USA > New Hampshire > The history of New Hampshire, from its discovery, in 1614, to the passage of the Toleration act, in 1819 > Part 21
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of congress, and the whole matter was referred to CHAP. the court of appeals who reversed the judgment of X. the state court. After the adoption of the federal constitution, the district court of the United States confirmed the decision of the court of appeals, and ordered the value of the Susanna and cargo, with interest, amounting to $32,721 36 in the whole, to be refunded to the original owners of that ves- sel. The legislature having already remonstrated against any interference of the general government in this case, as a " violation of the dignity, sove- reignty and independence of the state," and the late owners of the McClary having petitioned for the " aid and advisement of the legislature in the premises," the governor declared that the council had concurred with him in requesting a meeting of the legislature before the time to which it stood adjourned.
The legislature, having taken the whole contro- versy into consideration, again prepared a spirited remonstrance against the interference of the courts of the general government in this affair, as a " violation of state independence, and an unwar- rantable encroachment in courts of the United States." After stating, at considerable length, the facts above recapitulated, the remonstrance pro- ceeds in the following spirited language :
" This state had a right to oppose the British usurpations in the way it thought best ; could make laws as it chose with respect to every transaction, where it had not explicitly granted the power to congress ; that the formation of courts for carry- ing these laws into execution, belonged only to the several states ; that congress might advise and
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CHAP. recommend, but the states only could enact and X. carry into execution ; and that the attempts, repeat- edly made, to render the laws of this state in this respect null and void, is a flagrant insult to the principles of the revolution.
" Can the rage for annihilating all the power of the states, and reducing this extensive and flour- ishing country to one domination, make the admin- istrators blind to the danger of violating all the principles of our former governments, to the hazard of convulsions in endeavoring to eradicate every trace of state power, except in the resentment of the people ? Can the constitutional power of congress, in future, be no other way established, than by the belief that the former congress always possessed the same ? Can the remembrance of the manner of our opposition to tyranny and the grad- ual adoption of federal ideas be so painful as to exclude, (unless forced into view,) the knowledge that congress in its origin was merely an advisory body ; that it entirely depended upon the several legislatures to enforce any measures it might recommend ?"
This remonstrance, strong and spirited as it was in language, and founded, as it was believed to be, upon an invasion of the rights of this state, seems to have produced no effect. But it demon- strated that this state, however federal it might have been in name, and however faithful it may at all times have shown itself to the constitution, was, from the beginning, jealous of the exercise of doubt- ful powers by the general government, and among the first to protest against every invasion of the reserved rights of the states.
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In 1794, an extensive bridge was constructed CHAP. over the Piscataqua river, in the vicinity of Ports- X. - mouth, which, in its cost and difficulty of construc- tion, exceeded every enterprise of the kind which had been attempted in the country. It consisted of three sections, two of them horizontal and the third arched, extending from Newington to Dur- ham, and presenting a surface of planking nearly half a mile in length. Its construction required five thousand tons of timber, eighty thousand feet of plank, twenty tons of iron, and eight thousand tons of stone, and cost the large sum of sixty-two thousand dollars. The work excited general ad- miration at the time, and had a favorable influence upon the commerce of Portsmouth, by diverting to it a portion of the country trade which had long been engrossed by the larger commercial towns of Massachusetts.
During the following year, (1795,) an academy was incorporated in Gilmanton, endowed with a fund consisting of six thousand dollars in money and seven thousand acres of land. A similar in- stitution had been, the preceding year, established at Haverhill. Both institutions have remained in existence to the present time ; both have received a steady and liberal support ; and both have been eminently useful in the great work of disseminat- ing useful knowledge in the community. Among the earliest literary establishments in the state, their patronage has since been divided with numer- ous seminaries of a similar character. But yet, as the landmarks of the early origin of a general interest in the cause of education in this state, these institutions, and the few of the same charac- 1795.
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CHAP. ter which preceded them, deserve a particular X. notice in our history. They were not only honor- able indications of that rising taste for education to which they owed their establishment, but active agents in its cultivation. Our early academies, by calling the public attention to the great benefits of a general system of instruction, and preparing a multitude of competent instructors, gave new life to our common school system, and diffused its advantages through every part of the state.
During the year 1795, the question of the rati- fication of Jay's treaty agitated this state, in com- mon with the rest of the Union. Great Britain, while a controversy with France was pending, had adopted a series of arbitrary restrictions, almost entirely destructive of the American commerce with the French republic. At the same time, she had retained possession of several military posts in the western portions of our country, under color of a variety of unfounded pretences, and in open violation of the treaty entered into at the close of the revolution. For the purpose of arranging these difficulties, which had at one time threatened to result in open war, John Jay had been appointed an envoy extraordinary to the court of St. James. Mr. Jay having succeeded in negotiating a treaty, the senate was called upon, in 1795, to enter into a consideration of its merits. A long and angry discussion ensued. A senator from Virginia vio- lated the injunction of secrecy which rested upon the senate during the debate, and procured its general publication in the newspapers of the day. It was at once denounced by many for its sup- posed partiality to Great Britain and injustice to
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France. Some of its provisions were assailed in CHAP. the most intemperate manner, and a general ex- citement prevailed throughout the country. At Portsmouth, in this state, a town meeting was holden, and voted an address to the president against the adoption of the treaty. A counter address having been prepared and signed by a large number of respectable citizens, a mob assembled in the streets, insulted many of the signers, broke their fences and windows, injured their ornamental trees, and attempted, by threats and violence, to gain possession of the counter address, and prevent its transmission to the presi- dent. The disturbance was, however, of short duration, and was succeeded by a more candid consideration of the merits of the treaty in ques- tion. The senate at length ratified it, by a vote of twenty to ten ; the Honorable John Langdon, one of the senators from this state, voting against it. The president, after duly examining its merits, gave it his assent, and the result proved that, whatever objectionable features it might have con- tained, it was calculated to be highly beneficial in its influence upon the commerce and general inter- ests of the country.
Considering the excitement which this subject created, it is a singular fact that the legislature of this state, at its session in November, 1795, passed, by an unanimous vote, an answer to the address of Governor Gilman, approving, in the strongest terms, of the treaty. In that document, they ex- pressed an undiminished " confidence in the virtue and ability of the minister who negotiated the treaty ; the senate who advised its ratification, and
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of his country, who complied with this advice."
Tuftonborough, lying in that portion of the ancient county of Strafford, which is now known as Carrol* county, and Danbury, in the county of Grafton, were this year incorporated. The former town stretches along the northeast shore of the Winnipiseogee lake, whose arms, extending far into the town, present, from the neighboring hills, some of the most delightful landscapes to be found in the country. It is diversified with an agreeable interchange of "rough and pleasant grounds," and presents a great variety of soil. It is washed on one side by a broad expanse of water, and divided between level grounds and abrupt ele- vations on the other. The scenery on the shores of lake Winnipiseogee has been delineated both with pen and pencil, and is destined hereafter to become celebrated in song, and to afford the rich- est subjects to the painter. The lake itself more than realises the impassioned description of Loch Katrine.t True, it has no barren wastes, of heath and rock, environing its shores ; but it has a broad expanse of blue and limpid waters, sprinkled with cultivated islands, and surrounded with a belt of as luxuriant and productive soil as New England can boast. Its broad arms, extending in every direction, diversifying with mimic " promontory, creek and bay" the country upon its borders, and, ever and anon, flowing in a broad and unruf- fled current far into the interior, present, in a fine summer's day, some of the most agreeable pros-
* Laws of New Hampshire, November session, 1840, p. 455.
+ As described by Sir Walter Scott, in the "Lady of the Lake."
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pects that ever delighted the eyes of the traveller. CHAP. " Now here, now there," the beautiful congrega- X. - tion of waters breaks upon his view-one moment partially lost sight of, as the road deviates from its banks-the next, bursting upon him in all its splendor. Something of the romantic charac- ter of this lake and the surrounding region has, doubtless, been sacrificed to the progress of agri- cultural improvement. When the verdant fields around it were the forest home of savage tribes- when the Indian's canoe sprung unmolested over its bosom, and the smoke of his camping fires curled above its beautiful islands, it was a scene which his untutored imagination might readily have looked upon as the chosen residence of the Great Spirit. Not less agreeable must the pros- pect it presents at the present day appear to the eye of civilized man, who at once delights in the charms of nature, and rejoices in the progress of civilization and improvement in the neighborhood of her loveliest works.
On one side of the water rises Red Hill, which affords a prospect of the lake and all the surround- ing country. Scarcely a stone's throw from the summit is the little lake Squam, its waters clear as crystal and sprinkled with green islands-some of them no wider than a small grass-plot-some spreading out into fields and pastures, with hills that send forth many a rivulet into the bosom of the lake. Ascending towards the summit of the mountain, the trees, unlike those on the White Mountains, which are gnarled and stinted, appear slender and graceful, and seem to stand for orna- ment amidst the blueberry and sweet-fern, which
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CHAP. bear their fruit and fragrance almost to the moun- X. tain's top. For weeks the traveller may daily and hourly discover some new attraction in these sweet abodes of nature. To-day, a clear atmosphere presents everything in the brightest hues, and charms the mind with the distinctness of every object. To-morrow, a change of atmosphere lends to everything a change of hue, and flings over all a new enchantment. Nothing can exceed the splendor of sunrise on this mountain, in a calm summer's morning. The stillness of the place- the placid serenity of the waters-the varying positions of objects, as the morning mists rise, and change, and pass away before the sun, now brood- ing low on the waters, now sailing slowly over the islands, and wreathed in ever-varied forms around their green promontories; these and other features present to the mind a landscape abounding in that wild beauty which exists where art has not usurp- ed dominion over nature. Here some bright basin is seen to gleam-and anon, the eye catches some islet, half veiled in mist and reddening with the first blush of morning. Sometimes, by a pleasing delu- sion, the clouds become stationary, and the island itself appears to move, and to be slowly receding from the veil of mist. The eye dwells with delight on the villages of the wide country, and the hun- dreds of farms and orchards which adorn the whole extent of the landscape. The fertile islands of the lake are scattered, as if to delight the eye ; and when clothed in the deep green of summer, or waving with luxuriant harvests, they seem like floating gardens mirrored in the waters. The hills and woods, the shores and eddies, the coves and
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green recesses-the farms and houses-sometimes CHAP. retiring from the waters-sometimes approaching X. ~ to the margin of the lake-all form a picture formed for the lover of nature to linger and dwell upon with varied and ever new delight. The course of the lake winds at last and is lost among the distant mountains.
One solitary family are the tenants of Red Hill- the lone sentinels of these romantic scenes. It is composed of a mother, a son and daughter. They gain a scanty subsistence by cultivating a few acres of land near the summit, which seem aliens among the rugged features of the mountain. The mother and daughter have descended from the mountain but a few times during their whole lives, and are unconscious of most of the important events of the world.
Such is a faint sketch of the scenery around lake Winnipiseogee, where are exhibited, in fine con- trast and bright association, the wild and rude with the beautiful-the austere with the lovely-widely extended fields, hills and mountains, embosoming a placid lake and islands. It may be doubted whether anything in Italian, Alpine, or Highland scenery exceeds the magnificence of the landscape which is here spread out. Yet the lake reposes, the mountain stands against the sky, the woods and fields bloom, and exhale and breathe their fra- grance through year after year of the silent lapse of time, scarcely tempting a traveller's foot, or wooing an admiring eye, of the thousands that seek novelty and repose amidst the beauties of nature.
The political discussions of the preceding year, were not entirely without their influence upon the
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CHAP. election of 1796. Though there was no regularly X. organized opposition to the re-election of Gov- 1796. ernor Gilman, a considerable strength was arrayed against him at the polls, and his majority was re- duced to less than five thousand votes.
In 1796, the charter of the first New Hampshire turnpike, extending from Concord to the Piscat- aqua bridge, in the immediate vicinity of Ports- mouth, was granted by the legislature. It was promptly commenced and completed, and was but the first of a long series of thoroughfares, of the same character, established by the enterprise of a few public spirited individuals, and branching into every section of the state. Sometimes lucrative, sometimes a heavy charge upon their proprietors, these early enterprises were conducted with a de- gree of vigor and economy seldom witnessed in such undertakings, when prosecuted at the public charge.
1798.
During the year 1798, chiefly through the exer- tions of Dr. Nathan Smith, of Cornish, a medical department was connected with Dartmouth col- lege. Without the benefits of early education, and yet possessed of distinguished skill, his talents and industry had given him a rank in his profession, which others, possessed of much greater advan- tages, have striven for in vain. For some years he was the only medical professor connected with the institution; and yet, difficult as the task must have been, unaided and with very limited pecu- niary resources, he gave it a highly respectable character. The medical college, thus established and recommended to the public favor, has since maintained a permanent and useful existence. In
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1810, by the aid of the legislature of the state, a CHAP. neat medical college building was erected; and X. the medical school, furnished with an extensive cabinet, and a valuable chemical laboratory, and placed under the guidance of medical skill of the highest order, soon took rank with the most respec- table institutions for medical instruction in the country.
The act passed at the December session of the legislature for 1798, regulating the apportionment of public taxes, taken in connection with similar acts of a more recent period, shows some singular changes in the relative wealth of our towns. Ports- mouth, our only commercial town of any impor- tance, stood then, as now, at the head of the list, paying $26,33 in the thousand, of all public assess- ments. Next, and in the following order, stood the fine agricultural towns of Gilmanton, London- derry, Weare, and Barrington; the first paying $19,58, and the last $13,35, in the thousand. By the apportionment act passed in 1840, twelve towns pay more than ten dollars each, in every thousand of the state taxes. Weare, Barrington, and Londonderry are excluded from this list alto- gether, and eight towns now pay a larger pro- portion of the public expenses than Gilmanton. Dover now ranks second on the list, and Nashua, Concord and Claremont follow in their order. These changes, however, are far from indicating any reduction in the property of our agricultural towns. Towns, which in 1798 were either thinly settled or not settled at all, have advanced with 1798. rapid strides in wealth and population, and now sustain a large share in the burthen of taxation,
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CHAP. which formerly rested on the agricultural sec- X. tions of our southern counties. Our trade has in- creased, and large manufacturing establishments have sprung up among us; doubling, and, in some instances, more than quadrupling the wealth and population of our principal towns, and bringing upon them, with their increasing prosperity, an increased participation in the public burthens.
The insolent bearing of the French government towards our own, encouraging as it did constant aggressions upon our commerce, and manifesting the most hostile views, by peremptorily ordering its minister to demand his despatches and leave our country, had at this time produced a general ex- citement throughout the Union. Three American envoys having reached Paris, charged with the management of a pacific negotiation, had been met with a demand for money, as a prerequisite to its commencement. This insult roused the whole country. With scarcely a distinction of party, " Millions for defence, but not one cent for trib- ute," was the prevailing sentiment of the day. In this state of things, the legislature of 1799 adopted an address to President Adams, express- ing the warmest resentment at the arbitrary course pursued by the French government. In the sen- ate it passed unanimously. In the house, four individuals voted against it-not because they saw any palliation for the conduct of France, but be- cause the prevailing party in the legislature had introduced into the address laudatory expressions, extending to all the acts of an administration, whose policy in many respects they could not approve.
In December, 1799, an act passed, providing for
1799.
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the better observance of the Sabbath. It provided CHAP. for the appointment of tything-men, and armed X. them with power to stop all persons travelling on the Sabbath, and interrogate them in relation to their business, names, and place of residence. Persons giving false answers were subjected to severe penalties. This law, exceptionable in itself, was rendered still more so by the officious inso- lence of many of the officers entrusted with its execution. Proud of a little brief authority, they seized upon the reins of the traveller's horse with an air of authority which sometimes approached nearer to the ungracious rudeness of highwaymen, than the mild deportment of conservators of reli- gious observances and civil order. Scenes of arbitrary violence on the one hand, and of boister- ous resistance or criminal evasion on the other, were of constant occurrence ; and it soon became a matter of doubt, whether the law tended more to the proper observance of the Sabbath, or its shameless violation. Like many other laws, passed by pious and well-meaning men, whose zeal in the cause of virtue has for a moment blinded their judgment in relation to the proper means for its advancement ; the law in question, though unquestionably es- tablished from pure motives, produced most unfor- tunate results. It became at first unpopular, then a nullity, and was soon stricken from the pages of the statute book by the general consent of the com- munity. Such has been the general fate of laws, which have attempted, by fines and punishments and vexatious prosecutions, the correction of evils which are more properly left for correction to the untrammelled force of public opinion.
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CHAP. X. So closed the eighteenth century-a period full of interesting events-an era which must take precedence over all others in the future history of our country. At its commencement, New Hamp- shire was a humble settlement, with a population thinly scattered along a narrow extent of seaboard, harassed by the attacks of a savage enemy, and dependent upon the will of a foreign government. At its termination, it had become a wealthy and populous state, extending from the ocean to the Canadian frontier, favored with peace and pros- perity, and governed by the free suffrages of its own citizens. At its commencement, it was hardly able to defend itself against a few wretched Indian tribes ; though " every fourth man fit to march, in the province," was at times in the field; and judges of the courts were often " exposed as com- mon sentinels, and sent out upon the scout, in small numbers, after the enemy."* At its close, its citizens, in common with their brethren in other states, were ready to wage war with one of the most powerful nations on the globe, for the pro- tection of their national rights and the vindication of their national honor.
The death of George Washington had occurred on the 14th of December, 1799; and in this state, as well as every part of the Union, the twenty- second day of the succeeding February, the anni- versary of his birth, was devoted to expressions of public sorrow for the decease of a man, who was emphatically " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
1800. The commencement of a new century brought
* MS. "Minuitts of Governor and Councill," for 1703.
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with it the commencement of a new era in the CHAP political history of the state. Hitherto its political X. conflicts had been few, and far from severe. The federal party had maintained its ascendency by a majority which had discouraged opposition, and administered our affairs with a moderation little calculated to excite it. Indeed, the position assumed by our legislature, on many occasions, had been in strict accordance with the views and sympathies of the democratic party itself. The people, as a mass, had been zealous in the defence of their rights, hostile to every new asumption of power by the general government, and unyielding in their attachment to an economical administra- tion of public affairs.
But the measures of the administration of John Adams had been of a character too little popular to enable him, revered as he was for his revolu- tionary services, to secure in any part of the Union that united support which had been accorded to his predecessor. Jealous and sensitive in the extreme, his distrust of foreigners and his nervous- ness under the criticisms of the press, led to the most fatal errors of his political career. These errors-the passage of the alien and sedition laws, and the outrages perpetrated under the sanction of their provisions-brought the democratic party, with a distinct and general organization, into the field in every state in the Union. The discussions thus excited, extended to New Hampshire, and for the first time the whole mass of its citizens were divided into those permanent political parties, whose frequent and exciting contests for the supremacy, scattered through the broad range of
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