USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Dublin > The history of Dublin, N.H., Volume 1852 > Part 4
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
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of sixty pounds, and thirty cords of wood, but to retain his pastoral connection with the church, and the right of sup- plying the pulpit with men of piety and good abilities, when he might find it inexpedient to preach himself, - the town paying such preachers for their services. Upon the accept- ance of the proposition by the town, he sent in a formal release of his salary. Notwithstanding this arrangement, it is understood that Mr. Sprague, during the rest of his lifetime, was absent very little from Dublin, and that he continued himself to preach, for the most part, though he had fre- quently other persons to preach for him ; but, it is presumed, this was never attended with any expense to the town.
After the matter of the reliquishment of his salary was adjusted, no further mention, except incidentally, is made of Mr. Sprague, in the town-records, until, at the March meet- ing in 1818, it was voted to erect a monument to perpetuate his memory. He died on the sixteenth day of December, 1817. His death was occasioned by an injury received in being thrown from his carriage, a week previous. The Rev. Elijah Dunbar, of Peterborough, preached the sermon, at his funeral, which was subsequently printed, by a vote of the town.
Mr. Sprague was born in Boston, May 20, 1750, and graduated at Harvard College in 1770. He was a son of Dr. John Sprague, a physician of very considerable emi- nence, who resided in Boston, and afterwards in Dedham, and who accumulated a large property.
Probably no other man who lived hereabouts, in those times, had or still has so general a notoriety, throughout a region of considerable extent, as Mr. Sprague. He is com- monly spoken of in connection with the thousand anecdotes related of him, many of which, so far as he was concerned, probably had none, and others but a slight foundation in fact. These anecdotes are of a kind to give the impression, that he must have been exceedingly ignorant and shallow. Such, however, is said not to have been the case. Living, as he always had, in and about the large town of Boston, he
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was undoubtedly not well versed in the business and cus- toms of agricultural life ; and he had no great aptitude or taste for acquainting himself with such matters. He is said to have been a good scholar, and to have kept himself well informed, by reading and otherwise, of what was going on in the world. He was not, however, given to close applica- tion to professional studies, or to an elaborate preparation for his public exercises.
He was preeminently of a social and jovial character, fond of conversation, anecdote, repartee and good cheer. He is reported to have possessed, in a marked degree, the qualities of shrewdness and sharpness of intellect; and in the en- counter of wits with his clerical brethren, which was not unusual in those days, his opponent was quite as likely as himself to come off second best. He was a man of the most kindly, generous disposition, and of ready sympathy with affliction and distress.
" As a minister of the gospel," it is said by Mr. Dunbar, in his funeral sermon, "Mr. Sprague was considered as excelling more particularly in his pathetic addresses, and sermons on funeral occasions, and generally in his ยท public prayers." Of his sermons, generally, I doubt whether much can be said to their advantage. It is presumed he had not the industry and application necessary to prepare them thor- oughly and carefully. Those that he left are written in a character and hand so completely illegible, that nobody, so far as I have heard, unless it were Mr. Dunbar, has ever pretended to the ability to decipher them ; and I have been told, it was not always without considerable difficulty that he could read his sermons himself.
In his will, made three days before his death, Mr. Sprague gave to the town of Dublin five thousand dollars, to be left at interest for ever, for the support of the Christian religion, in the Congregational Society, in the town. After giving to Dr. Moses Kidder two thousand dollars, making some other bequests of small amount, and leaving to his wife the use of the rest of his estate during her lifetime, he gave to the
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town of Dublin all the remainder of his estate, " to be kept for schooling in said Dublin." Mrs. Sprague dying soon after, this fund, amounting to nearly ten thousand dollars, came into possession ; and the income of it has ever since been applied to the support of the public common schools.
The subject of building a new meeting-house began to be agitated soon after the commencement of the present century. At the March meeting in 1808, the town voted to build a new meeting-house. But nothing came of it. In November, 1810, they voted to accept the report of a committee from out of town, for fixing the spot, and chose a committee to let out the building of the house. The spot selected was upon land of Cyrus Chamberlain, probably not far from the place where the brick church now stands. But there was dissatisfaction in regard to the location. Some desired that it should be built upon the school-house hill. There was a succession of exciting town-meetings in 1811, which, how- ever, resulted in nothing. 1142904
Here the matter subsided, and rested till 1815, when it was again voted to build a new meeting-house, and to set it on the school-house hill. But this proving unsatisfactory, in March, 1817, a committee was raised, consisting of four from the east and four from the west part of the town, to agree upon a spot for the house. This committee made a report, at the same meeting, which was accepted, and which was, " to set the meeting-house north of Joseph Appleton's blacksmith's shop, and turn the road south of the potash, to the post-guide south of Esquire Snow's, from thence south of the burial-ground, across the point of the pond," - where the road now is.
The road thus proposed was laid out by the selectmen ; but the town, at a town-meeting held June 2, voted against accepting it, and, by consequence, against building the house upon the spot designated. At the same time, it was voted to build a meeting-house upon the school-house hill, and to have it done in a year from the next November. At an adjournment of this meeting, on the 23d of June, a report
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of a committee, fixing the spot where the house was finally built, was accepted by a vote of eighty to thirty-seven. This vote was decisive of the matter, and the house was built accordingly. It was raised in June, 1818. The raising occupied two or three days, and was regarded as a momen- tous occasion. Former residents of the town took that opportunity to revisit their kindred and friends, and the people of the neighboring towns flocked in to witness the achievement. The house was built by Messrs. Cutting, of Templeton, Mass .; and Kilburn, of Fitzwilliam, and was finished in the course of the season. The dedication, which took place on the 3d of December following, was very numerously attended. The Rev. Thomas Beede, of Wilton, delivered the sermon, on that occasion.
After the death of Mr. Sprague, the pulpit was supplied by several candidates. Mr. Levi W. Leonard commenced preaching as a candidate on the first Sunday of April, 1820. In June succeeding, he was invited to settle as the minister of the First Congregational Church and Society, and accepted the invitation. His ordination took place Sept. 6, 1820. The sermon on the occasion was preached by the Rev. Henry Ware, Sen., D. D., of Harvard University.
A Baptist church was organized in Dublin in 1785. Elder Elijah Willard was ordained June 5, 1793. A meet- ing-house was built, soon after, upon the Bemis Farm, where it stood until recently, when it was removed further west, and fitted up anew. Mr. Willard continued to preach till near the time of his death, which took place in August, 1839, at the age of eighty-eight years.
The Trinitarian Congregational church was formed Nov- ember 21, 1827. Their meeting-house was built in 1835. They were supplied by different preachers, but had no settled minister till October, 1840, when the Rev. Henry A. Ken- dall was ordained. He was dismissed, at his own request, in July, 1850; and the Rev. Alonzo Hayes was installed in April following.
A Methodist meeting-house was built in the northwest
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part of the town, about ten years ago. A part of the society are inhabitants of Dublin, - as are also some members of the religious society at Harrisville.
The first mention that is made of schools, in the town- records, is in July, 1773, when the town granted four pounds "to keep a woman's school, to be kept in three parts of the town." For the next three years, they granted six pounds a year, to be laid out in like manner.
In 1778, it was voted to build two school-houses, one in the northwest part of the town, the other in the east part. But it seems they were never built, and it is presumed that up to the year 1784 there was no school-house in the town. In that year a vote was passed to build seven school-houses, at the cost of the town. This vote was carried into effect, eventually, though it was several years before the houses were all completed. The town voted one hundred and fifty pounds for the purpose, to be assessed and divided into seven equal parts, and to " give each man liberty to work or find stuff for said housen, to pay his rate."
A good deal of difficulty was experienced in fixing the loca- tion of some of the school-houses, particularly that " for the street," which was finally built by Moses Greenwood's, and that "for the northwest part of the town." Instead of the one originally provided for, it was determined, in 1791, to build two houses in the northwest part, -one west of Eli Greenwood's, and the other near Andrew Allison's. It was " voted that the selectmen shall prefix the places for said school-housen, and determine the bigness of them, and that they let out said housen to be built by the great ; provided they don't give more than forty-five pound for building both school-housen." Possibly the selectmen may have felt con- strained to leave the money to accumulate for a time, - as it appears, by the records that the house by Andrew Allison's was not accepted by the town till 1799. In the meantime the school-house by Moses Greenwood's was given up, and in its stead one was built in the middle of the town, and another by Drury Morse's, in 1795. There were now nine
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districts. The tenth was formed about the year 1805, by the division of the northeast district.
The school-houses which were first built, it may safely be presumed, were but rude structures, small in dimensions, rough in workmanship, and inconvenient and uncomfortable in their arrangements. They cost about thirty pounds, or a hundred dollars, each, - several of them considerably less than that sum. The two which it was first voted to build were to be " 25 by 20 feet." The town had but fairly got around with building the school-houses, when it became necessary to repair them ; and, before many years, several of them required to be renewed. At the March meeting in 1809, it was voted to build a new school-house in each dis- trict that was destitute of one. Under this vote, it appears that houses were built in the southwest district, the south, and the southeast, - at an average cost of about one hun- dred and seventy dollars. A house was built by Drury Morse's in 1815, and in 1817 one by Eli Greenwood's, and another by Eli Hamilton's. These houses cost about two hundred and twenty-five dollars apiece.
The grants of school-money were at first very irregular. For several years there is no record of any money having been raised. In 1787, the sum granted was fifty pounds, or $166.67. It rose gradually in amount, but never ex- ceeded three hundred dollars, till 1805, when it was raised to four hundred and fifty dollars, which continued ever to be the sum till 1820. It should be observed, however, that, prior to 1805, the board of the teachers had always been paid by the town from its general funds, and was not taken out of the school-money. But, after that time, each district was required to pay the board of its teachers out of its pro- portion of the school-money.
While the town paid for the board, the price was pretty uniformly four shillings a week for boarding a schoolmaster, and two shillings and sixpence for a schoolmistress, until 1795, or thereabouts, when it had come to be six shillings and four shillings respectively. The wages paid to teachers
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can be ascertained but in few instances. In 1788, Alexan- der Eames was paid for two months, five pounds four shill- ings, or eight dollars and sixty-seven cents, a month, which was probably higher than the average price. In 1790, Sam- uel Appleton had eight dollars a month, for nine weeks. It is said he was paid in rye, which Mr. Ivory Perry carried to him at New Ipswich, where he then lived. The same year, 1790, Sarah Twitchell was paid for eight weeks, at the rate of forty-four cents a week, -which was probably about the usual price for female teachers at that time. It rose by degrees till about the year 1800, from which time, for twen- ty-five or thirty years, the common price was a dollar a week.
The school-fund of the town, derived mainly from the bequest of Mr. Sprague, and a small part from the proceeds of sales of the school-lands, amounts now to upwards of $11,000. The income of this fund became available in 1820, and has since been applied for the support of schools. From that time, the town has never raised a school-tax, under that name; but to the income of this fund, and the money received from the State, known as the "Literary Fund," there has been added, from the general funds of the town, sufficient to make up the sum divided, which has been sometimes one thousand dollars, sometimes less, and, for the last three or four years, more than that amount.
In 1806, Mr. Sprague and eleven others were chosen a committee to inspect the schools in the town. This is presumed to have been the first school-committee. A like committee was chosen in 1809, and again in 1818 and 1819. In 1821, as the record shows, "The town chose the Rev. Levi W. Leonard, the principal committee-man, to visit the schools in the several districts, in this town, with the agent belonging to the district which is to be visited, whose duty it is to inform Mr. Leonard of the time he is desired to attend for that purpose." At the March meeting in 1823, a report upon the schools was made to the town. Every year since that time, a written report has been prepared,
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which, with a single exception, has been read in town-meet- ing, and for the last ten years has been printed for the use of the inhabitants. Mr. Leonard has been upon the school- committee every year since 1821. For many years he was in the habit of visiting every school, summer and winter, at its commencement and close, - a service which he never failed to perform unless prevented by some necessity. The men who, from year to year, have been associated with him upon the committee, have generally been efficient and well qualified for the duty ; and altogether the schools of this town, for the last thirty years, have had the benefit of a supervision, it may safely be asserted, superior to that enjoyed by the schools of any other town in the State,
The schools of Dublin have long been deservedly famed for their excellence ; and they may well be regarded by the inhabitants of the town with emotions of mingled satisfac- tion and pride. And it is but an act of simple justice in us, who have enjoyed their advantages, here publicly to ac- knowledge our especial obligations to their two principal benefactors, - to the second minister of the town and his successor, - of whom, speaking generally, and without dis- paragement to others, it may be truly said, the former furnished the capital, the latter the labor, by the combined agency of which the beautiful structure of our common schools was reared.
It has been the lot of the town, for the last half-century nearly, instead of advancing, rather to retrograde, in point of population and wealth. As an agricultural town, which almost exclusively it has been, its soil, comparatively sterile and hard of cultivation, yields a comfortable subsistence but to the most patient, persevering industry, and downright hard work. Richer soils and milder climate have lured many to engage in agriculture elsewhere, while many more have been withdrawn to follow other pursuits. From these causes, whether to their own advantage always it were use- less here to inquire, it has happened, that a large proportion, especially of those in the prime and vigor of life, have, of
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late, left the homes of their youth to seek their fortunes in other scenes. Scattered all through the wide domain of our country, may be found the sons and daughters of Dublin, pursuing their various avocations.
But, wherever they may be, whatever may be their pur- suits, truth, I believe, will warrant the assertion, that seldom, indeed, have they been known to bring dishonor upon the place of their birth. The habits of industry, economy and sobriety, of staid, correct deportment, of honesty and integ- rity, of kindness and humanity, to which they were here trained, they very generally still retain with a firm grasp, and exercise in their adopted homes ; so that, however this constant drain upon its population may have diminished the industrial energies, and impaired the prosperity, of the town, there is yet the reflection, that the force thus withdrawn has not been lost, but has been brought to bear perhaps with more effect, and where it was more needed.
The apparent natural disadvantages under which the town has labored have not been wholly without resulting advan- tages. Our rigorous climate is nevertheless, in the main, healthful and invigorating, fitted to produce a hardy, robust, energetic people. Our stubborn soil, while it has demanded of its inhabitants unremitting labor to insure a livelihood, has, at least, albeit in a measure by necessity, saved them from indolence, extravagance and many of the temptations to vice, and has inured them to habits of industry, frugality and virtue. This state of things, though not altogether the most agreeable, it admits not of a doubt, is more conducive, alike to the happiness and the permanent welfare of a people, than the possession of the richest soil, if coupled with its usual, though not necessary, concomitants, - idleness, dissi- pation and low amusements.
To an indifferent observer, regarding merely its rugged, rocky surface, its bleak hills, its piercing winds and drifting snows, our town might seem to possess few attractions. But to us, in whose minds its memories are intertwined with so much that is dearest in life, it may be permitted to regard
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it with sentiments such as we cherish towards no other place. Here we first awoke to conscious being. Here we first experienced alike the joys and the sorrows of sentient, rational life. Here were the homes of our early years. Here are the graves of our fathers.
Neither, by any means, is the town devoid of scenes of natural beauty, and objects of interest. Witness the gran- deur of its forests, studded with majestic trees, in the summer crowned with verdant foliage, which, touched by the autumnal frosts, assumes such richly variegated yet sombre hues ; in the winter, standing, snow-imbedded, with their naked arms battling the fury of the blast ; or on a bright morning, after one of those storms of mingled snow and hail, sleet and rain, see every branch and twig, cased in transparent ice, flashing in the sunlight, with all the shifting colors of the rainbow. Mark the rugged hills, the deep, secluded dells, the cultivated fields, the ponds, embosomed in dense, wild woods, or opening upon cleared grounds. Where, for instance, can be found a sheet of water more beautiful than the old "meeting-house pond," with its cool, crystal waters, and clear, sandy shore, so congenial to its delicious inhabitant, the trout ; with its glassy surface now sleeping in the sparkling sunshine, now uplifted by the winds in tiny, silver-crested waves ?
Here, too, we have the Monadnock, rising in cold, proud, isolated grandeur, an emblem at once of the essential sta- bility and the superficial changes of nature. Its rugged sides, now compact of bald, cragged rock, were formerly covered with trees almost to its summit. But, years ago, the ravening fire, kindled whether by accident or design, spread over a great part of the superior portion of the moun- tain, killing every tree and shrub wherever it went. The dead trees, decaying and falling, furnished materials for another conflagration, which occurred within the memory of many of us. Some thirty years ago, in the latter part of a dry summer, the fire from a clearing on the side of the mountain made its way up to the higher regions, where,
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feeding upon the decayed wood, and nourished by the wind and the drought, it extended itself over almost the entire northern side. As the daylight paled, giving place to the darkness of night, there might be seen from out the dense sea of livid, flame-tinged smoke, in which the mountain was enveloped by day, countless fires lighting up all along the extended range, glowing with a more vivid brightness as the darkness thickened, until the whole mountain-side blazed with its myriad tongues of waving flame. It was a spectacle beautiful and grand in itself, but rendered sublime and awful by the thought of the dread power of the devour- ing element, and of the terrible destruction that must ensue, if, the wind and the drought continuing, it should burst its mountain-barrier, and invade the domains of man. But fortunately, before such a catastrophe was reached, a drench- ing rain extinguished the fire, and thus put an end at once to the grandeur and the terror of the scene.
Here, formerly, in the mountain-fastnesses, wild beasts had their haunts, whence they issued forth, making havoc and devastation of the cattle and flocks and crops. When wearied out, at length, by their repeated depredations, or stimulated by the love of adventure, the hardy yeomen of the contiguous towns, with their muskets and other weapons of offence, by a concerted movement, were wont to turn out, and surround the mountain, carrying destruction into their places of fancied security. In later days, the adventurous fox-hunter, mounted upon his clumsy snow-shoes, following his hounds in pursuit of the wary game, braving the intens- est cold, has often been led a weary chase over the Monad- nock's snow-buried sides.
The summit of the mountain, standing lofty and lonely, has ever been watched with interest, as an index of the weather. Enshrouded in dense clouds, or veiled in impene- trable mist, it bespeaks the present genius of the impending storm. There, too, dwells the hidden force, which, in the sultry heats of summer, attracts the cloud, "surcharged with wrathful vapor," from whose dark bosom darts the
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crinkling lightning, and the descending thunder-bolt bursts, shivering the rocks, cleaving deep fissures, or tumbling huge fragments down the precipices.
Neither should we omit to mention the brightness and beauty of the sunlight, which, in a clear evening, lingers around the top of the mountain, as if loath to depart ; nor the glittering display, when, on a winter's afternoon, the scattered slanting rays of the descending sun are thrown from the surface of the ice-encrusted snow ; nor yet the cold, dazzling brilliancy which, in a winter's sunrise, encir- cles its snowy head; nor, finally, that more enchanting sight, vouchsafed to imagination's credulous vision, which, in the soft beauty of a moonlit summer's evening, was charmed with the pure light of the flaming, storied car- buncle.
Amidst these rude and primitive aspects of nature, not destitute of beauty and grandeur, but in which, neverthe- less, the stern, the hard and the real so strongly predominate, our town has reared a race of plain, earnest, unpretending, matter-of-fact men, of good common sense, of solidity of character, industrious and frugal, exempt in a good measure from the frivolities and vices, while wanting in the graces and adornments, of a more refined, polished and luxurious state of society ; men who, as a general thing, may with considerable confidence be relied upon to be more than they profess, to do more than they promise.
And now my part in the performances of this day at length draws to its close. The occasion, which has brought us together, as it is to us wholly novel, is one of the like of which not an individual here present shall witness the re- currence. It is an occasion which, appealing to early and happy recollections, has led many a wanderer back, to witness once more scenes long unvisited, not forgotten; and to meet kindred and friends from whom he has been separated by years of absence. Many of us, who went out from this our birthplace, are here. Many more, who went forth with us, have not returned, nor ever shall; whilst of multitudes
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