USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 37
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* Nathaniel Clough came from Hampstead, N. H.
t James Williams came from Haverhill, Mass., and was a descendant of Han- nah Dustin of Indian fame. He had one of her pewter plates which was marked "H. D." A Mrs. Crook has the plate now.
# Lock on Meeting-House Door .- Jacob Whitcher moved away up country about this time. It was maliciously said of him that he, like some other folks, would lie when the truth would do a good deal better. He would tell his neighbors what a powerful lock they put on the meeting-house door in Warren. He said it was one of the most remarkable locks ever made in modern times; that it was so large that it required a " hand-speke" to turn the key; that when the bolt snapped back it made so loud a noise that it could be heard a mile.
He would tell the story in such an honest manner that his friends thought it was true, and when they came down marketing in the winter they would call at Joseph Merrill's inn near the meeting-house, and ask to be shown the wonderful lock.
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THE TYTHINGMAN ASTONISHED.
cricket for short ministers to stand upon, and the window behind with its circular glass was a wonderful piece of architecture. In the north porch was the black table and pall used in burying the dead. How I dreaded the north porch, how shunned it.
At first they had no fires in the meeting-house and in winter the minister used to preach with woolen mittens on his hands and our mothers would carry the old fashioned foot stoves, which they would replenish noon times at Joseph Merrill's inn, to keep them- selves warm during service. Stoves were put into the meeting- house in 1830.
Mr. James Dow was the tythingman in the new church. He sat to the left of the minister, under the edge of the long gallery that extended on three sides of the house. One Sabbath, while the minister was preaching, a large yellow dog started from the right and traveled round the whole edge of the gallery till he came to the point over Uncle Dow's head. Addison W. Gerald from the East-parte sat there, and the Devil whispered in Mr. Gerald's ear, " Push the yellow cur off." No sooner said than it was done. The poor beast falling fifteen feet, struck on Uncle Dow's bald head ; it hurt; and the " purp " he yelled and he yowled. Uncle Dow, who was dozing, sprang to his feet, stamped furiously and at the same instant sung out in a voice like thunder, " Ahem ! Ahem ! I hope the owner will keep that dog to home and stay to home himself." Of course the choir never smiled nor the audience either. The minister also preserved his dignity ; but one thing is certain, he closed the services in very short metre .*
One Sabbath at meeting, I distinctly remember hearing my father who always sat in the singing seats above, he was town clerk too, cry out, " Hear ye, hear ye ! notice is hereby given that Russell K. Clement and Betsey Eames intend marriage." There was a grand sensation, for they all thought Russell was a confirmed old bachelor; but perhaps no more sensation than was customary on publishing the " bans."
In the long row of meeting-house sheds we school boys used to play "I spy," " hide and seek," " tag," and " goal," and sometimes plagued the wrens that had their nests in the braces, or watched the swallows which always built in the old belfry.
* Gen. Michael P. Merrill's statement.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
Our fathers' meeting-house was used for forty years, then it became too unfashionable for a more fashionable generation. In 1859 it was moved back to the northeast corner of the common, altered to a more modern style, and now within the same walls and under the same roof that Reuben Clifford, Amos Little, and James Dow hewed and framed, the dwellers of Warren worship.
In 1826 the town raised fifty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents in lieu of the avails of the wild land voted to the committee appointed to build the meeting- house in 1818 .- See Town Book.
CHAPTER IX.
A GAY LITTLE CHAPTER ABOUT WITCHES.
WE should not perform our whole duty as a faithful histo- rian unless we should depict the thoughts, beliefs, and opinions of this second generation of Warren's citizens. We feel ourselves more especially called upon to be faithful to this period, because a few inventions, of no great wonder now, were to make a radical change in society. We refer to the steam-ship, rail-car, telegraph, friction matches, and the like.
In those good old times when they had none of these, divers superstitions were rife, and our ancestors devoutly believed that if a dog howled in the night some one in the neighborhood was going to die sure; that if the scissors, knife, or any sharp thing fell to the floor and stood up straight, some visitor was coming; that if a looking-glass was broken, the person breaking it or some relative would die before the year was out; that if a knife or pair of scissors was given to a friend without making him give a penny or some amount of money for it, love between them would cer- tainly be cut; that if there were tea grounds or bubbles swim- ming on the tea, as many strangers as grounds or bubbles were coming ; that if one stubbed the left foot they were not wanted where they were going, but if it was the right they would be welcome; that to spill the salt was a bad omen; and the ticking of a little bug in the wall was a sure sign of death, and also forty or more other like superstitions.
But they also believed many other things much more serious,
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
and among them in witches and ghosts. Every town has had its witch or wizard; but if tradition is correct, Warren has had more than its share. It is told that in olden times, when there were but few clearings in town, a young man, Jonathan Merrill, went to see his lady-love. While there the happy moments flew swift and time had crept far into the small hours before he thought of taking his leave. On his way home he had to cross a stream on the trunk of a fallen tree ; and when he arrived at this point, as he was step- ping upon the log that was shaded by thick foliage, and through which a few straggling rays of the moon struggled, he saw stand- ing on the other end a white, airy figure which looked to him any- thing but earthly. He gazed upon it for a few moments and then stepped from the log .. As he did so the figure followed his exam- ple, and he saw it standing on the water. He now thought he would venture across, but the moment he was on the log again, that light form was there also. Filled with terror, he gave one more look, beheld as he thought, a ghastly visage, then turned quick about and run with all his might to the house where he had so agreeably spent the evening. Here he waited till day-light be- fore returning home. Young Merrill always believed he saw a witch that night.
Some folks have told the writer that they did not believe this story at all, and one estimable lady, daughter of Caleb Homan, said it happened down country when 'Squire. Jonathan was court- ing his wife. The same lady said witches* used to be plenty down at old Plaistow; and then she told how Nat Tucker, one of Uncle Jim Dow's relatives, once sold some walnuts in old Haverhill, much to the displeasure of a certain elderly lady. That night Tucker and his wife could not sleep; all night long there was a rattling of walnuts on the kitchen hearth. Most wonderful to narrate, the next morning when they arose there was every iden- tical walnut piled up like cannon balls in the form of a pyramid on the hearth-stone. The old woman, the witch, had brought them all back. But stranger yet, the silk handkerchief that Mrs. T. had used as a night-cap, when she went to take it from her head, fell to the floor cut in a thousand pieces.
Foolish and superstitious folks scandalously said that the wife
* Old Mrs. Bly was one of the great witches of Plaistow.
433
SUPERSTITION CONCERNING WITCHES.
of Stephen Richardson was a witch. Her son Stephen was a lit- tle out of his head, and he said she bewitched him. When his friends tried to reason with him, he would say, "Good Lord, if you had seen her coming over the ridgepole of the house in the air as many times as. I have, in the shape of a hog, you would believe she was a witch." Moses Ellsworth's wife, Susan, took her mother's part, and Stephen Richardson, Jr., used to wish that he had them both harnessed so Nathan Willey could drive them with a good stout stage whip hauling hay out of his swamp.
Stillman Barker's wife, who was a sister of Lemuel Keezer, was wrongfully and maliciously accused of being a witch and we are very glad to here have an opportunity of vindicating her good name. It is said, among other things, she bewitched a calf and it happened in this wise. Joseph Merrill, inn-keeper, was a super- intendent of the turnpike, and one spring day when the bird cherry-trees were in blossom, was cleaning out a ditch. When he came down from the Height-o'-land he found that old Mr. Bar- ker had altered the ditch so that the water overflowed and ran across the road. Merrill called Barker out and reproved him pretty sharply. Mrs. Barker was mad about it .*
A day or two after Mr. M. turned his calves out to pasture where the meeting-house stands now, and the next morning went out to see how they were getting along. He found one of them lying on the ground in a terrible tremor, with its eyes rolling and flashing towards the sky as though it could see a hundred old witches there riding on a hundred broom-sticks. Merrill was con- fident Mrs. B. had bewitched it, and with his knife he cut the calf's ear off, carried it to the house and threw it on the fire. "I'll fix her," said he. The calf from that moment began to mend; but it went on its knees for a while as if doing penance, and only got up
* A Scotch teamster, long ago, stopped at the Moosilauke house one winter night. Sitting around the fire with others, he said he was never in Warren but once before, and then it was when he was changed into a horse and ridden there by a witch. He told how they hitched him with other horses at a post by the first house on the right coming up from the Noyes Bridge. The whole party of witches went into the house, and from where he stood he could see all they did there; that they drinked up some wine, ate all the bread, butter, preserves, tarts, and pies, and even devoured some sweet, good-tasting medicine that sat on the shelf. Be- fore they left they cracked the sugar bowl.
These things down at Mr. Noyes' did actually happen, and Mrs. Noyes, who was away from home at the time, was very mad at Miss Sallie Barker who worked for her, for allowing such capers to be cut up in her absence. Miss Sallie would always have been presumed guilty had it not been for the confession of the Scotch team- ster in after years.
B*
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
smart when haying was over and the witch on the Height-o'-land had undergone a fit of sickness. Experienced witch killers say that if he had scalded the calf it would have done just as well.
The wife of Mr. Zachariah Clifford, who was a sister of Sim- eon Smith, was scandalized in a like manner as Mrs. Barker. She lived on Red-oak hill, and it was perfectly wonderful what awful things she could do. If you stuck a needle down in a witch's track, it was said she would stop and look round; if one was put in her shoe she could not go at all. A shoemaker down at Went- worth made her a pair of shoes, carried them home to her and when she tried them on she said one of them was good for nothing, that she could not wear it and that he must make her another. He had broke off his awl in the sole, but he did not tell her anything about it. He carried the shoe home quietly, took out the piece of the awl and when he returned it she said it was a grand fit and the best shoe she ever had in her life.
John Clifford courted a sister of Mrs. Zack. Clifford, then jilted her and went courting a Gove girl. Mrs. C. was awful mad about it, said she would fix him, and when John went courting after that she would go too as a witch and sit in a spare rocking- chair and rock all night. The young couple were terribly afflicted but finally got married. Dr. Horatio Heath, who kept school down on the " East side," said he knew all about Mrs. C.'s pranks and that the stories about her were as true as the gospel,-a very misguided and mistaken youth.
But gossiping slanderers of that day said that the wife of Mr. Benjamin Weeks, Mrs. Sarah Weeks, had ten times the power that ' the above mentioned ladies possessed. Invisible on her good steed, a broom-stick, she rode all the country round and was a sort of revenging angel for her husband.
One day, it is said, Joseph Merrill, son of 'Squire Abel, started about the middle of the afternoon to come home from Haverhill. Mr. Weeks was there and wanted to ride to Warren with him. Merrill said there was another man to ride; that he had as much load as he could carry, and that he could not take him. Weeks said if you don't take me you will be sorry for it, and you won't get home to-night. Merrill harnessed up and drove out as far as the toll-gate, when his horse, which hitherto had been perfectly
435
CURRENT WITCH STORIES.
kind, kicked up and absolutely refused to go. Merrill coaxed, whipped, and then coaxed again ; the horse laid down and would not budge an inch. After an hour spent in vain effort and night coming on, Merrill put his horse in a barn and walked back to the Corner, where he spent the night. The next morning the horse went home in splendid manner, and ever after was as kind as need be. Mr. M. was perfectly certain that Mrs. W. had bewitched the animal.
One day this lady of excellent reputation was sick and sent her husband to Capt. Ben. Merrill's store for a pint of rum .*
Capt. Ben. and wife were away, Miriam Pillsbury, afterwards Mrs. Aaron Goodwin, was keeping house, Levi B. Foot was boarding there and studying, and Capt. Samuel L. Merrill " tended " store. Weeks asked for his rum on trust. Captain Sam. said his orders were not to let him have any on tick. Weeks was mad and said " If you don't let me have it you will be sorry for it," and then he went directly away to his Height-o'-land home.
The night was cloudy and dark, and when the twilight had all gone they heard something going over the roof which sounded like a team hitched to a load of slabs dragging along.
All three were terribly frightened although they afterwards stoutly maintained that they were not. The noise continued at intervals for more than half an hour, then subsided. Captain Ben. always kept a fine stallion and it was in the barn at that time. All at once there was a tremendous noise at the stable. It was fearful ! Sam. L. Merrill, then quite young, belonged to the troop, and he went and got his sword and buckled it on and loaded his great horse pistols. Just then a cat jumped up on to the window stool, and he cocked his pistol to fire but the cat jumped down too quick for him. Who shall go to the barn to see the horse? No one dared to go alone and no one dared to stay in the house alone, and so they all went to the barn together. They found the horse all right, not a particle of trouble, and they all returned together. Shortly after the same terrible noise began again and along in the night there was also screeching in the air, and two or three times sharp flashes of light, like the flashing of a witch's eyes, gleamed through
* It is said Mrs. Weeks bewitched Mrs. Eunice Pillsbury, also Mrs. McConnell of Piermont. Mrs. McConnell scalded Mrs. Weeks by scalding a calf that Mrs. W. had bewitched.
436
HISTORY OF WARREN.
the darkness. All this continued until the first cock crew and then instantly there was silence. Elderly men and women telling the story in an undertone, always believed that Mrs. Weeks with a crowd of old crones, her chums, were thumping and crashing with their broom-sticks on the roofs that night.
Mrs. Weeks, with her husband, once went down to Mr. Na- thaniel Clough's after some flax, but was unable to procure it. She was mad as usual, and went to the backside of the room, laid her head upon the table and closed her eyes. Immediately there was a terrible noise at the barn. The men folks rushed out and found that a two years old colt had reached over into the sheep pen and lifted two lambs out with his teeth and killed them. He was now working hard to catch a third sheep. Weeks went back to the house on the run, shoved his wife on to the floor, then told her to behave herself. To the credit of the colt it is told that he quieted right down and never injured a sheep afterwards. All the old ladies said that Mrs. Weeks was raising the d-1 for revenge.
Uncle Tom. Pillsbury, as he was familliarly called, got Mrs. Weeks to make three shirts for him. There was some trouble about the pay. He went down country to work* and when the first one was washed and hung out, it was mysteriously spirited away. The same happened to the other two, not another thing being lost from the line. Mr. . Pillsbury said he knew Mrs. Weeks had them all in Warren.
But Simeon Smith, as we have intimated in another book of this history, was the great wizard of this mountain valley. His fame preceded him, and it is said he acquired his powers down country. When the revolutionary war was going on he was in meeting one Sabbath, but all at once he left the house. Out of doors he said he could not stop at meeting for a great battle was
* " Ride and Tie."-It was customary in old times for young men in all this upper region to go down country to work during the ' season. They nearly always "footed it," often a dozen or twenty in a party, away to Newburyport, Salem, and Boston, and would come home again late in the fall with money in their pockets. Sometimes two young men would buy a horse and they would "ride and tie," as it was called. One would ride ahead a few miles then tie the horse beside the road and push on afoot, when the other coming up, would mount the horse, pass his companion, get a mile or two ahead, then tie the horse again and walk on. Thus they would walk and ride, accomplishing the journey in a very short time, and when they had arrived at their destination would sell the horse for a good price.
437
DEAF CALEB'S . PERFORMANCES.
being fought that day. This statement was afterwards found to be true and Simeon Smith was looked upon as a wonderful man.
One day he mounted his horse to go up town, and before he proceeded a rod got lost in one of his second sights. He seemed to notice nothing around him but sat in the saddle in a strange fit of abstraction as if gazing upon the revels of fiends incarnate in some far off world. The horse seemed to behold the same scene also ; and great drops of sweat trickled from every part of its body. At last Mr. S. roused himself and strove by every means in his power to make the horse proceed, but in vain; and finally weary in the attempt, he turned the animal into the pasture and relinquished the journey, much to the surprise of several persons who witnessed the scene .*
Simeon Smith was a great rebel, ardently espousing the cause of the colonists, and hated the British. Stevens Merrill was slightly inclined to favor King George, and was strongly opposed to pay- ing taxes to carry on the war for independence. Simeon Smitlı was constable and tax collector, and compelled Mr. Merrill to pay as we have before narrated. From that time there was a slight enmity between the two families.
Mr. Merrill had a deaf boy Caleb, and one time after the war was over he began to act strangely. He was hoeing in the meadow one day, over the river, when suddenly there was a terrible noise as of the wings of a mighty bird, then an awful screeching. Joseph Merrill, his brother, who was with him, although he looked everywhere, could see nothing, and deaf Caleb of course could hear nothing; but he dropped his hoe and ran for home in a terri- ble fright. When interrogated, he replied by signs that Simeon Smith was after him. The enmity between the two families slightly increased .;
A few days after deaf Caleb began to act in the strangest
* Simeon Smith once said he wished he possessed the power that his mother and sister Nab had; that he had seen them both on the lug pole in the fire-place over the fire, spinning linen, many a time.
t'Squire Jonathan, Joseph, and deaf Caleb, all sons of Stevens Merrill, had been over the river digging potatoes. There was no bridge then, and coming home with a load they had to ford the river, which was shoal. The three young men and two women were on the cart, and when they came to the water edge deaf Caleb told them by signs that Simeon Smith would tip up the cart and dump them all into the stream before they got across. To prevent this they sat on the front end so that it could not tip up; but, strange to relate, before they got half way across up it went, and potatoes, men, and women all fell into the water.
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HISTORY OF WARREN.
manner. He would run up the sides of the house or barn like a squirrel, and would traverse the ridge-pole of the highest roofs with the greatest ease, a thing he was never known to do before. At times he would seem to experience the most excruciating tor- ture, and would writhe for hours in agony. When asked who tormented him, he would go with an individual and point out the house in which he said his tormentor lived, but never in any instance could he be persuaded to enter it.
Thus it continued until at last some of Mr. Merrill's neighbors induced him -although he was incredulous as to believing in witches - to try some experiments upon the boy thinking to make his tormentor cease from troubling him. Accordingly some of the boy's urine was procured, corked up in a bottle and placed under the hearth of the fire-place. Immediately after Simeon Smith was taken suddenly with a violent bleeding at the nose, and for a long time it could not be stopped. It finally was, and upon look- ing at the bottle the cork was found to be out and the urine had run therefrom. The boy began to cut the same antics as before and his tortures were nearly doubled. Again some of his urine was procured and carefully corked in the bottle. The wizard bled at the nose again, the cork got out again and the bleeding stopped.
Then the boy behaved worse than ever and acted in a manner truly terrible. This could not be borne long and they determined to try a more serious remedy. They procured a quantity of deaf Caleb's blood, placed it in the bottle, and as a precaution against its becoming uncorked, a small, sharp sword was placed in the cork. Samuel Merrill of the East-parte regions witnessed the whole proceeding.
It was evening when this was done, and shortly after deaf Caleb went to bed. In the morning when he awoke he seemed to be in great glee, and immediately informed the family by signs that Simeon Smith was dead. Wonderful that the boy should know it; but it was true nevertheless. Upon examining the bot- tle it was found that the sword had penetrated through the cork to the blood. Tradition says deaf Caleb was no more troubled.
Simeon Smith had a great apple-tree that stood by Red-oak hill road. It bore excellent fruit and the boys robbed it every year. He often said, "Bury me under that tree and I will take care
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A DIVINE'S OPINION OF THE WITCHES.
of the apples." His friends did so, and the boys never stole fruit there again. Henceforth, to the present day, the apples are the crabbedest, bitterest things that ever grew .*
Samuel Knight had a pious belief in witches, but said he was born under such a star that they had no power over him. Elder Peck, a Methodist divine of good sense, once told him a story to illustrate what he thought of such things; but it made Mr. K. very mad.
Said the elder, " A man believed he was ridden by a witch, and the belief affected him so much that he grew very poor. A friend advised the witch ridden man when he was saddled and bridled again, to gnaw the post to which he was tied and ease him- self about the same, as a horse would when he had been hitched a long time." The man did so, and when he waked in the morning he found that he had bit the bed-post terribly, and that the bed itself was in a mnost awful filthy condition .;
Of course the reader can judge, like Elder Peck, how much of these stories of supernatural events is true, and make every allowance for the prejudices of those times. For ages the belief in ghosts; and goblins had prevailed; indeed the individuals who did not believe in them were considered heretics. Surely did not the Bible teach that there were witches. For many hundred years England had an established code of laws against witchcraft, and it was considered a capital offence. Thirty thousand persons were put to death in Europe in the sixteenth century for being witches.
* Deaf Caleb leaned against the apple-tree while Simeon Smith's grave was being filled up, and when the mound was rounded off, jumped upon it intimating that he would keep him down forever.
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