USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > The history of Concord : from its first grant in 1725, to the organization of the city government in 1853, with a history of the ancient Penacooks ; the whole interspersed with numerous interesting incidents and anecdotes, down to the present period, 1885 > Part 55
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For he wished that a child might come and lay An unstartled hand upon his clay.
Then they wrapped his corse in a tarry sheet, To the dead, as Araby's spiees sweet,
And prepared him to seek the depths below,
Where waves never beat, nor tempests blow.
No steeds with their nodding plumes were here, No sable hearse, and no coffined bier, To bear with pomp and parade away The dead - to sleep with his kindred elay.
But the little group - a silent few, His companions, mixed with the hardy crew, Stood thoughtful around, till a prayer was said
O'er the corse of the deaf, unconscious dead. Then they bore his remains to the vessel's side, And committed them safe to the dark blue tide. One sullen plunge, and the scene is o'er - The sea rolled on as it rolled before.
In that classical sea,* whose azure vies With the green of its shores, and the blue of its skies,
In some pearly cave, in some coral cell - Oh ! the dead shall sleep - as sweetly, as well - As if shrined in the pomp of Parian tombs, Where the East and the South breathe their rich perfumes;
Nor forgotten shall be the humblest one,
Though he sleep in the watery waste alone,
When the trump of the angel sounds with dread, And the sea, like the land, gives up the dead !
The opinion will not, I trust, be deemed invidious, that Nathaniel H. Carter stands preeminent among the sons of Concord in literary merit.
GEORGE HOUGH.
Mr. Hough was extensively and well known as the first printer in Concord. He died February 8, 1830, aged 73. " He was descended,"
* The Mediterranean, on which sea he was then voyaging.
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said the late John Farmer, " from an ancient and respectable family, who emigrated at a very early period from Lincolnshire, in England, and settled in Massachusetts; from whence the branch from which he descended removed to Connecticut, where, in the town of Bozrah, formerly Norwich, he was born on the 15th of June, 1757. His father was Mr. Jabez Hough, who lived to the advanced age of ninety-three. The art of printing he acquired in an office belonging to two Scotchmen, of the name of Robertson, who had established themselves at Norwich, and were well known for their skill in typog- raphy. From this office was issued the Norwich Packet, a paper which, as published by them, and subsequently by a Mr. Trumbull, advocated the principles of the Revolution, and did much towards extending those principles in the region where it was circulated. In 1783 Mr. Hough went to Windsor, in Vermont, and there, in con- junction with the late Alden Spooner, Esq., established the Vermont Journal, in which they were jointly concerned until 1789, when Mr. Hough removed to Concord, and set up the first printing press in this town, in the month of September. While in Vermont he was elected one or two years treasurer of the county of Windsor. The first work which he printed in Concord, and the first printing done in the county of Merrimack, or in any part of the old county of Rock- ingham, out of the towns of Portsmouth and Exeter, was the Chris- tian Economy. This fact may be deserving of remembrance in the typographical annals of the State. In January, 1790, he commenced the "Concord Herald and New-Hampshire Intelligencer," which, with several alterations of the title, he continued until October 30, 1805. This paper was circulated in the interior central parts of the State, and was the means of diffusing a knowledge of our political and civil relations at a time when, compared with the present, but few newspapers were distributed. In 1792, a post-office having been es- tablished in Concord, he was appointed the first post-master, and his commission, signed by the Hon. Timothy Pickering, the Post-Master General, is dated in June of that year. On Mr. Jefferson's accession to the presidency, in 1801, and the appointment of Mr. Granger to be Post-Master General, Mr. Hough, in common with many others, was superseded in office. In the years 1815 and 1816 he was chosen one of the two representatives of the town of Concord in the Gen- eral Court. In January, 1819, he commenced the " Concord Ob- server," a religious newspaper, and the first of the kind printed in New-Hampshire. In 1828 a number of the enterprising mechanics of Concord formed an association for the purpose of mutual aid and improvement in their respective vocations, and Mr. Hough, from his age and long devotion to the typographic art, was selected as the first president. To this office lie was reelected about a month prior to his decease."
In the various relations of life the subject of this notice was dis- tinguished for the urbanity of his deportment, the fidelity of his friendship, and the uprightness of his dealings. To his uniform character for honesty and integrity, Mr. Hough added, within the
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last fifteen years of his life, the higher and holier sanction of the Christian profession.
Mr. Hough's first wife was the widow of Dr. Fay, of Windsor, Vt., by whom he had one child, George H., afterwards a Baptist missionary in India. His second wife was Miss Lucinda Jones, who died before her husband, September 26, 1826, aged 64, leaving no children. An adopted niecc, Miss Mary Silsby, married Moses G. Atwood, formerly of Concord, but now of Alton, Ill.
Mr. Hough is remembered as remarkably moderate, exact and pre- cise in every thing. He had become so accustomed to correct proof, that in his ordinary reading of a newspaper or book, he would stop to punctuate according to his own notions. IIe made excessive use of the comma, always placing one before the conjunction and. In counting over bank bills he invariably smoothed out all the wrinkles as he proceeded. At a time when the " lower Concord Bank" was run upon for specie payment of its bills, Col. Kent employed Mr. Hough to count small coin, while an express man was sent to Bos- ton to obtain the sum requisite to meet the demand ! His usual pre- cision to ascertain the exact value of the small pieces gave ample time for the messenger to return and save the bank from dishonoring its paper. It was a common saying respecting Mr. Hough, that he " seemed to put a comma after every step he took." An intimate friend of his says : " Although very deliberate and apparently considerate in speech, he used to be caught ' tripping on the tongue,' by frequent Irishisms. Riding with him across the Pine plain one summer eve- ning, when and where will be noticed, as crossing your path, an occasional vein of air, warmer than the surrounding atmosphere, he remarked upon the singularity of the ' warm and cold heats.' With reference to the health of his wife, he replied, one day, to the inquiry of a friend concerning her,-' Mrs. Hough got up down sick, and she has been abed ever since she got up.' Upon Col. K.'s reminding him of his addictedness to Irishisms, (of which he seemed to be fully conscious, ) and asking him the cause, he replied very seriously -' I don't know how in the world it happened, unless it be because I served my time with a Scotchman.' "
CAPT. RICHARD AYER.
Died, in this town, on Saturday, December 17, 1831, Capt. Rich- ard Ayer, in the 75th year of his age. He was born May 12, 1757, at Haverhill, Mass., where his ancestors, from the carly settlement of that town, had resided, and where they possessed a good share of wealth and influence. He came to this town in 1777, having the same year married Miss Susan Sargent, grand-daughter of Rev. Christopher Sargent, of Methuen, and settled in the village, where he resided until his death. IIe was in early life employed in the affairs of the town; served in the office of selectman, and in 1814 and 1815 represented his fellow-townsmen in the State Legislature. He possessed a vigorous and powerful frame, a sound judgment, and in the various offices he held, and several relations of life, exercised
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a good share of discrimination. He had thirteen children, nine of whom survived him .*
JESSE CARR TUTTLE.
Mr. Tuttle is well remembered as a printer and a miller. He married Zerviah, a daughter of the second Renben Abbot. Mr. Tuttle was an indentured apprentice to the printing business, with Mr. George Hough. He was always fond of an out-door life, to the neglect of his proficiency in the printing art. On being remonstrated with for his inattention, and told that, without more diligence in the office, he would never make a printer, he is said to have remarked very gravely, that " Mr. Hough was bound by his indentures to learn him the trade-and he didn't care." After he became, in a certain sense, a printer, and a publisher of one of the only two newspapers then printed in Concord, he found fault with one of his apprentices for following copy, and setting up that "Bonaparte was in great jeopardy" during his campaign in the north of Europe,-insisting upon it that, instead of lower case, he should have set up " great jeopardy" with capital initial letters, as it was a place somewhere in Russia. Relinquishing the printing business, Tuttle became a miller, and lived a while at Dickerman's mills, t and brought his meal for customers into Concord Main street. He was an honest, hard-work- ing and driving man,-but somehow, in his business, failed to work it right. He brought up his family very creditably, and died De- cember 10, 1834, aged 55, leaving a widow and children, living much respected for several years afterwards in Concord.
JONATHAN EASTMAN, ESQ.
Jonathan Eastman, senior, Esq., was a son of Philip Eastman, who married Abiah Bradley. He was a man of robust frame, and distinguished during his life for health, activity and enterprise. He was an ardent patriot; was in Capt. Joshua Abbot's company of volunteers that marched to reinforce the northern army, September, 1777, and was ready any time afterwards to fight for his country ! Esq. Eastman, as he was usually called, lived on the east side of the river, on the spot near the old garrison-house of his grandfather, Capt. Ebenezer Eastman, where he brought up a large family.} He had but little early education, but learned to write on birch bark, and in late years was well posted up in all political and public matters, by reading newspapers. As illustrations of his enterprise and force of character, it is related that when a boy, fifteen years of age, he was sent by his father, on foot, to Conway, driving two cows and two
* See Ayer family.
t Mr. Enoch Dickerman, who has lived in Concord since 1828, was a hired hand with Tuttle, and drove his team about a year. His father once owned "Dickerman's Mills." Mr. Dick- erman is now a sort of " fixture" in Concord, known by his long cotten striped frock, his spectacles, and his bending posture, as if he was looking for pins or money. He was one of the last tenants of the old garrison house, owned by Dr. Chadbourne, before it was moved back for a stable. [See picture of him in Wheeler's Directory, 1853.]
# See Eastman family.
S W. Chandler & Bro Little. Rostall
JONATHAN EASTMAN ESQ.
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shotes the whole distance, and going by way of Saco, Me. Near a solitary cabin in the woods, about half way to where he was to stop, he met a bear in the path, which he faced, till old bruin, put out of coun- tenance, filed off. He lodged in the cabin alone at night, and reached Conway in safety the next day. When a young man he was engaged in a party with Andrew McMillan, Esq., of Conway, in " running out land" in Rumford, Me. On one occasion, a severe storm coming on, they started for Fryeburg, but before they reached it, it was so cold that they were in danger of freezing. The flint of their only gun was lost, and they could not " strike fire." In this predicament the fact occurred to them that there were quartz pebbles on the bot- tom of Keaser Pond, near by, in not very deep water. Hastening to the pond, they broke the ice, and cast lots to decide who should go in to get the pebbles. The lot fell on Eastman ; and, stripping off his clothes, with a rope fastened to one leg, he dove in and fetelied up a pebble. With this they struck fire and made themselves com- fortable.
Esq. Eastman was a great friend of Parson Walker, and also of the ministers who succeeded him. He was regnlar in his attendance at meeting, but if any thing occurred to prevent his going, his old horse, named " Pomp," had formed such a good habit, that he would leave his pasture, go to the meeting-house, stand at his post all day, and after meeting return home with his neighbors. The many useful offices which Mr. Eastman filled in town, and the services which he performed as a citizen, may be seen by reference to the history. He died October 19, 1834, aged 87. The accompanying likeness of Esq. Eastman, which is very perfect, was taken from an original painting by Hon. Jacob A. Potter, about 1831.
STILSON EASTMAN.
Mr. Eastman's service in the French War, 1757, has already been related, on page 195 of our History. He was also in the Revolu- tionary service, and on the surrender of Burgoyne, after the soldiers had stacked their guns, he contrived to exchange his gun for a Hos- sian rifle. This was preserved in the family many years, and is now in possession of Mr. Meshech Lang, who obtained it of Amos East- man, son of Stilson. This gun, which I have seen, is a beautiful rifle-having only a new stock since Mr. Lang owned it. After the war, Eastman owned and lived on the farm subsequently owned by the late Isaac Emery, Esq., in East Concord. Not being of strictly sober life, and becoming embarrassed in pecuniary matters, Eastman's farm fell into the hands of Simeon Brackett, who married his daugh- ter Betsey. In old age he and his wife went to live in Rumford, Me., with their son Caleb. There, at 80 years of age, he was awak- ened to religious concerns under the preaching of a missionary, Rev. Jotham Sewall. When 90 years old he would ride on horseback, with his wife behind him, several miles to meeting. Being once asked how old he was, he replied, " I am now four years old ; for I consider all my past life, before I found a Saviour, as nothing. It is
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now four years since I began to live !" He died in Rumford about 1837, in the 100th year of his age.
JOHN FARMER, ESQ.
John Farmer, Esq., came to Concord from Amherst in 1821 ; form- ed a business connection with Dr. Samuel Morril, and opened an apothecary store-whence he received the title of Doctor, though he never entered the medical profession. IIe remained in Concord till the time of his death, August 13, 1838. Soon after his decease the following brief, accurate and just tribute to his memory appeared in the Portsmouth Journal .*
" John Farmer, Esq. was born at Chelmsford, Mass., on the 12th of June, 1789, and was the eldest son of John Farmer, of Chelms- ford, and a lineal descendant of Edward Farmer, son of John Far- mer, of Ansley, in Warwickshire, who came to this country and set- tled in Billerica as early as 1672.
" Mr. Farmer was distinguished as an antiquarian and genealogist, and his researches, some of which are embodied in his publications, are sufficient to enrol his name among the most distinguished histori- ans of the age in which he lived. His Notes and Illustrations of Belknap's History of New Hampshire are scarcely less valuable than the text itself; and his Genealogical Register of the First Settlers of New-England is a monument of great labor and much patient re- search. In connection with Mr. Moore, of Concord, he published in 1823 the Gazetteer of New-Hampshire, spoken of at that time as a model by the erities, and since followed by similar works in several other States ; and in conjunction with the same gentleman he pub- lished several years since three volumes of Historical Collections, embodying a large amount of rare and valuable matters. Mr. Far- mer also contributed largely to the published Collections of the N. H. Historical Society, of which he was one of the founders, and a most useful member-having been one of the publishing committee, and corresponding secretary from 1825 until the day of his death. He was also a contributor to the volumes published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and latterly to the Quarterly Register-a valuable statistical work, published in Boston. For the last year or two he has been engaged in collating and arranging the records, manuscripts, and files in the office of the Secretary of State, and most richly did he merit the compliment bestowed upon his labors by the Governor in his last annual message. It is gratifying to learn that the most difficult portion of the task confided to Mr. Farmer has been accom- plished, and that it will be in the power of the Executive, under the wise and liberal resolve of the Legislature, to secure to this State probably the most perfect set of public records in the Union.
" Mr. Farmer was an honorary member of various learned and lite- rary societies abroad ; a correspondent of the most eminent living his- torians, scholars and antiquaries of the age-and enjoyed, what is a
* A more full notice of him is found in Vol. VI., of N. II. Historical Collections.
" W Chander & Bro Ich Boston
I'm A Tent
WYA KENT.
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rare blessing, the entire confidence and esteem of men of all parties in religion or politics. He had no enemies, and many friends. He was a conscientious and ardent friend of the slave, and, as corres- ponding secretary of the New-Hampshire Anti-Slavery Society, he was greatly beloved by its members. His death was peaceful and tranquil. His funeral was attended on Wednesday morning by a large concourse, at the North church, where a most affecting tribute to his memory and worth was paid by Rev. Dr. Bouton, and his body consigned to its place in that mighty congregation of the dead, over whose history it was his delight to ponder while living."
To the above it may be added that Mr. Farmer was a man of feeble constitution, slender and tall ; bright blue eyes, sandy com- plexion and hair, with a prominent forehead, and a mild, but very intelligent expression. He had a faculty of attaching to him the young, and exerted over them a pleasing and salutary influence- generally inspiring them with a love of reading and research. Among the young men who were thus under his influence, were the late Prof. Henry L. Low and Cyrus P. Bradley, of Concord, and others still living. Mr. Farmer never married. He died of a lingering con- sumption, at the house of Mr. Daniel Clark. Among his particular friends were Gen. Joseph Low, of Concord, and Isaac Spalding, Esq., of Nashua,-of whom the latter was administrator of his estate; and the former has inscribed, on his family monument, in the old burying- ground, the name of Mr. Farmer, with the following inscription :
JOHN FARMER, Died August 13, 1838, Æt. 49.
Born at Chelmsford, Mass., Honored as a man, Distinguished as an antiquarian and a scholar, Beloved as a friend, And revered as a christian philanthropist, And a lover of impartial liberty. His death has occasioned a void in society which time Will fail to supply ; And the reason and fitness of which, As to time, and manner, and attending circumstances, Eternity alone ean fully unfold.
COL. WILLIAM A. KENT.
Col. Kent came to this place in 1789, and established himself as one of the two or three traders, doing business here in a small way, and, connecting with his store of West India goods the business to which he had been regularly apprenticed and brought up -that of a tin-plate worker. Col. Kent was born in Charlestown, Mass., on the 27th of April, 1765, and was the youngest child of Ebenezer and Mary Kent -the father being the son also of Ebenezer, and the mother being Mary Austin, daughter of Ebenezer Austin, all
38
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of Charlestown. Both his father and paternal grandfather were sea-captains, and both died abroad-the father, when the subject of this notice was but an infant, about fifteen months old. Left at this early age to the care of a mother in moderate circumstances, with a family of four children dependent upon her, the struggle with adversity would seem to have been sufficiently arduous, with- out the calamity which befel the family, in common with other residents of Charlestown, by the burning of that place by the British, in 1775. By this fire the dwelling-house and small store of the mother were consumed, and the family driven, as homeless wander- ers, for months back into one of the interior towns. On the return of the family to Charlestown, a situation as apprentice was secured for William, when fourteen years of age, in the shop and store of Deacon Newell, of Boston. It was then the custom to allow few or no perquisites to the apprentice, and so close had the subject of this notice been kept in the matter of money, that he has been heard to remark that, glad as he, in common with most apprentices, might be to terminate his seven years' service, the day he became one and twenty was to him, perhaps, the gloomiest day of his life,-as, on returning to his poor and widowed "mother, he had barely money enough to carry him over the bridge to Charlestown. Having no capital with which to commence business for himself, and remaining unemployed for a few weeks, he gladly embraced an early offer to go back as a
journeyman to his old master. Here he continued long enough to carn sufficient money, and establish sufficient eredit, to purchase for himself a set of tools, and a few boxes of tin, together with a barrel of sugar, a barrel of molasses, a keg of tobacco, a bag of coffee and a chest of tea, and took passage, with his goods, on board one of the slow farmer teams of that day, bound to this, the place of his after residence for more than fifty years. His attention was directed to this place by the fact of his only sister having previously mar- ried the Rev. Israel Evans, who settled in this town.
In 1792 Col. Kent formed a happy marriage connection with Miss Charlotte Mellen, a daughter of the Rev. John Mellen, of Sterling, Mass., and younger sister of the Hon. Prentiss Mellen, some years sinee a Senator in Congress, and Chief Justice of the State of Maine. Cemented by this happy union, their united home was, for nearly thirty years, the abode of refined and generous hospitality. With reference to this, it may not be inappropriate to quote the following tribute, from no less an authority than the Hon. Daniel Webster, in a letter written by him, six months previous to his decease, to George Kent, Esq., one of the sons :
" I avail myself of this opportunity, my dear sir, to renew the cx- pression of that regard which I have entertained for yourself and your family for so many years. Your excellent father was one of the first to bring me into notice before the people of New-Hampshire, and a kind and attached friend to the hour of his death. His house was one of the first in all the neighborhood in which I met intelli- gent and cultivated society, and that house was always adorned, en-
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livened, and made most agreeable to all its guests, by your admirable mother. I assure you, my dear sir, that these recollections give me great pleasure."
In 1796 Col. Kent was commissioned as a justice of the peace, which office he continued to hold, through various reappointments, and in its different grades, of justice of the quorum, and justice throughout the State, until his temporary removal from New-Hamp- shire, in 1821. He was elected the representative of the town in 1797, and reelected to the same office four or five times during the succeeding twenty years-his last service in this capacity being in 1817. In the mean time he was three times elected to the Senate of New-Hampshire-first, in 1809, and again in 1813 and 1814-in which latter year he was chosen by the Legislature as treasurer of the State, the duties of which office he discharged for the succeeding two years. In early life he was commissioned and served several years as aid to the governor, (Gov. Gilman,) with the rank of colonel, and in this capacity accompanied His Excellency on several excur- sions and reviews throughout the State. Having retired from mer- cantile business, he was, in 1806, appointed cashier of the Concord Bank, and continued in that office until his resignation, in 1821.
Col. Kent will be long and favorably remembered as an energetic and public-spirited citizen; ready to aid in all works of public im- provement, and to bear his share in all public enterprises. He was a friend of good order, of the cause of education, and of religious worship and ordinances. Although not himself greatly indebted, in early life, to public school instruction, nor at all to any of the higher seminaries of learning, he was a just appreciator of their value, and by his native force of mind and quickness of apprehension, well sup- plied, to an extent quite uncommon, any defect in his early training, so that he became a ready and correct writer, a clear and comprehen- sive speaker, and an accurate and sound judge in all matters where he was called upon to act. In affairs of the town his opinion was looked up to with much confidence, was readily given, and generally appre- ciated. He was repeatedly called upon to preside as moderator of the annual town meetings, and evinced, in this often difficult office, great readiness in the discharge of duty, united with dignity and self-possession, and great firmness and decision of character, blended with courtesy and respect to the feelings and rights of others. His courage, moral and physical, was put severely to the test in the March election of 1813, when, as moderator, he felt bound to deny to certain United States soldiers, stationed at Concord, the right of voting, which they claimed on that occasion .*
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