that when more refined enjoyments were out of reach, they should satisfy the craving for variety with the coarser pleasures which were at liand.
Scottish thrift is a familiar term; and the men of Lon- donderry had a full share of the national quality. Poor Richard himself could have given them no new lesson
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against wastefulness and prodigality. Yet they were not parsimonious ; on the contrary, they were in some directions . · extremely liberal. The salary of their minister was larger than that of the Lieutenant Governor of the province ; they contributed generously to the aid of those who had met with losses ; they practiced a bountiful hospitality ; and they took care that their expenditures on all extraordinary occasions should rather exceed than fall short of what was due to their social position. Hoarding money, for the mere love of it, was a thing unknown to them. They were econ- omists from principle, and saved wisely that they might spend handsomely.
The Scotch Irish settlers were men of spirit and courage. Forty years before, they and their fathers had proved their fighting qualities and endurance, amid the protracted con- flicts and sufferings at Londonderry in Ireland ; and the allotments of land to six, I think, of the settlers in this place, were exempt from taxation by a special act granting that immunity to all who had borne arms for the King on that occasion. The first two ministers here were both par- ticipants of the dangers and honors of the siege; the one as a mere youth, who, however, performed yeoman's service; the other as a military officer, who received a wound in making a sortie from the city, which left its mark upon his face during life. And upon his death, sixteen years after this place was settled, there were found here enough of his companions in arms and sufferings, to bear his body to the grave, in accordance with his expressed desire.
Our early settlers, however, were no less prudent in pro- viding against danger than they were fearless in meeting it. To protect themselves against the assaults of savage foes, immediately on their arrival here, they constructed two stone garrison houses, in which the families took shel- ter by night. They were also careful to avoid encroach- ment upon the rights of the original occupants of the soil, by purchasing from the heir-at-law of John Wheelwright,
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the title to their township, which it was understood he had acquired from the Indians by a deed of their sagamores, executed nearly a century before, in 1629; a deed, by the way, about the genuineness of which there has been some controversy of late years, but which at that period was believed to be perfectly valid. The first minister here is also said on good authority to have successfully employed his influence with the French Governor of Canada, with whom he had a prior acquaintance, to dissuade the savages from any hostile attempts against this settlement.
The practical sagacity and sterling common sense of the founders of Londonderry deserve special mention. No enthusiasm for new and brilliant schemes blinded their perception, or lifted their reason off her feet. They sub- jected everything to the test of cool judgment and experi- ence. The unlucky speculator, who was so unwise as to enter upon an enterprise without counting the cost, was the mark of unbounded ridicule ; and it was no small trial of a man's philosophy to be the laughing stock of old Londonderry.
Though their intercourse with society was limited, they were shrewd observers of human nature, and had much . worldly wisdom. The advice of one of the elders to , a young man who was about journeying into a new country, with a considerable amount of silver money, is a good illus- tration of this. "When ye come into a strange hoose," said he, " don't set doun your saddle-bags as if there was eggs in 'em, nor yet fling them doun so as to chink the coin ; but put them doun indifferently, in a corner where you can see 'em, but never look at 'em." Dealers in illu. sive corner-lots, and confidence-men, would have earned but a precarious livelihood among those alert, long-headed Scotch Irishmen.
Plainness of speech and tenacity of opinion were noted characteristics of the early men of Londonderry. The mistaken kindness which keeps back half the truth, and
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the conventional usage whichi falsifies the whole of it, were alike unknown in their practice. When the occasion re- quired them to unburden their minds, they not only meant all they said, but they said all they meant. If their opin- ion was asked, they scorned to walk daintily round the truth, but gave their honest convictions without the sup- pression of an iota, however unexpected or unpalatable they might be. And even when not asked to express their sentiments, they took the liberty to do so, whenever in their opinion the occasion demanded it. No stronger illustra- tion of this trait can be imagined than one which has come to us by tradition, of plain speaking to a clergyman, who of all men would be held most sacred from any thing savor- ing of reproof, under ordinary circumstances. It happened that the good man had passed a long and laborious day in parochial visits, and rode up, toward evening, to the house of one of his elders. He had, as a matter of course, been pressed at every dwelling to partake of the stimulating refreshments which were then considered indispensable, and, between fatigue and the over-hospitality of his parish- ioners, he found it at last not easy to keep himself upright in the saddle. The elder's keen eye took in the situation. ".Wont ye light doun, parson," said he, " and come in and. get something to eat ; for I perceive ye've had enough to drink, already !"
Our ancestors were anything but impulsive men. They had very inflexible opinions, warm preferences and strong dislikes, but they arrived at them all, rather through the intellect than the feelings. Being accustomed to delibera- tion, they were little inclined to alter the views that they had fairly adopted. Most of the reasons that could be urged for an opposite course, they had already examined. To the opponent who assailed them with argument, there- fore, they were able to produce arguments of equal cogency in return ; and if, as sometimes happened, in default of rea- sons he resorted to invective, it took little time to convince
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him that there were blows to take as well as blows to give, in that branch of dialectics.
Men called the Londonderry people an obstinate race ; but they soon learned to respect their opinions. An anec- dote is related of one of them at a later period, but which breathes the spirit of the first generation. He had been elected to the General Court, and at the close of the ses- sion the friends of the presiding officer had prepared the usual complimentary resolution for him. The Londonderry member, it was well known, differed world-wide from that official, in politics and religion, and even had doubts of his honesty. His friends, therefore, dreading to encounter the public opposition of the outspoken " gentleman from Lon- donderry," thought it most prudent to show him the resolu- tion in private, before it was offered. It was in the ordinary form, to present " the thanks of the assembly to the pre- siding officer for the dignity, ability and integrity with which he had discharged his duties." Our friend perused the paper deliberately, and then remarked : " There is but one word in. the resolve that I object to : just strike out the little word integrity and I will vote for the rest, cheerfully." It was thought best to expunge the obnoxious word, and so the resolution stands recorded to this day.
Another thing which contributed to the Londonderry reputation for obstinacy was the naturally conservative dis- position of its people. They did not, it is true, object to an improvement because it was new, but if they were not satisfied that it was an improvement, the novelty of a proposition was a sufficient reason for not accepting it. The mere fact that others, and even a majority of the com- munity, disagreed with them, weighed nothing in their esti- mation. They decided for themselves, and pinned their faith upon no man's sleeve.
It is related that in the celebration of the Lord's Supper it was the ancient practice in Londonderry to sit at the table. In other places it was found a more convenient
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practice for them to remain in the pews. The worthy clergyman was desirous of adopting that fashion here, and addressed his church upon the subject, strongly recom- mending that course ; but knowing the manner of men he had to deal with, he added, that seats at the table would still be provided for such as might object to the change. Most of the church conformed to the new fashion ; a few clung to their old seats, but one after another of them, in a short time, went over to the majority. But one old gen- tleman would never yield his assent, and year after year, until he went down to his grave, each day of communion, in sunshine and in storm, found him sitting at the table, solitary and conspicuous, in mute but faithful protest against an innovation for which he found no warrant in Scripture or tradition.
Many instances have come down to us of the keen wit of the fathers of Londonderry. They had an appreciative eye for the ludicrous side of things, an intense relish for repartee, and a ready tongue for apt sayings. Many of their sallies were highly effective, presenting the whole gist of an argument crystalized in a word. So much of their point, however, usually depended upon the character of the persons, the circumstances of the occasion and the very tricks of the tongue which uttered them, that it is not easy by repetition to do approximate justice to their force and pungency.
Any delineation of the character of our ancestors would ' be defective, which should omit to mention their independ- ence and self-respect. They were not at all inclined to rate themselves, nor to allow other people to rate them, below their true value. At the same time they had too much sagacity and fear of ridicule to put an extravagantly high estimate upon themselves, for nothing was more cer- tain to bring upon them the sarcasms of their sharp- tongued neighbors, than ill-founded pretentions or conceit. Any exhibition of vanity became a perpetual source of
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ridicule among them. One self-complacent person, who in an evil hour gave utterance to the remark that " if he were to have the making of himself over again, he did not see . where he could introduce any alteration for the better," never heard the last of his unfortunate speech, but has come down to our time, preserved in it, like a fly imbedded in amber.
The self appreciation of our fathers, however, degener- ated into no ignoble quality. It had a healthy, manly tone. It lent them firmness in time of trouble and danger ; it gave them freedom of thoughit and action, and aspira- tions for improvement and advancement ; it preserved them from all mean and dishonorable courses, as unworthy of the high standard they had set up for themselves. They would scorn to stab an enemy in the back, but they were always ready to meet him face to face ; and what they said to you to-day, you might have implicit confidence that they would abide by to-morrow. In general, they were no great respecters of persons, but their manly spirit would not permit them to bear hardly upon the helpless or the feeble. Blunt and outspoken to their equals, they could be considerate and gentle to their inferiors in strength or fortune. The good man who could sturdily reprove his minister, when he believed his duty demanded it, would have stifled the words on his lips which would have carried pain to the heart of a delicate woman, or a neighbor in distress.
Such is a meagre outline of the prominent qualities of the class who constituted the early population of this town- ship. As we have seen, they were no perfect beings ; they had their share of human infirmities. Yet on the whole they possessed sterling excellences which far outweighed their defects. Their establishment here was an important era in the history of the state and of the country. The influence they exerted has been powerful and extensive. The qualities, ideas and habits which they introduced at
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that early period, and which have since become so widely diffused throughout the community, have yielded incalcu- lable service and benefit. The whole body politic has been the gainer, alike in a material, mental and moral point of view, by their adoption into the household of America.
Time would fail me to enumerate the various channels in which the Londonderry settlement has contributed to the common credit and prosperity. A rapid glance at what has been accomplished, immediately by the settlers, and those who inherited their blood and qualities, must suffice for this occasion.
For no very long time did the ranks of the original asso- ciation here remain unbroken. Our country was then, as it is now, a land of changes. One eligible opening after another in the inland domain beckoned away little detach- ments, to lay the foundations of other settlements. It was usually a few families, connected by the ties of consan- guinity or friendship, who made up each of these expedi- tions ; the sparseness of the population and the impracti- cability of frequent communication making the undertaking too serious to be encountered without companionship. Within the half century succeeding the foundation of the township, some ten or twelve little companies had quitted its precincts, and spread themselves in various parts of southwestern New Hampshire, in Vermont, New York and Nova Scotia, each forming the nucleus of a new town, which bore a marvelous family likeness to their common parent.
The prejudices with which the Londonderry settlers had been at first regarded by the surrounding population had by this time yielded to a better knowledge of their true character, and the places made vacant by the outgoing Scotch Irish were readily filled by incomers of other nationalities.
Subsequently, when communication between different quarters of the country had become more frequent and
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easy, the same process of removals and changes was con- tinued; not so much by companies, however, as by families and individuals. The result at length was, as a matter of course, a pretty thorough intermingling of the Scotch Irish element with the great body of the population. Inter- marriages became common ; and at the present day, though the marks of the Londonderry ancestry are especially visi- ble in certain localities, yet so widely have the representa- tives of the settlers extended themselves, that there is not a state or territory, and I might almost say, not a county or village, where they have not planted their liearthstones.
Change of scene, different associations, the advancement of civilization, the infusion of new blood, must in the course of generations produce a powerful effect in the modifica- tion of character ; yet so sturdy and so little plastic was the constitution of the early inhabitants of this township, that in despite of all these influences, their leading charac- teristics crop out to-day, in many cases with startling dis- tinctness, in their posterity. The granite of their nature seems to require ages of abrasion to wear away the bold outlines and round off the salient angles.
In every generation of their successors which has occu- pied the stage since they passed away, there is recognizable so uniform a care and regard for religious and educational interests, that we cannot hesitate to attribute them to the example and teachings of the fathers, and the native in- stincts transmitted from them. Among the little offshoots of population wliich gave tone to so many other settlements in the last century, the church and the school-house were always among the earliest features, and made their appear- ance as speedily as the ax and the mill could do their work. The historians of other provinces, to which the outgoing parties took their way, with one voice bear testimony to their solicitude for these privileges, and to their melior- ating effect upon the surrounding inhabitants.
Institutions of learning of a higher class have since
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been opened in many of those places ; and within the limits of the old town itself, two seminaries have been endowed by the wise liberality of resident sons of the old sires, which have long poured forth rich streams to swell the tide of in- telligence and virtue of the country.
I hazard little in saying that it would be impossible to point out a class of the population, of equal extent, whose weight, so uniformly and for such a period, has been thrown on the side of the institutions of Christianity and the cul- tivation of learning, as that of the class who derive their origin from the Londonderry stock.
The resolute and intrepid spirit, which resisted in arms the hostile religious factions of other days, has become little impaired in the passage to our own times. The roll of the bold woodsmen who set forth with the gallant Love- well on the ill-fated expedition, which in depriving him of life gave him immortality in story, bore the names of three of the men of Nutfield. At a later period, in the various enterprises which were set on foot against the savages, the youth of the town girded on the weapons with which their fathers had done gallant service beyond the sea, and marched forth into the wilderness under the leadership of Samuel Barr, Andrew Todd, and stout John Goffe,-the same John Goffe for whom the adventurous life of the fron- tier had such charms, that he used to pray fervently for a " long and moderate war"; not moderate because he had any disinclination to hard fighting, but because its mod- eration would insure its lasting the longer. The stanchi and pious partisan never shrank from the dangers of the battle-field.
In the hostilities against the French and Indians, Robert Rogers appeared upon the scene, at the head of a battalion of rangers, recruited largely from the ranks of his towns- men, and won distinction, which was liberally recognized by the ministry of Britain ; and John Stark, who led his brethren so boldly then, and won immortal renown after-
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ward, by crippling the power of a hostile army at the most critical hour of the Revolutionary contest. George Reid fought manfully by his side with a Londonderry corps, at Bunker Hill ; and William Gregg pushed the brave boys of the township into the thickest of the fray, under his com- mand, at Bennington.
In the war of 1812 a comparatively small proportion of the population was called to the field ; yet McNeil and Mil- ler proved that the fighting blood of their ancestors had not become thinned, and wrote their names proudly upon the military annals of the country.
And in the mighty contest from which we have but lately emerged, the descendants of the same stalwart sires, from the length and breadth of the land, thronged in numbers which it is now impossible to estimate, into the ranks of the Union's defenders ; some honored with high command, many sealing their devotion to the cause of freedom with their lives ; all loyal, constant and brave. It may be said without exaggeration that the Scotch Irish blood of Lon- donderry has reddened every battle-field over which the flag of our country has waved.
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