USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Weare > The history of Weare, New Hampshire, 1735-1888 > Part 29
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They held :
1. " The height of happiness is in the true knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ.
2. " Immediate revelation comes from the Son of God through the testimony of the Spirit ; the inner light.
3. " The holy scriptures contain the revelations of the Spirit of God to the saints. 4. " Man fell and by nature is degenerated and spiritually dead, but hereditary sin is not to be imputed to infants until they make it their own by actual transgression.
5. " God wills all men to be saved; Christ died for all men; the light is sent to every man for salvation, if not resisted.
6. " Man is regenerated and justified when he receives the inner light.
". " Man may become free from actual sinning, and so far perfect; yet perfection admits of growth, and there remains a possibility of sinning.
8. " Those who resist the light, or disobey it after receiving it, fall away ; but it is possible in this life to attain such a stability in the truth from which there can be no total apostasy.
9. " Those and only those are qualified ministers of the gospel who are illumi- nated and called by the Spirit, whether male or female, whether learned or unlearned.
10. " Worship consists in the inward and immediate moving and drawing of the Spirit, whichi is neither limited to places or times or persons. All other worship which man appoints and can begin and end at his pleasure is superstition, will-wor- ship, and idolatry.
" All forms and even sacred music are excluded from the naked spiritualism of Quaker worship. It is simply reverent communion of the soul with God, uttered or silent. The solemn silence of a Quaker meeting is more impressive than many a ser-
248
HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1775.
At their meetings it is the custom to sit in silence until some per- son feels moved to speak in the way of exhortation or to offer an impromptu prayer. A chapter in the Bible is sometimes read. Some meetings are wholly silent. James Worthly, grandson of the third settler, stated that he was one of a company of young people who walked from South Weare to attend the Friends' meeting at the Center. After sitting in silence for nearly an hour a delicate-look- ing woman rose and in a clear emphatic tone said: "Let every one mind his own proper business," then sat down. In a few moments the meeting closed. Early in the present century they had many able preachers, who drew crowded houses and were heard with interest. Their south meeting-house was well filled, and often extra seats were carried in, accommodating over three hundred. The preachers were supposed to be divinely commissioned to preach, supernaturally inspired, and did not know what they were to say till they began to talk. It is told that an itinerant once preached there and gave a very lengthy discourse, seeming not to know when to stop. Friend Gove, who thought the preacher had talked longer than he was commissioned, sprang to his feet the instant the stranger had taken his seat and gravely said, " Blessed are the feet of a good man who doth glad tidings bring, but when he has done his errand he ought to know enough to sit down."
The ministers of the present day often find themselves unable to say much, and it is told that one of the wags of Weare once remarked : "If God calls these men to preach is it not strange that He don't give them something to say ?"
A funeral is conducted in the same manner, often in solemn silence, but sometimes there is a short address and a prayer.
The marriage ceremony consists in the promise of each party to be loving and faithful to the other until death shall separate them, and may be performed in a public meeting or in the presence of a
mon. One feels the force of the words, 'There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.' Sometimes men and women exhort and pray in a tremulous voice and with reverential awe, as if in the immediate presence of the great Jehovah. All depends upon the power of the Holy Spirit.
11. " Baptism is a pure and spiritual thing, a baptism of the Spirit and of fire by which we are purged of sin. Baptism by water is but a figure. Infant baptism is a human tradition, without scripture, precept or practice.
12. " The communion of the body and blood of Christ is likewise inward and spiritual, of which the breaking of bread at the last Supper was a figure.
13. " The power of the civil magistrate does not extend over the conseience.
14. " They are forbidden to take off the hat to a man, to bow and cringe the body, to engage in foolish or superstitious formalities which feed pride and vanity and be- long to the vain pomp and glory of this world, and to take part in any unprofitable and frivolous plays and reereations which divert the mind from the fear of God, from sobriety and gravity."- The Creeds of Christendom, vol. i, pp. 870, 873.
249
THE QUAKER MARRIAGE CEREMONY.
1794.]
few friends in private. All the persons present generally signed the marriage certificate as witnesses .* It is told of a certain couple that the groom at the wedding could not think what to say, but after stammering some time he ejaculated, "I love Sally," and sat down; the bride, more composed, said her part properly, and the good-natured Friends called it a marriage.
Friends or Quakers in early times were an object of aversion, and they were the subjects of much proscription and persecution by the old Puritans, who came to this country to find religious freedom for themselves but not for any one else. They were an unpopular sect when they first came to Weare. The Calvinists watched their incoming with serious apprehension; objected to their location in the central and western parts of the town ; were outspoken against their informal modes of worship and their spiritual religion, which seemed to them but little better than mystical atheism.
In 1786 fifty citizens of the east part of Weare petitioned the legislature to be separated from the western portion in the following words : "your bumble petitioners, inhabitants of the easterly end of Weare sheweth that we labor under great inconveniences of settling
* " WHEREAS ENOCH PAIGE of Weare in the County of Hilsborough son of Samuel Paige of Kinsington in the County of Rockingham and State of Newhampshire and Mary his wife thay Deceast And Cornelia Breed Daughter of Zephaniah Breed of Weare in the County of Hilsborough and State aforesaid and Ruth his wife thay Deceast having Declared their intentions of taking each other in marriage Before Several monthly meetings of the people Called Quakers in the County of Hils- borough according to the good order used among them their procedings after due enquiry and Deliberate Consideration theire of weare allowed by the Said Meetings thay appearing Clear of allother
" Now these are to Certify all whom it may concern that for the full accomplishing of their Said intentions this tenth Day of the 9th mth D 1794
" thay the Said Enoch Paige and Cornelia Breed appeared att a public assembly of the aforesaid people and others att their Meeting House in weare and he the Said Enoch Paige taking the Said Cornelia Breed by the hand Did openly Declare as fol- loweth friends I take this friend Cornelia Breed to be my Wife Desireing through Divine assistance to be unto her a true and faithful Husband untill it shall please the Lord by Death to separate us and the Said Cornelia Breed Did then and there in Like manner Declare as followeth friends I take this friend Enoch Paige to be my Husband Desireing through divine assistance to be unto him A trueand faithful Wife untill Dit shall please the Lord by Death to separate us Or words of the Like import and the Said Enoch Paige and Cornelia Breed as a further Confirmation thereof have here unto Set their hands She after the custom of Marriage assuming the Name of her Husband
ENOCH PAIGE CORNELIA PAIGE
" And we whose names are here unto subscribed being present with others at the consumation of their said marriage as witnesses there unto set our hands the day and year above written
" JOHN HODGDON ELIPHALET PAIGE ANNA DOW
JOHNSON PAGE JOHN SAWYER
LYDIA BREED
MOLLY CHASE
PHEBE BUNKER
MARY GOVE HANNAH PAIGE
ELIZABETH BREED
JONATHAN BREED EDMUND GOVE EDMUND JOHNSON
JOHN PAIGE
RUTH OSBORN SARAH HUSSEY HANNAH GREEN JUDITH SAWYER ABIGAIL GREEN HANNAH GOVE
HANNAH GOVE COMFORT HOAG REBECCA BREED MOSES GREEN
JAMES GOVE STEPHEN BREED
AMOS CHASE
ABIGAIL P. JOHNSON MOSES HODGDON DANIEL PAIGE SUSANNA HUSSEY
LYDIA GOVE
LYDIA PRASLEE NATHAN CHASE MOSES OSBORN PHEBE CHASE
MIRIAM GOVE
DANIEL GOVE "
e
JOHN GOVE JUNER JUDITH CHASE HANNAH CHASE
250
HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1795.
a gospel minister with us, by reason of a large society of Quakers nigh the center of said town and the remainder of said town is so remote from us that we cannot be convened in one society ; there- fore our prayer is to your honors, that you would set us off a parish in said town, invested with town privileges on the easterly side of the Center road. so called."
The inhabitants of the east end of the town who partook of the spirit of the Puritan age did not succeed in getting set off as a parish, and in time they found that the aforesaid Quakers lived in peace among themselves, were excellent citizens, thrifty farmers and the best of neighbors.
After their settlement in Weare the Friends were still members of the Seabrook Monthly Meeting, and with Seabrook, Hampton and Kensington, were within the limits of the Salem Quarterly Meeting. On the 20th of 3d month, 1777, "liberty was granted to Friends in Weare to hold a Preparative meeting." In 1795 the member- ship of the society had become so large that the preparative meet- ing, through a committee, requested the "Salem Monthly meeting held at Seabrook 9th of 9th month 1795" to give them a separate meeting. The request was granted, and the first Monthly meeting at Weare was held at their south meeting-house 22d of 10th month, 1795. Ebenezer Breed was clerk of the "Men's meeting," and Joshua Folsom, Elijah Purington, Edward Gove and Daniel Gove were representatives from the Preparative meeting. Martha Gove was clerk of the "Women's meeting," and Mary Breed, Mary Sawyer and Phebe Chase were representatives. At this time it was determined that the Monthly meetings should be held alternately at the north and south meeting-houses. There were then about seventy-five heads of families who were members of the Prepara- tive and Monthly meetings .*
* NAMES OF SOME OF THE MEMBERS.
Jonathan Dow,
John Hodgdon, Edmund Gove, Jr., Samuel Hoag,
Elijah Purington,
Eben Peaslee, Zephaniah Breed, Eliphalet Page,
Jedediah Dow, Benjamin A. Conner, Samuel Collins, Je'di'h Braekenbury, John Gove,
Moses Swett,
Isaiah Green,
Johnson Page,
Josiah Green, David Dow,
Ebeneizer Breed, Swett Gove,
John Page, Enoch Page, Micajah Green,
Elijah Purington, Jr., Mark Gove,
Robard Gove, Jonathan Estes, Nathaniel Peaslee, Daniel Page, Elijah Gove,
Phillip Sawyer, Nathan Chase,
Jonathan Osborne, Enoch Johnson,
Moses Osborne, Edmond Johnson,
James Buxton,
Joshua Folsom, Benjamin Morrill,
David Alley,
David Chase,
Robert Osborne,
Samuel Huntington, Micah Green.
Moses Jones, Daniel Gove,
Jonathan Gove, Jr., David Gove, Jr., Moses Gove, Jr., Silas Peaslee, Stephen Gove, Johnson Gove, Isaiah Gove, Jr.,
Levi Green, Moses Green, Benj. Huntington, Benjamin Peaslee, Jonathan Peaslee, Caleb Peaslee,
Chevy Chase,
Jeremialı Green,
Winthrop Purington, Hezekiah Purington, Elisha Gove,
Nathan Hoag, Joseph Hoag,
Jolin Chase,
251
QUAKER DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS.
1804.]
At this time the Friends in Weare had so far overcome the prejudice against them that the town was willing to give them some of their rights and privileges. March 11, 1794, it was voted that the selectmen, with the Friends' committee, shall lay out one acre of land on the Center Square, so called, for a burying-place .* The town showed its good will, but with few exceptions those who have laid down their burdens, rest in nameless graves in burial lots near their respective meeting-houses. Previous to 1852 Friends were forbidden by the strict discipline of the society to erect memorial tablets :-
" Where, with a love as deep as ours, They left their dead with God."
On a rude granite stone in the burial lot, near the north meeting- house, we find the inscription :-
"JEDEDIAH BRACKENBURY DIED AUG. 26th 1787."
Whether this modest stone was placed there in defiance of authority, or by loving hands outside of the society, is not known.
The jurisdiction of Weare Monthly meeting was enlarged from time to time. Friends in Henniker were "allowed " to build a meeting-house in 1797. Liberty was granted in 1805 to Friends in Concord to hold First-day and Mid-week meetings, and in 1812 to build a meeting-house. In 1818 " permission was given to Friends in Unity to hold a separate meeting," and in 1820 to build a meeting-house.
The Friends, like Catholics now, early set up denominational schools. In 1804, acting on the advice of a committee of the New England Yearly meeting, steps were taken in Weare to establish a " Monthly meeting school." The sum of $2039 was raised, the interest of which was to support said school. In the 2d month, 20th day, 1807, we find the following rather obscure report of the school committee : "Agreeable to appointment we have provided a teacher, viz: Pelatiah Gove, to teach the school at our north meet- ing-house to the amount of two years interest and have settled with him for his services; we have also agreed with him to teach the
* The following is the record of the laying out :
" Pursuant to a vote of the town of Weare by the request of the Friends at the an- nual meeting held the 11th of March 1794 at the Friends meeting house in said Weare, we allow that part of the Center square that bounds by the parsonage lot, to be con- verted to a burying place for the town, except so much as the highway shall take up,-it being the south-eastern quarter of said square, and the Friends to occupy the easterly half of said land for a burying place."
252
HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1819.
school at the South Preparative meeting, for the second years interest, which he has performed and received pay, but the money is not all collected. We have also agreed with said master to teach the school at Henniker to the amount of the second years interest, which he has performed, and we have settled with him for his service, but the donors have not all paid their interest."*
From various minutes during the ensuing years we find increasing difficulties in the payment of interest, and in 1812 the original sub- scribers were released from their obligations, and the school was discontinued.
The Friends' boarding-school at Providence, R. I., was opened Jan. 1, 1819. Since that time nearly every family of Friends in Weare has been creditably represented in it. Daniel Paige, Abigail Hodgdon and Abigail Gile were pupils from Weare the first term. Joseph Hoag, David Crawford Chase, Henry Thorndike, Anna B. Paige and Franklin E. Page, of Weare, have been teachers there.
In the autumn of 1813 the south meeting-house was enlarged for the accommodation of the Quarterly meeting. This was the first and the largest Quarterly meeting ever held in Weare. Tradition has much to say of the bounteous hospitality of the home meeting on this occasion. Five brothers and sisters settled on adjoining farms are said to have entertained ninety-one guests.
A controversy between Friends and the town of Weare in regard to the distribution of the "ministerial fund," beginning as early as 1803, extended over many years. The town argued that a society which "supported no paid ministry" had no technical right to a share of the fund and was entitled to no part in the discussion of the subject before the town.
The Friends on their part urged that they might rightfully devote the share of the fund which they claimed to "general gospel pur- poses." Meanwhile a difference of opinion arose among the Friends themselves, the more conservative having conscientious scruples about using for any purpose funds designed for a " hireling ministry." But unanimity of feeling finally prevailed, and though no formal petition was offered by the society, the town acceded to its claim in 1847.
The Friends in Weare took a decided stand on the subject of slavery. In 1836 they petitioned congress to prohibit the slave trade
* This report was signed by Daniel Page, Enoch Page, David Gove, Pelatiah Pur- rington, John Sawyer.
253
QUAKER DISCIPLINE.
1872.]
in the District of Columbia and the territories. Their petition closed with these impressive words: "We can do no less than plead for the enfranchisement of the slave and that measures be im- mediately taken by congress to give him the same protection from just and equitable laws as is given to other citizens within your ex- clusive jurisdiction. In conclusion we earnestly request you seriously and solemnly to examine the important subject, and may He, who looks with an impartial eye on all the families of the earth, by his Holy Spirit guide and preserve you in all your deliberations."
When in 1847 the people of Ireland were suffering from famine, Friends in Weare contributed generously to relieve them, and although indisposed to unite with the "world's people" in general philanthropic movements, they have been ever responsive to the claims of humanity.
The society in 1820 numbered five hundred and sixty-seven mem- bers; at the present time there are less than two hundred. Many have removed from town, and this falling off is in part due to the fact that previous to 1872 Friends were " disowned " for marrying outside the society:
Like other sects they were careful of the morality of their mem- bers, and they had fewer cases of discipline for the reason that, as a general thing, they were better schooled in ethics. As an illustra- tion of the watchful care of the society over its members we find in the quaint old record that a Friend is "under dealing" "for signing a note in an unbecoming manner," and another was dealt with because he "struck a man with his foot." A misguided sister " did much neglect the attendance of Friends meeting and when she has attended, it hath been to the disturbance of the meeting by vocal singing, and has so far given way to a spirit of ranterism as to join herself with those that have gone out from Friends in Lynn." After much "unavailing labor " she was disowned. The two first offenders made satisfactory acknowledgment and were forgiven. There is abundant evidence that Friends led exemplary lives. None of them were ever helped by the town as paupers. They tolerated no drunkards. They had very few law-suits, and none were ever arrested for crime. Their domestic animals were never impounded, a significant fact, showing their kindly and neighborly feeling.
Only a brief sketch of friends in Weare in "ye olden time" can be gleaned from the imperfect records that have been preserved. The later history of the society is one of simple faithfulness and
254
HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1740.
perseverance in well doing. The Friends have made their in- fluence felt, not so much through their society, as by their indi- vidual efforts to live in the spirit of their religion, by their unob- trusive lives, by their firm adherence to principle and by their good citizenship. The high position that the town attained in the county in the early days was largely due to their thrift and intelligence, and probably there is no town in the state where the standard of morality has been higher than in Weare.
CHAPTER XXVII.
GAME.
OUR early settlers, as we have seen, were nearly all hunters, as well as farmers. Nathaniel Martin, who came first, was very brave and expert. When a boy, living in old Derryfield, he was hunting with his brother one winter by Nutt pond. There they found a catamount gorging itself with a deer it had slain. Nathaniel, with a club, went in front to attract its attention ; it growled and lashed the snow with its tail, but kept on eating; in the mean time the brother crept stealthily up behind and killed it with his axe.
CATAMOUNTS were plenty about Weare at the time of the first settlement. Col. John Goffe had been up our Piscataquog valley hunting. Going home he discovered that a catamount was follow- ing in his track. He at once cut off a part of a buck he was carrying, left it behind, and soon saw the animal tossing the venison in the air like a cat at play with a mouse. Goffe hurried on and at night camped by a small brook that flows into the Piscataquog below Goffstown Center. He slept till near sunrise, when his dog growled and waked him, and looking up, he saw his companion of the day before sitting upon the limb of a great tree almost over his head. The dog continuing to growl, the catamount lashed itself with its tail, seeming in a great rage, when our hunter raised his trusty gun, fired and put a bullet through its heart. The brook by which he camped has ever since been known as Catamount brook.
When Matthew Patten, of Bedford, was surveying on our south_ ern boundary, with Robert Walker to assist him, they found the
255
1770.]
GAME : CATAMOUNTS ; WOLVES. .
track of a large animal. Their dog followed it, and they soon dis- covered a catamount, high up on a branch of a huge rock-maple. Walker, an excellent shot, fired, but he was so excited he missed. He borrowed Patten's gun, fired more coolly and killed the animal. It was of immense size, and the skin of its tail, which was kept many years as a trophy, was so long that Deacon Walker could pass it round his body and tie it in a bow-knot.
John Stark, with a friend, was once in the great cedar swamp of Goffstown, looking for game. The friend found a catamount in the lower branches of a tree, and with great coolness sent a bullet crashing through its brain. Stark, full of admiration, said, "Well, I guess you 'll do."
Hunter John Chase, often called " Pause John," of our Chevey hill, was hunting with his dogs, late one autumn, for foxes. He carried no gun, but when his hounds drove reynard into a hole, Chase would set steel traps and catch the animal when it came out. A fox led through a great swamp one day ; something diverted the dogs from the track ; they barked at the foot of a tree, and Chase, looking up in the branches, saw a huge panther whisking its tail like a cat, and its eyes gleaming like two balls of fire. Being un- armed, he whistled off his dogs and went home gameless.
Another time he was looking for raccoons on the Kuncanowet hills; his dogs barked on the edge of a thick-wooded swamp; he went to them and tried to have them enter it. They refused, and he heard a strange, unearthly noise. Thinking it was a catamount, he turned about and went home. The next spring some men, pass- ing that way, found the decaying body of an insane woman, who had wandered there from Dunbarton and died.
Lydia Blake, daughter of Jesse Blake, an early settler by Center brook, north of Mount William, used to tell her grandchildren what blood-curdling sounds they heard one autumn in the night, when she was a child. Sometimes it was like an ox roaring at the smell of blood, then a wailing, shrieking noise, like a person lost and in great distress ; again, it would be like the cries of a young child, sobbing in agony. All believed it was an old panther and her young whelps, which had taken up their abode for a short time on the mountain.
WOLVES came in swarms. They were not plenty at all times. They seemed to roam over a vast extent of country, remaining in any one place only a short time. The moose and deer killed, and
256
HISTORY OF WEARE, NEW HAMPSHIRE.
[1784.
all the small animals devoured, the hungry demons were off to pastures new and to other forests teeming with wild life. Wolves, in great numbers, came howling down from the north in 1744, 1764 and 1784. New Hampshire paid large bounties, those years, for wolves' heads .* Occasionally a few would be found in the inter_ mediate years.
They killed so many sheep, swine and young cattle, these years, that the farmers had to shut their stock in their barns every night to preserve it. It was dangerous for children to attend school, and men had to go armed in the woods.
The wolves came in the summer of 1784. Mrs. McKillips, who lived in the north part of the town, went for her cows one night, got lost, and soon after dark the wolves began to howl-the first that were heard. She procured a stout club, climbed to the top of a high rock where it would be difficult for them to reach her, and sat there all night, without a wink of sleep, listening to the demoni- acal concert.
Soon after, as Abner Hoit was coming down from Sugar hill, horseback, a wolf howled out close by him. He had his gun, and dismounted at once to shoot it; he hitched his horse, saw the wolf, fired and wounded it. It screamed, and wild howls answered from all parts of the forest. Hoit was scared, and mounting, rode off as fast as he could, while the wounded wolf was eaten by his com- panions.
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