USA > New Hampshire > Carroll County > Tamworth > The Tamworth narrative (New Hampshire) > Part 8
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Timothy Medar, Town Clerk, writes it all down in his big leather book, word upon word in measured strokes, never faltering, never commenting.
Items were voted and then at once negatived. May 25 1793
After some votes were put and negatived adjourned to Mr. Wm Eastmans Pasture and other places where it was proposed to set the Meeting House.
Voted: That they will not set the Meeting House in Mr. William Eastmans Pasture.
Voted: That they will not set the Meeting House on Capt Dodges Land a few Rods south of the Great Rock where Mr. Hidden was Ordained.
Voted: To set the Meeting House on the first nole next to where the timber now lays towards the westerly end of the Town Another proposal being made agreed to and Voted in the following manner Viz That two places be pro- posed to set the House on one on the nole next to Mr.
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Hiddens House and the other over the holler near Mr. Eastmans Land and that all who has a mind to have the House by Mr. Hiddens to stand Westward and they who have a mind for the other place to Stand Eastward and the House to be set on the place that the majority appears to be in favor of provided that they will agree to hall all the Timber on the spot and purchas the Land to set the House on without any cost to the other party. The voters then separated and the most went Westward and agreed to hall the Timber and to purchas the Land to set the House on. Therefore it is voted that the Meeting House shall be set on the first nole about south East from Mr. Hiddens House at the corner of the Roads leading to the Ironworks & the other Road leading to the lower end of the Town in lieu of any other place before proposed or voted.
And this is where it finally stood.
The dissenters then go on record: May 25th, 1793
We whose names are hereto subscribed beg leave to enter our desent against the proseedings of this meeting in voting to set the Meeting House in the place where they have now voted to set it, for the following reasons 1st the spot where the timber now lays was obtained by the consent of the whole Town and the spot now voted is obtained by a majority of only six, 2nd you have rested out of our hands the Privelege of our Pews that we purchased on the former ground and not on the ground now voted 3ly because you will not consent to set the House in the senter of the Town which we conceve will be for the futer peace of said Town Israel Gilman Daniel Field Stephen Philbrick
August 31, 1793
Voted: That there shall be a Dinner dresst for Raiseing the Meeting House.
Warrant Feb 17, 1794
To see if the Town think best to relinquish their committee
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for building the Meeting House or part of them and put the business into one persons hands. ...
March 11, 1794 Voted: That they will not put the over- seeing the Meeting House in the care of one Man.
The taxes for the meetinghouse were to be paid "in good Merchantable Indian corn at 2/ the bushel or Rye at 2/8 the bushel or wheat at &/ the bushel."
Later a caretaker being deemed necessary, in 1799 it was voted "to give Locreta Carter nine Shillings for to sweep and open and shet the Meeting House the year ensuing." A little later William Eastman was receiving the same sum for the job-he lived near and was an elder citizen. In 1805 Captain Dodge did not consider it beneath him to accept the appointment and its emolument. This looks like equal pay for equal work for Locreta as well as for William Eastman and Captain Dodge.
After a time Mr. Hidden's "sallery" is voted in money instead of produce. Pews went up in price. In 1812 some additional ones were needed, and sold at auction for $35.50 each. Caretaking now brought three dollars, but included "keeping creatures out of the burying-ground."
Besides meetinghouse problems, the early church record books plainly exhibit internal agitations. Some items taken from these little books, also carefully written, are very revealing of the times. Congregations were feeling their responsibility as moral formative agents, and church policy anxiously surged forward and back in response to events. In July of the year 1807 it was "voted that Capt. Webster wait on Doctor Crosby to Converse with him and receive his Experiences." Two days later Dr. Crosby was voted into the church. It is gratifying to hear that Dr. Crosby passed his test, for his son has left an attractive account of him, in A Crosby Family, "Father [Asa] had a chaise and wagon, and we used to turn out for a ride of ten miles to hear Mr. Hidden." (They had the original
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farm of Daniel Beede in Sandwich, now the Wentworth estate.) "We would sometimes 'ride and tie'." Ride and tie meant two people using one horse. The first rode while the second walked. The rider would reach a determined point, alight and tie the horse, proceeding on foot himself. When the second man reached the horse, which had been resting, he would untie and mount, overtake the first man and ride on to the second tying-place, when the process would be repeated. "Many-a-time I used to walk half the distance, and once the whole distance both ways," said this Crosby. "Mother posses- sed great influence over father and the family in religious things. She had Mr. Hidden come and baptize the family, and worked to have him lecture and teach singing." And when the Sandwich church was formed in 1814, Dr. Crosby was a deacon. "The Methodists were earnest, practical Christians; the Quakers were honest and quiet people and the Freewillers in other parts of the town were early comers; but the Congre- gational clergy were educated men, encouraged education, and therefore won the support of the best educated among the early inhabitants."
Only three weeks after Dr. Crosby was admitted to mem- bership, Captain Webster is himself being investigated. It was voted "that the members be asked one by one whether Capt. Webster did charge Col Gilman with neglect of duty-and it is their opinion that he did not." On the nineteenth of May they "voted that for publick offenses the brother or brothers knowing of the same shall take the first and second steps with him before complaint be made." In other words, go to the offender privately and use suasion before holding him up to public execration. It ought to work with the offenders. But what did it do to the church emissary?
All moral issues were the affair of the church. There were no courts save at Portsmouth. The church disapproved "of all needless or unchristian law sutes" and the records show that the deacons and church members themselves were continually occupied with correctional duties-"to take cognizance of
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any disorder arising in the church or the disorderly behavior of any particular member and use their Endeavour to settle any matter between brother and brother which if not accomplished by their next meeting, report thereof shall be made to the Church."
One of the first complaints was made by Colonel David Gilman, a war veteran who lived near Butler's Bridge, against Deacon Oliver Fowler down the road (not of the Fowlers Mills family). The two men were themselves of the very Com- mittee of Three charged with the morals of the rest. Each was espousing the cause of a son in a matter of bidding off a cow. The deacon was accused of not having been candid and open-hearted or true to his word, and the complaint winds up: "If the above observations are just the Deacon did not do his duty when his sons did evil and he restrained them not. 1st Saml 3d-13th .... " And "Deacons must be blameless ruling their children and own houses well. Ist Timothy 3d-10th." The charges became very involved; Mrs. Fowler and Miss Sally Fowler both had to testify. The church family heard all the evidence and concluded that on some counts the Deacon was right and on others wrong-"Psalm 119th-4th." But a new committee seems to have been appointed. Henceforth in all public offenses by anyone in the church the offending person must make a public confession before the congregation.
The next furore was when Brother James Mason was sus- pended for intemperance and profane language and for having charged the pastor with false doctrine. It was voted that "the Church is so agrieved with brother Mason that they cannot commune with him unless he withdraw his charge." He did not withdraw it. The case lasted all winter. There could have been no town issue more exciting.
"The Committee appointed to wait upon Mrs. Low," however, "report it is their opinion that she is deranged." That was quickly over. The church as a whole could also on occasion act promptly. The church met at the meetinghouse and unanimously agreed that "Lt. Jno Fowler detaining the
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logs that the widow Fowler claimed and he since has paid for was not consistant with the Laws of our Saviour Jesus Christ."
By ten years later the church's hold upon miscreants had become a grapple. "Voted that Thomas Mudget Jr. be ac- quainted by Brother Bradbury that unless he comes forward and makes a satisfactory confession on Sunday next that his excommunication will be read to the Church and congrega- tion and [he is] required to attend." Thomas Mudget came forward. The same ultimatum was sent Ezekiel Fowler (the Fowlers seemed to attract trouble), probably a son of Oliver. Also, "to send a letter to W. Remick asking him if his not appearing before the Committee and Church after being repeatedly requested, is not enough to shut him out of the Kingdom of Heaven and to request him to meet the church at there next monthly meeting." This did not bring W. Remick either, and they were still laboring on his case when he drops out of the entries.
The Female Cent Society has every appearance of being the lineal ancestor of today's Community Guild, with the Parish Helpers as middle-period connecting link. Two leading ladies of the town evidently incubated the idea that there should be a women's club for good works. These prime movers were Parson Hidden's wife and her neighbor Mrs. George Dodge, whose husband wore shoe buckles and smallclothes, and showed the town the first chaise, an innovation not looked upon too favorably at first; a woman accustomed to the com- fort of the pillion did not fancy trusting herself to "the inde- pendent impulse" of a complicated thing like a carriage. Mrs. Dodge was moderator at the first meeting and Mrs. Hidden elected president. Members agreed to give "one cent a week, respectfully" and at the end of the first year they had collected a notable $16.27 as the "Avails," well above their one-cent standard. The roster of first members has the well-known names familiar to this day: Elizabeth and Eunice and Sophia Hidden, Lydia Whitman, Priscilla, Lucy, and Hetty Gannett, Sally Washburn, Patty Fogg, Sally and Nancy and Mary
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Gilman, Susan Perkins, Lucy and Mary Boyden, Ruth Hay- ford, Abigail Mason, Sally Weed, Betsy Durrell, Abigail Rem- ick, Mary Jackson, Lucinda and Sophia Stevenson. These names reveal journeys by foot or by saddle from away over in Chocorua and from away up on Stevenson Hill and away down in South Tamworth, no doubt taking all day from the spinning wheel and the loom, with the excuse of contributing the cent in the pocket, in order to fulfill women's natural crav- ing to talk all at once and all through a happy afternoon. Meetings were opened with a sermon from the minister.
The records of the Cent Society were kept as neatly and fully as other records from the period, with little misspelling and few mistakes in grammar. After twenty years "the old Cent Society having become extinct, a respectable number of ladies in Tamworth agreeable to appointment, met at the house of the widow Sally Gilman. ... We had a most inter- esting meeting a spirit of benevolence seemed to pervade all hearts, all thought they must try to do something for the cause of Christ, one old lady in reduced circumstances in life said she would do with less Tea and Snuff and so become a mem- ber. . . . "
The name was changed to the Tamworth Cent Institution and the objective became domestic missions, under the wings of the State Missionary Society. Before long the domestic mission had become concrete, in terms of "the recently organ- ized and feeble church of Tuftonborough" which enabled the Tamworth Society to enjoy a status of benefactor. "This little rill of charity which some years has flowed and other years has been entirely dry ... uniting with numerous others like it ... has been flowing into some of our moral wastes with its refreshing and fertilizing influences causing plants of grace to revive and flourish which but for our beneficence must have withered and died." It is to be hoped that the moral wastes of Tuftonborough did not know what they were being called.
The Society changes its appearance through the nine- teenth century. After twenty-five years it voted to have "solici-
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tors to interest and induce Ladies and Misses not members to join the Society by paying any sum however small as they believe it to be a noble enterprise and would like to have all the youth engaged in it that there may be a female cent society when the elder members are silent in the dust." For this they divided the town into districts with a young lady for each, for all the world like the women's groups today dividing up districts to solicit for the rummage sale. They chose Miss Hannah Gilman for "the south district including the Bridge district, Miss Martha Hubbard for the Stevenson and Hubbard district so called. Miss Mary Jackson for the Jackson district, Miss Lydia Goodwin for the Great Hill district, Miss Catherine Staples for the village and meetinghouse districts." Catherine Staples was the secretary. They were still supporting the Tuf- tonborough effort. They were left a legacy by the pastor's wife. In the fifties and sixties instead of using first names in the lists, they assumed a little more style and became Mrs. Dea- con Gannett, Mrs. Jacob Wiggin, Mrs. James Bryant, etc. By 1879 they had had a hundred members. If a little rill flows for almost a hundred years, it is fair to reflect upon its total gallonage. The Cent Institution became a state-wide body.
Religion was of course the main concern of all intellect- uals or any who pretended to education. But a close second was the cause of Temperance, the burning subject in New Eng- land until Abolition succeeded it. Tamworth was not behind in any ardent movement; and it had plenty of "veteran sots." So, in 1831, in handsomely shaded writing: "We the sub- scribers convinced of the importance of united systimatic ex- ertion to prevent the many evils occasioned by the use of ardent spirits agree to form ourselves into a Society to be called the Tamworth Temperance Society auxiliary to the State Society," etc. They agree neither to drink ardent spirits (term not de- fined) nor furnish them for others, nor to drink on any occasion except when needing medicine. All the leading citizens in 1831 signed at once, but unhappily Jonathan Gilman and
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Bradbury Jewell were later dismissed for cause, as also Obed Hall the lawyer and David Moulton, Robert Moulton, Carr Drake, and Noah Sandborn; later still Benjamin Gilman Jr. and Nathan Libby. Carr Drake got reinstated, as did Noah Sandborn; Robert Moulton and Japheth Gilman were erased by request, S. S. Beede was expelled (he had become a rum seller ), and they withdrew from E. C. Mason an invitation to join. Members staunch and true are listed. The women hastened to come in too-they have some good names like Relief Sandborn, and some surprising one like Prycilia Gan- nett.
The Society voted to take the Journal of Humanity from Andover. They sent a committee to wait on the selectmen to request them "to grant no taverners or retailers licence more than the public good actually requires, nor in that case to none but those who are suitable to hoald such business." They au- thorized their officers to "commence a suit against any who have or may hereafter sell ardent spirits," and to "purchase three Dollars worth of pamphlets."
There were stirring events from time to time. "Voted that Joseph Gilman has made satisfactory confession before the Society for his imprudance in bringing ardent spirits into Tam- worth on Sunday." They voted to receive members at the age of ten years, and they chose John M. Stevenson and Nathaniel Hubbard, two important citizens, "to converse with the store- keepers on the subject of selling spirits." Later, leaving no stone unturned, they added three young ladies to this com- mittee. One was Miss Sarah Gilman to become well-known as a community figure. Another committee conversed with Mr. Drake, another conversed with Mr. Jewell and Mr. Libby about selling, apparently without effect since these members were dismissed at the next meeting. They kept after the de- linquents, with variable results. They became more inquisi- torial, to "ascertain what irregular members there is in our Society and report the same." They prepared a petition and got "siners" for the same (not sinners, signers). Once they
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voted a "commity to Labour" with David Moulton and Wm. Edgel to "dig around" them, another to "reprove" Noah Sandborn. They went to the State Convention at Meredith Bridge, now Laconia. Another committee was to ascertain the origin, success, and present condition of the Society, for the state organ.
They changed the name to Central Temperance Society in Tamworth; a new group was formed at the Iron Works, and one at South Tamworth. It was the thing.
By 1840 when Jos. Gilman Jr. became secretary and wrote his free-flowing minutes, the places selling ardent spirits in town had been reduced from twelve to two. Six had failed, owners of three had become drunkards and one "intemperate," which disposed of them. A church revival had added forty- two members "some of these being influential characters," in a total of 310. Only the "lowest circles" now indulged, and no spirits were ever asked for nor expected by laborers in agri- culture or the mechanic arts. There are no longer suits at law; the inhabitants "by spending less of their time and income on useless dissipation" were becoming more thrifty. Farms were better cultivated and now is the first year that no single pauper in town was reduced to poverty by intemperance. Then come the children's names, little girls and boys who had taken the pledge. The resolutions become more drastic: "The present alarming crisis ... calls loudly for the decided action of every lover of Temperance and of his fellowmen to drive the enemy of man from our land." "Resolved that the sale and use [etc.] is a sin against God of uncommon magnitude the greatest enemy to the human race that has ever disgraced our fallen world."
In 1848 the Temperance Society voted to hold monthly meetings during the year. But none were held. The last entry was in 1849 on July 4, re-electing the former officers. Rev- erend Samuel Kingsbury was president at the time; the little book of the Society's records with its wooden covers has come down through his family. Ten years later the book was so
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unimportant that it was turned upside down to become a day- book in the Kingsbury family farm and store business. It is now in the Historical Society collection.
What had happened? A state referendum was held in March in 1848, and Prohibition was voted 12,000 to 5,000, but no state law implemented it till 1855. Tamworth's vote was 170 to 0 for Prohibition and that no license to sell should be granted. The effects of the Society's labors had been power- ful, and probably the Temperance Society felt its cause was won for all time, and labors were no longer necessary. A great day of rejoicing, without a shadow of doubt.
The state law of 1855 allowed one agent in each town, to sell for "medicinal purposes only." The Tamworth agent's book beginning 1856, with its careful entry of every sale "for medicinal purposes" is also a treasure of the Historical Society.
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SAMUEL HIDDEN WAS of those so highly endowed as to suc- ceed in whatever they do. He was sixteen (born in Gilmanton in 1760) when the excitement of Independence swept over the agitated colonies. In order to support destitute parents and brothers and sisters at home he worked a year in impatience, but he then enlisted, re-enlisted, enlisted again, and then for the fourth time. He had worked extra hours enough to buy "musket and bayonet, knapsack, cartridge-box, one lb. powder, 20 bullets and 12 flints," a year before they were required. "This shall make the British dogs howl," said he, a youngster with a first gun. Had Burgoyne not opportunely surrendered, and after him Cornwallis, and had Hidden himself not been attacked by measles during which he all but died under a blanket on the cold November ground, he might have stayed in the Army and made it his profession.
Instead he went into teaching, for which purpose he spent nights studying and reading, at the same time "greatly signal- izing himself" as a schoolmaster, sharing with his needy family. From youth he had a remarkably good singing voice, and was always "without a rival" as a vocal teacher. When he con- ceived the idea of going to Dartmouth, he redoubled his studies and got into the new college after one year of preparation, at the age of twenty-seven. He was without money, but he and a cousin drove a cow to Hanover and for some months lived on milk. He worked his way through college by teaching sing- ing and making shoes, even supplied the president's family. He would be given leave of absence a few months at a time to
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recoup his fortunes by teaching school at perhaps four dollars a month. All the testimony is to the "magnificence of his mind" which he strung up to the highest pitch of exertion, his thirst for knowledge having no limits. He was described in the Granite Monthly by Charles Dow of Tamworth village, who could remember him, as below medium height, a little inclined to portliness, with an oval face which showed frankness and energy. In spite of hard work his overflowing good humor and happiness contrasted with the unbending Puritan character of many who became men of the cloth.
It was not till his second year at Dartmouth that the ministerial career presented itself to Hidden, says his first schoolmaster, Elijah Hutchinson of Gilmanton, afterward of Tamworth. At Dartmouth as at Harvard and at all the young American colleges, the ministry was the expected goal for many if not most bright students. The great topics of the day were theological, the great messages religious, and highest honor and success in the community went to the preacher, especially if he were eloquent of tongue. To a man of unusual endowment the pull was inevitable. A revival meeting at Hanover gathered young Hidden into the fold; after that he was dedicated. Graduating in 1791 he went back to Gilman- ton, and fell to studying theology with all the passionate ardor of his nature. Ardor seems to have been his key trait. His effusions from the pulpit are always referred to as "fervid ejaculations," "gushing from a full soul," or "deep sobbings of the heart." "When he prayed he carried us all up to heaven." "When he sung, his countenance beamed with de- light and his eye sparkled with joy."
Weeping was highly respectable in Hidden's time and descriptions of the parson's sermons dwell upon the tears that flowed copiously down his cheeks as he exhorted. It was an accepted sign of sincerity and beauty of character. That he made whole congregations weep profusely is in all the accounts. Nobody needed to control emotion if it were religious in nature.
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Tamworth had just been having urgent agitation to get its church started. Through Thomas Cogswell of Gilmanton who had been steadily buying up land in the new Tamworth settlement it heard of this remarkable young Dartmouth grad- uate now ready for a call. The son of this Cogswell wrote the remarkable little Memoir from which the above quotations are taken. The church committee went at once to Gilmanton, made their proposition, and brought back their man. He preached to delighted crowds for a couple of months in houses or barns, until at the annual Town Meeting (1792) it was voted to make the final overtures to him.
The salary was to start at thirty-three pounds. Three pounds only were to be paid in cash, fifteen in beef, fifteen in corn, rye, and wheat. By degrees this was to be raised to fifty pounds and there to remain fixed. His ordination was to be arranged for, the right to the land which had been reserved for the first minister was to be turned over to him, and a house erected. But before even the ordination had taken place, he had bound the population to him with hooks of steel. "Never did a people place more implicit confidence in any mortal." "We would all have surrendered our lives for him."
There being no building large enough for the ordination, it took place upon a great rock by the roadside, about fifteen feet high and thirty feet square, standing on the present Cleve- land Hill Road. But not before a long wrangle at the last minute threatened to wreck the entire proceedings. The in- vited Council of six out-of-town ministers who were to officiate at the ordaining refused to proceed on account of an article in the covenant drawn up by Mr. Hidden which they thought too liberal on the point of baptism. People had come for the ordination by spotted trail through dense forest from Conway, from Fryeburg, and from all the towns adjoining Tamworth. There they stood waiting in the little opening around the rock, with their families and domestic animals to the number of hundreds, all in home-fabricated clothes and many men bare- foot. "The women looked ruddy and as though they loved
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