USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 20
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MR. STEVENS MERRILL * was the father-in-law of our first set- tler, and before coming to Warren lived in Plaistow, N. H. Mr. Patch had called at Mr. Merrill's house when he had been down country to sell his furs and get supplies, had fallen in love with young Miss Annie Merrill, and when she was a trifle more than sweet sixteen they were married. He moved his young wife home and she was the prettiest flower in all the wilderness. She had sparkling black eyes, rosy cheeks, cherry lips, raven tresses in abundance, and in form was light and agile as a doe.
In 1775 Mr. Merrill, who did not like the political complexion of the country, concluded to go where he could find peace and quiet,
% STEVENS AND SARAH ( Chase) MERRILL'S FAMILY RECORD.
Jonathan, born Dec. 13, 1752, at New- bury, Mass.
Mary, born May 13, 1762. Joseph, born Sept. 24; 1764.
Sarah, born Sept. 23, 1754.
Ruth, born March 6, 1767.
Anna, born Dec. 28, 1756. Caleb, born April 4, 1769.
Susannah, June 4, 1759, at Plaistow, N. H.
Betsey, May 15, 1772. Hannah, born Oct. 9, 1775.
Sarah, the first wife, died April 30, 1794. Mary, the second, died August 24, 1804. Hannah, died Nov. 21, 1806. Caleb, died June 8, 1808.
Nathaniel Merrill and his brother John came from England and settled in New- bury, Mass., 1635. Nathaniel married Susannah Gordon.
Nathaniel, Jr., born 1638, married Joan Kinney.
Peter, born 1667, married Sarah Hazzelton.
Abel, born 1697, married Ruth.
STEVENS, born June 10, 1731, married, Ist, Sarah Chase; 2d, Mary Noyes. Joseph, born Sept. 24, 1764, married Sarah Copp.
Susan C., born July 30, 1808, married Jesse Little.
Stevens Merrill was born in Atkinson, N. H., lived at Newbury, Mass., then at Plaistow, N. H., then settled in Warren as above.
232
HISTORY OF WARREN.
and so moved to our woodland paradise. He bought the lot of land on which James Aikin lived, and built a log house on the river bank, a few rods southeast of the present depot, and just south of the west end of the Bixby bridge.
Stevens Merrill was a straight, medium-sized man, had a lean face, a thin straight nose and blue eyes. Mr. M. was a Quaker, did not believe in war, and had no sympathy with the colonists. He was stern of aspect and slow in speech, and the children were afraid of him. He was inflexible, had a mind and will of his own, and could not be bent from his purpose. Courage he possessed to a remarkable degree, and neither man, wild beast, nor devil could frighten him. His cattle used to run in the woods. One day they got lost, and after hunting a long time he found all near Hurricane brook, except one ox and a heifer. Driving them up the bridle-path he heard the ox lowing in the woods on the right. He knew there was trouble. Going back to his son-in-law's he procured a stout pitchfork, then followed through the woods till he found the ox in the meadow near Patch brook, guarding the heifer, which a large bear was trying to kill. The heifer was very badly scratched and bitten. Assisted by the ox, Mr. M. attacked the bear, the largest one he ever saw, and after a hard fight succeeded in driving it away, but did not kill it. The same bear killed cattle in Romney and the towns below, and was itself eventually killed by a hunter.
JONATHAN MERRILL, EsQ., a son of the above, came to War- ren with him. He lived for a time with his brother-in-law; and his son Stevens, afterwards the richest man in town, was born in Mr. Patch's cabin. 'Squire Jonathan Merrill was one of the smartest men that ever lived in Warren. He was six feet tall, of a lordly mien, straight as an arrow, and had an eye like a hawk. He was perfect in the science of human nature, knew when to drive and when to coax, and had a large stock of soft soap, which he generally dealt out with a liberal hand. Like his father, he was a Quaker of the straightest sect; wore a broad-brimmed hat, and a long drab coat ornamented with great wooden buttons, called by some " matheman buttons." As soon as his father had finished his large log cabin he moved home with him, where he lived through life.
233
THE BEST DRESSED MAN IN TOWN.
JOSHUA MERRILL, EsQ.,* followed his friends and relatives into the wilderness. He bought the lot of land immediately soutlı of 'Squire Copp, and built his log hut at the foot of Beech hill, a few rods north of the bridge over Black brook.
He was small-sized, straight, lithe, and agile, and withal was an excellent horseman. "As straight as Uncle Joshua," was a speech common among the settlers. He was also a tough, sturdy, weather-beaten, mettlesome, leathern-sided, lion-hearted, gen- erous-spirited little man. He would never give up when he had entered a contest, and he battled for five-score years witlı Old Father Time, only yielding when the snows of more than a hun- dred winters had whitened his head. He was the best dressed man in town, and it would have done you good, kind reader, to have seen him, could you only have lived in those times. He would frequently dress himself in his best on some week day, when nothing particular was going on, and then would call round on all his neighbors to show how pretty he looked. Perhaps he wanted to advertise his wares, for report has it that he was once a tailor by trade .; On such occasions he wore a very short-waisted coat of dark color, with short tail-flaps, a wide-rimmed hat-
JONATHAN AND SUSANNAH ( Eaton) MERRILL'S FAMILY RECORD.
Samuel, born Feb. 28, 1774, at Plais- tow ; died Dec. 14, 1815. April 28, 1813. Stevens, born Mar. 15th, 1776, at War- ren ; died May 12. 1843. Ruth, born June 4, 1788; died Feb. 9, 1790. Betsey, born Nov. 21, 1790. Mehitable, born Sept. 6, 1792.
Isaac, born Aug. 4, 1778.
Hannah, born May 24, 1781.
Sarah, born Jan. 28, 1784.
Polly, born March 10, 1794.
Susannah, wife of 'Squire Jonathan, died Dec. 26, 1813.
*JOSHUA AND MEHITABLE ( Emerson) MERRILL'S FAMILY RECORD.
He was born May 27th, 1739, in Newbury, Mass. She was born Aug. 28th, 1741, in Hampstead, N. H. Married Feb. 19, 1760.
Ruth, born Nov. 23, 1760, in Hamp- stead.
Ruth, born April 8, 1766.
Hannah, born April 28, 1771.
Abigail, born Nov. 6, 1762. Joshua, born July 17, 1776, at War-
Mehitable, born June 1, 1764, at San- down.
ren.
Abigail died April 1, 1764. The first Ruth died June 18, 1764.
At a proprietors' meeting held July 8, 1789, " Voted that Maj. Joseph Page have a hundred acre lot of land, which was surveyed by Mr. Josiah Burnham on the 16th August, 1787, in consideration of his settling Mr. Joshua Merrill in said town." Joshua Merrill was a brother of Stevens Merrill.
t Nearly all the cloth he made up in those good old days was homespun. The sheep kept by the settlers were of a coarse-wooled kind. This wool was carded with hand-cards, which was a very laborious work for the women. Sometimes, to make it more cheerful, they would have a bee, or wool-breaking. It was nearly as much work to card as to spin it, and a woman's "stent " for spinning was five skeins a day, for which the usual price was fifty cents and board per week. The
Susannah, born April 2, 1786; died
234
HISTORY OF WARREN.
rim full ten inches wide-hip breeches fastened at the knee with buckles, color dark; long stockings, blue and white, and fastened by a loop to one of the breeches buttons, and buskins of wool or leather, tied with sheep-skin strings over his thick, double-soled ox-hide shoes. . His jacket was of the same material as his coat and breeches, with large flaps over the pockets, and for cold weather he had a great coat with very long cape and no waist, buttoned with four or five "matheman buttons." The sleeves had very wide cuffs, eight or ten inches at least, and two great buttons on each. When he had this suit on, and was mounted on his great black stallion which he used to ride, he would dash through the woods along the stony bridle-path like a wild Arab. He was known all over the country round, and everybody would say, "There goes Farmer Joshua, the politest and best dressed man in the State."
MR. WILLIAM BUTLER was employed by the proprietors to come to Warren to perform a piece of work which we shall be most happy to mention hereafter. He was born in Brentwood, April 24th, 1757, and married pretty Mehitable Mills,* Mr. John Mills' sister. William Butler was a handsome man, with round features. He was five feet eleven inches tall, straight, well-pro-
wool spun, and it was woven in the old hand-loom. The most common cloth was " sheep's gray," the wool of a black sheep and a white sheep spun and woven together. Then they had fulled cloth, dressed by a clothier down country. Some- times they made heavy waled cloth and dyed it with bark at home. The women in winter wore "baize," dyed with green or red, and when it was pressed it was called pressed-cloth.
Nearly every good housewife would have a blue vat in the form of a "dye-pot," in which, instead of dissolving the indigo at once with sulphuric acid, it was put into a bag and dissolved gradually in urine. What a beautiful smell when our grandmothers wrung out from the dye-pot. Here stockings and aprons and the. yarn for ble frocking was dyed.
Our first settlers began to raise flax almost as soon as they moved into town. After the flax was " pulled" the seed was thrashed off, then it was rotted, and about the first of March, before sugaring, " got ont." First the flax was broken in the "flax-break," then it was " swingled" on the swingling-board; a very smart man would swingle forty pounds a day. "Combing" came next; the "tow" was got ont and then the flax was ready to put on the " distaff." The buzzing linen- wheel made music in the old kitchens, and "two double-skeins " was a day's work for a smart woman. When the cloth was woven it was bucked and then belted with a maple beetle on a smooth flat stone. Shirts, sheets, pillow-cases, and nice dresses were made of the cloth. Small girls spun the " swingling-tow " into wrap- ping twine and with it bought notions down conntry. Older girls made " all tow," " tow-and-linen," or " all linen " stuff to barter for their " fixing out."
Farmer Joshua made all the fine clothes our early settlers had.
* WILLIAM AND MEHITABLE ( Mills) BUTLER'S FAMILY RECORD.
He was born April 24, 1757, in Brentwood. She was born Jan. 23, 1756, in Ports- mouth. Married Feb. 15, 1779.
Betsey, born Feb. 15, 1780, in Warren. Stephen, born Aug. 23, 1785.
Mary, born April 1, 1782. Sally, born May 8, 1787.
William, Jr., born May 11, 1783. Dolly, born Aug. 30, 1788.
235
HINCHSON THE HERMIT.
portioned, and would weigh more than two hundred pounds. Like Chase Whitcher, he was very young when he came to War- ren. He was a gentleman farmer, lived several years with Mr. Mills, did not like to work very hard, preferred to oversee his hired help, and spent much of his time buying and selling cattle and trading horses. He was a good calculator, made money, and eventually got rich.
There was another man came to Warren about these times, but no one can precisely fix the year.
JOHN HINCHSON was Warren's first hermit. He built a hun- ter's camp for himself southwest of Mr. Patch and on the easterly bank of Patch brook. The life he led was that of a wild Indian. A hound-dog, named Wolf, was his only companion. In the sum- mer he spent the time fishing, catching salmon and trout, with which the river and brooks abounded. One fall it is said he went over the mountains hunting-catching beaver by Glen ponds, in Fox Glove meadow, and on Moulton brook - and other seasons he travelled far away across the Pemigewassett valley to the head waters of the streams among the White mountains. In the win- ter he hunted moose and deer, which afforded an abundance of provision. Sometimes he would be gone a year or two, no one knew where, and then would come back to his old haunts again.
Thus Warren was settled; and living in the fairy realms of her antiquity, these were her first settlers. Laws, churches, schools-they had none; and from all restraints or taxation they were wholly free. Happy days were theirs; plenty to eat and drink, work enough to do, keen appetites, seldom sick, and with neither doctors, lawyers, nor ministers to support. How delight- ful to dwell on their history, abiding in a woodland town, sur- rounded by great mountains, and beyond them trackless forests, that seemed to shut out all the cares and vanities of the wicked world. But all this is too beautiful to last long. Dame Fortune, ever blowing a shifting gale, lively, changing scenes are soon to come. How the lives of the settlers checkered up, and Warren right merrily, like bursting flowers dancing into life to the music of spring birds, changed about into a fine old country town, where ambitious men lived, is most interesting to know.
CHAPTER IV.
OF HOW THE EARLY SETTLERS OF OUR MOUNTAIN HAMLET TOOK GREAT THOUGHT ABOUT THE MANNER THEY SHOULD BE SHEL- TERED, AND WHAT THEY SHOULD EAT, AND OF THE BUILDING OF MILL'S; CONCLUDING WITH THE MIGHTY LEAPS OF THE SAL- MON AND A DELECTABLE SWIM BY THE BOYS.
OUR dignified, worthy, and aristocratical body, the distin- guished proprietors, had done pretty well, but had not obtained the fifty families as settlers. There was great danger of their again losing their charter, but the political troubles with the mother country for a time removed attention from themselves, and as we have before remarked, in the end the Revolution proved their salvation. In its turmoils they were forgotten and they saved their lands.
In our mountain hamlet the twenty settlers, constituting the eighteen families, made a most agreeable but a very rustic neigh- borhood, and they had a most rustic style of living. The rude hunter's camp, the log cabin,-often without glass windows, the rough opening that admitted the light closing sometimes with a wooden shutter-the door of rifted boards, the floor of rough poles frequently covered with bark, the chimney a cob-work of sticks, plastered with mud, the great fire-place built of stones, and all the furniture as plain and simple as the house,-such were the homes found by our early settlers in the days long ago.
Think of these frail tenements, growing up like wild flowers in the wilderness, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. There is no road north or south, only a bridle-path, and that not half as good as the one now running to the summit of Moosehil-
237
A SAW-MILL IS BUILT.
lock. But few of the cabins were located even beside the bridle- route, and a blazed path led through the woods to them, and for years the forest trees locked branches above them. Neither yard in front, nor fence nor wall behind, nor garden gate. The honey- suckle grew sweetly by the door, and wild sumach and blackberry bushes flowering in their season, and the golden-rod, and white birch intertwining with the mountain ash, sprang up by the open window. Near by the cabins were the little clearing's-one, two or five acres, no man more than ten acres. But few sheep were kept then ; a cow, a yoke of steers, sometimes a horse, constituted the settler's stock. Often bears broke down and ate the corn, or a moose or a deer were seen feeding on their little improvements, and at night, when the gibbous moon shone in the sky and looked in upon the cabin among the trees, the early settlers retiring to rest would hear the wolf * howling on the mountain, and the sol- emn owl hooting in harsh discordant notes,- wild inusic heard in the solitudes which had been but just invaded.
All this is now very pleasant to contemplate, but the good men of Warren did not then exactly like it. They longed for something better, -something like what they had left in old Hol- lis, Hampstead, Sandown, Atkinson, Plaistow, and Salisbury, the towns from which they had emigrated. Framed houses, covered with sawn boards, was one of the requisites to satisfy the heart's desire, but they could not be had without a saw-mill. The pro- prietors had offered a bounty for building one, and Mr. Stevens Merrill was the man energetic enough to undertake the work.
At the " little white fall" on Black brook, where John Page, Esq., once shot a deer, he chose his mill site. The dam was built of great pine logs, and a pretty pond of five or six acres gleamed in the woods at the foot of Beech hill. Three great rocks stood out of the water among the trees on its western shore, and a green wooded cape shot far down towards the centre. The mill itself was simply a heavy frame of liewed logs, unboarded of course, and the roof was covered with long shaved shingles. Then there was a pause in the work,-the mill irons must be brought up from
* Wolves .- The year 1786 was a remarkable year for wolves. They swarmed down from the north through all the country. Moses H. Clement used to tell how his mother took him to the door one night to hear the wolves howl. They would come round the barn after sheep but could not get in. Many were killed.
238
HISTORY OF WARREN.
down country and a saw must be procured. Col. Obadiah Clem- ent went on foot to Boscawen for the last, and brought it all the way fifty miles to Warren on his back. He made the journey through the woods over the rough bridle path in three days. Another settler brought up some of the smaller irons, but the crank could not come till winter. Mr. Merrill, Col. Clement, and his brother Reuben went for it and drew it to Warren on a great wide-runnered, frame-work handsled, made for that very purpose. In the spring the mill was finished, and the music of its wheel driven by fourteen feet waterfall, the click of the cogs on the log- frame, and the clip of the saw gnawing through the pines, which the settlers sawed up regardless of the " broad arrow mark" upon them, sounded for the first time through the pleasant woods of Warren.
There is a stirring little anecdote connected with the old mill which the kind reader may believe or not, as the highly veracious gentleman who related it said he was not quite sure but that it occurred somewhere else down east after all. It is told by him . how one spring 'Squire Jonathan Merrill was at work sawing, and every morning he would miss the lard with which he greased the machinery, and sometimes it would be gone at noon. One day he brought down a large quantity of it, and thinking he heard the thief prowling in the thick swamp woods that grew by the bog a few rods east of the mill, he placed the dish on the long. log he was sawing, hoisted the gates and started towards home. Looking back he caught sight of something crossing the logging path, and stealing round so that he could look into the mill him- self he saw a great black bear sitting upon the log, back to the saw, eating the grease. Presently the saw came so close it scratched his back, but Bruin only growled and hunched along. Again it bit him, and this time smarting with pain he turned quickly round, reared on his hind feet and clasped the impudent iron intruder on his dinner with his fore-paws, to give it a death- hug. But now he caught a tartar ; he gnawed a file. Down came the saw, stroke after stroke in rapid succession, till the black- coated thief was literally sawn in two. It is proper to inform the reader that the bear died, after having given the saw blade a coat- ing of very excellent oil from his own greasy carcass. Over all
239
THE PALACES OF OUR FOREFATHERS.
which, like the boy pelting the frog, 'Squire Merrill shed no tears ; and whether true in whole or in part the incident has more than once served to "point a moral and adorn a tale."
High up in the northeast corner of Warren is situated a pretty little sheet of water. As we have somewhere hinted, the Indians called it Wachipauka, but the later generations of our mountain hamlet delight to term it Meader pond. It. is yet right in the heart of the woods, and from its eastern shore springs a handsome forest-covered cape. On the north Webster Slide shoots sharp up a thousand feet, its top crowned by silvery birch and waving pine; the crannies of its rocks radiant with the blueberry, harebell, lichen, and other mountain flowers. On a warm summer day the water reflecting the rich foliage of the yet undisturbed forest, is ruffled only by the great speckled trout jumping or the wild duck swimming; but when the autumn winds come the blue water curling smiles upon the mountain-face and laughs at the bald head of Moosehillock, looking in from the distance over the great wood.
Black brook-the Mikaseota -comes down from Wachipauka pond. Its waters turn the wheel of our first saw-mill, and the logs cut up furnish the inhabitants with lumber.
And now the great naked log walls, the massive, lumbering doors, the floor of logs hewed down, the rude style of construct- ing bed and board shall disappear, and the second generation of settlers' houses come. One story high, and a low one at that; a great stack of a chimney of stone-then afterwards containing brick enough to build a modern brick house-right in the centre ; two square rooms in front, a long kitchen behind; at one end of this, bedroom and entry ; at the other, buttery, stairway, and cellar way; an unfinished attic where the children slept, parted off sometimes by blankets, oftener by spruce bark, one portion for the boys the other for the girls. These were the palaces our fore- fathers were anxious to get.
One of these stands just at the foot of that steep hill known as the Blue Ridge, and is probably the oldest framed dwelling house in town. This was the dwelling built and occupied by Joshua Copp, Esq., and formerly stood a quarter of a mile west of its present location, near the spot where he first erected his
240
HISTORY OF WARREN.
humble cabin. The first framed dwelling, as we have before stated, was erected by Mr. Joseph Patch, by the roadside on the northerly bank of Patch brook .* Latterly the more aristocratic well to do among our fathers built large, double, two-story houses
* THE OLD BARN AT THE HOMANS PLACE, BUILT BY JOSEPH PATCH ABOUT 1768.
of which the old red house built by Stevens Merrill and now standing near the depot is a sample.
For this great enterprise, the building of a saw-mill, the pro- prietors, Jan. 15th, 1784, long after, voted to allow Mr. Merrill twelve pounds,* to be paid him as soon as collected, in money or in certificates, and so much did our mountain pioneers rejoice that for several years they excused Mr. M. from paying taxes on his mill.
A tight roof to cover their heads was exceedingly nice, but good corn cakes and wheaten loaves were also what they craved ; these were difficult to be obtained. It was hard to travel to Haverhill or Plymouth for a grist, and the proprietors realizing that this was an important thing for the town, offered a bounty for building a grist-mill. William Butler accepted the proposition. Across the Asquamchumauke, just below where the great railroad bridge now spans its waters, he built a huge dam. The mudsill is still to be seen, an object of wonder to the boys who go to swim in "the old deep hole," as it is termed; and the holes drilled and
See Proprietors' Records.
241
THE FIRST GRISTMILL.
cut in the great rock on the western shore show where were the fastenings of the dam, One at a time the rude millstones were drawn up from down country by William Butler, with four men to assist him, just as the crank of the saw-mill came, and early in 1776 the first settlers brought their grains, products of a virgin soil, to be ground, and waited for their grists listening to the buzz of rude mill stones mingling their music with that of the wheel which now for the first time vexed Asquamchumauke's waters.
The proprietors were well satisfied with William Butler's work and afterwards voted to allow him eighteen pounds for building the mill, to be paid him as soon as collected. *
We have said the boys go to swim in " the old deep hole." A great historical fact would be lost to all the coming countless gene- rations did we fail to record that young John Mills, Jr., and Jo- seph Merrill, Stevens Merrill's son, and Moses Copp, son of 'Squire Joshua, and other boys also went to swim in " the old deep hole," now made doubly deep by William Butler's mill dam. The woods were very thick all around it and not a house was visible, so no delicate sensitive nerves could be shocked. Jumping out of their moosehide breeches and tow shirts the boys ran over smooth peb- bles of mica slate and shining quartz, green hornblende and frag- ments of porphyritic trap, little dreaming of the virgin gold lying concealed beneath them which would only be discovered a hun- dred years later, and plunged into the clear sparkling water. John Mills, Jr., could swim the whole length of the pond to the dam. Here he would rest himself and look over into the foam- ing pool below, where the salmon congregated and out of which they would leap up through the falling water, swift as the rush of Indian arrows through the sky, nine perpendicular feet into the pond above. William Butler said he had seen the salmon shoot up over the dam many a time.
Swimming ashore young Mills and his companions would sit down in the shadow of the great hemlocks and wide spreading beech trees and watch the white fleece-like foam, formed where the roaring Asquamchumauke lost itself in the pond. It was a pleasant place to pass a summer afternoon. The wood thrush and the robin were singing overhead, the partridge drummed on an
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