HISTORY OF TOWN OF HILLSBOROUGH (also written as Hillsboro), HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE ---------------------------------- ---------------------------------- Information located at http://www.nh.searchroots.com On a web site about GENEALOGY AND HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE and its counties TRANSCRIBED BY JANICE BROWN Please see the web site for my email contact. ---------------------------------- The original source of this information is in the public domain, however use of this text file, other than for personal use, is restricted without written permission from the transcriber (who has edited, compiled and added new copyrighted text to same). ======================================================== SOURCE: History of Hillsborough County, New Hampshire Philadelphia: J.W. Lewis & Co., 1885, 878 pgs. HILLSBOROUGH NH CHAPTER I p. 391 The town of Hillsborough has made a good record among the towns of Hillsborough County, to which it has had the honor of giving its name. It is my purpose to sketch briefly its history. The literature of the town, the sources from which its history may be gathered, and from which I shall truly glean, are rich in facts--in some cases scattered very widely at random--and are as follows: I. "The Annals of Hillsborough," by Charles James Smith, of Mont Vernon, delivered in a lecture before the Hillsborough Lyceum in 1841, it being the one hundredth anniversary of the first settlement of the town, rich in scattered material and full of genuine interest, showing commendable accuracy of research. Mr. Smith was then a young man, twenty-one years of age. He is enjoying life at home in Mont Vernon. II. A very readable article in the first volume of the "Granite Monthly," published at Concord, from the pen of Colonel Franklin H. Pierce, of Hillsborough, a member of the bar, recently appointed judge-advocate of the Amoskeag Veterans, and United States consul to Matanzas, Cuba. Mr. Pierce of the nephew, name-sake and heir of the late ex-President Franklin Pierce. III. Facts gathered and published under the title of "Early Town Papers," by Hon. Isaac W. Hammond, of Concord, Deputy Secretary of State. IV. "Military History of New Hampshire," by the late Hon. Chandler E. Potter, of Hillsborough. V. "History of New Hampshire Churches," by Rev. R.S. Lawrence. VI. The well-kept records of the town. VII. "The Press of Hillsborough County," prepared by Edward D. Boylson of Amherst, a practical printer, an interesting and valuable history. In addition, I should mention the memory of aged citizens of the town, to whose well-told tales of early times in Hillsborough I have often listened with thrilling interest; such as the late James Chase, Perkins Cooledge, Jonathan Gould, Captain William Booth and the venerated school-teacher of the long ago, Miss Clarissa Stow, daughter of Deacon Joel Stow, of Stow Mountain farm. It will appear from the records that the first settlers did good, if not the best, work. They were men and women, too, of pluck and endurance, just the ones to settle in what was then a wilderness infested with what were objects of terror to women,--bears and Indians. Their hardy frontier life fitted the men to become good soldiers. In all the wars in which the nation has been involved,--the Cape Breton War, from 1744 to 1746, inclusive; the French and Indian War; the War of the American Revolution; the War of 1812; the Florida War; the war with Mexico, undertaken "to conquer a peace;" the War of the Rebellion, the firecest and bloodiest of them all,--in all these wards Hillsborough has had a full part; its men have fought in the field, their blood has been shed and lives have been sacrificed. Hillsborough has furnished a full share of brave officers who led "to victory or to death." It will be found that the early settlers of the town were simple and frugal in their habits, and in their food made free use of milk and broth. It was the day of samp and bean porridge. The forests abounded in wild game,--the bear, the moose and the deer. The drumming of the partridge was heard in all directions, and the brooks and rivers afforded a plentiful supply of fish,--the trout, the perch and the salmon. Traveling for the most part was on foot; the roads were simply bridle-paths for years, and all riding was on horseback, often two on the same animal. The pillion was a well-known article, and one often used on Sundays. As it is not originally of facts, but only their discovery, solution, right arrangement and clear statement, that is required of a historian, I shall take well-authenticated facts from whatever source I may be able without, in all cases, stating the source. It will be my object to condense into the smallest compass that will allow the presentation of the most important and interesting facts in the clearest light. I desire to bring Hillsborough, past and present, its original settlers, its military achievements, its topography, the occupations of its citizens, its corporate industries, its professions, its progress in social life, in fine, Hillsborough and all that concerns it,--into a full and clear view. Very likely, after the greatest care in sifting facts that is possible, some things, taken for granted because so many times repeated without contradiction, may be over or understated, and at this lapse of time, and especially on account of the disappearance of several generations of actors and the absence of well-authenticated documents, it may be found impossible to get any nearer the truth. It has recently been stated, on reliable authority,--of Walter Gibson, A.B., historian of Concord,--that original documents and records of several towns, including Hillsborough, were known to be in existence in 1815, in the possession of one Sarson Belcher, a hatter of Boston, deceased. Mr. Belcher was the executor of the will of Colonel John Hill, proprietor of the town of Hillsborough, and for whom the town was named. It is hoped, though not confidently expected, that these papers may yet be in the possession of Belcher's heirs and may fall into the hands of the local historians of the town interested, viz: Hillsborough, RIndge, New Boston and Peterborough. They would be of great value, whether corroborative or corrective. *** TOPOGRAPHY *** The town of Hillsborough is in the northwest corner of Hillsborough County. The original grant to Colonel Hill was for a section, about six miles square." Looking at it on a good map, it has the appearance of being two opposite parallel side pressed a little together, forcing, thereby, an acute angle against one of the sides of Sullivan County and the town of Washington, in that county, and forcing a corner of Hillsborough into that town a considerable distance. It is bounded on the north by Washington and Bradford, on the east by Henniker, on the south by Deering and Antrim and on the west by Windsor and Washington. It is in latitude 43 degrees 5' north and in longitude 5 degrees 5' east. Its first line, beginning at the southeast corner of Henniker, deflects to the south 5 degrees 30' from due west. The surface of the town is greatly diversified with hill and valley, so much so that it is popularly, though erroneously, believed that this fact gave to the town its name of Hillsborough. There is, however, a limited extent of level land along the course of its streams. *** RIVERS *** The town is liberally, more than the average, supplied with living streams of water. The largest of these is the Contoocook, an important river, that assumes the name Contoocook--an Indian name meaning a place of crows--just as it enters the limits of the town at the corners of Deering and Antrim. It is formed by the union of two considerable streams, called, respectively, the South Branch and the North Branch, forming a union near the corners above mentioned. The principal stream--the South Branch--takes its rise in the elevated swamps of Rindge, in full view from the railroad between Peterborough and Winchendon. It is augmented by streams from the eastern slops of the Monadnock Mountain and from the numerous lakelets lying at its base. It is still further increased by the draining of Peterborough, Greenfield in part, Bennington, Hancock and Stoddard in part, so that it becomes of itself no inconsiderable stream. But as it enters Hillsborough it is greatly increased in quantity of water by the confluence of the North Branch, which rises in Horse-Shoe Pond, on the west side of Lovell's Mountain, in Washington, forming Long Pond in Stoddard, flowing through a portion of Antrim, giving its own name to a flourishing village in the town of Antrim. Flowing a short distance in Hillsborough, which it enters on the south line, passing through the Lower village, it soon receives the waters of the Hillsborough River, so called, and the united streams join the South Branch, and they together form the Contoocook. The Hillsborough Rivers takes its first supply from the drainage of the eastern slope of Lovell's Mountain, increased by a stream flowing from the marshy grounds of Bradford. It runs somewhat diagonally through the town for a distance of about seven miles. It is also increased by the drainage of the ponds in Windsor and from the Symond meadows, in Hillsborough. The stream which comes from the west does good work in turning wheel and driving machinery at the Upper Village, in Hillsborough. The Hillsborough river joins with the North Branch near the foundry near the residence, for so many years, of Major Charles D. Robbins, now of Bradford. The Contoocook, thus formed, becomes an important river, bearing an unfailing supply of water, available for industrial purposes as it flows through the Hillsborough Bridge village, and for its size it is doubtful if it can be surpassed by any stream in New England. There is descent enough for all practical purposes, and suitable locations for mills for a long distance down the river. There is no reason in the nature of things--except distance from market--why it should not, in time, create a rival of Lawrence or Lowell. The town is also well watered with brooks, one plentifully supplied with the speckled trout, but which are, for the most part, among the good things that were, but are not. There are also three considerable ponds in town, viz: Loon, a half-mile north of the Centre; Contention, about a mile northwest of Loon; and Campbell's Pond, in the eastern part, near the Henniker line and in the neighborhood of Jonathan Gould. Loon Pond deserves the name of a lake. It is much frequented as a summer resort. Seekers of rest and recreation began living in tents, as in the nomadic age; now cottages are going up on its shores. It abounds in bass, pickerel and pouts, and, in their seaons, the water lily. As has been said, it well deserved the name of lake, for it is about two miles in length by three-quarters of a mile in its widest part. It is nearly surrounded with a fine forest growth. The waters are clear, cool in the hottest weather, and deep, and the fish caught from it are consequently of fine flavor and of the best quality. Those who own the land bordering claim the sovereignity of its waters; nevertheless it is open and free to all comers. The late John Gilbert, of Boston, who owned a summer residence at the Centre, to which he had all his children and grandchildren repair to spend the summer months, had a well-trodden path to the harbor, where he kept his boats upon its cool and salubrious waters. As a regular camping-ground for spending one's vacation, Loon pond was first brought prominently into notice by Rev. Harry L. Brickett, of Lynnfield Centre, Mass., the successful principal of Valley Academy and Union School, at Hillsborough Bridge, for three years, from 1876 to 1879, inclusive. Here he spent his summer vacations, in good part residing in camp and fishing. He entertained hosts of friends with fried fish and chowders which he prepared with his own hands, to the enjoyment of those who visited him, camping in the quiet and beauty of this sylvan lakeside retreat. Now the enterprising editor of the "Hillsborough Messenger," Charles W. Hutchins, has built a summer- house for campers upon its banks, and every year many are the camping-parties that make merry upon its pleasant shores. The writer would suggest that, in memory of the late John Gilbert, of Boston, who for many years has done so much for Hillsborough Centre, it be called Lake Gilbert. Although the surface is so much diversified with hills and valleys, yet its elevations are hardly high enough to be called mountains, and most of the land has, at some time, been cleared to the very top of the highest hill. There is, however, one elevation favmous in the early settlement of the town, which has received the name of Stow's Mountain, located in the northwest part of the town, in what is now best known as the Edgar Hazen neighborhood, and in that school district. Deacon Joel Stow (the father of one better known than he,-- Clarissa Stow, to whom so many owe their first good start in learning) lived on the the southeast slope of this mountain. Justus Pike lived highest up. A few years ago--just before the war-- his house was taken down, brought to Hillsborough Bridge, and re-erected as a tenement house just in the rear of the Methodist meeting-house. A part of the farm of James M. Wilkins, near the Centre,--which, by the way is made to be a very productive farm,--is on very high ground. As you go east towards Henniker from his farm the land rises to a great height, from which the view on a clear day is extensive and grand. A long stretch of the White Mountain range is seen, and sometimes Mount Washington itself. The lowest part of the town is a little to the east of Hillsborough Bridge. It is up-hill from the bridge every way, except the river road leading from Henniker to Peterborough, through Hillsborough Bridge village. That, for the most part, is a level orad. The land rises gradually from the valley of the Contoocook, going north. A very hilly road leads from the Bridge village to the Centre through some of the best farms in town,--Baker's Dutton's the Clarkes', Taylor's and others. Another road, crossing the road from Hillsborough Bridge to the Lower village, at the distance of one mile, at the Deacon Sawyer place, now owned and occupied by Gawn Mills, leads over Bible Hill, owned and occupied by good farmers, then descends into a fertile valley, whence it climbs the rest of the way to the Centre. About two miles further south is the Old New Hampshire turnpike, leading through the Lower and Upper villages, and on to Washington. The roads through the Centre lead to East Washington and Bradford. Over these roads, and converging towards the same point, the Centre, all of the people of the town once traveled on the Lord's Day to the one house of worship. The Centre was once an important village, and had its store and blacksmith-ship; but these long since disappeared. Death and removals have thinned its population and weakened its strength. Old and venerable men, once its strength and pride, have been dropping away one by one, and few young people are willing to stay on the good old farms to make their places good. The recent death of Mr. John Gilbert, a native of the Centre, a resident and business man of Boston during many years, has saddened the hearts of the people at the Centre, among whom he was accustomed to spend the summer months at his residence there. *** THE SOIL *** Hillsborough has a strong, and, for the most part, productive soil, complained of, however, by not a few, for its rocks and for being hard to cultivate. It once abounded in forests, some of which now remain, greatly diminished--especially within easy reach of the railroad station--during the last twenty-five years. As a compensation for this, large tracts of hill land have been allowed to return again to the condition of the forests. Much of the new growth is large enough for lumber. The tall and stately white pines that once abounded, reserved in the original charter for the King's navy, have not almost wholly disappeared, though, as it turned out, King George had but very few of them. Most of those now standing are of second growth. The trees in the forests are of the usual kind found in other towns in the vicinity,--such as hemlocks, spruces (not so abundant), the ash, the oak (of several kinds, white and red), beech, white, red and rock or sugar maple, the butternut, fir-balsam (rich in liquid gum) and the cherry. The sugar maple (Acer saccharinum) deserves especial notice. It abounds in town. These trees have been spared in the general demolition for their value as deposits from which sugar is so readily obtained at a season of the year when other kinds of work are not so pressing. In one section of the town the sugar orchards of Wilkins, Clark Brothers and Dr. Dutton are noted for the quality and amount of sugar produced. The Clark Brothers exhibited specimens at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, and received honorable mention, and a correspondence was solicited by the agent of the French government in regard to the subject and was carried on from the department at home, in Paris. The writer of this article had the pleasure of reading and translating the letters to the Clark Brothers from Paris, and knows that they were full of valuable information on the subject of sugar products and highly complimentary to the Clarks. Great pains are taken by the best sugar-makers to keep the sap perfectly sweet and clean from its exudation from the tree to its entering the evaporating apparatus, so that it comes to market white, clean and pure. *** SETTLEMENTS *** The first settlement in Hillsborough, made in 1741, was one hundred and eighteen years after the first made in the colony, in Dover, in 1623, under the lead of Gorges & Mason, proprietors, by the favor of James I., of England. They sent out two small colonies. Their charter, embracing New Hampshire, included the territory lying between the sea and the St. Lawrence, and the rivers Kennebec and Merrimack. Massachusetts colony set up a claim to New Hampshire, in part, to all north of the Merrimack, and for many years the two colonies were united under one government. But in 1741, the very year that the first settlement was commenced in Hillsborough (then called No. 7), a final separation was effected between the two colonies. The separation was peaceably gained. The first known visit of white men to the site of Hillsborough was in that year. Before 1741 it had been the restricted and favorite resort of Indians, as is known by the numerous Indian implements dug up in the process of cultivating the land with the plow and hoe along the margins of the streams. Where Hillsborough Bridge village stands (a place where there are natural falls in the river) it appears that they had a common resort. It is supposed that the Pennicook tribe claimed the whole region bordering the Contoocook River through its entire length. Traces of that tribe have been found along the whole of that river and its tributaries, even to the region of the Monadnock. Indian relics have been found through the valleys bordering the Contoocook and its tributaries. In the year 1741 Hillsborough was an unbroken forest; not only so, it was the part of an almost unbroken wilderness, extending west to the Connecticut River and to the north indefinitely. Here and there a few settlements had been commenced,--one such by a single family in Antrim. In that year the boundary line was definitely settled between the colonies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire by a royal decree of Charles I., of England, and the township of Hillsborough (No. 7) was granted by Massachusetts to Colonel John Hill. He afterwards obtained a quit-claim from the original proprietors or their heirs, Gorges & Mason. He could then give an undoubted title to the land to those who came and bought of him. Colonel Hill immediately employed and sent a competent surveyor from Boston to run the town lines and divide it into one hundred acre lots, and at once threw the land open for settlement. A small party responded favorable to his invitation, and came onto make themselves homes at a great distance from neighbors. *** THE FIRST SETTLERS *** The principal of the first to come with axe and pick-hoe were Samuel Gibson, James Lyon, Robert McCluer and James McColley. The new settlers set themselves vigorously at work. They wrought with a will in felling trees, clearing with fire and axe, and putting in seed so as to raise something to keep the wolf--hunger--from the door and to supply other necessities of life; for at their distance from any market it would not be easy to convert ready money--if they had any that was convertible--into bread, meat, garments and other necessaries. Wool and flax, their own products, wrought into form by the skill and industry of woman's hands, milk from the home cow, bread from the growth of newly-cleared fields, meat brought down by the trusty rifle were the means by which the early settlers lived in those early "days that tried men's souls." But not only for themselves at their homes, but for those, too, in the field fighting in a common cause, must they make provision. They bravely met all these numerous demands. As an evidence of their good faith in starting this new settlement, they began from the very first to make provision to supply their spiritual wants which they regarded as absolutely imperative. They built a meeting-house, presumably of hewn logs, for at that early day, 1741 to 1746, there were no saw-mills in the limits of the town, and none nearer than New Boston. It met their wants. In one luxury, however, they indulged. The meeting-house was furnished with glass windows and with a bell, in use--at least a few years ago--in Groton, Mass. This building was located, as is believed, on the site of the buildings of the Clark Brothers, about half-way between the Bridge and Centre villages. At the same place they erected a parsonage. Young men came with their wives to create a home for themselves and families, as they hoped, for life. It required no small courage for tender and delicate women, in the freshness of their lives, to start for a howling wilderness full of terrors, at least for women and children,--terrors from hostile Indians, against whom it was necessary to keep a constant watch and guard. The Indians doubtless felt that they were an injured race, as they saw their hunting and fishing-grounds interfered with by the pale-faces, and their forests disappearing under the blows of the woodman's axe and the fire. There, too, roamed at large the bear, sometimes exceedingly fierce when called upon to defend her young, provoked then to show signs of hostility. JAMES McCOLLEY, of Scotch-Irish descent, a native of the north of Londonderry, which has furnished men unsurpassed in noble and heroic achievements, took up his place of abode at what is now the Bridge village, on the ground now familiarly known as the Cyrus Sargent place, owned and occupied at the present time by the Hoyts. He built his log cabin--all the first houses were of logs--beside a huge granite boulder, which many years ago was blasted into fragments for building purposes and cleared wholly away. In this rude cabin was born into his family, January 18, 1742, the first child born of white parents in the town of Hillsborough. He was named John. He grew up to have a history. At an early age JOHN McCOLLEY became a soldier in the King's army against the French and Indians; afterwards he was a soldier in the American army against the same King (George the Third), and was among those sent to drive Burgoyne out of the country. This campaign was the turning-point in the War of the Revolution. Another event, which also proved to be historical, took place in No. 7., the new town just settled. A daughter, Elizabeth, in another log cabin, built where S.M. Baker now lives, on the road from the Bridge to the Centre, May 19, 1742, just four months, lacking a day, from the birth of John McColley. In due time, at an early age,-- early enough, twenty-five years,--they were married in Litchfield, received a present of a farm from Colonel Hill, the proprietor, and removed to Hillsborough and made it their home. In the same year (1741) and perhaps at the same time, came FRANCIS GRAHAM,-- a name afterwards changed to GRIMES, as the name Graham itself had been changed from the old Scotch Graeme. FRANCIS GRAHAM was the grandfather of JOHN GRIMES, himself the father of a large family, as families are now reckoned,--six sons and two daughters. One of these children died in infancy. The oldest of his sons, HIRAM, is the father of Colonel James F. Grimes, whose life will be briefly sketched in this history. So far as can be traced, the third child born in the town was Ann Graham, daughter of Francis; born in 1743; married Deacon William McKean and died July 12, 1825. Deacon McKean was grandfather of Frank McKean, once candidate for Governor in the State. The name Graham, as has been stated, became, for some reason not now known, changed to GRIMES. It would be interesting to know, if we could, the amount of land cleared, the number and quantity of the buildings erected and the number and names of the children born during this first settlement, lasting from 1741 to 1746. We must remember that Hillsborough was then absolutely new to white men; it was a wilderness, and a part of a still larger wilderness, with only here and there any opening, hardly making a noticeable break in the mighty stretch of forests that covered the entire land. New Boston has a few settlers; Peterborough and Hopkinton a few; Antrim had one in the very northeast corner of the town, nearest Hillsborough. Neighbors were not near enough to annoy in times of peace, nor to aid in times of danger from any sudden interruption of savages or beasts. ** THE CAPE BRETON WAR, 1744-46 ** It is easy to conceive the alarm felt in the little settlement when, in three years from the time of their coming, in 1744, news came that war had been declared between France and Great Britain, and that, in consequence of that declaration of hostilities, the colonists in New England were affected unfavorably. A war on this side of the water, called "the Cape Breton War," was waged with great severity. An expedition was fitted out, in which New Hampshire bore a large share, the aim of which was to capture Louisburg, on Cape Breton, in Nova Scotia. The expedition was started in the autumn of 1744. Louisburg fell into their hands in the spring of 1745. By the fall of this fortress the French were greatly enraged. The Indian allies of the French were urged--nothing loth--to make a destructive invasion upon the thinly-settled towns in New Hampshire. These reports caused a hasty retreat of the new settlers from their rudely-constructed homes. THey made the more haste from the news that came from Hopkinton, with only the township of Henniker between them and their treacherous foes,--the distance of only some twelve or fifteen miles. They had learned that a large body of Indians--they went in companies of fifty or sixty--were on the war-path, and made, in the dead of night, an irruption into Hopkinton on the 22d of April, 1746. By the negligence of one who had gone out to hunt, the door of the block-house had been carelessly left unfastened. The Indians rushed in fully armed, and seized and carried off eight prisoners. When the Indians were about there was no safety in isolated houses, for they kept themselves hid for the most part during the day; if they did not, they showed no open hostility; but in the darkness of the night, during the defenseless hours of sleep, they made their attacks with tomahawk, scalping-knife and fire. Common prudence seemed to make it necessary for the settlers, few in numbers and scattered at wide intervals over the town, to leave. The Cape Breton War virtually closed between France and England soon after the fall of Louisburg; but the Indians were slow to learn it and unwilling to settle down in peace. The only way in which the settlers in new towns could stay was by converting their strongest house into a block-house for a common defense. The doors and windows were strongly barricaded, and all the inhabitants brought under the protection of an armed guard, and the greatest precaution would be taken against surprises. The news of the attack of the Indians upon Hopkinton in the dead of night, and the seizure of prisoners, caused a sudden departure of all the original settlers from the place. So, concealing, as far as practicable, their heavier articles of furniture and implements of husbandry, carrying lighter articles by hand and driving their cattle before them, they start for the lower towns. Indians had been seen lurking about the falls, where the Bridge village is, so they thought it prudent to start at once. PHILIP RILEY, the only settler at the time in Antrim, the one referred to as living in the northeast corner of the town, on what is familiarly known as the Whittemore place (formerly the home of Judge Jacob Whittemore), went with them and acted as guide. They were more than satisfied with their experience of frontier life. The first settlement continued five years or a little more,--from 1741 to 1746. Fear of the Indians drove them away. We can see the the first settlers did not leave without good cause. I learn from the "Military History of New Hampshire," written with great painstaking and accuracy of detail by the late Judge C.E. Potter, a resident of Hillsborough, that the Cape Breton War was undertaken mainly to wrest the fortress of Louisburg out of the hands of the French, through the New England troops, under command of Major Vaughn, of Portsmouth. Governor Benning Wentworth was the first Governor of the colony of New Hampshire, and he entered vigorously into making preparations for the defense of the colony. In May, 1744, he sent out forty-one men under Captain Tebbits as scouts. These were not ordered to any particular place, but to be on the lookout for the enemy, wherever they might be found. Some guards were stationed at the most exposed places, such as Canterbury, Contoocook and some other posts. Colonel Potter has given the muster-roll of Captain Tebbits. He has also given the muster-roll of the men enlisted under Captain Clough as volunteers to keep garrison where ordered. In the autumn of 1744 the plan was arranged by Major William Vaughn, of Portsmouth, for the capture of Louisburg. It was matured during the winter of 1744-45, and the expedition set sail in March for the place of rendezvous. Louisburg was the stronghold of the French on this continent, and from this place expeditions were fitted out against the English colonies in this country. It was thought that, as this was the very key to the French possession on this continent, nothing should be left undone to get possession of it. New Hampshire furnished for this campaign five hundred men, one-eighth of all the forces employed. A part of these served under Colonel Moore, of Portsmouth. One hundred and fifty of the New Hampshire men were attached to a Massachusetts regiment. Louisburg fell into the hands of its assailants June 17, 1745. Notwithstanding the fall of their stronghold, and perhaps in consequence of it, the French incited the Indians to renewed hostilities, so that they kept the people continually harassed, and oftentimes filled with terrors at the unknown evils that might befall them. The people did their planting under the protection of a strong armed guard. Whenever a man had occasion to go to a neighbor's on an errand, he carried a loaded gun. Whenever he went to his barn, he went armed. While some were listening to a sermon inside the church, armed men walked to and fro on the outside for the sake of protection; and in case of the announcement of danger seen, the worshipers instantly seized their arms, and were ready for action at a minute's notice. As has been said, the Indians went in large parties of fifty or sixty. It is said that in Rumford (now Concord), August 10, 1746, a party was ambushed by the Indians; five were killed outright, two were taken prisoners; only one escaped. And this was done between two garrisons with full complements of men, and the most distant not more than a mile and a half from the place. THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR, 1754-63--A greater war than the Cape Breton War broke out in 1754, called the French and Indian War, and continued until 1763, when, after various engagements resulting in great loss of blood and life on both sides, a treaty of peace was signed at Paris. It was in this war that Braddock was killed and Washington fleshed his virgin sword in blood, and bravely conducted the defeated army from the very jaws of destruction into a place of safety. The experience thus gained aided Washington in after years in leading the small yet heroic armies of the new republic safely on to victory and independence. New Hampshire bore a full share in this ill-fated war,--a war, for the most part, with savages, seemingly without heart or conscience; a war in which women and children were often the helpless victims; a war full of terrors, especially to the unarmed and defenseless. In 1763 it came to an end. In the mean time, Colonel Hill had matured all the plans for resettling the town, now that the danger from Indians lurking to kill was over, and he was prepared, with the grant from Massachusetts, sanctioned by Governor Wentworth, and with a quit-claim from heirs of Gorges & Mason, original proprietors, to give satisfactory titles to the land. RESETTLEMENT--In 1763 the year the last-named was was closed, Colonel Hill had employed Daniel Campbell, of Amherst, a skillful surveyor, to run out anew the lines of the town, and divide it into one hundred acre lots. Soon settlers began to pour in who had come prepared to stay. The following is the list of those who were known to be there in 1767. One family came before the war closed,--in 1762, five years before. The rest came a few at a time, and were these, viz: John McColley, Captain Samuel Bradford, Lieutenant Samuel Bradford, Jonathan Durant, Jonathan Easty, Timothy Wilkins, John Gibson, Samuel Gibson, William Williams, Benjamin Lovejoy, William Pope, Jonathan Sargeant, Moses Steel, Isaac Baldwin, William Taggart, Isaac Andrews. Of these, it will be remembered that John McColley was the first-born son and child in town. The two Gibsons were younger brothers of McColley's wife. The first settlers--who left during the Cape Breton War--never came back to Hillsborough to reside. Of these there were eight or ten families living at the Centre, the Bridge and near the meeting-house which they had built, located between the two. On the return of peace everything was favorable for success. Those who purchased could obtain a good title to their land. True, they were not wholly relieved from anxiety from fear of the Indians; still, they knew that they had the protection of the militia and every able-bodied man belonging to it, which could be called out for defense in seaons of danger at the shortest notice. The investment in Hillsborough lands seemed to be popular. Lands were bought not for speculation, but for homes. Men--young men-- came with their wives, calculating to be contented and stay. A word of admiration is due to the courageous couple Daniel Murphy and his wife, who came from Chester, and settled on what afterward named, and has since been called, Bible Hill. They were truly pioneers. The traces of his cellar on the old Symonds place (now owned and occupied by Alonzo Tuttle) have been senn by persons now living. It is reported that at one time he left his wife alone more than two weeks, with no human habitation nearer than New Boston. Mr. Smith, the first annalist of Hillsborough, tells the story so well that I will quote his exact language,-- "How desolate must have been her situation in this dreary solitude! She afterwards related that on one occasion, so overpowered was she by a sense of her loneliness, and so desirous to hear the sound of a human voice answering to her own, that at midnight, when no sound was audible save the distant howl of the famished wolf and the distant moan of the waving pine, she went forth from her hut and cried aloud at the height of her voice, that she might hear the responsive echo resounding through the dim aisles of the forest." It was through many perils, inconveniences and personal sacrificies that the town was reclaimed from its wilderness condition and made to become the pleasant abode of civilized life. For some time Murphy's family bore the strain of entire solitude. Unless they had become misanthropic through living alone, I should think the sight of other settlers must have been a joyous one. Man was made for social life. Society, as a rule, is indispensable to complete development. ---------------------------- CHAPTER II Incorporation of Town--The First Town-Meeting--The American Revolution, 1775-83--Veterans in the War--The Contoocook Bridge-- Witches--Legends--Wild Game. *** INCORPORATION OF THE TOWN *** Hillsborough, having at the time twenty-two freeholders, was incorporated as a town in 1772, through the agency of Isaac Andrews, Esq. It is related that he secured the services of a Congregational minister, Rev. James Scales, of Hopkinton, the first minister of the town, to draw up the petition. This is one of those incidental facts which shows two things: first, that the clergy at that day were expected to know much relating to public business, and, secondly, that the estimation in which they were held was a right one. The charter of incorporation bears the date, November 14, 1775," and was issued in the name of "George the Third, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith," etc., "by and with the advice of our truly and well-beloved John Wentworth, Esq., Governor and Commander-in-chief of our province of New Hampshire," etc. The boundaries of the town are recited in the charter, and are marked by numbers placed upon beech-trees. The surveyor begins at the southeast corner of the town, the same as the southwest corner of Henniker, from a beech-tree marked 7, perhaps because the township was originally, "No. 7." From that tree is the first southern line of Hillsborough, south 84 degrees 30' west--this means that the line deflects to the south 5 degrees 30' from an exact east and west line--to another beech tree marked 7, 8 and so on, till the first-marked beech tree is reached. In the charter all the white pines in the town are reserved for the King's use. Colonel Hill paid a liberal fee to Governor John Wentworth for signing his name to the charter, viz: a sum equivalent to fifty dollars in gold. But, then, it must be remembered he could afford to pay liberally to have his name transmitted to posterity in the name of the town; yet, strange to say, some think it is called Hillsborough because the land is so hilly. Some, more learned than wise, suppose it received its name from "Wills Hills, the Earl of Hillsborough, who was one of the Privy Council of George the Third, and whose residence was at Hillsborough, in the county of Down, in Ireland." It is said that it was originally called Hillborough, and that the "s" was inserted by a popular drift of pronunciation, and is now established by the law of 'usus loquendi." I think the fifty dollars given to Governor Wentworth for signing the charter settles the question that it was named for Colonel John Hill, the proprietor. *** THE FIRST TOWN MEETING *** The first town-meeting was held on Bible Hill, at Captain Bradford's tavern,--the first one built in town,--November 24, 1772. Captain Isaac Baldwin presided as moderator, and Isaac Andrews was elected town clerk. At that meeting it was voted to accept the charter, and Isaac Andrews, John McColley, Daniel McNeil, Isaac Baldwin and William Pope--six noble men and the ancestors of noble men--were elected selectmen. *** FIRST MEETING-HOUSE *** The first meeting-house was burnt during the time, between the two settlements, when the town was destitute of inhabitants. Common rumor, right or wrong, fixes the act of burning upon one Keyes, of Weare, who, happening that way after all the inhabitants left through fear of the Indians, and having taken out the glass windows and buried them for his own use, set fire to the building, Nero-like, for the wicked pleasure of seeing it burn. As relics of the red men in the place, there wre found buried in the earth implements of their daily use, such as spoons, ladles, pestles for pounding grain, hatchets, tomahawks, hooks and various other things wrought of stone or bone. *** THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 1775-83 *** The second settlement had barely got under way when the great American Revolution broke out. The quarrel was of long standing. Repeated acts of injustice and oppression drove our forefathers into opposition to the acts of King and Parliament, and from opposition to open war in the defense of their rights by the arbitrament of arms. In this war of nearly eight years, Hillsborough bore a full share. The Town of Hillsborough bore their part in furnishing recruits for the army. It should be borne in mind that the settlers forming the second and permanent settlement had been in the town but a very few years when the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord bridge electrified the whole country with a cry "To arms, to arms, and avenge our slaughtered countrymen!" Hillsborough caught the cry, and echoed it. This seems the best place to insert the names of those who responded favorably to this appeal,--those who did service for the country as soldiers in some capacity, as officers or privates, in the War of the Revolution, some of whom laid down their lives on the battle-field, while some bore the scars of battle to their graves. VETERANS IN THE WAR.--The names are as follows without their titles: Benjamin Pierce, Isaac Baldwin, Ammi Andrews, Isaac Andrews Jr., Moses Steel, William Pope, Thomas Murdough, Solomon Andrews, John McNeil, Silas Cooledge, Samuel Bradford Jr., John McColley, Samuel Symonds, William Booth, Asa Wilkins, Nathan Taylor, William Taggart, James Taggart, Archibald Taggart, Joseph Taggart, John Taggart, Robert Taggart, Nathaniel Johnson, Jacob Flint, James Gibson, William Jones Jr., Baxter How, William Symonds, Zachariah Robbins, William Gammell, Nathaniel Parmenter, David Munroe, Timothy Grey, Thadius Monroe, Nathaniel Colby, Nathan Mann, and Daniel Kellom--thirty-six men, and six of the same family name. Neither is it likely that these are all. So many names, at any rate, have been rescued from oblivion. They deserve of us to be written in letters of gold. If every town then settled in New Hampshire sent as large a proportion of their whole population to the war, then surely New Hampshire did her share. Some of the names in this list are already historic names,--heroes and the ancestor of heroes. Some of the men deserve special notice for the part they took on the field of battle. It would be a grateful task to the historian to say something of each, did space permit, and recount in detail the praiseworthy deeds they performed at their country's call for their country's good. We will never forget their names, nor the one great act of heroism,--their going forth to fight for their country. We will gratefully transmit their memory down the generations. As Captain ISAAC BALDWIN was the first of Hillsborough's men to die,--killed while doing his duty on the field,--as well as the very first to enlist from the town and secure enlistment of others, it is proper that he should precede his brethen-in-arms on the historian's page. Captain Baldwin was born in Sudbury, Mass., in 1736, and was thirty-nine years of age when the War of the Revolution broke out. He married Eunice Jennison [sometimes called Eunice Johnson in some genealogies], of Natick, Mass, and as has been already said, had come to Hillsborough in 1767, near the time of the beginning of the second settlement. He was a carpenter and joiner by trade, and when the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord came, he was at work at his trade in Deering [NH], framing a barn. Captain Baldwin was used to war, and had been, with Stark, of world-wide renown as a brave officer in the old French and Indian War, under the command of Major Rogers. Baldwin was the hero of twenty battles--this may be Homeric--"in those old wars." No sooner had he heard the news of the battles of Lexington and Concord than he made up his mind to have a part in what was to come. He quitted his job, hastened home, collected a company of volunteers and, putting himself in their head, with their entire approbation, started towards the noise of the guns. On their way they spent the Sabbath in Billerica [MA], and attended church in a body. The pastor, Rev. Cummings, preached an appropriate sermon on the duty of patriotism. They arrived at Medford June 17, the day of the battle of Bunker Hill. The company over which Captain Baldwin was elected, on arrival at headquarters, was ordered to the field of battle, which they reached about twelve M., and immediately went into action. He was hit by a musket-ball in his breast, and fell mortally wounded about one o'clock in the afternoon. He was carried to the quarters for the wounded by two of his own townsmen belonging to his company,-- Lieutenant John McNeil and James Gibson. He lived until about sunset. After his death, Lieutenant Ammi Andrews extracted the bullet and sent it to the wife of Captain Baldwin as a mournful reminder of the manner in which her husband met his death. ANDREWS is a heroic name in Hillsborough. Lieutenant AMMI ANDREWS, born in Ipswich, Mass., came to Hillsborough at an early period of the second settlement, and located at what is now the Upper village, and, it is said, was proprietor of its whole site and much adjacent territory. Lieutenant Andrews served through the whole War of the Revolution, and was a sharer in the perils of the expedition to Quebec in 1775, under Colonel Arnold. He was taken prisoner there by the British, but soon exchanged. A story is related of him in connection with that expedition that is worth perpetuating. In the winter of 1775-76, as they lay in winter-quarters three miles from the city of Quebec, the commanding officer was anxious to gain some news of the enemy's strength and position, and for that purpose expressed the wish that a British sentinel might be captured and brought into camp. Lieutenant Andrews volunteered to make the attempt. Some one said that he ought to have the best gun in the army. "Look here," said the gallant lieutenant, "is it a dead or a living man that you want? Because if it is a living man that you wish brought in, I do not wish to be bothered with a gun." He reached the city of Quebec, and, scaling its walls in the darkness of the night, at a favorable moment he sprang upon the sentinel as he was pacing his beat backwards and forwards with a musket. The lieutenant, who was a strong, vigorous man, a powerful athlete in agility, seized him by the throat, and told him he was a dead man if he made the least outcry. Taking him down the steep and dangerous mountainside, leaping from one shelf of the precipice to another, he marched his prisoner three miles through the deep snows of Canada to the American camp. Lieutenant Andrews was distinguished as a business man in his day, and transmitted the same qualities to his descendants now living. He died in his bed March 30, 1833, aged ninety-seven years. CAPTAIN SAMUEL BRADFORD also served through the war. He enlisted as an orderly-sergeant, and rose, for meritorious conduct, to the rank of ensign and also of lieutenant, performing adjutant's duty in Colonel Stark's regiment for more than two years. The name of BENJAMIN PIERCE, an honored Governor of New Hampshire of the olden time, is familiar to all readers of history. He was born in Chelmsford, Mass., December 25, 1757. His father's name was also Benjamin. At his father's death, when he was but six years of age, he went to live with an uncle (Robert Pierce, of Chelmsford), who brought him up to work on a farm. When the news of the first battle at Lexington (April 19, 1775) arrived he was plowing. He left the field, took his uncle's gun and equipments and started at once for the scene of danger. He was one of the "irregulars" who followed Pitcairn's wearied soldiers, retreating, by a forced march, towards Boston from Lexington--like others, loading and firing at his own order. He did not return to his uncle's, but enlisted in Captain Ford's company. He was then eighteen. He joined as a private, but in 1777 he was promoted to orderly-sergeant for securing the flag from falling into the hands of the enemy. He was again promoted to a lieutenancy, which commission he bore to the close of the war. He removed to Hillsborough after the return of peace, in the thirtieth year of his age. He was soon appointed brigade-major by the Governor. In 1789, in his thirty-third year, he was chosen to represent Hillsborough and Henniker in the Legislature, and served in that capacity thirteen years successively. He had found himself poor in the close of the war, in which, enlisting as a private, he had risen step by step until, at its close, he had the command of a company, and was on the staff of Washington when the army was disbanded, in 1784. Having been employed as agent to explore a part of Cheshire County (now called Stoddard), and having finished the work, he returned to Hillsborough on horseback, by way of the "Branch," and stopped for the night at a log hut in the woods. Here he bought a small farm of fifty acres, and returned to Massachusetts. The next spring he returned to Hillsborough and commenced to clear the land. For a whole year he lived alone in his log cabin, cooked his own meals and slept upon a blanket, as he had learned to do in an eight years' experience on the tented field. He was married the next year, in 1787. In 1803, General Pierce was chosen one of the Governor's Council, and continued in that capacity five years. At the end of that term, Governor Langdon appointed him high sheriff of Hillsborough County. He was again councilor and again sheriff of the county. In 1827 he was elected Governor of the State; and again, in 1829. He was elector of President in 1832. From 1775 to 1830, a period of fifty-five years, he was constantly employed in some public office. He died April 1, 1839, aged eighty-one years. This tribute I find paid to his memory: "He was patriotic, brave, noble-minded and charitable; a benefactor to his country and a blessing to his State and society; and no one memory associated with the past history of Hillsborough brings up higher feelings of respect and veneration than that of General Benjamin Pierce." As an illustration of his nobility of character, an anecdote is related of him while a prisoner on parole, having fallen into the hands of the British on Long Island. Attending a horse-race, he offended an English officer by an adverse opinion, which the English-man thought too freely expressed, who thereupon struck Lieutenant Pierce with the flat of his sword. The blood flushed on the lieutenant's face; yet he quietly said: "Fettered by my parole, and unarmed, I cannot now resent this indignity, but the chances of war may yet bring us together." And so it proved. In an engagement between armies of Generals Washington and Howe, contending for possession of the city of New York, in the summer of 1776, they met, crossed swords, and the Englishman fell pierced by the young American. He had a perfect contempt of a coward. Just before his death he invited his old Hillsborough co-patriots to a dinner, in honor of old times. One of the old veterans not being there, some one spoke of his absence. The Governor replied, "I invite no man to my table who is afraid of gunpowder." An anecdote is related of him, when high sheriff of the country, that shows his generosity. he found imprisoned in the jail at Amherst three Revolutionary soldiers, who had proved themselves good soldiers for their country. At the close of their service they were penniless, the pay which they received being nearly valueless, and after weary days of travel reached home, only to be arrested and imprisoned for debt which they were wholly unable to pay. The general, taking the keys, paid their indebtedness, unlocked the prison-doors, and leading them outside, pointing above, he said, "Go, breathe the free air." It is no wonder that Governor Pierce was the idol of the people, though lacking the polished manner of his son, Franklin, for the people saw that he was a true friend and a champion for their rights. Governor Pierce was married twice. His first wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Isaac Andrews, Esq. The marriage was on May 25, 1787. She lived a little over one year, and gave birth to Elizabeth A., who was married to General John McNeil, the hero of Lundy Lane. She died August 13, 1788, in the twenty-first year of her age. He next married Anna, daughter of Benjamin Kendrick, of Amherst, in 1789. They lived in married life fifty-one years. She was the mother of eight children, among whom were Nancy, the wife of General Solomon McNeil, a brother of General John McNeil; Hon. Franklin Pierce, who attained the highest honor in the gift of the nation; and Henry Dearborn Pierce, the father of Colonel Franklin H. and Kirk D. He was the last of the Governor's children to go. There are pleasant memories associated with the name of Lieutenant ROBERT B. WILKINS, who was a Bunker Hill hero, and quartermaster of General Lafayette's brigade. He was wounded at Bunker Hill. While serving under Lafayette he rendedered at one time such signal service in taking some cattle from the British at Poule's Hook, opposite New York City, that Lafayette presented him with a full suit of officer's uniform as a token for meritorious conduct. He was familiarly known in the army, especially among the officers of his regiment, as "Bob Wilkes." At Lafayette's visit to America in 1825, more than forty years having elapsed, Wilkins was presented to the old general, but time had wrought such changes that he was not at first recognized. Allusion was made to some incident of the battle-field which caused the Frenchman to look a little closer and scrutinize the features of the man before him. The whole at once flashed upon the memory of Lafayette; he recognized in the changed face, battered with the storms of life, his old companion in arms, and (the tears falling freely from many eyes) he fell upon Wilkin's neck, and, tenderly embracing him, exclaimed, "O, Bob Wilkes, Bob Wilkes!" and they both wept like children. Heads were uncovered and shouts arose which showed (one writer says, describing the scene) how "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Wilkins died in Boston [MA] in August, 1832, aged seventy-seven years. The Revolutionary War came to an end, as all wars hitherto have done, and those who had fought for years in the field and had suffered many privations returned home to the avocations of peace. But they had many difficulties to content with. The paper currenty, known as Continental money, continued to depreciate through the war until it was worth only one percent of its face value. Examples can be given. DAVID KILLOM paid for a farm ten thousand dollars in currency, which could have been bought for one hundred dollars in silver or gold; rye brought seventy-five dollars a bushel in currency, which three-fourths of a dollar in silver could pay for; it is said that Rev. Mr. Barnes' salary for a year was only sufficient to purchase a pig. Samuel M. Barker now owns that ten thousand dollar farm above referred to. An inflated currency is a much-to-be-dreaded evil. It disarranges all the best-laid plans of the shrewdest business men. However, by degrees, men gained confidence again, and business was resumed on a healthy basis. Some manufacturing was done on a careful scale, farms were improved and things in general put on a thriving appearance. Public improvements were commenced and carried on little by little. *** THE CONTOOCOOK BRIDGE *** One noted improvement was building a bridge over the Contoocook River that should answer the purposes of general travel, which at this point seemed to be on the incresae. The first birdge--made of wood-- was erected where the present bridge now stands, in 1779, and was reconstructed seventeen years after, in 1796. The timbers, many of them, were beginning by that time to be tender and unsafe. There is an interesting note in Hammond's "Early Town Papers" in reference to this first bridge. It would appear that Colonel Hill, the proprietor of the township of Hillsborough, and who died in Boston, 1776, had subscribed or provided in his will the gift of one hundred acres of land in town towards building a bridge across the Contoocook (at that time the settlers called the river the Connecticut). This subscription was made before the war; but so many things lacking, the building of the bridge was put off, and in the mean time, Colonel Hill died. This will explain a petition of the town for authority to tax non-residents, that would bring a tax upon the unsold lands in the town belonging to Hill's heirs. The petition was dated 8th day of May, A.D. 1780. Correcting the spelling of the petition, which Hammond has given 'verbatim et literatim,' it is as follows: "State of New Hampshire "To the Hon. Council and Assembly of said State in general court convened: "May it please your honors, we, the subscribers, freeholders in the town of Hillsboro' in said State, beg leave to petition, that whereas, the late John Hill, Esq., of Boston, who was the sole proprietor in this town, did, before the commencement of the present war, promise to give One hundred acres of land towards building a bridge over Connecticut river, so called, in this town, which bridge we should have built four or five years ago, had it not been for this unhappy war, but at last we have completed said bridge, and the 'shares' of said John Hill have been solicited to make good their father's promises, but refuse. We, therefore, humbly petition that your honors would order a tax to be levied on the non-residents' land lying in town to defray the charges of building said bridge, as we labor under heavy burdens in town, and said bridge will be of great service, not only to the town, but also to the public, as said bridge cost us two thousand three hundred and three pounds, as money was last October, and if your honors shall in your wisdom see fit to grant this our petition, we, as in duty bound, shall every pray," etc. Signed by Samuel Bradford Jr., and thirty-five others, among which are the names of Andrews, Taggart, Wilkins, Dutton and Booth. The cost of that first bridge, "as money was last October,"--viz. October, 1779,--in the words of the petition, in currency was the same--according to a decision by arbitration fixing the value of English money--as $11,118.97-4/10. The granting of the petition would be getting probably a full equivalent for Colonel Hill's subscription out of the parties who refused ot make it good. DANIEL McNEIL was employed by the town to rebuilt the bridge in 1809. These frequent repairs were a great bill of expense. SQUIRE F. CLEMENT in 1824, built substantial abutments of solid stone-work at the ends and connected them over a space of forty feet, when, in 1839, the whole work was elevated five feet and the wood gave place to a splendid stone arch, which has stood without essential repairs forty-six years, to the present time. It is this splendid and substantial bridge that gives the distinctive name to the growing village [Hillsborough Bridge] to which it is an essential appendange, connecting the two sides of the river as really as if not separated by its waters. The scenery at this bridge is beautiful, and in time of high water, grand in extreme. The falls are an epitome of Niagara. The writer of this article, from a position in the parlor of his house, while living at the Bridge, had a most enchanting view. The water falling over the dam could be seen under the arch, and by imagining the scene to be carried back to some distance, it afforded a prospect not to be surpassed in beauty. The house referred to belongs to E.H. Bartlett, and it located just west of the bakery. It may be asked how the people on their farms lived in those early days? Hwo in the villages? Where all were comparatively in moderate circumstances, none very rich,--at least, such as would be accounted rich to-day,--did aristocratic feelings prevail as among the present generation, the children and grandchildren of the Revolutionary fathers? The answer will be "yes," but based upon the character tested by trial than now, oftentimes upon the mere accident of wealth, oftenest wealth gained by the toil and prudence of ancestors. They prided themselves--those old patriots--upon actual service rendered to the country,--a service of toil, danger, deprivation, but yet of love. A coward or a traitor was despised, no matter how rich. They were devout, even though sometimes, when their anger was roused at some act unjust or mean that had been committed, they were considered rough and severe. They were in those early days a church- going commmunity. They all appeared on the hill. The roads were dotted with travelers--very many on foot--to the place of worship. Then each man owned a share in the house of God by virtue of his residence in town and paying taxes. The minister was supported at the town's expense, and the gospel was literally free to the poor as well as to the rich. No man who was brave and true was looked down upon because he was poor, and no man wanting these characteristics of bravery and truth was looked up to, though he might be rich. These things changed, however, little by little, for the worse. In those early days they were not wanting in healthy amusements, changing with the season of the year. One of these was the hunting-match. The whole community--except the very young, the very old, the doctor and the minister, with now and then one who had scruples in the matter--engaged in the affair. A leader for each side was chosen by common consent. These chose sides, and for several days the crack of the musket might be heard in all directions. The more obnoxious the animal, the more he would count in the game. The heads of some, the tails of others, were brought as trophies of success to the place of count, and the umpire decided which side had won the game. A supper, frequently paid for by the losing side, closed the affair. There were amusements of which the young women had charge, others of which the men were the leading characters, to both of which both were admitted, and both considered necessary for the highest enjoyment. One of these was the quilting-party, the other the husking-bee. Apple-paring bees were also common. It may be said that such parties were too rude to be elevating, but the ancestors of the present generation of refined ladies and gentlemen in society were sound and true in heart and very rarely stepped over the bounds of propriety. Possibly the laugh was louder, but the laugh was the whole of it and left no lurking evil concealed. They were days of remarkably free from suspicion,--days of mutual trust in families and among friends. **** WITCHES **** Hillsborough, not to be outdone by surrounding towns, had its genuine witch-story. Aunt Jenny Robinson had the reputation of being a veritable witch, and could, I presume, as well as any other witch, ride through the air on a broom-stick. She had the reputation of being able to stop loaded teams until the drivers should go into her husband's tavern and get a drink. In this respect the spell which she used is not greater than if often case over teamsters and those who are carried by teams. I will refer the reader to the story so pathetically told by the Hillsborough annalist, Mr. Smith, on page twenty-nine of his published lecture. There are so many withces in "curls and bangs" in these days that I may be excused from giving more particulars. *** LEGENDS OF BEASTS OF PREY *** The early history of a town cannot be considered complete, especially to the young folks, without its bear-story any more than without its witch-story. Both seem to be called for, and Mr. Smith, the annalist, did his duty faithfully. I cannot improve on his version of it, and will therefore give it in his language,--"Bears were frequently seen in town long after the wolves had been exterminated. Mr. JAMES CARR, residing in the north part of the town, was a bear-trapper. On going to his trap one morning he found it gone." [I cannot explain how that could be,--how he could go to his trap if it was not there when he went, nor how he could be said to find it if it was gone.] "He armed himself with his rifle, and after following the track about a mile he espied a bear. He laid aside his gun,and commenced to attack with a club. The moment he struck at the bear it grappled him with its paw and seized his left arm in its jaws. Carr, disliking so close an embrace, with considerable effort drew from his pocket a knife and compelled Bruin to relinquish his hold. The bear, having in the struggle forced himself from the trap, retreated to a ledge of rocks near by. Thither Carr pursued him, though somewhat hurt by the encounter, and discharged his rifle at him several times before he killed him." Exit the bear, dragged away by the trapper. As late as the beginning of the present century, and before that from time immemorial, salmon abounded in the Contoocook River. Civilization, by damming the rivers and other streams, while it adds to aritifical wealth, cuts off some of the resources of nature. The wolf wsa once a troublesome animal in Hillsborough. Major ISAAC ANDREWS has the reputation of killing the last wolf that was killed in town. He baited a fox-trap; nothing disturbed it for two days, but on the third day, on visiting the place, it was destitute of a trap. It was in the winter and the snow was deep, so, taking his gun, he followed on snow-shoes and killed it at the second firing. *** WILD GAME *** Moose and deer were sometimes killed in Hillsborough and vicinity. Aged people would sometimes almost scare children out of their wits by telling them frightful stories of wolves, bears and catamounts, so that when out in the dark they would imagine that they could often hear the tread of some wild animal. The generation that fought successfully the battles of the Revolution, and secured independence for themselves and their posterity, one by one came to the closing period of life, and the places that had known them knew them no more forever. One by one they yielded in the race of life to younger competitors, and were contented to live again in their children and children's children. Yet old age is sometimes talkative, and the veterans of the Revolution awakened in young minds dreams of glory gained on the field of battle. The eye of the old man would sparkle with a new delight as he talked of camping in the open air and sleeping on the bare ground under the open sky; as he talked of evolutions in the field, marching and counter-marching in echelon of file and echelon of section, of the impetuous charge and the successful repulse. -------------------------- CHAPTER III War of 1812--The McNeils--Men in the Ranks--War of the Rebellion-- Industries of Hillsborough--Desertion of Hill Farms--Forestry-- Pine Timber--Contoocook Mills--The New Mill--Hillsborough or Valley Academy. *** WAR OF 1812 *** At length the time came for this new generation of Americans, and of Britons as well, to show their hand in war. As of old, there is with every generation of men the time when "kings go forth to battle," when some cause arises that calls men to the tented field. Another war arose between Great Britain and the United States, which were once her independent colonies. It was called with us the War of 1812, as that was the year in which it was declared. It was a contest vigorously fought by brave men on both sides. It is difficult to state in precise language the real causes that led to that war, as in the final settlement made at Ghent nothing was decided except that each, by hard blows given as well as received, had vindicated most fully its honor before the world. The war was fought with varying success on both sides of the sea and by land; sometimes victory was claimed by each party. A treaty of peace was made and signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, December 24, 1814. Nevertheless, our greatest victory, which secured the Presidency to the victorious leader of the American army, General Andrew Jackson, was gained after the treaty of peace had been signed, viz., on January 8, 1815. In the War of 1812 Hillsborough furnished her quota of brave soldiers and skilled commanders, and was represented on many a hard and well-fought field. The sons of sires who fought with honor in the American Revolution are found fighting with equal skill and bravery with their fathers in the War of 1812. Lieutenant John McNeil was at Bunker Hill, his son at Lundy Lane. *** THE McNEILS *** The name of McNeil occurs frequently in the war reports of the early days of Hillsborough. John McNeil, who was in the Louisburg expedition in 1744-45, in the Cape Breton War, came originally from Londerry to Derryfield (now Manchester) and hence to Hillsborough. His son, DANIEL, moved to Hillsborough in 1771, and was accidentally drowned in the Contoocook at Hillsborough Bridge. His son, JOHN, was a Captain in the War of the Revolution, was in the battle of Bunker Hill and was one of the men that helped form the field the fatally-wounded Captain Baldwin, the first of the Hillsborough men to die for their country. This Captain McNeil, of whom we have just made mention, married Lucy, the daughter of Isaac Andrews, Esq. Of this marriage there were four children, viz: Mary, born July 6, 1779; General Solomon McNeil, born January 15, 1782; General John McNeil, born March 25, 1784; and Lucy, who died in infancy. General John McNeil, the third of the above children, was an officer in the War of 1812. At the age of thirty he led his regiment in the battle of Chippewa, being its major, and ranking the other officers on the field, and for meritorious conduct was breveted lieutenant-colonel July 15, 1814. In the same month General McNeil led the Eleventh Regiment in the engagement at Niagara, commonly called the battle of Lundy Lane, July 25th, just ten days after the battle at Chippewa. At this time he was breveted colonel "for distinguished valor" in this battle. He was severely wounded and made lame for life in this engagement, being hit by a six-ounce canister-shot which shattered his right knee; yet he kept in the field till the close of the engagement and a glorious victory had been won. Nor had his promotions cesaed. On the same day of the battle, July 25th, he was breveted (a second time that day) brigadier-general. In 1830 he retired from the army and was appointed surveyor of the port of Boston by his friend, President Jackson. He held this office until his death. He died at Washington, D.C., February 28, 1850, at the age of sixty-five, in the full possession of his faculties. General McNeil married a daughter of Governor Pierce, sister of ex-President Franklin Pierce. Of this marriage were a son and daughter. The daughters, Mrs. Frances McNeil Potter, relict of the late Hon. Chandler E. Potter, was born, I have been told, in Chicago, when it was a military post, when her father was in command, and that she was the first white child born on the site of that city. Miss Fanny was a brave soldier's daughter, and shared in his glory. She has been distinguished for your courage, dignity of character and cheerful disposition under every allotment of Providence. A son, named John W.S. McNeil for his father, and also the distinguished military chief under whom General McNeil held a commission, fell in Florida while leading an attack against the Indians, September 10, 1837. He was a lieutenant in the regular army, having been educated at West Point. He was killed at the age of twenty years and six months. His death closed up the line of succession in that branch of the family for transmitting the family name to posterity. Mrs. F. McNeil Potter is the only representative of the family--the fifth generation from John McNeil of Londonderry. The historian wishes her a long and happy life. MEN IN THE RANKS--Hillsborough furnished men for the ranks of the War of 1812. Among these were two well-known names to Hillsborough people, viz: GEORGE DASCOMB and DANIEL TEMPLETON. Mr. Dascomb died more than thirty years ago, a man useful in the church and in society greatly missed and lamented. Mr. Templeton lived to a good old age, and died at his son's in Cambridge, Mass, in 1881. Mr. Templeton was a conscientious Christian man, very slow in making up his mind and slower in carrying it out. He received government scrip entitling him to draw a quarter-section of government land, which he did in Michigan. When sold, the land brings to the government a dollar and a quarter an acre. He employed a professional agent to locate his land, stating his place of preference. The agent, however, did not locate where he wished; and then began his trouble--taxes upon taxes, heavy, because non-resident land is taxed heavily as a rule. He employed an agent, as I have said, and then a man to watch the agent, and after a while, getting suspicious, a third to keep an eye on both to see that they did not conspire together. He employed me to write to find out concerning the whole. I do not know who looked after me. After the War of 1812, business was for a few years very brisk. Marcy's cotton-factory added to the enterprise of the inhabitants. It employed most of the spare hands in the place and kept up the price of female help. A whole generation gave their energies mainly to the pursuits of peace. The Florida War was carried on by the regular army, in which Hillsborough had representatives. But at length the sons of those who fought in the War of 1812 have work on their hands. War between the United States and Mexico was declared to exist by the act of Mexico. An army was raised and sent into Mexico under General Zachary Taylor "to conquer a peace." It was in this war that the gallant Hon. Franklin Pierce, afterwards President of the United States, fleshed his maiden sword in the blood of Mexicans. Hillsborough was well represented in that war. In the mean time the nation has been constantly growing, from a twofold cause,--national increase from births and increase from immigration. The territory so immense occasioned differing interests in the different sections. And so it turned out that a civil war of gigantic proportions burst upon the nation in 1861. The different sections sprang to arms a separation of government, as well as of interests; on the other, to hinder the separation and preserve the Union. In this terrible war blood was poured out freely as water. Hillsborough sent her full share of brave boys, some of them, alas! never to return to dear and loving homes. The bones of some lie mouldering in Southern swamps. Some dying away or killed in battle were brought home for interment. *** WAR OF THE REBELLION [CIVIL WAR] *** Besides privates and non-commissioned officers, some were honored with commissions, and did good service in the field. One held a colonel's commission,--JAMES F. GRIMES. Colonel James Forsaith Grimes was the son of Hiram Grimes and grandson of John Grimes, originally of Deering, who removed thence with his family, to Francestown as proprietor of the hotel in that place, and thence to Hillsborough Bridge, to the place known long after as the Totherly place. The elder Grimes was a successful business man, and reared his family to business habits. Two of his sons went West, to Burlington, Iowa, and amassed each a large property. One of these, Hon. James W. Grimes, was in the United States Senate at the time of the Rebellion. At the beginning of the late Civil War, Colonel James F. Grimes, of Hillsborough, received a captain's commission, and opened a recruiting-office at the Bridge. Enlistments were secured, and the tap of the drum was a familiar daily sound and the drilling of squads a familiar sight. The military spirit was roused in boys and men, and soon there began to be companies and regiments, of which the Hillsborough boys formed a part, getting ready for the field. Colonel Grimes, then a captain of the regular army, was constantly employed for some months in enlisting and drilling volunteers and recruits for the service, and with excellent success. He went himself to the field, and, in due process of time, by meritorious conduct in the field, he rose by degrees, and at length was breveted colonel. He remained in the army till the close of the war, being in the battles of the Wilderness, and for several years after its close doing military service in the South, his faithful wife sharing in camp-life. Their second child, John, was born in camp. Hillsborough did its full share in the late war in furnishing men and money. The question is often asked, What did Hillsborough furnish for the defense of the government during the dark days of the Rebellion? The answer is ready: She furnished her full share. During the first part of the war there was a recruiting office in Hillsborough, and the waving of the Union flag was a familiar sight at the Bridge village. I subjoin a list of the distribution of men raised in Hillsborough who took part in the war, showing the number in the different regiments and other military organizations in the Union army. The following list will show the distribution of the men belonging to Hillsborough who were sent to the War of the Rebellion: Second Regiment............30 Third Regiment.............10 Fourth Regiment............11 Sixth Regiment............. 8 Seventh Regiment...........14 Eighth Regiment............10 Re-enlisted. Eighth Regiment............ 2 Ninth Regiment............. 5 Eleventh Regiment..........17 Twelfth Regiment........... 3 Fourteenth Regiment........ 1 Sixteenth Regiment........ 26 Seventeenth Regiment...... 2 Eighteenth Regiment....... 3 Cavalry................... 12 Light Battery............. 3 Heavy Artillery........... 2 Sharpshooters............. 1 Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment................ 1 Seventeenth U.S. Infantry. 5 Veteran Reserve Corps..... 9 Not reported and unknown.. 10 ------- TOTAL: 195 Killed and died from wounds, as nearly as known, forty-five. In the spring of 1877 great pains were taken to find the graves of deceased soldiers who had been buried in cemeteries in use by the town, one of which was just over the line in Deering. I will insert here the names of soldiers whose graves were then found and decorated with flowers and a flag. It will be seen that one was in the old French and Indian War exclusively, a goodly number served in the War of the Revolution, others in the War of 1812, but the largest list of those now sleeping with the dead served in the late Civil War, that nearly rent our land asunder. Since 1877 others have joined the army of the dead, as George Pritchard, the one-armed soldier citizen, and Warren Muzzey, so long the sole care of a loving and faithful wife. The following is a list of Hillsborough soldiers who served in the SEVERAL WARS of the country whose graves were decorated with flags and wreaths of flowers on May 31, 1877, and succeeding years: --French and Indian War-- William Symonds Jr. --War of the Revolution-- Samuel Symonds, Major William Symonds, William Taggart, Zachariah Robbins, Captain Isaac Baldwin, Lieutenant Ammi Andrews, William Gammell, Daniel Kellom, Nathaniel Parmenter, David Munroe, Nathan Mane, Timothy Grey, Thaddius Monroe, Lieutenant John McNeil, Colonel Benjamin Pierce, Nathaniel Colby. --War of 1812-- Simon Robbins, Eli Wheeler, Jonathan Danforth, David Livermore, Luke G. Hosley, Captain Ransom Bigsbee, Captain Dickey, Stephen Richardson, William Pope, Benjamin Putney, John Adkins, David Roach, William Burrill, George Dascomb, William H. Heath, Richard Gould, Harvey Hubbard, Isaac Murdough. --War of the Rebellion-- Harm Munroe, F. W. Robbins, Charles P. Baldwin, John H. Clement, Captain B.S. Wilson, Captain S. Gibson, William N. Clapp, William Smith, Charles G. Hall, Captain George Robbins, Solomon Buford, J.B. Raleigh, A.H. Wood, Edwin Lewis, Leonard Lewis, David Lewis, Charles T. Robbins, John Adsit, William Burrill Jr., Sergeant John Reed, Ingals Gould, L.S. Burt, Obadiah Rumrill, George Vose, Leander Eaton, Sumner McAdams, Thomas M. Carr, John Morrill, William P. Cooledge, A. Fairbanks, Richard D. Gould, William Burrill Jr. These foot up as follows: French and Indian War..................... 1 War of the American Revolution............17 War of 1812...............................18 War of the Rebellion..................... 32 ------------- TOTAL.................... 68 The writer of this article had full opportunity to learn the griefs of households for "the unreturning brave." One case is of peculiar sadness. Some young men, having served their time, having been stationed among the deadly swamps of Louisana, had at length received their discharge, and were about to return home the next day. Charles McClintock, a noble youth, who left his preparation for college to serve his country, was taken down with malaria, and left there to die and be buried hundreds of miles from his waiting and expecting friends. William Templeton, son of Daniel Templeton, was killed by a gun-shot at Petersburg. And so death came upon young Merrill, Rumrill, Reed and Wilson; young Burt came home to die. But peace, blessed peace! came at length, thank God! The scars of battle have in the main been healed, though there are hearts that will not cease, but with the end of life, to feel and mourn in secret for their dead. We, to-day, enjoy the blessings of "the Union of States," which, by their sacrifice, has been preserved. Animosities between sections are dying away. The "gray and the blue" meet together to honor the brave men who died, some for "the cause," some for "Union." They were foes worthy of each other's steel. **** INDUSTRIES OF HILLSBOROUGH **** Since the war the properity of the country has been unexampled. Immigration has rapidly increased our numbers. Hillsborough has shared in the new impetus given to business and in the coming in of foreign blood. The village at the Bridge has more than doubled since the war in its population and wealth. The principal occupation of the town, numbering sixteen hundred and twenty-three inhabitants in 1860, is that of farming in some of its various forms. The town has a strong, loamy soil, admirably adapted to the small grains and grasses; hence hay is raised in great abundance and good pasturage abounds. The land, for the most part, is too rough to admit the use of modern machinery. Most of the labor on most of the farms must be done by hand. Still, year by year, one field after another is cleared of stumps and stones to admit the use of the cultivator and mower, so that machinery is getting to be in quite common use in town. There is also along the streams some smooth and level land just adapted to improved machinery, thus greatly facilitating the work of farming. The common productions of New England are raised. More bushels of wheat to the acre are sometimes raised without difficulty than is averaged in the great West. The advantage at the West is the illimitable acreage possible in a single field rather than in the amount on a single acre. And it is so in corn. At the West, cultivation of the soil is easier than in New England, being for the most part performed with the aid of horses or mules. The land in Hillsborough, where it is thoroughly worked, where the hay and grain raised on it are mostly fed out on the same, so that ample returns may be made for what is taken off, produces bountifully. True, it is hard to till in many parts,--but it pays well for hard work; it rewards industry. The land reciprocates ever favor received. It has been truthfully said, "If you tickle her with a hoe, she will laugh with a harvest." *** DESERTION OF HILL FARMS *** A change has been going on gradually which will continue indefinitely, viz.: a desertion of the high hills as tillage land, and their conversion into pasture land. This has already been done to a great extent. The original settlers preferred the hill land as their home. It was easier cleared. The timber was not so heavy, and was usually beech and maple. The land was dryer than in the basins. The stumps would decay sooner than in wet land. The first crops were better, as the low land, in its first state, needed draining to make it cultivatable or productive. Hence they sought the hills, at least far up their sides. They could see further. They could signalize each other better in case of danger. On the whole, they chose the hill country for its supposed advantages. The ashes left upon the ground at its clearing was all that was needed for years to enrich it sufficiently to insure a good harvest. They were less liable to severe late frosts in spring and early frosts in autumn on the hills than in the villages; hence, away to the hills and ply the axe. In process of time the hills, being bared of their forests, became more dry in consequence; water sometimes is scarce or fails for a season; the soil becomes thinner from one period to another; the rain washes out the strength of the soil and bears it to the valleys; the wind drives away great portions in dust; usually it is found convenient to sell some of the hay and reduce the number of head of cattle kept on the farm without returning an equivalent; the result is, the farm grows poor and the farmer poorer. The girls are married and go to their new homes. The boys, as they become young men of age, go West or to the villages. In process of time father and mother grow old and feeble, sell out to somebody wanting a pasture, and go to the village or to live with one of the children. And so it is that farm after farm has been deserted, and the once well-cultivated farms are either growing up to forests or the process retarding by great herds of cattle roaming over them at large. Whole school districts, where once was the hum of busy life, where once were troops of laughing children playing about the house and barn, are now deserted and the buildings either taken down and removed, or, if left, are fast falling to decay and "cureless ruin." This process will doubtless go on. More than half of the inhabitants of the town are now living within a mile of the arched bridge near the mills, which gives its name to the village. These hill lands are actually depreciating in value every year, owing to two facts,--first, distance from the railroads, and, second, the natural disintegration of the soil, owing to frosts, heat and water, and its consequent subsidence to lower lands. The writer of this article knows from personal observation that in certain school districts, where once were from forty to sixty scholars, there are now only from ten to fifteen; and other districts have been reduced from forty, some to two or three, and some to nothing. Nominally, the town has seventeen whole school districts, besides the indepedent district at Hillsborough Bridge, formed in accordance with the Somerset Act; also a half-district in union with a half-district in Antrim, unless very lately the union has been dissolved. But this half-district for a considerable time furnished but one scholar. Another district in town, one larger in numbers, did not furnish, for several years, a single scholar of its own, but at length revived with one scholar and the teacher, sister and brother. From all this it can be readily seen why some of the best farmers in town have turned their attention of late in so great a degree to the milk business and, in connection with producing milk, to the making of butter for market. The usual mode of proceeding is to allow the cows to run free in the pastures during the summer. Coming in in the late fall, they are kept in stable through the winter and fed with hay and ground feed, and butter is made for the market and sent weekly by the railroad. Usually, the butter from these creameries brings at that season a good price and a sure sale during the winter months, and it is found to be more profitable than the usual way of making butter in the summer. The large farmers, after the season of milking is over, turn the cows out to pasture, reserving the best milkers for furrow cows or new milch cows the next winter, and selling the others for beef after they are well fattened. Within the last ten years Hillsborough farmers have been coming into the foreground in the matter of butter-making, and do not fear now to stand in the market-place side by side with the famous butter- makers of Vermont, who for many years threw them completely into the shade. There are many good creameries in Hillsborough; many farmers furnish a first-class article in the way of butter. I will illustrate by referring to some few individuals well known in town, without wishing it to be inferred that there are not many others equally as good, viz., Charles W. Conn, James Bickford & Son, James M. Wilkins, the Clark Brothers, the Gammells, Jeremiah Dutton, Samuel M. Baker and others for whose names I have not space, but whose sweet and yellow butter I have often tasted and know it to be good. *** FORESTRY *** Another industry which furnishes business for many men in Hillsborough is cutting and drawing wood and lumber. The forests within three miles of the railroad station in town have been notably thinned; yet the wood is constantly growing, and every year wood and lumber are drawn from greater and greater distances. On many farms the most profitable growth is the forest growth. To secure in the shortest time new timber fit ti cut, cattle should not be llowed to browse the young shoots. It should be as carefully guarded from them as a wheat-field. In a few years--if left to itself--it will be large enough for the wood-pile, or even the saw-mill. Hillsborough, especially back on the hills, abounds in forests, heavily timbered. It is thought that with all the waste, wood grows in town faster than it is used for all purposes. *** PINE TIMBER *** It may be interesting to the general reader to learn any facts in regard to the growth of pine timber in Hillsborough. It will be remembered that King George III, reserved all the white pines for the use of the royal navy. The settlers did not relish this restriction, and soon entrenched upon the King's perogative and cut pines for home use. Attempts were made to arrest men and bring them to justice for the 'crime' of stealing timber from their own land; but the neighbors would interfere with the free and unrestricted course of 'law' and 'justice,' and the sheriff was sometimes glad for leave to return unmolested 'without' his man. The writer has seen pines of great length drawn to the railroad for shipment to the navy-yards for masts, not, however for King George. The pines, except very small ones, are nearly extinct in town. *** CONTOOCOOK MILLS *** A quarter of a century ago the old cotton-factory of the Marcys had passed into other hands, and about that time JOHN B. SMITH bought and took possession and set up the business of hosiery-knitting. The old saw-mill standing near the south end of the bridge, which had sawn boards, lumber and turned out shoe-pegs by the cart-load, passed into his (Smith's) hands, and was transformed into a large and convenient factory. For a time George D. Reaseler run the south mill--the old cotton-factory-- and J.B. Smith the newly-modeled one near the bridge, but at length the north factory came into his hands, and for several years he operated both mills to the best advantage, and amassed a fortune. A few years ago the Contoocook Woolen Company was formed and now exists in active operation. In the new company by far the heaviest owner is the original owner, John Butler Smith, and next to him his nephew, a sister's son, George Edward Gould, who is also foreman and business manager in the factories. Mr. Gould is a natural mechanic, a perfect genius in putting wrongs in machinery to rights, and equally competent to manage help as machinery. He is the regulator of all the internal arrangements, and has always enjoyed the perfect confidence of the head of the establishment. The Contoocook Woolen-Mills have a high and well-deserved reputation abroad. Their goods stand among the first, if not the very first, in the market, and are not excelled. They are exactly what they are recommended to be, both as to the material of which they are made and the weight and the work that is put into them. These mills employ from fifty to a hundred hands, male and female, at remunerative wages. Besides, a great amount of work is done outside the mills,--such parts of the work as must be done by hand on undershirts, drawers and socks. In almost every house for miles may be seen the inevitable garments, since the work is easy and commands ready pay once in two weeks in money. The 15th of the month is a golden day at Hillsborough Bridge for help and the credits of help. If the Contoocook Woolen-Mills should stop work, or should cease to give out work, many would be at a loss for spending-money. It does not pay, they say, but it is better than nothing. Yes, and it is a great deal better than making white cotton shirts, all told, as is done in Boston, at the rate of six cents apiece. *** THE NEW MILL *** The hope of Hillsborough Bridge and the immediate vicinity has for many years centred on its excellent water-power,--on the work which the Contoocook might some day do for them. The Contoocook River has been regarded for a long period as the tutelary genius of the place. Only a small portion of its water-power has yet been utilized. It is believed that it might easily do all the work that it is now doing, and, in addition, turn as many spindles and drive as many shuttles as the Merrimack does at Lawrence or Lowell. Its grist-mills, saw-mills, yarn-factories, hosiery-mills and all the rest combined did not satisfy the longing minds of the people. There was something not possessed that was wanted. The project of "The New Mill" was started at length--perhaps spontaneously. It was called "The New Mill" before even the plan of it was drawn, a stone dug or a stick of timber drawn, or even cut. Shares were taken eagerly, money paid cheerfully, in hopes of having speedily a golden return. Work was commenced, the money which had been subscribed all used, and "The New Mill" was not completed. Then bonds were issued, and more money raised on these. "The New Mill" at length was finished, from the water-wheel to the ventilator,--made for no particular use, but for any use that might be needed by the purchaser or renter. "The bonds" ate up "the shares," and, like Pharoah's lean kine, were still hungry. No purchaser, no renter that would be accpeted. "Waiting, still waiting." At length "The New Mill" was sold and put to use. It has added vastly to the business of the place by employing more hands requiring to be sheltered, fed and clothes. But it has not brought back the first thirty thousand dollars that was paid out for original shares. Hillsborough Bridge has always been noted for handling "the nimble shilling." A ten-dollar bill started on its travels in the morning will make the acquaintance of a dozen pocket-books before night, in season to get back into bank within banking hours. And so it has always been that a small capital at the Bridge has been able to do a large and legitimate business. The starting up of the "New Mill," about seven or eight years ago, awoke to full action the latent energies of the place. House-building became at once a business, and lots for building purposes--always high at the Bridge, proverbially so--now rose to an unprecedented height, so that those who had lots to sell now received a part of their loss in "shares." Business of all kinds improved. The corporate name of the New Mill is Hillsborough Woolen-Mills,-- Rufus F. Frost & Co., proprietors; John Kimball, superintendent. The New Mill, even if it should get old enough to demand repairs, will always be "The New Mill." It can never grow old in the hearts of this generation. When the dam was built for this mill, John B. Smith, proprietor of the Contoocook Mills, built the north half, which he owns, and the mill privilege also, on the north bank of the river. He did this for two reasons,--one, that he might be able to control one-half of the water, if necessary, for the use of the Contoocook Mills; the other, to secure the means of running another "new mill," if he should think best at any time to do so. In former years that mill privilege had been used to advantage; it might be of advantage to use it again. Mr. Smith also owns the mill, last operated as a silk-mill on the north bank of the Contoocook, east of the bridge across the river. Factories might be successfully operated, if built, for a long distance down the river. The future of Hillsborough lies in the judicious use of the waters of the Contoocook. The river is better than a gold-mine, and there is an opportunity for great extension. The water can be conducted for a long distance down the river, and enough conveyed to carry machinery to an unlimited extent. Besides, there is abundant opportunity to hold water back in the vast reservoirs of Stoddard and in the adjacent towns, against a time of need, if such should arise. Hillsborough village is destined to be, at no distant future, a large manufacturing place. The Contoocook Mills, of years' standing, are a pledge of what it can do. *** HILLSBOROUGH (or VALLEY) ACADEMY *** It will be found, on inquiry, that about the year 1820 there was a wide-spread fever, both in New Hampshire and Vermont, for establishing incorporated academies--it was before the day of High Schools--with or without invested funds, as the case might be. Hillsborough Academy was incorporated by act of the Legislature in 1821. The first teacher was Dr. Simeon Ingersol Bard, of Francestown, a graduate of Darmouth in 1821. He came to Hillsborough directly after graduation. He was small in size, wiry, elastic in his movements, boyish in appearance, but a man every way in mental ability and scholarship. His mind was keen in analysis, and he gave a high tone to the new academy. He afterwards taught in the academy in Francestown. So youthful was his appearance that once of the citizens of Francestown, not known who it was, saw him as he was going to the academy with some large books under his arm, and accosted him,--"Sonny, how do you like your preceptor?" He was followed in the Hillsborough Academy by Rev. William Clark, D.D. of Amherst, a native of Hancock, a classmate of Dr. Bard in college, who taught several years before going to Andover, where he graduated in theology in 1827. He is well and favorably known for work in the home missionary field in the State. His brother--Rev. Samuel Wallace Clark--took his place in the academy in 1823, taught one year and then went with his brother William to Andover, from which place both graduated in theology in 1827. Rev. Jonah Peabody followed, who graduated at Dartmouth in 1825. He was followed by the brothers (in turn) Robert Reed and Solomon Heath Reed, graduates of Dartmouth. Another teacher of note was Benjamin F. Wallace, Esq. who became a veteran in the field and is well remembered in Hillsborough. Rev. Ephraim Taylor, Albert Baker, Esq., and F.B. Mussey followed in turn. The academy was at first located in a brick building at the Lower village. Having at length done its work there, and good work, too, it reappeared at Hillsborough Centre under the instruction of Rev. Elihu Thayer Rowe, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1840, who was a practical and thorough teacher, who died in 1867. Others swayed with credit the educational sceptre on the hill, and the academy did good work there for years. In 1864, taking the name Valley Academy, it reappeared at Hillsborough Bridge under the auspices of Rev. Harry Brickett, assisted by his wife. Mr. Brickett was acting pastor, at the time, of the Hillsborough Bridge Congregational Church. The pupils numbered one hundred and twenty. In 1876 Valley Academy reopened with a fall and spring term, the winter and summer terms being in the same building, under the same teachers, and known as the Union School. Rev. Harry L. Brickett, son of Rev. Harry Brickett, a graduate of Oberlin College, class of 1875, was principal, and Miss Ellen J. Brickett, a graduate of the Ladies' Department of the same institution in the same year, was assistant. For three years, from 1876 to 1879, they taught with the best of success--the schools being crowded with scholars--four terms a year. In the fall of 1879, Mr. Brickett entered Andover Theological Seminar. They were followed by Dr. Frank P. Newman and Miss Mary Ellen Whittemore, who remained one year. Dr. Newman being called from there to the position of principal of Tubbs' Union Academy, Washington, his native town, where he has since taught with great acceptance, and has made his school rank among the first. Miss Whittemore, a graduate of Bradford Academy, Massachusetts, was called from Hillsborough Bridge to Bradford, NH, where for several years she taught, with great credit, the Bradford Grammar School. Mr. B.F. Hurd, a graduate of Bates College, Me., followed, and remained three years. Miss Epps was for a time his assistant; she was succeeded by Miss Gutterson. Mr. Hurd was called from here to Francestown Academy, where he still remains, doing faithful and efficient work. A primary department was started under his administration with good success. Mr. George A. Dickey, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1880, succeeded, and is the present principal. A new commodious and elegant school-house, with four departments, has been built since Mr. Dickey's advent. Miss Jennie Breed, Miss Clara F. Potter and others are his co-laborers in educational work. Hillsborough may well feel proud of her schools. A good education is the best legacy for children. ------------------ CHAPTER IV The Scotch-Irish Element--The Professions--Law and Lawyers--The Ministry--Ecclesiastical History--Congregational Churches-- Methodist Episopal Church--Baptist Church--Independents *** THE SCOTCH-IRISH ELEMENT-- The inhabitants of Hillsborough are descendants mainly of Puritan stock; but, like other stock in good companies, it has been somewhat watered. It will be found that no nationality can claim a decided majority. It is well known, however, that form the very start there has been a liberal sprinking of the Scotch-Irish element. These were men unsurpassed in decision of character, determination, love of liberty, even to license; yet of the utmost fidelity in all social relations. They may be properly styled the defenders of the home. The Scotch-Irish originally went from Scotland to the north of Ireland, which they made their home. Very likely, there is, to a greater or less degree, an intermingling of Irish blood. Londonderry, New Hampshire, attracted the men from Londonderry and the region round about in Ireland. The Scotch-Irish predominated in that town, and sent out emigrants to help in settling other towns, Hillsborough among the rest. It is this blood that furnished most of our brave officers in the Revolutionary War and in the War of 1812, and they were not backward to volunteer to march in the ranks. It is a race that possesses in a high degree pluck and fire. It possesses the pure Scotch firmness--almost obstinacy--that is determined to fight a cause out "on the line" to the fiery blood of the Irish soldier that would charge, without flinching or turning aside, up to the very cannon's mouth. It is an exceedingly interesting class of people, as studied in their adopted homes in Ireland. They were zealous Protestants, and, in the days of James the Second, of England, they adhered firmly to the cause of William of Orange, against the tyranny of James. The story of the seige of Londonderry, Ireland, in 1689, is one of the most thrilling in history. They endured the most terrible tortures of famine, but held out till they were relieved and saved. It is the tendency of such blood to tone up society to a high level of honorable feeling. Some of the first settlers of Hillsborough came originally from Ireland. Their descendants have, as a rule, been men of probity and umblemished character. They are generous to a fault, and will divide the last loaf. Hillsborough has felt the good influence of that blood. *** THE PROFESSIONS *** The history of a town would be incomplete that left out mention of its professional men,--those who filled its pulpits, who pleaded at the bar, and administered the healing arts,--who had to do with the souls, the wills and the bodies of the people. I ought to add another class, much, at the present time, more than formerly a profession, that of teachers of youth,--those who, while dealing mainly with the minds of pupils at a tender age, really lay the foundation, either well or ill, on which the superstructure of a life, good or bad, is built. It is fair to presume that the professions are made up of men of at least average ability, but of superior mental training. LAW AND LAWYERS--Law is supposed to be the embodiment of justice and fair dealing among men. From the earliest ages of civilization there has been a class of men whose business is to know the law and be able to give sound and safe advice in regard to it. Hillsborough has been from the first the home of distinguished lawyers. Among the first practitioners was DAVID STARRETT, a native of Francestown, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1798, and a student of law in the office of Hon. SAMUEL BELL, of Francestown. He opened an office in Hillsborough in 1802. He was not regarded as a brilliant advoate, but as a safe adviser he had the general confidence of the people of the town and was confidently trusted by his clients. He resided in town ten years. He then mysteriously disappeared, never to return. In Smith's annals is a long account concerning it. JOHN BURNAM, also a graduate of Dartmouth College, a student in the office of Hon. Samuel Bell, and later of David Starrett, succeeded the latter in 1812. DAVID STEELE, born at Peterborough, September 30, 1787, graduated at Williams College in 1810, studied law with James Walker, Esq. and Hon. Charles G. Atherton, of Amherst; married late in life, Miss Catharina Kendall, of Amherst, who yet survives him, and opened an office in Hillsborough at the Bridge village in 1813. He was a useful man, both in society and in the church. He died at Peterborough many years ago, between eighty and ninety years of age. JOHN McFARLAND opened an office at the Upper village in 1815, and died in Hillsborough in 1819. TIMOTHY DARLING graduate at Harvard University in 1822, opened an office in Hillsborough in 1826 and remained in town just one year. In 1827, Hon. FRANKLIN PIERCE, of national reputation, opened a law-office in the Lower village of Hillsborough, and continued there eleven years, when he removed to Concord [NH]. He was a graduate of Bowdoin College, Maine, in 1824 at the age of twenty, and three years later was admitted to the bar in his native State. He filled many positions of public trust with dignity and honor. From 1829 to 1833 he represented Hillsborough and the State Legislature, the last two years being Speaker of the House. In 1833 he was elected to Congress, where he served ably during his two terms till 1837, when he was elected to the United States Senate. He was then the youngest member of that body, being barely of the legal age required. In 1842 he resigned his seat and returned to Concord, where he resumed his legal practice. His fluency of speech, his knowledge of law and his prominence as a public man gave him the first place at the bar of New Hampshire. In 1846 the position of United States Attorney-General was offered him by President Polk, but he declined. He also declined to run for Governor when nominated by the Democratic party in New Hampshire. His military record was one of rapid rise. Enlisting as a private in a volunteer company, he became a colonel and soon after a brigadier-general. He took a prominent part in the Mexican War, where he served with bravery and honor under General Scott. At the close of the war he resumed the practice of law in Concord [NH]. In 1850 he presided over the Constitutional Convention of New Hampshire. In 1852, at Baltimore, he was nominated, after a protacted struggle, on the forty-ninth ballot, over all competitors, as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. He was nominated in the convention by two hundred and eighty-two votes to eleven for all other candidates. When the votes of the Electoral College were counted, Pierce had two hundred and fifty-four and Scott forty-two. After 1857, which was the close of his administration, Mr. Pierce passed several years in Europe, returning in 1860. He died in Concord [NH]. It has been proposed to erect a statue to his memory, to stand in the State-House yard. ALBERT BAKER, an exceedingly popular man in the town and State, was a native of Bow, born February 10, 1810, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1834, read law with Hon. Franklin Pierce, and opened an office in Hillsborough in 1837. There have followed men of brilliant talents,--Samuel H. Ayer, an able lawyer, who was sometimes pitted against Hon. Franklin Pierce at the bar, where he acquitted himself with honor. George Barstow, a native of Haverhill, a man of good mind and scholarship, a member of Dartmouth College, but who left before graduating. He succeeded as a man of letters rather than a lawyer. He remained but a short time in town. Francis B. Peabody was also in Hillsborough a short time. Of him but little is known. Francis N. Blood, a Hillsborough boy had an office and dwelling-house at the Lower village. He was regarded as a good lawyer, and an upright and honorable man. He died of consumption, leaving a good property, which he had gained in his profession. Hon. James F. Briggs, of English parentage,--a distinguished counselor-at-law, an ex-member of Congress,--practiced at the Bridge several years, till his removal to Manchester. Charles A. Harnden succeeded Esq. Blood. He remained in Hillsborough but a short time after he was admitted to the bar. Brooks K. Webber has been in the practice of law at the Bridge since the removal of Esq. Briggs. He is considered a safe adviser in the law, and never counsels a client to incure the expense of a law-suit if he can void it by an amicable settlement. He has a good practice. A.B. Spalding, of Lyndeborough, began to practice law the latter part of 1876, and remained a little less than two years. He left under a cloud, and has since died. Willis G. Buxton studied law with Brooks K. Webber, and in the Boston Law School. He was admitted to the bar and commenced and continued several years in practice in Hillsborough. He early removed to Pennicook, where he now is in successful practice. Samuel W. Holman has been at the Bridge several years in the practice of law. He studied law with Hon. Mason Toppan, of Bradford, Attorney-General of New Hampshire. Mr. Holman is rapidly acquiring a lucrative practice. The Pierces, COlonel Frank H. and Kirk D., brothers, are located at the Lower village, and are doing a good share of legal work. Colonel Frank H. Pierce, one of the firm, has recently received the appointment of judge advocate of the Amoskeag Veterans. He has accepted the appointment of United States consul to Matanzas, Cuba. J. Willard Newman, son of James Newman, prepared under Esq. Webber, and is now a practicing lawyer in Chicago. Others may have come into town and reconnoitered, hoping to find a place to hang up a shingle somewhere; but so long as the Pierces guard the Lower village, and Webber and Holman the Bridge, interlopers may as well know that there is no room; they had better not unlimber. Hillsborough has good lawyers now, fully competent to defend the interests of all its citizens and others who may apply,-- men who are good judges of law and equity and safe advisers of their clients. THE MINISTRY--In the early settlements the ministers of the gospel did not stay long behind the pioneers, who came with axe, saw, auger, shovel and pick-hoe--to be supplemented with the plow--to clear, to build and to cultivate. Rude homes were soon constructed of hewn logs. The timber stood everywhere, and almost enough grew on the lot for buildings to make them--especially if a garden and small field were taken into account--a shelter of logs sufficient to protect the family during the house of sleep, and serve as a nucleus for the home, the dearest place on earth, whether a hut or a palace. At first there were no saw-mills and no means of awing lumber except by hand. The tools most needed and used most were axe, saw, auger and chisel. First, a home for the family; the very next, the meeting-house-- rarely in those days in New England called a church--and the next, a parsonage. The first settlement, which, on account of imminent danger from a treacherous enemy, lasted only from 1741 to 1746, nevertheless built a meeting-house and a home for a minister. As has already been said, this meeting-house was burnt, and, as it believed, wantonly, for the malicious gratification of seeing it burn. A man named Keyes, as appears from the records was at the beginning of the first settlement in 1741, joint-proprietor with Colonel Hill. His name does not appear in the records as connected with the second settlement of the town. Business troubles may have soured the mind of Keyes, of Weare, and so for revenge he may have fired the building. It was burnt. This Keyes may have felt himself wronged, and that the glass which he took out and buried was his. During the time between the years 1767 and 1779--twelve years-- public worship was held in warm weather in groves or in barns, in the coldest in private dwellings. Colonel Hill, now the sole proprietor of the town (by some means he has sloughed off Mr. Keyes), gave the town ten acres of land--now occupied at the centre of the town for the sole use of the church buildings and the cemetery--for these purposes and also for a common. In addition, he reserved from sale two hole lots of the one hundred acres lots and a part of another for the first settle minister. In the autumn of 1772 the church, concurred in by the town of Hillsborough, invited Mr. Jonathan Barnes, a licentiate, to come and settle with them as their minister and pastor. He accepted the call, came and was ordained and installed November 25, 1772. The ordination exercises were held on Bible Hill, in the barn of Lieutenant Samuel Bradford. It was no uncommon thing in that early age, and even later, to hold religious services in a barn. The writer, in his youthful days in Newbury, Vt., frequently attended meeting in barns in the summer season; indeed, himself and sisters were baptized in a barn within his personal recollection. The name, "Bible Hill" has frequently been alluded to. It is a familiar name in Hillsborough,--as well known as the Bridge, Lower, Upper or Centre village. A road from West Deering, one mile west of the Bridge village, running north and south, passes by the "Deacon Sawyer place," now owned and occupied by Gawn Mills, over a considerable hill, consisting of most excellent farming land, by the Jones, Burnham and Tuttle places. This is called "Bible Hill" common rumor has it, because the only Bible in town was owned by a family living there. Mr. Smith, who probably sifted the rumor, modestly puts it, to save the credit of the deacons of the church, that the only large Bibles in town were owned by Deacons Isaac Andrews and Joseph Symonds. I yield to that authority, and am glad to believe Mr. Smith the faithful annalist in preference ot Madam Rumor, who has sometimes proved to be mistaken. It is hoped and belieeved that there were some small Bibles elsewhere, and that they were read and obeyed. Bible Hill at that time bid fair to be the leading place in town, outranking the Bridge even. It had in it the first tavern built in town, in 1766; the first town-meeting was held there in 1772; the first ordination, in 1772; the first captain of the first military company formed in town, and its first lieutenant, lived there. The second meeting-house in town was built by the town, the same as the first, which had been burnt. The town passed a vote for the purpose of building a house of worship in May, 1773. It was carried into effect in 1779, and used thirteen years, when it was found to be insufficient for the increased congregation that was to come early every Sabbath morning and stay till late in the afternoon to listen to two long sermons, each of at least an hour's length, and prayers and singing in proportion. It was then removed from its site several rods, and converted into a school-house. As a meeting-house it gave place to another larger building, and better adapted to the wants of the town. "The new building,"--they called it--was to be sixty-two feet in length, fifty feet in width and two stories in height, with porches on three of the sides, each having a door for entrance. The raising of this large building, lifted a broadside at a time, as was the custom in those days with all frame buildings was not small affair. People came from far and near, even from distant towns, to help lift at the master-workman's call, "Heave, O heave!" and then to share in the inspiring contents of the barrle, liberally furnished for the occasion. Though professedly the building was for the Holy Spirit's dwelling, other spirits adied at the raising. This building was used as a place of worship for twenty-eight years, with no means of warming it except the ladies' foot-stoves. In the very coldest weather worship was conducted in the pastor's kitchen. Before the settlement of Mr. Barnes as pastor, religious services were conducted by the ministers of other parishes, particularly by Rev. William Houston, of Bedford, and Rev. Samuel Cotton, of Litchfield. They assisted in the organization of the first church, which gathered October 12, 1769, said to be the tenth church formed within the present limits of Hillsborough County prior to 1841, the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the town. At the ordination of Mr. Barnes, Rev. Josiah Bridge preached the sermon. I find the following town report in its vote in regard to the minister's support in Mr. Smith's annals. "Voted unanimously to fix the Rev. Mr. Barnes' salary. That we will give him thirty pounds," equivalent to one hundred and forty-five dollars and a few cents-- "by way of settlement, thirty-five pounds a year for the first four years,"--equivalent to $169.40,--"then forty pounds a year, until there shall be seventy families in town; and when there shall be seventy families, he is to be entitled to fifty pounds, whether sooner or later, until there shall be ninety families; when there is ninety families, he shall receive sixty pounds until there is one hundred and ten families; when there is one hundred and ten families, he shall receive sixty-six pounds, six shillings and four-pence, which last sum he shall continue to receive so long as he remain our minister." This last was to be the ultimatum. It will be remember that, in addition, Mr. Barnes was to receive between two and three hundred acres of land as the gift of Colonel Hill. Mr. Barnes, having sustained the pastoral relation for thirty-one years, becoming incapacitated for performing the duties of his office through paralysis resulting from a stroke of lightning, resigned his office as minister and pastor October 19, 1803, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and lived after his resignation only two years. He was esteemed as a good citizen and a good friend, a man of respectable talents and agreeable manners. As a preacher, he was regarded as leaning too strongly to what is called "the liberal side" in doctrine. He was active and laborious, working with his own hand to supply the wants which his salary, prudently used, failed to do. His heris own and occupy the homestead. Mr. Barnes married a most excellent lady,-- Miss Abigail Curtiss, of East Sudbury, Mass., in 1774, who became the mother of ten children. She survived her husband thirty-three years, dying in 1838, "universally beloved and lamented." She was esteemed by all her personal acquaintances as a true friend and a consistent Christian. Though not rich in this world's goods, she always gave something to the poor and needy, having a heart to feel for them in their poverty and want. She set the example in her early widowhood to attend meeting constantly when circumstances would permit. Her children called her blessed on account of her gentle goodness. REV. STEPHEN CHAPIN followed Mr. Barnes, and as one extreme follows another quite frequently, it is so with heat and cold as regards the weather. He proved to be very unlike his predecessor. He was ordained June 18, 1805, with a stipulated yearly salary of four hundred dollars. You note the change. English money, in which Mr. Barnes' salary was stipulated, is followed by federal money in the case of Chapin. The sermon was preached by the distinguished divine, Rev. Nathaniel Emmons, D.D. of Franklin, Mass. The selection of a minister to preach the sermon was an indication of the course Mr. Chapin would take. He was the orthodox of the orthodox. He was regarding as very rigid in his belief, and sometimes preached so as to offend. It was, however, only what he regarded as vital truth. As he regarded Mr. Barnes as leaning too far towards the liberal side, he felt called upon to lean pretty strongly in the other direction. His fidelity to what he regarded as the truth of the Bible was the cause of his dismission in a little more than a year. He was young and inexperienced, full of zeal and a real desire to do good. The zeal of the Lord's house ate him up. His farewell sermon, which was printed for distribution, was preached July 30, 1809. The reason for asking to have Mr. Chapin dismissed, as given by the committee of the church before the council, was, "Incapacity from want of health." He and his people had not become acquainted with each other, and great difficulties lay in the way of obtaining an intimate acquaintance. The people could not, or thought they could not, change from the genial ways of Mr. Barnes to the seeming severity of Mr. Chapin. There is not a doubt that Mr. Chapin was a thoroughly good man, and a better acquaintance between him and his people might have endeared him to them and secured his stay. The third pastor was another Chapin. If they could not keep the man, they would try the name again. Mr. SETH CHAPIN was called and ordained, January 1, 1812, an unlucky year, the beginning of the war between the United States of America and Great Britain. The ordaining sermon was preached by Rev. Ephraim P. Bradford, of New Boston, the pastor of a Presbyterian Church. Rev. John M. Whiton, another Presbyterian, gave the right hand of fellowship. Of this second Chapin little has come down to us. The people were too busy in attending to the state of the war to do much in the gospel line; so, after the war between the two belligerent powers was settled, they found time, on the 26th of June, 1816 to unsettle Mr. Chapin. He had become embarrased with debt. While during war-time, usually, the people grow rich, the laborer gets higher wages, the producer higher prices, the man who depends upon a state salary often gets less in amount paid than was promised, and the currency is inflated, while the price of everything he buys is doubled or nearly so. The writer knows whereof he affirms. Mr. Chapin's ministry, so far as appears on the record, was destitute of much fruit. He was a native of Mendon, Mass, an Andover graduate, and his wife a most estimable lady. The fourth pastor was not called until there had been an interrgnum of pastors of three or four years, during which time the church "lived from hand to mouth." Licentiates from the seminaries came and went, among these Mr. Jonathan Magee. He was afterwards settled pastor successively in Brattleborough Vt., Nashua [NH] and Francestown [NH], and at the close acting pastor in Greenfield, over the Evangelical Church in that town. Mr. Magee supplied the church on the hill several months in 1818. The writer sat under his preaching seven years in Francestown, from 1844 to 1851. During a few months in 1851 he was supplying the Greenfield Church. He was by no means a brilliant preacher, but very gentlemanly and courteous in his manners. On the dismission of Mr. Seth Chapin, the town voted to discontinue the practice of hiring the minister and paying his salary. The salary after that time, 1816, was raised by voluntary contribution. Next--to stay permanently--Rev. John Lawton came with his family in January, 1820, moved thereto by his own will and judgment. He was in the full strength of ministerial life, just turned forty, was a graduate of Middlebury College, and had studied theology with settled clergymen of repute, as at that time was frequently the case, and had been ordained in Windham, Vt., in October 1809. He was twice married, the last time to Miss Abigail, only daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Barnes, of Hillsborough. Mr. Lawton commenced preaching immediately on coming to town with his family,--he had supplied a few Sabbaths previously to their coming--and the next year he had gained such a hold in the hearts of the people that the church and society gave him a call to settle with them as their pastor. He accepted the call, and was installed the fourth pastor, November 9, 1821. Rev. Joel Davis preached the sermon. Rev. J.M. Whiton, of Antrim, aided in the services; the rest of the names of helpers would be the names of strangers to Hillsborough people. Rev. Mr. lawton, stayed until April 22, 1832, thirteen years, and at the end of that time asked for a dismission. He was at Hillsborough during the previous season of widespread revivals of religion, extending over New Hampshire and Vermont and elsewhere, which brought many thousands into the churches in a comparatively short time. At the time he asked for a dismission the period of great revivals was past for that time, and a period of comparative coldness and indifference was taking the place of it in many churches once exceedingly active; the reaction told upon the ministry, and was the occasion of many vacant pulpits about that time, and changing of ministers. At one time Mr. Lawton admitted about seventy members into the church as the fruits of the revival of that one year, 1827. In these extensive revivals he had the help of Rev. Ira M. Mead, who acted as an evangelist, and proved to be very serviceable in assisting the pastor. After his dismission, Mr. Lawton acted as home missionary, and as he was only fifty-four, or nearly that, he was vigorous, after resting, in prosectuing new work. It is said that while out West--resting from his long-continued and hard labors during those years of revivals--he built a wind-mill for grinding purposes. The work was admirably done. Everything seems to betoken success; all was completed except that the brakes had not been put on. There coming up suddenly a good wind, desirous of ascertaining whether it would run all right, he let on the wind. It was a perfect success; it went and went, round and round, and as there were no brakes on to retard its motion or regulate it, its velocity constantly increased, and as the wind kept on blowing without any let up for hours, the friction was so great that it wore the mill out. In the next mill he would be likely to put on the brakes before starting it. Rev. Milton Ward succeeded Mr. Lawton as the fifth pastor of the First Congregational Church in Hillsborough; commenced preaching in April 1834, and was ordained July 23d of the same year; sermon b Rev. Calvin Butler, of Windham. Other familiar names seen on the programme of exercises, such as Rev. Joseph Merrill, of Acworth, a most eloquent man in the pulpit. The writer at under his preaching while teaching during a college vacation in Wellfleet, Cape Code, Mass. Mr. Merrill made the consecrating prayer. Rev. John M. Whiton, of Antrim, a regular helper on such occasions in Hillsborough, gave the charge to the pastor. Rev. Austin Richards--who began his ministerial life in Francestown in the freshness of youth, not without his trials, some of them life-long, and who closed his ministerial life there in the feebleness of age after a long absence, supplying the church a year while the were destitute of a pastor--gave the right hand of fellowship. Rev. Daniel Stowell, then of Goffstown a man of ability, over whom a cloud gathered in after-life, made the concluding prayer. Mr. Ward was dismissed by mutual concil on nature of a change of his belief respecting "the nature and constitution of the Christian Church." He became after his dismission an Episcopalian clergyman. Before he preached at all he was a physician, a graduate of the medical college at Hanover in 1829. REV SETH FARNSWORTH next appears on the list as the sixth pastor at the Centre. He came in 1835, and supplied the pulpit one year, when he received and accepted a call to settle over the church and society. He was installed over the Hillsborough Congregational Church November 23, 1836. It was an occasion of great rejoicing at Hillsborough Bridge, inasmuch as a church building had just been completed in that village, and was to be dedicated the day of the installation. A large council and concourse of people came together to attend the double ceremony,--an installation and a dedication. There were to be two sermons,--the installation sermon, by Rev. J.M. Whiton; the dedicatory sermon, by the new pastor, Rev. Seth Farnsworth, the silver-tongued pupil orator, in the estimation of his new charge. Rev. Archibald Burgess, of Hancock,--a giant in those days, physically and mentally , among his brother ministers--had an important part, the charge to the pastor. "It was a day of triumph" at Hillsborough Bridge, never to be forgotten, to be told to children's children. The council informally advised that Mr. Farnsworth should make his home at the Bridge village, though there was no parsonage and it was difficult to rent a suitable house. He secured the house now owned and occupied by Ammi Smith, and I have been told often of the delightful prayer-meetings held in his chamber-study by him and a few praying men, one of whom would, of course, be Deacon Samuel Morrison. His labors during the winter following his installation were abundant "in season and out of season." He supplied the two pulpits, on the hill and at the Bridge, on alternate Sundays. He had inspired the people with great love and confidence in himself, when, mysteriously to all, in four months from the time of his becoming pastor by the laying on of hands, he was removed by death, March 26, 1837, and was buried with great lamenta- tions in the old burying-ground just back of Dr. Burnham's. He died in the freshness of his ministerial life, and almost before the holy oil of consecration at the Bridge was dry upon his brow. The memory of the good shall live. The name of Rev. Seth Farnsworth still lingers with affection in the hearts and memories of those who knew him, especially at Hillsborough Bridge. He was the first to occupy the new church. He was installed in it over the Hillsborough Congregational Church. He precahed the dedication sermon at the consecration of the new building. He was the first minister who made his home at the Bridge village. When he was installed he was in full health and strength, and in the freshness of early manhood. He was born in charlestown (No. 4) in New Hampshire, June 14, 1795, so that when he came to Hillsborough he was but forty years of age, and only forty-one when he was installed. He died before his forty-seventh birth day. He was brought up to believe that all, irrespectively, would be saved. After a long struggle he gave up those doctrines as erroneous, and became, it was believed, a truly converted man. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1822, and ranked fair as a scholar. He studied theology under the direction of President Tyler, of Dartmouth College, was licensed and prached at first for the Vermont Missionary Society. He preached in various places before coming to Hillsborough. He was an earnest and efficient worker, a zealous and faithful preahcer of the gospel and successful winner of souls. The disease of which he died was called "a lung fever." According to the account given concerning him, both as placed on record in "Smith's Annals" and in reports of his associates in the church,--elderly people who were visitors at the sick-bed,--he died in the full triumphs of the gospel faith. To his wife he said just before his death, "I have been swimming, swimming, yea, I have been swimming in an ocean of bliss." For his people he sent a message by the minister who was to preach, "to receive with meekness the ingrafted Word, which is able to save their souls, and that they be doers of the Word and hot hearers ony." Mr. Farnsworth was followed by Rev. Samuel G. Tenney as the seventh pastor of the Hillsborough Church. The installation sermon was preached by Rev. Nathaniel Boulton, of Concord, July 4, 1838. The next spring a new Congregational Church was formed, an offshoot from the Church by letter, at Hillsborough Bridge, and was called the Hillsborough Bridge Congregational Church. Mr. Tenney was retained at the Bridge. No mention is made in the records of an installation. The deacons were Davison Russell, who lived at the Upper village; Samuel Morrison, who lived just over the line in Henniker; Tristram Sawyer, who lived one mile west of the Bridge; and Frederick W. Symonds, who lived on Bible Hill. Mr. Tenney was a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1823, and studied theology with Rev. Walter Chapin, of Woodstock, Vt. He remained at the Bridge about four years. He was succeeded by Rev. Jacob Cummings, who was installed pastor at the Bridge November 15, 1843. He remained pastor in charge until May, 1857, when he withdrew without formal dismission from the church as pastor. He removed and died in 1866, aged, seventy-three. Mr. Cummings was followed in 1857 by Mr. Harry Brickett, a licentiate of the Manchester Association of Congregational Ministers in July, 1854. He was born in Newbury, Vt., February 1, 1818, and graudated at Dartmouth College in 1840. After graduating he taught two years in the academy in Jaffrey, at the same time studying medicine with Dr. Luke Howe, of Jaffrey, and afterwards with the medical faculty at Hanover,-- Drs. Peaslee and Crosby. He was appointed assistant demonstrator of anatomy and was also in charge of the class in dissection. He attended two full courses of lectures at Dartmouth Medical College. He went to Francestown [NH] into the academy for one term, to finish the year for a friend, and after that term stayed seven years longer as principal, and married, August 18, 1846, Miss Eliza C., a daughter of Captain Joseph Cutter, of Jaffrey. He was principal of the Brown (Latin) High school, in Newburyport [MA] from 1851 to 1853, and of the Merrimack Normal Institute [NH] founded by Professor William Russell, at Reeds Ferry, Merrimack [NH]. He was invited to come to Hillsborough in the winter of 1857, preached a few Sabbaths, and came to stay permanently in May, 1857. He received ordination, declining installation, in the First Congregational Church in Manchester [NH]. Rev. Cyrus W. Walton, then pastor, as an evangelist without charge, January 28, 1858. He remained in Hillsborough as acting pastor--made so by vote of the church in 1858--until April, 1865, a period of eight years. The church prospered under his ministry,--nearly as many as were in the church as members in January, 1858, at the time of his ordination, were added to it while he was their minister from 1857 to 1865. REV. STEPHEN MORRILL followed, coming in May 1865. Mr. Brickett preached his farewell sermon in the forenoon from the text, "Let brotherly love continue;" and Mr. Morrill his first person in the P.M. of the same day. Mr. Morrill stayed as acting pastor. During his ministry the meeting-house was moved from its location in the field to the Main Street, in the village. The people took sides, some for and some against the project, in regard to moving it, and some were offended, and Mr. Morrill did not escape censure. After resting on their oars after the dismission of Mr. Morrill at his request, the church called Rev. HENRY B. UNDERWOOD, January 24, 1871; he accepted the call February 2d, and was duly installed March 7, 1871. July 7, 1872, he resigned, "for want, as he assigned, of unanimity in the church," and was dismissed by advice of council July 16th of the same year. During the time he remained at the Bridge there was quite a religious interest and a few conversions. Among these conversions was Ammi Smith, an aged resident at the Bridge. Mr. Underwood was succeeded by Rev. JOHN BRAGDON, who came in the spring of 1873, and continued till near the close of 1875. Mr. Bragdon was an earnest worker in the Young Men's Christian Association, and he was skillful in managing young boys and gaining their affection. The desk being again vacant, Rev. HARRY BRICKETT was recalled, after an absence of almost eleven years, at the commencement of 1876, which call he accepted. He preached his first sermon the second Sabbath in January 1876. He remained about six years until August 1881 when he resigned the desk to take effect the 1st of September. Mr. Brickett officiated in all fourteen years. Rev. ABRAM J. QUICK succeeded Mr. Brickett as acting pastor of the church, commencing November 6, 1881. He closed his labors July 29, 1883. The present minister is RODERICK J. MOONEY, born in Dublin, Ireland, February 17, 1853, where he received a liberal education at the Dublin University. He received an invitation to preach at the Bridge, and came in the autumn of 1884. He is the only Congregational minister in town supplying at the Centre as well as at the Bridge. He has received a call to settle as pastor over the Hillsborough Bridge Congregational Church. The outlook for success is good; we wish him great success. We will now go back to the original church at Hillsborough Centre, which we left destitute of a pastor in 1839. On the assignment of Rev. SAMUEL GILMAN TENNEY to the service of the church at the Bridge, Rev. GEORGE W. ADAMS was called to be pastor of the Centre Congregational Church March 26, 1840. He was installed October 21st of the same year, and dismissed January 17, 1844. Rev. S. TOLMAN supplied the pulpit during the summer of 1844. Rev. ELIHU THAYER ROWE was called February 10, 1845, ordained May 28th of the same year, and dismissed, on account of ill health, November 30, 1847. Mr. Rowe was a man of great excellence of character and strength of mind. He was a classmate of the writer in college, and from a long and intimate acquaintance he knows whereof he affirms. His memory among the people on the hill will long be cherished. Rev. ROBERT PAGE was acting pastor on the hill from 1847 to 1851. He was an experienced and judicious man. Rev. Mr. Durgin, familiarly called, from the color of his face, caused by iodine pills, the "blue man," supplied from 1851 to 1853. Rev. SAMUEL H. PARTRIDGE was called May 1, 1853, ordained May 10th in the same year and dismissed April 16, 1857. Mr. Partridge was a man with the fewest possible faults. Rev. R.S. DENNIS was acting pastor over Hillsborough Centre Church, which name it assumed on the formation of the new church at Hillsborough Bridge, from May 1857 to May 1859. He was a man sound in the faith, from Connecticut, and about sixty years of age. After his ministry there was a disagreement among the people forming the society, and some were anxious to secure a Methodist preacher. The result was that students from the Methodist Bible Institute, then located in Concord, were employed during the succeeding two years. Prominent among them was Mr. Hatfield, a student of great strength and presence of mind, a good scholar and a pleasing and eloquent preacher. There was quite an interest excited on the hill on the subject of religion and several hopeful conversions, the interest reaching out into the regions beyond the hill. The new converts were formed by Mr. Hatfield into classes for instruction and preparation, to be received into the Methodist Society, at least, it was so understood. An effort was made to transfer the control of the church and society to a body of independent men, having no relation to the Congregationalist or responsibility to them, by vote of the pew-holders. This failed to be carried out, and a new church building was built in the interest of the Methodist Society. Much bitterness of feeling for the time was excited by this separation. The breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, in 1861, tended to widen the separation and deepen for the time the feeling. At this juncture of affairs, Rev. JOHN ADAMS, a wise and judicious man, of deep piety and great prudence, was called to take the helm. He was just the man for the place. Intelligent, wise, brave-hearted, true to the Union, he came and brought, by his wife council and action, peace to the troubled waters. The church prospered under his ministry, which continued from January 1, 1861 till his death, May 18, 1879. He was assisted during his sickness by HERVEY CHAPMAN, a licentiate, a young man of great zeal in the Lord's house. After the death of Mr. Adams, licentiates from the Theological Seminaries and others served for short periods of time each, as ROBERT TRUE, licentiate, through the summer of 1879. Rev. SAMUEL W. BARNUM, licentiate, supplied four weeks in the fall of 1879. DAVID JUDSON OGDEN, licentiate, supplied five months ending April 1880. Rev. AUGUSTUS ALVORD was acting pastor one year from May 1, 1880. Rev. HARRY BRICKETT, acting-pastor at Hillsborough Bridge, supplied three months in the spring and summer of 1881. Rev. AARON B. PIFFERS was acting pastor from August 1881 to June 1884. RODNEY COCHRANE supplied several weeks in the summer of 1884. Rev. RODERICK J. MOONEY became acting pastor September 19, 1884. ** METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH ** This branch of the Lord's sacramental host has had a home in Hillsborough County for about half a century, and has done good work in saving souls. There are two societies and two church buildings,-- one at Hillsborough Bridge and one at the Centre, with a good parsonage at the latter place. Owing to the itinerancy system, of course a large number of men have occupied the desks of the two parishes. The writer of this article had the personal acquaintance and brotherly intercourse with the men who filled the office of minister during fourteen years, from 1857 to 1865, and from 1876 to 1882 and he gladly bears testimony to the personal piety and excellence of the incumbents. They were, as a rule, men who were earnest in their labors for the good of the people. The place of meeting at the Bridge formerly was at the extreme edge of the same large field that contained the Congregational Church, out of the village, on a road leading from the Bridge to the Centre; but about a quarter of a century ago it was brought down and located in the heart of the village, followed, a few years later, by the Congregational Church to the same street. The church at the Centre was built near the beginning of the War of the Rebellion, and it is possible that disaffection with the Congregational Church among its own supporters may have had something to do with its erection. It seemed a pity that there should be a division at the Centre, as really the people are burdened to support two ministers. As a rule, the two churches on the hill have worshiped side by side in peace, if not always with brotherly love. It is sometimes difficult to forget the causes of separation, or of the attempts to secure, by a majority of votes, the church building of the old church for the occupancy of the new. The generation that were the actors in the matter are most of them with the departed, and the newer generation are coming up with the most kindly feelings, forgetting the old feud that sometimes embittered the feelings of the former. About a quarter of a century ago the Methodist Biblical Institute, at Concord, was in full operation, and the students ably supplied the desks. Among these Mr. Hatfield, at the Centre, was the most noted there, and William Van Benschoten at the Bridge. Others ranked high as men of talent. At the Bridge the name of Rev. Mr. Prescott if frequently mentioned as an able minister. Later, Rev. John A. Bowler, who remained three years at the Centre and at the Bridge, proved himself to be a man adapted to the place. The town showed their appreciation of his abilities and worth by giving him the superintendency of the schools--a work for which he was prepared and adapted, as he stood himself at the head of the profession as a teacher before he began to preach. The Methodist Church at the Bridge is in a prosperous condition, and is increasing in numbers and in strength. The present pastor is Rev. F.H. CORSON, who has started on his second year's labor under favorable auspices. ** BAPTIST SOCIETY AND CHURCH ** Another church building stands between the two villages, in which worship, at longer or shorter intervals, is held, sometimes for several months at a time. It is a convenient building for the purpose designed, and has been kept by private liberality in good repair. The sheds for horses have disappeared. It was built in May, 1813, and a Baptist society supported preaching here several years. Quite a number of different persons acted as preachers to the society. A church, at first of sixteen members, was organized. Among the prominent and familiar names is Rev. John Atwood, of New Boston, who became its acting pastor in 1837 and stayed three years. In the same year an Independent Baptist Church was organized, and Rev. John Atwood became its pastor and held the office some years. ** INDEPENDENTS ** In addition to the churches already named, other classes of worshipers have occupied Odd-Fellows' Block more or less on the Lord's Day. The Catholics have meetings at stated times. Since the erection and starting of "The New Mill," a large number of Catholic worshipers have moved into the place. The Universalists also hold meetings in the hall. Spiritualists also are addressed from the same platform. Hillsborough tolerates the broadest freedom in religious matters. Brethren of different religions live and labor side by side in the greatest amity. The masses of the people have but little choice between religions. The golden rule is very widely professed. ------------ CHAPTER V Social Organizations and Lodges--Physicians--Dental Surgery-- Educational--College Graduates--The Fuller Public Libary--Valley Bank-- The Press--Stage-Routes and Stage-Drivers--Stores and Shops-- Town Officers--Closing Remarks ** SECRET ORGANIZATIONS** I can only briefly refer to the various lodges in Hillsborough HARMONY LODGE, No. 38, OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS--Is a flourishing society. Its place of meeting monthly is in Newman's Block. W.H. Story, at the present time, Worshipful Master; C.H. Quinn, Senior Warden; R.C. Dickey, Junior Warden, C. Cooledge, Treasurer; D.W.C. Newman, Secretary. VALLEY LODGE, No. 43, INDEPENDENT ORDER OF ODD-FELLOWS--Meets Friday evenings. Officers,--Noble Grand, H. Proctor; Vice-Grand, G.H. Travis; Secretary, P.H. Rumrill; Treasurer, I. Putney. HILLSBOROUGH LODGE, No. 17, KNIGHTS OF PYTHIAS--Weekly meeting on Monday, at Castle Hall. Officers,--E.C. Black, Chancellor Commander; C.M. Glawson, Vice-Chancellor; J.H.T. Newell, Keeper of Records and Seals; G.W. Lincoln, Master of Exchequer. SENATOR GRIMES POST, No. 25, GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC--Meetings fortnightly, seonc and fourth Wednesdays in each month. Officers,-- H.P. Whitaker, Commander; John Buswell, Senior Vice-Commander; C.C. French, Junior Vice-Commander; J.F. Grimes, Quartermaster, J.H. George, Adjutant. BEACON LODGE, No. 34, INDEPENDENT ORDER OF GOOD TEMPLARS--Meeting in Knights of Pythias Hall every THursday evening. I cannot give the officers. VALLEY GRANGE, No. 63, PATRONS OF HUSBANDRY--Meetings monthly, on the Tuesday before the full moon, in Congregational vestry. Officers,-- M.M. Hadley, Master; W.E. Gay, Secretary; O.B. Huntley, Treasurer. NORTH STAR ENCAMPMENT, INDEPENDENT ORDER of ODD-FELLOWS--Meets second and fourth Tuesday in each month. Officers,--L.G. Pike, Chief Patriarch; C.H. Quinn, Scribe; W.B. Pritchard, Treasurer. *** PHYSICIANS *** The number of those who commenced "the healing art divine" in Hillsborough may almost be called a legion. Previous to 1840 there had been eleven as follows: William Little, Joseph Munroe, Benjamin Stearns, Joshua Crain, Luther Smith, Reuben Hatch, Mason Match, Thomas Preston, Simeon Ingersoll Bard, Nahum Parker Foster, Abraham Hazen Robinson. Some of these were men of ability and success in their profession. DR. LUTHER SMITH has been highly commended as a fair, honorable and liberal man in the profession. He commenced practice at the Bridge in 1809, and died in 1824, at the age of thirty-seven. DR. REUBEN HATCH practiced in Hillsborough twenty-four years, and removed to Griggsville, IL. Dr. THOMAS PRESTON was a native son of Hillsborough. His father was one of the decided free-thinkers in the town, having caught the spirit from the French, who were here to help us during the War of the American Revolution. The doctor imbibed his principles and defended them. He was a fair-minded, honorable man in all his dealings. Dr. SIMEON I. BARD was one of the most learned in his profession, but was fond of change. He practiced in town five years and removed. Dr. ELISHA HATCH, a native of Alstead, was born July 17, 1796; studied with Drs. Twitchell and Adams, of Keene; graduated at Dartmouth Medical College; was skillful and honorable in his profession, and was accidentally killed by a fall from the high beams of his barn in 1863, aged sixty-six. In 1841, ABEL CONANT BURNHAM opened his office in town, beginning at the Centre in February of that year, and removing to the Bridge in October of the same. For forty-four years the doctor has remained faithful at his post, and seems now to have, if not all the vigor and endurance, yet all the enthusiasm, love of his profession and fidelity to his trust of a young man, and certainly the ability to inspire greater confidence than he could himself have believed at the start. He had the best of advantages for fitting himself for his profession. Having obtained a good academic education at the academies of Francestown, Pembroke, and Hillsborough, he commenced the study of medicine with the late Dr. ELisha Hatch, of Hillsborough, with whom he remained two years. The third year he was with Dr. Amos Twitchell, of Keene, one of the most eminent surgeons of his age. He attended three regular courses of medical lectures,--one at Woodstock, Vt., and two at Hanover, at the Dartmouth Medical College. He took his last course and degree in the fall of 1839; public notice thereof was given by the president of the college on Commencement Day 1840. The year following he studied in connection with city hospitals, and afterwards spent a season at the University of New York, attending medical and clinical lectures in the city hospitals, the Eye and Ear Infirmary, and spending his evenings, and other spare hours in the dissecting rooms. Dr. Burnham came into the profession fully "armed and equipped as the law directs," prepared to stay, and he has stayed at the Bridge while the tide of medical practitioners has flowed and sometimes rushed by in an almost constant stream. In 1841 only Drs. Hatch, Preston--then an old men--and himself were practicing in town. He has and has had honorable competitors,--some noble men in the profession, some for a longer, some for a shorter time,--yet he has held a firm seat. Dr. JOHN GOODELL succeeded Dr. Hatch in 1859, Dr. Hatch leaving his practice and beautiful home at his place between the two villages, near the Baptist Church, which Dr. Goodell at once occupied. It was an unfortunate move for Dr. Hatch. While at the Bridge he bought the Esquire Steel place, into which he moved, and where himself and family were beginning to enjoy themselves, when he met with a sudden death, as above mentioned. He lived after he came to the Bridge four years. Dr. Goodell has somewhat impaired health, arising from injuries received from being thrown from a carriage. He has all the practice he cares for, and is respected and trusted. Dr. J.Q.A. FRENCH came into town soon after Dr. Goodell, and settled at the Upper Village. He has a large circle of patronage, extending especially into Washington. Dr. B.H. PHILLIPS came to the Centre in December 1841, and left in October 1842. He was succeeded by DR. SWETT, who died in the course of a year or two. DR. WILKINS came, and in a few months died. Dr. B. LYFORD came in about 1848 and stayed a few years and went away, and has since died. Dr. SKINNER came, went and in a short time he also died. DR. GEORGE PRIEST, a native of the Centre, son of Benjamin Priest, once a pupil of the writer at the academy, remained for a time after his graduation, and is now at Manchester-by-the-sea in successful practice, living all these years in single blessedness. Dr. CHARLES HARTWELL, a native of the town, practiced a few years and died. DR. CHARLES GOULD, a native of the town, practiced a couple of years at the Centre and three or four more at the Bridge village, and removed from town. Dr. JOSEPH PARSONS camed about 1855, remained four or five years and died. DR. EDWARD P. CUMMINGS, son of Rev. Jacob Cummings, at one time pastor of the Congregational Church at the Bridge, came about 1855, remained two or three years in practice, and removed to Francestown, and stayed two or three years. At the breaking out of the Civil War, he enlisted as surgeon in the navy, returned to Newburyport, his home, sickened and died. He was a true-hearted man. Dr. CONSTANTINE C. BADGER succeeded Parsons, and remained for a few years, left and died. DR. J.P. WHITTLE practiced a short time in Hillsborough, where he married, and then moved to Weare, where he has had quite an extensive practice for the last quarter of a century. Dr. ISRAEL P. CHASE, homeopathic, has been in town about thirty years, and has a fair share of practice, more than he sometimes feels able to do. He once published and edited "The Hillsborough Messenger," with great acceptance to the public. Dr. GEORGE W. COOK was in practice in town two or three years. He was followed br Dr. MARCELLUS H. FELT, who came in about 1876 and has remained to the present time. Dr. Felt is a popular man in town, and has gained quite an extensive practice. I ought to mention the name of HARVEY MUNROE, a pupil of the writer, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1858, from the Medical Department of the same in 1860, practiced some in town, but eventually settled in East Washington, and after successful work for about two years, died in 1863, aged thirty-one. After his death his widow, Mrs. Munroe, studied the science of medicine, attended medical lectures and entered upon a successful practice. The present practitioners of medicine in town live together in entire harmony. Drs. Burnham, Chase, Felt, Goodell and French have each a medical parish of his own, and there is no attempt to get practice away from one another. Their homes are but starting-points from which they ride long distances to their patients in town and out. In medicine, as in theology, there are distinct schools. The historian, as a man, may have his preferences, but not as a historian. The two schools--allopathic and homeopathic--have lived and practiced side by side in Hillsborough without the local disturbance which is felt in some adjoining towns. In one town, within ten or twelve miles' ride of Hillsborough, a practitioner of one school wanted to hire some one by the month to help him hate a certain other person, who, he thought, interfered with his business, to get his practice for the other side, whether the patient should die or get well. No such wrangling in Hillsborough. Dr. ISRAEL P. CHASE came to Hillsborough Bridge from Henniker, where he had been in practice, and had at one time an extensive practice, both in Hillsborough and in Henniker, from which place he had just come. Dr. Chase is a genial man, especially in the sick-room, though bluff enough outside. ** DENTAL SURGERY ** Hillsborough has been distinguished for practitioners in the art of dental surgery. A quarter of a century ago the forceps, drill and burr were skillfully handled by Dr. S. BALL, naturally a perfect gentleman, and of great skill in his profession. DR. FRANK P. CAREY once had an office and an extensive practice in town. Dr. FRANK P. NEWMAN also worked here for a while, and DR. WHITTLE. Dr. S.O. BOWERS, has, however, held the ground against all comers, and is a most successful practitioner in his art. Others come and go, but he--like Dr. Burnham-- comes and stays. Dental surgery has greatly improved as an art within the last ten or fifteen years. The use of anaesthetics has been of great service in preventing suffering in the extraction of teeth. *** EDUCATIONAL *** DISTRICT SCHOOLS--Hillsborough, from the commencement of its permanent settlement, has paid commendable attention to the education of its children. At the first settlements were made on the hills in preference to the low lands, as the soil was drier and the timber more easily cleared. It was owing chiefly to these facts that the remote parts of the town, for the most part made of high hills, were settled so early in its history. Fifty years ago, the outlying districts were very large, not only in territory, but in the number of pupils of age to attend school. Some then contained sixty pupils, where now are less than one-fourth of that number; and others then contained from forty to fifty, where now not over a half-dozen are living. One district, once quite large, became so reduced to one scholar belonging to the district; another, called the Sulphur Hill District, had for several years not a single scholar in it, but rallied at least with one scholar of its own and a borrowed one. While the schools in the outer districts have grown smaller and still smaller, the schools in the Upper and Lower Village Districts and at the Bridge have greatly increased in numbers. COLLEGE GRADUATES--Hillsborough has sent out, during its existence as a town, a goodly number of young men to receive a liberal education at colleges and higher seminaries. Not a few also of her young women have gone abroad for higher education. Her first graduate from college was ABRAHAM ANDREWS, who prepared for college under his uncle, Rev. Ephraim P. Bradford, of New Boston, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1811, and became an eminent teacher. COLONEL BENJAMIN KENDRICK PIERCE, eldest son of Governor Benjamin Pierce, entered Dartmouth College in 1807, a classmate of Andrews and at the end of his third year left college and commenced the study of law, which also he left, at the breaking out of the War of 1812, for the army, which he entered with the rank of lieutenant, in the Third Regiment of artillery. He was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Third Artillery in the regular army, and remained until his death. He was distinguished for bravery in the field. REV. FRANCIS DANFORTH graduated at Dartmouth College in 1819. Studied theology at Andover Theological Seminary, and became an efficient Congregational minister. REV. AARON FOSTER graduated at Dartmouth College in 1822, and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1825, became a home missionary, and died November 15, 1832, aged thirty-seven years. AMASA SYMONDS entered Dartmouth College in 1821, and died at his father's house the next year. Lieutenant AMOS B. FOSTER, born July 15, 1804, was educated at West Point, from which he graduated in 1827. He entered service in the regular army and was brutally murdered by a private whom he reprimanded for disorderly conduct at Fort Howard, Green Bay, February 7, 1832 at the early age of twenty-seven years and six months. It was a sad and tragic event, which is circumstantially related in Smith's annals. The next graduate in point of time was ex-President Franklin Pierce, the fourth son of Governor Benjamin Pierce, born November 23, 1804, and graduated at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me., in 1824. He obtained a good liberal education and the president's name to his diploma, but something which he regarded of vastly greater value, the hand and heart of the president's youngest daughter, Miss Jane M. Appleton, who proved to be both the ornament and honor of his home, whether in his unostentatious one in Hillsborough, or in the more conspicuous one at the White House, in Washington. Rev. HENRY JONES graduated at Darmouth College in 1835, and married, the next year, Miss Betsey, daughter of Eliphalet Symonds, of Hillsborough, and became a teacher. His brother, REV. WILLARD JONES, graudated at the same time and place, and also from the Theological Seminary at Andover. He was ordained missionary of the American Board of COmmissioners for Foreign Mission, July 4, 1839 and was married at the same time to Miss Miriam Pratt. EDWARD R. JOHNSON entered Dartmouth College in 1880, and remained tow years. JOHN APPLETON BURNHAM graduated at Amherst College in 1833, and went into manufacturing business at Manchester [NH]. JOEL BUCHANAN STOW, son of Deacon Joel Stow, of Stow Mountain fame, graduated at the Teachers' Seminar, Andover, Mass., and became himself a teacher in the West. REV. LEVI SMITH graduated at New Hampton and studied theology there. CLARK COOLIDGE, son of Lemuel Coolidge, entered the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn., and died during his college course, July 1840. GEORGE HARVEY MUNROE, son of Colonel Hiram Munroe, who was one of the leading men of the town for many years and a man of strong qualities of character, graduated at Darmouth College in 1858, and in the Medical Department of the same college in 1860, and practicing a short time in his own town and in East Washington, died in the last-named place. He was a young man of superior scholarship and his prospects of success in life were very fair. ALFRED B. DASCOMB, son of George and Mary Dascomb, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1858. He engaged successfull in teaching a few years, took a private course in theology and entered the Congregational ministry, of which he continued an ornament and strong helper. His services in Vermont and Massachusetts have been and are acceptable to the people to whom he ministers and to all who are personally acquainted with him. JOHN B. SMITH fitted for college at Francestown Academy, and for a time wavered between a collegiate and professional life and a mercantile one; the latter carried the day. WARREN McCLINTOCK, son of Luke McClintock, graduated at Darmouth College in 1864, and entered at once upon the work of teaching as a profession. He was a young man of great promise, the oldest son in the family. He fell by consumption in 1871, aged thirty-three years. A brother CHARLES, was fitting to enter college, but on the breaking out of the Civil War, enlisted with other Hillsborough young men and did good service, and were about to start for home, he sicked and died from malaria, and his remains lie among the swamps of Louisiana. James Henry McClintock, a third brother, entered Dartmouth College and graduated in the same year that Warren died, in 1871, and he also died of consumption the same year, aged twenty-six. A younger brother, John C. McClintock, a faithful and enterprising fireman and engineer, avoided the classics and following railroading, so as to be out in the open air; he, too, fell in early life a victim to the same fell disease, consumption. They had five sisters by the same mother, and all but one have gone in the same way. One sister, ABBIE SAWYER McCLINTOCK, graduated at the Appleton Academy, New Ipswich. FRANK H. PIERCE graduated at Princeton College, and was early admitted to the bar. He has been engaged in the practice of law since that time, at Concord and in his native town. His brother, KIRK D. PIERCE studied law and is in successful practcie in the Lower village. The Pierce brothers, both young men from the best stock, are bound to succeed. Hosts of friends are wishing them long, onward strides in a high and noble career. Age and experience develop new and higher qualities. They are aiming high, and will not be hindered from climbing to a high position. SAMUEL T. DUTTON, son of Deacon and Mrs. Jeremiah Dutton, graduated at Yale College. Since his graduation he has been a successful teacher, and is now superintendent of schools in New Haven, Conn [CT]. He married Miss Nellie North, daughter of John North, Esq., of New Haven. His brother SILAS DUTTON entered Yale College a few years later, and stood high in his class as a scholar; but in his third year he succumbed to the power of disease and fell by the way, mourned by friends, both in and out of college. Their sister Mary has received the excellent advantages of the New Haven schools. MRS. MARY ISABEL TOWLE, nee WARD, daughter of George B. Ward, after attendance at other schools, graduated in a select school in Boston. JACOB B. WHITTEMORE, son of the late William B. Whittemore, graduated at Phillips Exeter Academy, and for a time was a student at Yale College. His sister, Miss MARY ELLEN WHITTEMORE, gradudated at Bradford Academy, Mass, and has since been a successful teacher at Hillsborough Bridge, and also in Bradford NH. Others, at about the same time, received the advantages of a high academical education, but the dates are not at hand to make a correct record. Among those who were pupils of the writer, long ago, in the Francestown Academy, who have been an honor to their native town by their useful lives, he remembers the Misses Munroe, of several families, Miss Print, Miss Town, Drs. Munroe and Priest, Miss Eliza Smith, Miss Butler, the Marcy brothers and others whose names it would be a pleasure now to write. Not a few of these are among the honored dead. HARRY L. BRICKETT, son of Rev. Harry and Eliza C. Brickett, graduated at Oberlin College in 1875. He taught from 1875 to 1876 at Schroon Lake NY. From 1876 to 1879 he was principal of Valley Academy and the Union School, at Hillsborough Bridge. In 1879 he entered Andover Theological Academy graduating in 1882. While in his senior year in the seminar he was called to the present pastorate at Lynnfield Centre Mass, where he is now entering upon his fourth year of active service. ELLEN J. BRICKETT, daughter of Rev. Harry and Eliza C. Brickett, graduated from the Ladies' Literary Department of Oberlin College in 1875. She taught with her brothers in Valley Academy and the Union School, at Hillsborough Bridge from 1876 to 1879; in Deering Academy from 1879 to 1880; in Hooksett, NH in the grammar school from 1880 to the present time, this being her fifth consecutive year in that school. JULIA E. BRICKETT, daughter of Rev. Harry and Eliza C. Brickett, graduated at East Lake George Academy, NY in 1875; died at Hillsborough Bridge in 1876, aged seventeen. MARY I. BRICKETT, youngest in the family, graudated at Abbot Academy, Andover, Mass., in 1884 and resided with her parents in Thetford, Vt. ADA BUXTON, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Buxton, graduated at Tilton Seminary in 1884. She has had a large and successful experience in teaching for one so young. REUBEN W. LOVERING, son of Reuben and Martha A. Lovering, entered Harvard University in 1880. He stood among the highest in scholarship and in manly exercisees, earned large sums of money in tutoring and had the fairest prospects of achieving the greatest success. Alas! who can read a single page in advance in the great book of human life? Within a few weeks of the time of graduation he sicked and died, "the only son of his mother, and she a widow." FRANK WYMAN, youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. S.D. Wyman, entered Harvard University in 1882, and has taken high rank as a scholar. LIVY WHITTLE, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Whittle, is also at Harvard, taking a special course. CLARA F. POTTER, only child of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph H. Potter, took a special course in a select school in Manchester. Since then she has been constantly engaged in teaching in her own town, with marked success. ANGIE I. MARCY graduated at Cushing Academy in Massachusetts, and has since had full employment, at remunerative wages, in teaching. COLONEL J.F. GRIMES has several sons away in institutions of learning. Of these, James W. is fitting for college at Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts. MARION A. MOORE is at Framingham Normal Institute; AMY L. STORY and her brother, FREDERICK G. STORY, CORA PEASLEE and her sister and CORA M. KIMBALL are at different institutions of learning; HAMMOND J. DUTTON and GEORGE EBEN WYMAN are graduates of the English Department of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass; WILLIAM DOW, son of S. Dow and Ursula Rosette Wyman, is a graduate of Colby Academy, of New London. He is now in the insurance business in Chicago, IL. *** THE FULLER TOWN LIBRARY *** Mark Fuller, at his death, left in his will to the town of Hillsborough the sum of two thousand dollars for the use of a town free library, on condition of keeping in repair, from year to year, perpetually, the family burial-plot in the cemetery between the Lower and Upper villages. The trustees were to be as follows: The three selectmen of the town, ex-officio, and two others, the first one to be elected for two years and the other for one--one going out and a new one elected each succeeding year. The town accepted the gift on its conditions, and chose Charles W. Conn for two years and Rev. Harry Brickett for one year. The trustees organized and chose S.D. Wyman secretary and established the library; Jacob B. Whittemore donated twenty-five dollars in the rent of a room for the first year. Books were purchased and a catalogue made out and printed, the library-room fitted up for use and Willis G. Buxton appointed librarian. The Fuller Town Library was duly launched, and went into operation as a circulating library. The town, at every annual meeting, has added one hundred dollars each year for the purchase of books, in addition to the income of the fund. Mrs. Mark Fuller, at her death, left in her will a large additional sum for the use of the library. The Fuller Public Library is open every Saturday from 9 to 12 A.M., and from 6:15 to 9 o'clock PM and is free to all residents of the town over twelve years of age. ** VALLEY BANK ** From a written report of the cashier, John C. Campbell, Esq., to the publisher of the history, we learn the following facts: "1st, Valley Bank (State) was chartered July, 1860, and organized October 1, 1860. 2d, Directors, John G. Fuller, Ammi Smith, John G. Dickey, James F. Briggs, Joshua Marcy, S.D. Wyman, F.N. Blood. 3d, President, John G. Fuller; Cashier, John C. Campbell. 4th, Stephen Kendrick was chosen president June 24, 1861, to succeed John D. Fuller, deceased. In December, 1868, the first National Bank of Hillsborough was chartered and subsequently organized by the choice of Stephen Kendrick, Stephen D. Wyman, James F. Briggs, George Noyes, Jonas Wallace, James Chase and E.P. Howard, directors. Capital, fifty thousand dollars. President, Stephen Kendrick; Cashier, John C. Campbell. At the death of Mr. Kendrick, in August 1884, James F. Briggs was chosen to succeed him. Present officers,--President, James F. Briggs; Cashier, John C. Campbell; present Board of Directors, James F. Briggs, Abel C. Burnham, George D. Ward, Charles W. Conn and John F. Jones. Surplus and undivided profits, $11,074.14." *** THE PRESS *** The first newspaper issued at Hillsblrough Bridge was called "The Weekly News," and sent out in the fall of 1859 by John K. Flanders, assisted financially by J.H.T. Newell. THrough failures and other discourage- ments the paper passed through other hands in rapid succession, Mr. Newell all the time keeping his eye and hand on it to see that its money value did not escape him. In process of time it passed into Joe H. Potter's hands, who was a practical printer and did job-work. Mr. Boylston said the "late," but he is selling furniture now at Hillsborough Bridge. The editor was mistaken. The following I quote verbatim from Mr. Boylston's excellent, "History of the Press." "The Hillsborough Messenger was commenced in December 1867, by William H. Sargent, who continued its publication until June, 1875, when it passed into the hands of James P. Chase & Co., The senior of the firm was Dr. J.P. Chase, who in early life had been a practical printer, and whose advice was of great advantage to his son, the junior partner. In their hands the paper prospered and betockened success, which was clouded by the sudden decease of the junior partner, who was a great favorite in the community Dr. Chase continued the paper, adied by Prof. Harry L. Brickett, until Feb. 1, 1877, when, by sale, it passed into the hands of Edwin C. Holton and Edward J. Thompson. Mr. Holton assumed the editorship,--aided also by Prof. Brickett,--and Mr. Thompson, a practical printer, the direction of the office. In July, 1879, Mr. Thompson retired, and Messrs. Holton and Ferry assumed the conduct of the paper." Soon after Mr. Holton sold out his interest to Mr. Ferry, who then assumed sole control. In 1882, Mr. Charles W. Hutchins, foreman of the office, bought out Mr. Ferry, and now successfully manages the paper. It takes a high rank among the local papers of the State. Colonel L.W. Cogswell, of Henniker, who well knows how to wield the editorial pen, is local editor of Henniker, and has added by his work to the circulation and interest of the paper. Dr. Chase struck the right key in excluding from the paper, when under his control, everything not suited for a family paper. Those who have since him wielded the editorial pen and scissors have imitate his example. Mr. Hutchins spares no pains or expense in raising the character of "The Hillsborough Messenger." Everyone who has lived in the town on going away to live, takes with him the paper. He feels that is a necessity, something he must have. Mr. Hutchins has won many true friends. ** STAGE ROUTES and STAGE-DRIVERS ** In former years Hillsborough Bridge was noted for the number and excellence of the stage-routes starting from it and centering there. The completion of the railroad to WInchendon and to Keene has made a change. As it is, three, and sometimes four, lines start out from the Bridge,--one through the Centre to East Washingtin and Bradford; one through the Lower and Upper villages to Washington (some of the time to Deering); and one, from time immemorial under the care of Hatch Burnham, formerly through to Keene, but now only to Stoddard. In the olden times famous drivers cracked the whip and held the ribbons; among others, the fearless Jackson, and Smith, with the stiff knee, but level head. *** STORES AND SHOPS *** Whatever is wanted for home consumption can be obtained in Hillsborough "at cost and more, too," and whatever is offered for sale and finds purchasers can be found in all the stores, and when one is out of a given article, by some means, in a very short time the rest are "out of it," too. It is a good place for trade, and there is a wide country from which to draw custom. There is one thing to be noted,--the same firms continue year after year for a series of years. The oldest firms are Dutton & Morse, I.S. Butler, Horace Marcy and Morrill & Merrell. There are some smaller stores. Miss Sara Farrar has kept a millinery-shop for years and Mrs. Robert C. Dickey has kept one for the last four years. Henry C. Colby keeps, in the Newman Block, the best assortment of stoves and tin-ware. The Kimballs and Pickering wield the cleaver and deal in meats, and a shop for almost anything can be found in Hillsborough. Hillsborough has been noted for many years for having a good assortment of drugs and medicines. Horace Marcy keeps a drug-store in connection with dry-goods. Robert C. Dickey is known far and wide as one who is master of the pestle and mortar, the alembic, retort, and crucible. Mr. Dickey's predecessor, Mr. Goodale, was a skillful druggiest. The late Wm. B. Whittemore once dealt in medicines in the drug-store. Hillsborough has its silversmith; W.H. Story keeps an assortment of silverware, and does repairing neatly at short notice. Fancy stores of various kinds are kept at the Bridge village. A five and ten-cent counter is the attraction at William J. Marsh's store, in Butler's Block. *** VALLEY HOTEL *** Hillsborough Bridge has been noted for good hostelry for at least the last quarter of a century. Oliver Greenleaf was among the most noted as an inn-keeper. He had the faculty of pleasing the traveling public in a wonderful degree. He was succeeded by others for short terms. The Childs Brothers kept the Valley Hotel with great acceptance to the public for several years. The present proprietor is Charles G. Putney. His rooms and tables are well filled. Hillsborough waited a long time, sometimes impatiently, for the "New Mill." it is beginning to wonder when the promised new hotel will take the place of the old one, with ample accomodations for the crowd that will certainly fill it to its utmost capacity. When that takes place, the new "History of Hillsborough," about to be forthcoming under the auspices of the town, will devote a paragraph in mention of it. "To fulfill all righteousness" to make the history complete, a list of town officers is subjoined. The curious may read, the indifferent pass it over unread. It will be interesting, at least, to those who ancestors served the town in the early days. One can but notice that, as a rule, the early settlers were men of character and general intelligence. Men who were lacking in noble, yea, in great qualities, rarely undertake so perilous a work as founding a new State or town. Very often it is the very best portion of the community that embark in such an enterprise. The "Mayflower" and its consorts of the deep brought over some fo the best blood in England to settle in the wilds of the New World. Some of the noblest men in Massachusetts followed or led rather in the work of building the new town of Hillsborough from 1741 to 1767. *** TOWN OFFICERS *** TOWN CLERKS Year // Name // # years served 1772. Isaac Andrews. 3 1775. Joseph Simonds. 1 1776. Samuel Bradford. 1 [Capt. Bradford died in August 1776, and William Pople was elected his successor as first selectman and town clerk for the remainder of the year] 1777. William Pope. 1 1778. Timothy Bradford. 1 1779. Samuel Bradford Jr. 1 1780. William Pope. 1 1781. Isaac Andrews. 5 1786. John Dutton. 7 1793. Enos Towne. 1 [Enos Towne died in 1795 and John McColley succeeded him for the residue of that year] 1794. Calvin Stevens. 11 1805. Elijah Beard. 3 1808. Andrew Sargent. 8 1816. James Wilson. 7 1823. Andrew Sargent. 7 1830. Thomas Wilson. 2 1832. Jonathan Beard 3 1835. Amos Flint. 6 1841. Jotham Moore. ?7 MODERATORS OF THE ANNUAL TOWN-MEETING Year // Name // # years served 1774. Timothy Wilkins. 1 1775. Joseph Symonds. 1 1776. Daniel McNeil. 1 1777. Andrew Bixby. 1 1778. James Symonds. 4 1782. James McColley. 1 1782. Joseph Symonds. 9 1792. Benjamin Pierce. 9 1801. Otis Howe. 1 1802. Benjamin Pierce. 1 1803. John Dutton. 2 1805. Benjamin Pierce. 5 1810. David Starret. 1 1811. Benjamin Pierce. 3 1814. Nehemiah Jones. 1 1815. John Burnam. 8 1823. Luther Smith. 1 1824. John Burnam. 1 1825. Reuben Hatch. 3 1828. Franklin Pierce. 6 1834. Amos Flint. 1 1835. Thomas Wilson. 1 1836. Nahum Foster. 1 1837. Hiram Monroe. 4 1841. Albert Baker - SELECTMEN Year // Name // # years served 1772. Isaac Andrews, John McColley, Daniel McNeil, Isaac Baldwin, William Pope. 3 1775. Joseph Symonds, Samuel Bradford Sr., John McClintock. 1 1776. Asa Dorson, Archibald Taggart, 1; William Pope, 2. 1777. John McColley, Moses Steel, 1. 1778. Timothy Bradford, Daniel McNeil 1; Samuel Bradford Jr. 2 1779. Ammi Andrews, James McColley, 1. 1780. William Pope, Jacob Flint, 1; Calvin Stevens 2. 1781. Isaac Andrews, John McClary, 1; Archibald Taggart 2; John Dutton 12. 1782. The first three of the five elected in 1781 constituted the board in 1782. 1783. Isaac Andrews Jr. 1. 1784. James McColley 1. 1785. William Taggart 1. 1786. John Bradford, William Symonds, 1. 1787. William Taggart 1. 1788. Isaac Andrews Jr., Paul Cooledge, 1. 1789. John McColley 2. 1790. John McClary 2. 1791. Isaac Andrews 2. 1792. John McColley 3 1793. Enos Towne, Solomon Andrews 1; [Enos Towne died in the year 1793, and John McColley was chosen to serve in the office of town clerk and first selectman for the rest of the year] 1794. Calvin Stevens 11, James Eaton 6. 1795. Samuel Bradford 2 1797. George Dascomb 2 1799. Elijah Beard 9 1800. Jacob Spaulding 6 1805. Andrew Sargent 11 1806. Silas Dutton 2 1808. David Starret, 1; Joseph Curtis Barnes 2 1809. Timothy Wyman 2 1810. James Wilson 13 1811. Joseph Stow 1. 1812. Samuel Barnes 1 1813. Luther Smith, 1. [Dr. Luther Smith resigned the office of selectman on account of its interfering with his professional business, and Samuel Gibson was elected in his stead for the remainder of the year.] 1814. Samuel Bigson 2 1816. Joel Stow, 5; Jonathan Tilton, 2. 1818. George Little 2 1820. William McClintock 1 1821. Alexander McCoy 1; Peter Codman 2 1822. Joel Stow, 1 1823. Andrew Sargent, 7; Reuben Hatch 1, Solomon McNeil 1 1824. Joel Stow, 2; Thomas Wilson 8 1826. Benjamin Tuttle 2 1828. Hiram Monroe 1 1830. Peter Codman, Isaac Jones Cooledge 1 1831. Jonathan Beard 4 1832. Levi Goodale, 2; Samuel C. Dutton 1 1833. Joseph Phipps 3 1834. Amos Flint 7 1835. Levi GOodale 4 1836. Ransom Bixby 2 1838. James Currier 1, Jotham Moore -- 1840. Hiram Monroe -- 1841. Sandy Smith -- The list given brings it down to the recollection of living men and women. If any are curious to know more, the writer will refer them to the forthcoming history of the town, for the writing of which the town has made the most ample provisions, parceling out the work to men of ability, who will have ample time to do their work, and no doubt ample compensation for the work they do. THey will not have to do it under the blazing sun of the longest days of the year, it is to be hoped, as the present writer is under the necessity of doing. He has given in the above enumeration a touch of the good things the people have to expect,--interminable columns of names, dates and sums of money in the form of bounties, taxes and value of real estate. **************** BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES **************** FRANCIS GRIMES Francis Grimes is the second son (fourth child) of John and Betsy (Wilson) Grimes, of Deering, NH and was born in that town October 19, 1805. He was reared upon the farm, receiving the advantages of the common district school and a few terms of the Hillsborough Academy, under the instruction of Simeon I. Bard. He entered the store of James Butler, at Hillsborough Bridge, as clerk, where he spent a few years, but mercantile business not being to his taste, he went, in 1832, to Windsor, NH, and engaged in farming on a large scale, in which pursuit, he was eminently successful, and in which he continued until 1856, when he removed to Hillsborough Bridge, where he has since resided. Mr. Grimes was endowed with a sound judgement and business sagacity, which he has carried into the every-day practical affairs of life. He has always done his own thinking; his word is as good as his bond. He has never sought and seldom accepted office; was one of the selectmen of Windsor two years; he has been justice of the peace, and was, for a few years, United States internal revenue collector of his distict. He was made a Master-Mason in Harmony Lodge, No. 38, A.F.A. Masons, in 1857, since which time he has taken a deep interest not only in the growth and welfare of his own lodge, but in that of the institution everywhere. He married, first, Mary, daughter of Judge Henry B. and Dorothy (Bean) Chase, of Warner, NH February 9, 1837. Children,-- Sarah F., born July 9, 1838, married Alfred Johnson May 1, 1860, and has children,--Edwin Francis (Johnson) born January 20, 1861, and Alfred Grimes (Johnson) born January 7, 1867. John Henry, born May 4, 1840. He enlisted in the United States marine service upon the breaking out of the Rebellion, and was appointed second lieutenant; participated in the first battle of Bull Run, where he was wounded by a Minie-ball; was on board the transport "Governor" at the time she sunk, November 2, 1861, and was the last man to leave the ship, being rescued by the United States frigate, "Sabine," and was promoted to first lieutnenat for gallant conduct on that occasion. He remained in the service until the close of the Rebellion. Mary Chase, born March 28, 1842; died, unmarried October 7, 1875. Helen D., born March 4, 1844; married George R. Whittemore, of Antrim NH, November 24, 1870. Children,--Francis Grimes (Whittemore) born February 6, 1872, died July 8, 1872; Henry Ernest (Whittemore) born February 1, 1872, resides in Boston, Mass. Lissia A., born December 7, 1851. Mrs. Grimes died December 30, 1851, and he married, second, Mrs. Lucinda Egleston, July 4, 1853. One son by this marriage,-- Frank C., born August 9, 1857; married Abbie J. Davis, of Hillsborough April 7, 1880. One child,--Francis Grimes, born January 10, 1881; resides in Deering NH. COLONEL JAMES FORSAITH GRIMES The portrait accompanying this sketch places the subject in a good light before the reader. As a personal likeness of Colonel Grimes is good, and as likeness portraying the general features of Grimes family it is also good. Any one who has seen Senator James W. Grimes (the colonel's uncle) or Commodore John G. Walker (his cousin) will see that the likeness strongly suggests each of them. There are indications of decision and strong will in the portrait. The ancestors of Colonel Grimes were Scotch-Irish, an ancestry of whom any man may be justly proud. The orthography of the name has changes from time to time from Graeme to Graham and Grimes. The first ancestor of whom we have record was FRANCIS-1 GRAHAM, who came to America about the year 1719, and settled at or near Boston, Mass., and in 1741 moved to Hillsborough as one of the pioneer settlers, where he remained until driven off by the Indians in 1746. While living in Hillsborough, in 1743, a daughter, Ann, was born into the family. She was married to Deacon William McKean and settled in Deering NH, where she died July 12, 1825, aged eighty-two years. His son, FRANCIS-2 GRAHAM JR. (whose name was later changed to Grimes) was born in 1747, no Noddle's Island (now East Boston) and later moved to Londonderry NH, and thence to Deering NH, as one of the early settlers of that town, in 1765. He married ELizabeth Wilson, of Londonderry NH. His son, JOHN-3 GRIMES was born August 11, 1772, in Deering [NH] and lived on what is now known as the McNeil place, and removed to Hillsborough in March, 1836, with his family, and there remained until his death, October 17, 1851. He married Elizabeth Wilson, of Deering, and front this union there were eight children, the youngest of whom was JAMES-4 WILSON, who was a graduate of Dartmouth College, a classmate of Hon. Samuel C. Bartlett, the present president of that institution, and Hon. John Wentworth, of Illinois. He was also Governor of the State of Iowa in 1854-58, and a member of the Senate of the United States from 1859 to 1869. He was born October 20, 1816 and died February 7, 1872. The other children of JOHN-3 were HIRAM-4, JANE-4, SUSAN-4, FRANCIS-4, DAVID W.-4 and SARAH C.-4. Of these children, Susan-4 became the wife of AIDEN WALKER and mother of John Grimes Walker, who has been promoted the various grades of the United States navy to that of commodore. HIRAM-4 GRIMES, the eldest of this family, was born in Deering NH September 17, 1798. He married Clarissa, daughter of James and Nancy Forsaith, of Deering, December 9, 1823, and settled in Hillsborough, where he now resides. He is a farmer, and being a man of frugal habits, has, by industry and intelligence, won from the soil a competence for his evening of life. A lover of home and warmly attached to his family, he enjoys the confidnece and respect of all who known him. His wife, Clarissa, who died March 9, 1873, was a superior woman, rearing her children with great care, beloved by them, and greatly respected by all. They had six children, five of whom are living,-- JOHN-5, born February 14, 1828; NANCY-5 born June 28, 1830; ELVIRA ELIZABETH-5 born Feburary 8, 1833; JAMES FORSAITH-5 born May 19, 1835; CLARISSA A.-5 born December 17, 1838. JAMES FORSAITH-5 GRIMES (the subject of this sketch) passed his boyhood on the farm of his father in Hillsborough. His educational advantages were those afforded by the district schools of the time, supplemented by attendance at the academies of Gilmaton, Hopkinton, and Washington. His summers were spent in farm-work, where he gained experience and vigorous health. At the close of his school-boy days he spent his winters in teaching in the district schools of his own and the adjoining towns, commencing at the early age of sixteen. As a teacher he was successful, and gained a wide reputation as a disciplinarian, and his services were much sought in localities where something like insubordination had at times been partially established. In connection with his school duties, at Hillsborough Lower village, in 1859, Colonel Grimes commenced the study of law with Francis N. Blood, Esq., which he continued until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion in 1861. When it became known that Sumter had been fired upon, he was one of the first from his native town to volunteer in defense of the Union. Just at this time, hearing that his uncle, Senator Grimes, had presented his name to the Senate of the United States for confirmation as a captain in the regular army, he placed himself under a private instructor to be fitted for the proper discharge of those responsible duties. Colonel Grimes received his commission as captain in the Seventeenth Regiment of the United States Infantry, August 5, 1861, and immediately joined his regiment at Fort Preble, Maine, and was detailed as recruiting officer, first at Hillsborough, NH, and afterwards at Ogdensburg, NY. It was while thus engaged that he sought the influence of Senator Grimes to secure orders to join his regiment in the field. In answer, he received a letter from the Senator, from which the following is an extract: "A good soldier obeys orders, but seeks none; I cannot agree with many of our public men that this war will be brought to a speedy close. I think she shall have a long and bloody war, and you will see all the fighting you desire before it is over. Wait patiently; your time will come." Colonel Grimes soon joined his regiment in the Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, and participated with it in some of the hardest-fought battles of the war. He was in commpand of his regiment most of the time during the latter part of the war, and led it in what will ever be known as the "Memorable Battles of the Wilderness." He was wounded near Spottsylania, VA., and carried from the field and ordered back to Washington, where he tendered leave of absence to return home, which he declined, and made application to take any responsibility in the matter. He joined his regiment at Cold Harbor, Va., as they marched "on to Petersurg." May 18, 1864, Senator Grimes wrote to his wife, among other items concerning the war, as follows: "J. Grimes commanded the Seventeenth Regiment of Infantry until he was knocked over by a shell." The Seventeenth United States Infantry suffered heavy losses in the campaign of 1863 and 1864, especially in the battles of Gettysburg, Pa., July 2 and 3, 1863; Wilderness, Va., May 5, 6 and 7, 1864; Laurel Hill, Va., May 8, 10 and 13; Spottsylvania, Va., May 14; Bethesda Church, Va., June 1 and 2; Cold Harbor, Va., June 2 and 3; Petersburg, Va., June 18 and 20; Weldon Railroad, Va., August 18 and 21, and Chapel House, Va., October 1, 1864. At the close of the latter engagement the regiment could muster only twenty-six men able to bear arms, and in consequence of these severe losses the regiment was detailed by the officer commanding the corps for duty as guard at headquarters, and soon after were ordered out of the field for the purpose of recruiting, and arrived in New York about November 1, 1864. Colonel Grimes was in command of battalion Seventeenth United States Infantry, at Fort Lafayette, New York Habor, guarding noted prisoners of war and performing garrison duty from November 1864 to October 1865, and after that was stationed at Hart's Island, New York Harbor, organizing companies and drilling them until the regiment was ordered to the Department of Texas, in the summer of 1866, at which point the last batallion reached about the 1st of October. From Galveston, Colonel Grimes tool his command of eight companies by rail to Brenham, and hence marched across the country, a distance of over one hundred miles, to Austin, Texas, arriving about November 1st. In the spring of 1867, Colonel Grimes was appointed judge advocate of a military commission, of which Major-General Alexander McD. McCook was president, and convened at Austin, Texas, by order of General Philip H. Sheridan, for the purpose of trying criminal cases under the Reconstruction Act of Congress, and served in that capacity several months. Colonel Grimes was in command of the post of Nacogdoches, in Northeastern Texas, from October 1867, to April 1868; thence proceeded to, and took command of, the post at Ringgold Barracks, situated on the Rio Grande River. In the mean time his health had become impaired, and his physicians advised him to go North, which he did, remaining during the summer, and returned to his duties in the fall much improved. Upon his return he was stationed at Brownsville, Texas. Here is soon became apparent that the climate did not agree with him, and that, in order to prevent premanent disability, he must have a change, and he was again granted a leave of absence, upon a surgeon's certificate of disability. He reached home about the 1st of August, 1870, and in consequence of ill health resigned from the service, to take effect January 1, 1871, having served nearly ten years. In the reorganization of the army, in September, 1866, he was transferred to the Twenty-sixth United States Infantry, and in May 1869, was transferred to the Tenth United States Infantry. He was commissioned major by brevet in the United States army, to rank from August 1, 1864, "for gallant services at the battle of Spottsylvania, and during the present campaign before Richmond, Va.," and commissioned lieutenant- colonel by brevet, to rank from March 13, 1865 "for gallant and meritorious services during the war." The colonel thus came to the close of the war both deserving and obtaining the reward of the gallant and faithful soldier. His comrades bore unequivocal testimony to his bravery as a soldier and his worth as a man. At home and in the field there was an inspiring motive urging him on to high and noble deeds, a motive greater than the love of fame and glory,--it was the love of a noble woman. September 8, 1864, while at home on leave of absence, Colonel Grimes married Sarah Ann, youngest daughter of Eben and Mary (Carr) Jones, of Hillsborough NH, who endured with him all of the fortunes and vissitudes incident to army-life, in camp and upon the march, while he was sojourning in the Department of Texas. From this union there are seven children, the second of whom was born in camp on the tented field. To the writer, the children, as they come around the parental board, or as they mingle in their sports or perform their accustomed work, are the most interesting sight of all the beautiful things at the colonel's mansion on the hill. Of such children he may justly be proud. They are the chief ornaments of their home, commanding by their courteous behavior the love and respect of all who visit the family. Nor should their colored nurse, Kate, who has been in the family for twenty years, be forgotten,--she who has loved and watched over each of them with a love second only to that of their mother. The children were born as follows: James Wilson, November 21, 1865; John Harvey, March 25, 1867; Warren Parker, October 12, 1868; Mary Carr, August 27, 1871; Henry Clitz, October 21, 1872; Clara Forsaith, January 27, 1875; Cecil P., June 29, 1878. Honorably discharged from the army with a competence, a large experience as a soldier, and mercifully spared in the fiercest battles, where many a brave comrade fell, spared in the midst of malaria in the South, where he did duty for several years, Colonel Grimes, after ten years of service, returned to his native town to enjoy life. He and his fair consort, now at life's half-way house, have the love and respect of all who know them. Thus far their ranks remain unbroken. Parents and children have been spared to each other, and Kate, of the sable face but the white soul, spared to them all. JOHN GIBSON FULLER The first ancestor of whom we have record is JOSHUA-1 FULLER, born in Connecticut October 2, 1728; married Joanna Taylor; settled in Surry in 1764-65. Among their children were JOSHUA-2 killed at the battle of Bennington; LEVI-2 who settled in Surry; and CAPTAIN DAVID-2 born in Connecticut, died in Jay, NY, married (first) January 22, 1782, Elsea Gleason, died May 20, 1790, leaving children,--DAVID-3, born June 6, 1783; ELSEA-3 born April 2, 1786, married Lemuel Bingham, of Gilsum. He [David] married (second) February 22, 1792, Jerusha, daughter of Jonathan and Hannah (Yemmons) Adams, born September 25, 1774, died August 31, 1792. He [David] married (third) October 20, 1793, Orinda, daughter of John and Sibyll (Wright) Bingham, of Gilsum, born in Montague, Mass, July 10, 1772. Children,--LEVI-3 born September 3, 1794, died October 4, 1798; JERUSHA-3, born September 30, 1796; LUMAN-3 born August 25, 178; LEVI-3, born April 14, 1801, died January 30, 1804; ORINDA-3, born July 22, 1803, married Samuel Isham Jr.; GEORGE W.-3 born July 13, 1805, died July 5, 1820; BRADFORD-3 born July 16, 1807; ALVIRA-3 born June 26, 1809 DAVID-3 FULLER was born in Gilsum NH June 6, 1783; came to Hillsborough when twenty years of age; worked out on a farm for a season, and then learned the shoemaker's trade; married, January 6, 1806 Keziah, daughter of Benjamin and Hannah (Parker) Kimball of Hillsborough; removed to Francestown where he remained seven years, and carried on the shoemaker's business, adding to it that of tanning and currying. He then returned to Hillsborough Lower village, established the same business there, in which he remained during the remainder of his life. His wife died February 23, 1864; he died November 8, 1867. His children were all born in Francestown, and were DAVID GARDNER-4, born October 27, 1806; married April 27, 1830, Jane, daughter of Josiah and Sally (Dean) Converse of Amherst NH. In early life he was a noted hotel-keeper in Utica and Rome NY, Washington DC, Richmond VA and other places. Later, he did an extensive business as druggist in Concord NH; died in Concord July 10, 1879. His children were SARAH JANE-5 born in Hooksett NH June 25, 1836, married Joseph harlow of Plymouth MA; HENRY W.-5 born in Hooksett NH June 30, 1838; graduated at Darmouth College in 1857; at Dane Law School, Harvard University, as Bachelor of Laws in 1859. Upon the breaking out of the Rebellion he enlisted as a private in the First Regiment of three month's volunteers from this State; was commissioned first lieutenant of Company Q April 30, 1861. After the First Regiment was mustered out he was commissioned captain in the "Fighting Fifth." Later, was lieutenant- colonel of the Fifteenth, then colonel of the Thirty-third United States colored troops, and finally a brevet brigadier of the United States Volunteers. He remained in the service until 1866, when he settled in Boston, Mass. He was a Republican in politics, and took an active interest in public affairs, serving in the Common Council in 1774 [should read 1884], as a Representative in the Legislature in 1875, 1876, 1877 and 1879, was a member of the State Senate in 1880 and 1881 and was, a few weeks before his death, appointed by GOvernor Robinson as judge of the Roxbury Court. He married, September 16, 1863, Elizabeth, daughter of Laban and Frances (Lewis) Beecher, of Boston, Mass., where he died April 7, 1885, leaving one son, Fred., born March 23, 1872. GEORGE C.-5 born in Lowell MA, December 30, 1840 died in Concord NH, February 10, 1878. He married, December 31, 1861, Josie, daughter of Joseph and -- (Shackford) French, of Concord NH where she died September 1864. ETHELINDA G.-5 born in Concord NH December 11, 1849, died there March 5, 1851. MARK W.-5, born April 7, 1808; married November 17, 1831, Sarah, daughter of William and Sally (Priest) Conn, of Hillsborough. One daughter, Susan, born April 24, 1840, died December 13, 1859. JOHN GIBSON-4 (see sketch). WILLIAM F.-4 born in Francestown NH May 10, 1812; died in Hillsborough NH November 17, 1830 JOHN GIBSON-4 FULLER was born in Francestown NH April 21, 1810. He was the third son of David and Kesiah (Kimball) FUller, and came from that town to Hillsborough, with his parents, when three years old, where he grew to manhood. His only educational advantages were derived from the village school, at that time much less efficient than now. He learned the trade of tanning and currying of his father, with whom he afterwards associated in business. Somewhere about 1850 a few calf-skins which he had tanned sold in Boston, Mass., were purchased by Mr. Stephen Westcott, a leather dealer of that city. They proved such excellent leather that Mr. Westcott traced them back to Fuller's tannery, and sent a small number of green skins to Mr. Fuller to tan. The result was satisfactory to both parties, and from this small beginning was developed a large business in market as "Westcott calf." He gave constant employment to from fifteen to twenty men. To the business of tanning was added, a few years later, that of currying. Mr. Fuller was a man of marked executive ability. He had a remarkable faculty for reading character and of influencing men. His friendship meant something. If any person did him a favor, he never forgot it. Whatever he undertook to do he accomplished, if it was possible. He allowed no obstacle to stand in his way. He was largely instrumental in the establishing of the Valley Bank (now First National Bank of Hillsborough), and upon its organization he was chosen its president, which position he held at the time of his death. In business habits he was methodical and prompt. In politics Mr. Fuller was a Whig and, later, a Free-Soiler. He hated slavery. At the time of the execution of John Brown he tolled the church bell with his own hands. While he was a man of decided conviction, resolute and energetic action, he held in high respect those who honestly differed from him in opinion. Mr. Fuller married Ann, daughter of Nathaniel and Betsey (Robbins) Jones, of Hillsborough, who was born September 27, 1814, and who died August 22, 1865. He died very suddenly in Nashua NH, June 14, 1861 while on a business trip to that city. Their children were ABBIE A-5, born December 4 1834; married in 1855, Stephen E. Westcott, of Boston, Mass. Children,--Everett Fuller-6 (Westcott) born In Boston, Mass in 1858, died there September 11, 1877; Edith-6 (Westcott) born in Boston, Mass., December 3, 1870. HELEN MARR-5 born July 9, 1836, died August 8, 1840. WIRT XIMEO-5 born January 23, 1850; was educated at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass; married February 3, 1870, Addie A., daughter of George E. and Caroline Carter (Grant) Russell, of Boston, Mass., where they reside and have children,-- Wirt R.-6 born January 29, 1871; Addie May-6 born April 28, 1874. ABEL CONANT BURNHAM, M.D. The Burnham family trace their ancestors in a direct line of succession to Robert-1 Burnham, who was born in Norwich, Norfolk County, England in 1581. In 1608 he married Mary Andrews, and had seven children, of whom three sons, John-2, Robert-2 and Thomas-2 came to America. THOMAS-2 BURNHAM was born in 1623, and came to American when twelve years old, with his brothers, in the ship "Angel Gabriel," which was wrecked on the coast of Maine. He settled in Chebacco (now Essex), Mass., and was out in the Pequot expedition. He married, in 1645, Mary Tuttle; had twelve children, and died in 1694. His son, JOHN-3 BURNHAM was born in 1648; married Elizabeth Wells; had nine children, and died in 1704. His son, THOMAS-4 BURNHAM, was born in 1763; he married, was a father of six dhilren and died in 1748. STEPHEN-5 BURHAM, a son of Thomas-4, married Mary Andrews and settled in GLoucester, Mass. The date of his death is unknown. He had thirteen children. One of the sixth generation, JOSHUA-6, son of STEPHEN-5 and Mary (Andrews) BURNHAM, was born in Gloucester, Mass., in 1754. He had ten children, one of whom, THOMAS-7 BURNHAM was born in Milford NH in 1783; married Rachel Conant in 1870, and removed to Antrim NH in 1821, where he resided until 1837, when he came to Hillsborough, where he died in 1856. His wife died in Nashua [NH] in 1871, aged eighty-seven years. DR. ABEL-8 C. BURNHAM, the subject of this sketch, was the second son of Thomas-7 and Rachel (Conant) Burnham, and was born in Amherst NH May 2, 1812. During his boyhood he lived several years with an uncle, Rev. A. Conant, at Leominster, Mass, attending school and studying at home under the direction of his uncle. He acquired an academical education at the academies of Francestown, Pembroke and Hillsborough. After teaching a year at Watervliet, NY, he returned to Hillsborough, and commenced the study of medicine with the late Dr. ELisha Hatch, of this town, with whom he remained two years, teaching school in the winter. The third year he spent in the office of the celebrate surgeon, Amos Twitchell, M.D. of Keene NH. Here he had the best of opportunities to study practical suregery, and when, as was often the case, the doctor was called to a distance to some difficult operation, his pupil accompanied him as as a trusted and handy assistant. In after-years Dr. Burnham became himself a skillful surgeon, and was called to operate in many difficult cases. He had prepared himself for this by a thorough study of anatomy, accompanied by work in the dissecting-room. He made himself acquainted with the most modern works and modes of practice in surgery, and with his own eyes saw them carried out into actual practice. During these three years he attended three courses of medical lectures--one at Woodstock, Vt., and two at Dartmouth Medical College, at Hanover, where he graduated in November, 1839. At the commencement exercises of 1840 the names of Dr. Burnham and his associates, who had passed their examination and received their degree the fall before, were proclaimed in the sonorous tones of President Lord, in behalf of the trustees, Doctores Medicine. Dr. Burnham,, having already had the benefit of such teachers as Drs. Hatch, Twitchell, Holmes, Mussey and other excellent professors in medicine, went to Lowell, Mass, and entered the office of Drs. Kimball and Bartlett, and remaining during the winter, returned to Hillsborough in the spring, and spent a year with Dr. Hatch as his assistant, and commenced practice at Hillsborough Centre in February 1841, but removed to the Bridge village, a more central and desirable location, in October of the same year. AFter practicing here six years he attended a course of medical lectures at the University of New York and at the hospitals of that city, after which he returned to Hillsborough Bridge, and resumed his practice, where he has since resided and continued in active practice until the present time (1885), a period of forty-four years. Dr. Burnham has remarkable tact in the sick-room. As a rule, he is a man of few words, quiet, and unobtrusive, and very careful of what he says in the presence of the sick. His coming is gladly welcomed by his patients. He has been remarkably successful in treating the diseases of children, such as scarlatina, measles and other like diseases, and his help has been much sought for in neighboring towns. His natural tastes have led him in the direction of surgery, and he has frequently been called upon to perform capital operations, such as amputations, also operations for the removal of necrosed bone, cancers, cataract, etc, with good success. Dr. Burnham has remarkable self-possession in time of an emergency-- good judgement, a clear head and a steady hand. Great responsibilities have often rested on him where the safety of the patient hung in the balance and seemed to depend on his skill and judgement. His intercourse with neighboring physicians has always been courteous, and with the youngest members of the profession marked by great kindness, ever ready to encourage and assist them with his counsels. Dr. Burnham has held, by appointment of the Governor of New Hampshire, through several consecutive years, the office of surgeon of the Twenty- sixth Regiment of New Hampshire militia, and until honorably discharged at his own request. He held the office of superintending school committee in the town of Hillsborough four years. In 1846 he was commissioned justice of the peace for the county of Hillsborough, and still holds the commission. He has been twice elected to represent the town in the State Legislature, and has been a member of the Board of Education at Hillsborough Bridge for three years, also for thirteen years a member of the board of directors of the First national Bank of Hillsborough; he is a member fo the New Hampshire Medical Society, and in March 1860, was made a Master mason in Harmony Lodge, in Hillsborough, and was for several years its secretary. For more than forty years the doctor has lived in the same place, practiced in an enlarging field and held, unimpaired, and ever-increasing, the confidnece of the community, both as a man and a physician. November 9, 1849, Dr. Burnham married Caroline M., oldest daughter of George and Mary (Steele) Dascomb, of Hillsborough NH. She was born July 27, 1823. JONES FAMILY Among the earliest settlers of the town of Hillsborough NH, was WILLIAM-1 JONES, who came from Wilmington, Mass. It is not known at what time he revmoed here, but his name appears upon the first records of the town, now extant; nor is the name of his wife known, nor the birth-place of his large family of children, but probably the most, if not all, of them were born in Wilmington. His descendants are numerous, and among the most respected citizens of the town. He had four son and five daughters. His fourth son, JAMES-2 JONES, was born in Wilmington Mass and died July 18, 1839, and his wife Anna, died March 30, 1841. Married Anna, daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah (Parker) Cooledge. Their children were, JONATHAN-3 JONES, born September 3, 1778; died March 5, 1810, unm. ANNA-3 JONES, born February 18, 1780; married first, Alexander McClintock, and second, Asa Goodell; died March 18, 1829. JAMES-3 JONES, born December 9, 1782; married Sarah Smith, had one son George, who died November 11, 1844. SILAS-3 JONES, born March 6, 1784; married Catherine Rolf, went to Pittsburg, PA where he died October 6, 1832. COOLEDGE-3 JONES born February 4, 1786; married Pierce Stone; died February 9, 1856. SARAH-3 JONES, born March 22, 1788; died July 3, 1788. NATHANIEL-3 JONES, born May 3, 1789; married Betsy Robbins; died August 19, 1867. EBENEZER-3 JONES, born February 7, 1792; married Mary T. Carr; died December 1, 1864 [SEE BELOW] PARKER-3 JONES, born February 13, 1794; married Judith Clapp; died May 28, 1861. SOLOMON-3 JONES, born February 7, 1796; died in Pennsylvania, August 23, 1842;unmarried WARREN-3 JONES, born Feburary 3, 1798; married Thankful Dyer; died March 21, 1868 SARAH P.-3 JONES, born June 7, 1801; married Charles Baldwin; died November 3, 1844. EBENEZER-3 JONES [see above] married Mary Turner, daughter of Nathan and Elizabeth (Smith) Carr, October 6, 1816; removed to Unity NH where he resided ten years, when he returned to Hillsborough and purchased the Nathaniel Johnson farm, upon which he afterwards resided. Their children were,-- CHARLOTTE-4 JONES, born January 6, 1818, married Alonzo Tuttle, of Hillsborough; died August 31, 1861. NATHAN P.-4 JONES, born in Unity NH June 3, 1820; died August 4, 1820 in that town. PARKER-4 JONES [see biographical sketch] JAMeS-4 JONES, born in Unity NH November 17, 1823 GEORGE-4 JONES, born in Unity NH February 16, 1826; married Mrs. Mary (Goodale) Smith, of Hillsborough. MARY E.-4 JONES, born May 22, 1828; married David W. Grimes of Hillsborough. HARVEY-4 JONES, born July 6, 1830. EBENEZER-4 JONES, born October 24, 1832; married Malvina Shedd, of Hillsborough NH; resides on the homestead; has two sons,--James H., born November 25, 1860; Parker, born October 11, 1864 SARAH A.-4 JONES, born March 29, 1836; married Colonel James F. Grimes PARKER-4 JONES [see above], son of Ebenezer and Mary Turner (Carr) Jones, was born in Unity NH, July 31, 1821; he camed to Hillsborough with his parents in 1830; had such educational advantages only as are afforded by the common school; he left home when nineteen years of age "to seek his fortune," and found employment at the Astor House, New York City, then one of the famous hotels in the country. After two years as porter, he was offered a place in the office, where he was rapidly promoted to the position of chief clerk, a position for which he was peculiarly adapted, and which he continued to hold under obliged by ill health to resign. Here he formed the acquaintance of all the most eminent men in the country, which, in many instances, ripened into personal friendship. The following tribute, written by one of his life-long friends, and published in the "Home Journal" soon after his death, gives a more faithful delineation of his character than a strange can give: "IN MEMORIAM "On Thursday last, at the Astor House, in the forty-sixth year of his age, Parker Jones departed this life, peacefully and in the full hope of a blessed Immortality. Perhaps no man of his years, filling a similar station in life, was more widely known or had warmer friends. For upward of twenty-five yars he had been a clerk in the office of the Astor House, where, in discharging the duties of his position, he came in contact with most of the marked men of the time. He was an especial favorite of Daniel Webster, enjoying his confidence and frequently visiting him at Marshfield and at Franklin, New Hampshire, near which latter place Parker was born and passed his early life. The late N.P. Willis, who boarded at the Astor House for some years, always held him in high regard, and, for that matter, so did all who knew him. As an evidence of his popularity with the guests of the hotel, it may be mentioned that some few years since they presented him with a costly service of silver, of which he was always very proud. Among the contributors was Thurlow Weed, Esq., who, when the subscription-list was handed him, glanced over it and immediately put down his name for an amount equal to the largest; some days afterward Mr. Weed asked to see the list, and, taking up a pen, said,-- "Parker is a good boy. I don't like the looks of my subscription," and doubled it. The late Colonel Hazard, of Connecticut, who made the Astor House his home when in New York, heard of the presentation after it had been made, and wrote a letter to Parker in which he expressed his regret at not having been in the city at the time, and inclosed a check for an amount equal to any on the list. "The writer of this humble tribute to the many virtues of Parker Jones knew him well for nearly twenty years. During all this time the Astor House had no more faithful servant and the traveling public no kinder, more even-tempered and obliging conservator. "Oh Death! ere thou shalt claim another, Gentle, kind and good as he, Time shall strike a dart at thee.' "Mr. Jones died of consumption, after an illness of over three years. He was taken sick in August, 1865, while on duty in the office, and left it never to return. Change of climate, the best of medical attendance and constant and affectionate care had no other effect than to delay the fell summons, and when he came back to the Astor House from his home in Vermont, last September, it was only too evident to his friends that he had come back to die. "And so, on a bright November day, at a little after noon, surrounded by those whom he held dear, at peace with all and cheered by the consolation of a holy faith, his gentle spirit sought and found its rest. "No father seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode; There they alike in trembling hope repose, The bosom of his Father and his God." Mr. Jones married, June 14, 1859, Miss Julia C. Andrews, of Pawlet, Vt., who survives him. They had no children. GOODELL--GOODALE--GOODALL It is a well-authenticated fact that the families of these names in this country all sprung from a common ancestry. At what time or why the orthography of the name was changed is not known, but there is a tradition that three brothers, living in the same town, agreed to each adopt a separate spelling for their mutual convenience. ROBERT-1 GOODELL, a great-great-grandson of Robert, was born in 1604, and sailed from Ipswich, England, August 30, 1634, in the ship "Elizabeth," William Andrews commander, with his wife Katherine, and three children,--Mary-2, four years old; Abraham-2, two years old; and ISAAC-2, six months. They settled in Salem, Mass., but afterwards removed to what is now Danvers. The son ISAAC-2 married Patience Cook; they had children, one of whom, ISAAC-3 JR. was born May 29, 1670. He served in the expedition against Canada in 1690, and, after his return, married Mary ---, December 3, 1692. They had twelve children, one of whom was SAMUEL-4, born May 8, 1694. SAMUEL-4 married Anna Fowler, of Saulsbury [sic Salisbury], July 4, 1717. Their children were ROBERT-5, Enoch-5, Bartholomew-5, Esther-5 (Collins), Hannah-5 (McIntire), Mary-5 (married Jude Hacket), Anna-5 (married Enoch Fowler), another daughter who married Moses Day. ROBERT-5 married (1st) Lydia Wallace in 1752, and married (2d) Widow Mary Fowler in 1764, and moved from Salem, Mass, to Weare NH, where he died December 11, 1804. He had six children, of whom Robert-6 Jr. and Samuel-6 were by his first wife. His other children were,-- Stephen-6 born September 17, 1766 at Salem, Mass; married Mary Greenleaf at Weare NH and lived at Deering NH where he died February 18, 1832. Jonathan-6 born August 30, 1769 at Salem, Mass.; Mehitable, born --; married -- Young, and afterwards -- Corles, of Weare NH; Esther ---. JONATHAN-6 married Sarah Hadlock at Deering NH in August 1795, and resided in Deering, where he died January 6, 1858. Their children were,-- LEVI-7 born in Weare NH March 7, 1797; Isaac-7 born in Deering March 10, 1799, died May 15, 1858; Lydia-7 born in Deering July 7, 1802, married Jabez Morrell, died March 1, 1849; Clara-7 born in Deering March 16, 1806, married Robert Carr, of Hillsborough NH; Betsey-7 born in Deering November 15, 1808, married Mark Starrett; John H.-7 born in Deering October 2, 1816, married (1st) Celestia S. Mooney, of Northfield, who died October 1863, and he married (2d) Josephine B. Atkinson, of Tilton, and has one daughter by second wife,--Charlotte A. Goodale, born May 26, 1875, has resided in Nashua [NH] since 1871. LEVI-7 GOODALE, the subject of this sketch was born in Weare NH March 7, 1797; was educated in the common schools in Deering and Salisbury Academy; married, November 6, 1817, Mary, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Newton) Howlett, who was born January 28, 1799; lived with his father-in-law, in Hillsborough, till 1822, when he bought of Thomas Moore the farm in the north part of the town, now owned by his son, Thomas. He was a land surveyor, and was better acquainted with the lines of farms in this and adjoining towns than any man living. Mr. Goodale was much in public business,--was a selectman fourteen years, twelve of them consecutively; was two years chariman of the board as well as town clerk and overseer of the poor; represented the town in the Legislature in 1844 and 1845; was justice of the peace for thirty-five years; he also administered on one hundred and four estates, by which he acquired a good knowledge of probate law, upon which his advice was often sought and always given without fee. He was a consistent Christian, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and his house was headquarters for the ministers of that denomination, while the poor and distressed never went unaided from his door. It was his boast that he never bought a pound of hay, coffee or flour, or a bushel of any kind of grain or of potatoes. His earliest political affiliations were with the Democratic party, but later he became a Free-Soiler, and upon the formation of the Republican party he joined its fortunes and continued to act with it during his remaining life. Mr. Goodale was a man of sound judgement, sterling integrity, of quiet unobtrusive manners and a retentive memory, which was replete with knowledge of the early settlement of the town and of its history and traditions. He enjoyed a good joke and always had an anecdote ready to illustrate his opinions. Hillsborough has had few such men. His wife died November 25, 1867; he died June 11, 1877. Children,-- THOMAS N.-8 born in Hillsborough NH August 24, 1819 (see next sketch); Mary H.-8 born in Hillsborough NH May 12, 1824, married (1st) Daniel B. Smith and (2d) George Jones; Sarah A.-8 born in Hillsborough NH December 21, 1826, married (1st) John Severence and (2d) Charles P. Pike. THOMAS NEWTON GOODALE Thomas Newton-8 Goodale, son of Levi and Mary (Howlett) Goodale, was born in Hillsborough NH August 24, 1819. He acquired his education in the common schools of the town and in the academy at Newbury Vt. He taught fourteen terms in the district-schools in this and adjoining towns with marked success. He was among the first who acquired the art of daguerreotyping, to the practice of which he devoted more than twenty years of his life. Possessing an unusual artistic taste, the pictures which came from his camera were among the finest produced. He also, later, gave much attention to civil engineering and land surveying. He succeeded to his father's homestead, upon which he has erected a large and elegant house, and greatly improved the other buildings, and where he dispenses and abundant hospitality. He has done a large probate business since his father's death. Mr. Goodale is a man of pronounced and positive opinions; he was one of the first anti-slavery men in town, and has always worked and voted to promote the success of the Republican party. He has never held public office. He married, August 12, 1840, Caroline G. Calkins. Their children were,-- (1) Laura A.-9 born May 10, 1842, and married Nathaniel L. Chandler, of Sunappe, May, 1860 who died in the War of the Rebellion (September 11 1864) leaving one daughter, Christabel, who was born March 31, 1861 and married October 16, 1881 Charles S. George of Hopkinton; two children (twins), Charles A. and Allison S., born August 29, 1882. Allison S. died September, 1882. Laura A. married second, June 5, 1867, Elbert Goodale and died May 24, 1885, leaving children,-- Grace L., born May 5, 1868; Carl Z., born November 25, 1870; Myrtle, born September 19, 1876; Alice, born July 19, 1881, died September 1881; a son, born May 24, 1885. (2) Mary C.-9, born March 17, 1846, married Captain George A. Robbins, who died October 16, 1874; has one son, Thomas G. Robbins, born January 16, 1874. (3) Addie J.-9, born March 18, 1853; married O.H. Warner; resides in Lowell, MA. (4) Sarah C.-9, born August 12, 1855. Mr. Goodale's wife (Caroline G.) died October 12, 1879 and he married second, Mrs. Addie L. (Mather) Smith of Newport NH; they have one daughter, Emelie E., born November 21, 1884. He retired from active business three years ago (1882) on account of poor health. JOHN BUTLER SMITH John Butler Smith is by everything but birth a native of New Hampshire. Four generations of his ancestors have lived and--all but the last-- died in this State. His great-great-grandfather, Lieutenant Thomas Smith, was an original grantee of the town of Chester [NH] in 1720, and later on was the first white man to settle in New Boston [NH]. He came from Ireland to Chester, and was a distinguished citizen of his adopted town, as its early records, by the frequent mention of his name, attest. A century and a half ago, the Indians prowled through what are now our quiet New Hampshire villages; and one day Lieutenant Smith and his brother-in-law, while at work in the field, were captured by them and hurried away from home and friends. At night they were securely bound, and neither was allowed to know where the other was secured. The second night Smith made up his mind he would escape. He took careful notes of the direction in which his friend was taken; and when the Indians were fast asleep, he tried his extraordinary strength upon the cords that, around his arms and ankles, pinioned his body, face downward, to the earth. He snapped them. Then, releasing his companion, they retraced their steps, traveling by night in brooks to elude the scent of the dogs, and hiding by day in the tree-tops to escape their enraged captors. On the night of the third day they reached their homes. About 1735 Smith and his family moved to New Boston, in this county. For a number of years he was the only white man in the town; and he fought his way against the Indians and endured such hardships as the pioneers of our country encountered. There one of his sons, Deacon John Smith, married a daughter of William McNeil, by whom he had five children. After her decease he married Ann Brown, of Francestown, who presented him with fourteen children, making a royal family even for those early days. Deacon Smith was a man of great force of character, and emphatically a pillar of the church and the States. Traditions of his resoluteness are still fresh from repetition in the minds of his kind and family friends. Among these nineteen children was DAVID, who married Eleanor Giddings, and left thirteen children to perpetuate his name. Of these AMI, John B.'s father, was born in Acworth in 1800. He married Lydia F., daughter of Dr. Elijah Butler, of Weare. Soon after his marriage he moved to Saxton's River, VT., and engaged in the manufacture of woolen goods. The subject of our sketch was born there, April 12, 1838. Nine years after his father moved to Hillsborough Bridge, where he has since resided. He was in moderate circumstances, but disposed to educate his chidlren as well as these circumstances would permit. This for John consisted of the advantages of the public schools in Hillsborough and two years at Francestown Academy, where he fitted for college. A term before he was to be graduated he left school, and went into a store in New Boston. He had been there only a year, when, at the age of twenty-one, he entered upon business in a small way for himself. He tried his hand at several kinds of business and in different places; at Boston [MA] as a dry-goods jobber; at Saxton's River, as a tinware man; at Manchester, as a druggist. While in the latter place, he married Jennie M. Knowles. Experimenting a year in each of the abovenamed varieties of business, in 1864 he commenced the manufacture of knit-goods, the business in which he has achieved great success and made a fortune. He carried on this business a year at Washington, and a year at Weare before he moved to Hillsborough. But these places were not fitted for the business he had in mind to develop; and late in 1865, with a capital of ten thousand dollars, that he had accumulated up to thsi time, he moved to Hillsborough and built a small mill. He has always kept his business within the limits of his own capital; but as this has increased, he has developed his operations until, at the present time, he owns four-fifths of the fine-water power on the river here, and his mills employ one hundred and fifty hands. In 1882 his business was merged in the Contoocook Mills Company, of which Mr. Smith is president, and his nephew, George E. Gould, treasurer and business manager, by whom all the stock, except a nominal sum, is owned. Mr. Smith's business makes Hillsborough the busy place that it is; and he is considered one of the keenest, as well as one of the fairest, business men of the State. His shrewdness is demonstrated by the fact that, by his own energy, with no wonderful freak of fortune in his favor, he has come from a poor boy to be reckoned among the wealthy men of the State; and no man with whom he has had the smallest business dealing will accuse him of trickery or impugn his integrity. His record is clean in his own town, where he has done business for twenty years. His employees are his friends; this is the most significant compliment that can be given a business man. In politics Mr. Smith has always been a staunch Republican. He is conversant with the political history of the county, and entertains his pronounced views for reasons that he can readily convince one are well grounded in intelligence. He has never sought political office. His party has always been in the minority in the town; yet he has as ardently labored to support it as many a one who has been impelled by political ambition as well as party fealty. The only political office he has ever held was that of Presidental elector in 1884, at which election the Democratic majority in town was reduced fifty votes; another evidence of Mr. Smith's popularity among his neighbors. He is a member of the Congregational Church in Hillsborough, and has been since boyhood; is a constant attendant at the church services and Sunday-school. He has contributed liberally to the support of the religious institutions of the town, especially his own church, and generously aids all charities that come under his observation, but never ostentatiously. Mr. Smith has been interested in various business enterprises outside of Hillsborough. He was half owner of the Opera-House Block in Manchester [NH] when it was built, in 1883, and is at present (1885) engaged in the dry-goods commission business in Boston, to which he gives much of his personal attention. During all his business career Mr. Smith has been an indefatigable worker giving the strictest attention to all the details of his business interests; he has been prudent and frugal in his method of living; he is temperate, strong and robust in physique; he is a close calculator, careful investor, and his business judgement seldom errs: these are the secrets of his success. November 1, 1883, Mr. Smith married Emma E. Lavander, daughter of Stephen Lavander, of Boston. Mrs. Smith is an accomplished and Christian lady, with agreeable and winning manners. She has many acquaintances in Manchester, and a large circle of friends in Boston, her former home. Though she has lived in Hillsborough only a short time, her intelligence and affability have won for her the friendship and esteem of all. She mingles freely in society, engages in all the social interests of the community, generously aiding by personal work and material contribution, the religious and village charities. Her benevolence, like that of her husband, is marked by hearty good-will and that makes the recipient feel her personal interest. JOHN GILBERT Among the patriotic hearts stirred by the news of the battle of Lexington was one JOHN GILBERT, of Littleton, Mass., gentleman. Bidding an immediate farewell to his young wife, son of two years and a baby girl, he joined his brother's (Captain Samuel Gilbert) company, under command of Colonel William Prescott, of the Seventh Regiment of Foot, and marched ot the camp in Cambridge. Here he received his commission as first lieutenant--now in the possession of his descendants--from the Congress of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, dated May 19, 1775, and signed by the celebrated General Joseph Warren, scarcely another autograph of him, to a public document, being in existence. A second commission was received January 1, 1876, from the United Colonies, signed by Governor John Hancock [? should this be 1776]. In a blank-book kept by him, various items, referring to camp-life, are recorded. Less than a month after his enlistment the Committee of Safety decided to occupy Bunker Hill. The perilous command was given to Colonel Prescott; he marched to Charlestown the evening of June 16th, with his brigade of one thousand men, threw up his intrenchments and the following day met the British; his men were the last to leave the field. On the 3d of July, General Washington, having been appointed commander-in-chief, reviewed the regiments on Cambridge Common. There was now hard work for the men in digging the intrenchments, which extended from Winter Hill to DOrchester, confining the British army in Boston. The regiments were paraded January 1, 1776, to receive the new flag Congress had agreed upon,--the stars and stripes. In digging trenches and acting as sentinel, Lieutenant Gilbert seems to have been employed until March 17th, when his heart was rejoiced at the sight of the evacuation of Boston by the British. General Washington at once ordered a part of the army to New York, and from the item "Cash lent Samuel Gilbert in New York, May or June," we may conclude he accompanied it. June 13th finds him at GOvernor's Island, New York Harbor, the garrison stationed there being under command of Colonel Prescott, July 14th, William Williams signs a receipt for ten pounds, ten shillings, received by him, to be delivered to Lieutenant Gilbert's wife. In August, when the American army was compelled to retire from New York City, Prescott attracted the notice and commendation of Washington by the good order in which he brought off his regiments. Soon after, at Throgg's Neck (on which is Fort Schuyler), sixteen miles above Hell Gate, his regiment defended a bridge, preventing the landing of General Howe at that point. October 21st the army moved north in four divisions, and on the 28th occurred the battle of White Plains. Early in October, Colonel Prescott made a return to General Parsons, and his regiment in the brigade was stationed, November 18th at the fourth entrance to the Highlands, beyond Robinson's bridge, at or above Peekskill. November 18th, Prescott reports his list of officers to General Heath; among them is Captain Samuel and Lieutenant Joseph Gilbert, who were sick at that date. At this winter camp on the Hudson, December 23d, he balances accounts with Lieutenant Joseph Baker, and December 27th receipts are signed "for serving and shouldering, September, October and November, in Captain Gilbert's company of the Seventh Regiment, " by Jonathan Phelps, Joseph and Peter Baker, Ephraim Proctor, Isaac Durant Downe, William Brooks and others. January 5, 1777, Peter Cooper receives from him eleven dollars, which is the last record in his handwriting. The winter was a trying one; he suffered from exposure, and fell a victim to the fever which attacked him in the spring. The next entry is made by the young widow: "April 20, 1777.--Credit the estate of Joseph Gilbert by pocket-book, not appraised, 9s." "Westford, October 14th,--To cash paid the Judge, 9s. 4d." "To doing to Cambridge twice with bondsmen to get letters of administration, L6." "To cash paid the appraizers, L1 16s." etc. His widow, with baby girl and son John, four years old, found herself the possessor of a few hundred dollars from her husband's estate. The boy was strong and vigorous, took to farming and early learned the blacksmith's trade, almost a necessity in those days. He grew to be over six feet in height, and found plenty of work for his willing hands. Having decided to accept the invitation of his Uncle Robbins to come to Hillsborough, he stops at Greenfield NH, on hiw way, and while working for Benjamin Polard, of that place, asks and receives the assent of his daughter, Susan, to share with him the vicissitudes of life. They were married in 1797 or 1798. Benjamin Pollard was from Billerica, Mass.; he, with two of his brothers, served in the Revolutionary War, and he was a nephew of Asa, the first man killed at Bunker Hill. He bought, first, a half-acre of land in the centre of the town, of Peter and Samuel RObbins, for fifty dollars, on which he built a house and shop, next the Boardman lot, having his deed from the original proprietor, Captain Hill (for whom the town was named.). By edgrees he added a piece of land as he had money to pay for it,--a meadow from the Barnes estate, an upper pasture lot in the Centre of about one hundred and sixty-five acres. It was his custom for sixty years, on his birth-day, to make an inventory of his possessions, the first modest record reading,--"August 21, 1795, 22 years old, worth in notes seventy-five dollars; clothes, fifty-five dollars; total, one hundred and thirty dollars." The next year a gun is added to his possession; and in 1800 his house. At the end of the first thirty years we find, "August 21, 1825, 52 years old, notes, cash, house, farm and buildings, four thousand two hundred and twenty-four dollars." The totals for the next thirty years vary slightly from this amount. John Gilbert was noted in town for his firm adherence to what he believed to be right, and for a long time he was the only Whig in the village. He early abolished the rum-jug from the field; joined and was an active member of the Congregational Church (remembering it in his will). He was often chosen umpire and referree, being a man of reliable judgement. He foretold our Civil War, for he was a close observor of men and events. "Scott's Bible" was the book he loved best to read, and the coming of his weekly paper, the "Farmer's Cabinet," for more than a score of years was anticipated with pleasure. Born a subject of Great Britian, he lived to see the colonies a free and independent nation, and the Presidential chair occupied by one of his own townsmen (Franklin Pierce), railways and telegraph introduced, the two days' journey to Boston shortened to five hours, the postage of twenty-four cents reduced to three, and the shoe-nails, so laboriously produced from his forge in younger days, turned out by the hundredweight. He died in 1857, highly respected, suviving all but one of his five children. His youngest son, JOHN, born in 1804, with his two older brothers Joseph and Benjamin, worked on the farm, and by turns in the shop winter evenings, while the two sisters assisted the mother in household duties. Every one had their alloted task, after the performance of which it was their great delight to meet the young people of the neighborhood. When the Barnes family, the Duttons, the Lawtons the Simons and Julia Parker got together, bright and happy hours were passed. The barn-raisings and huskings, training and muster-days are still fresh in the memory, softening the asperities of the school-hours; the ruler and winter teacher were inseparable, both persuasion and force being considered necessary to instill into his sixty or seventy pupils a knowledge of the three "R's." In time Joseph goes to Boston; then his best friend, Gilman Barnes, follows, returning on vacation with blue coat trimmed with brass buttons, and the happy possessor of a watch and pencil-case. This decided John; his is twenty-one, over six feet in height, active and ambitious; Benjamin will stay on the farm, so he turns his face towards Boston, his whole capital being thirty dollars. For the first three or four years he had a hard experience, collecting bills, distributing papers, working evenings for his board, after running all day, acting for a time as sexton of Park Street School. His church duties, however, bring him to the knowledge of Jeremiah Evarts, Judge Hubbard, George Denney and Daniel Safford, who interest themselves in the hard-working young man. In June 1830, he unites with the church, finding ever after a Divine helper in every time of need. He still remains a member of this church, and has ever responded with willing heart and open hand to its needs and charities. By careful saving, through many discouragements, he accumulated one thousand dollars, which gave him an opportunity to start in the grocery business with Hayden & Upham, Howard STreet, but dissolved in a year or two (1832) to buy out the stand corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets, hiring the store of Mr. John Bunstead; here, as in all the grocery-stores, was a bar where liquor was sold, and from the nearness of the Tremont Theatre it was considered a desirable location. This bar Mr. Gilbert at once abolished, though told he could have no trade without it, and opened a temperance grocery-store. The sign he put up, John Gilbert Jr. & CO., has been familiar to Bostonians for fifty years, and with but one remove is still used by his nephew and successor in business, John C. Gilbert, eldest son of his brother Joseph, who at seventeen entered his store, and when twenty one was given an interest in the business. This same year (October 4, 1833) he married Mrs. Ann B. Attwill, an English lady and mother of three attractive children, the youngest of whom, a boy, soon after died. By close attention to business, from early morning till nine or ten at night, he built up a good trade, passing without serious loss through the disastrous financial panic of 1837, when the bottom seemed to have dropped, out of all trade, and the first question asked was, "Who has failed today?" He visited New York frequently, buying directly from the manufacturers and importers; also built up a large trade in butter, by going back into that State, where the farmers, saying there was no demand, were satisfied with the York shilling (twelve and one-half cents) offered for their best quality; this, before the days of railroads, had to be forwarded by canals and stages. A remunerative wholesale and retail trade was thus established. About the year 1842, Mr. Gilbert, with others, sent out a cargo of merchandise to Oregon; the vessel went round the Horn and reached there, fortunately, just as gold had been discovered. Lumber costing fourteen dollars a thousand in Oregon brought two hundred in San Francisco and provisions in proportion. Imagine the surprise of the company, of which Mr. Gilbert was the treasurer, in hearing they had a deed of nearly all the city of Portland, and soon after receiving the first gold, about fifty thousand dollars, sent from Oregon. A second vessel was sent, the captain of which proved dishonest. An agent built a vessel for them, which was wrecked. So Mr. Gilbert decided, having drawn one prize, he had had enough of speculation, and ever after kept out of it. In 1837, Mr. Gilbert bought a house in Temple Street, and moved from there to his present residence, at the South End in 1858. Having been troubled with deafness for many years, resulting from a fever, he decided, on reaching his sixtieth year, to go out of business, leaving it with his nephew, above referred to, who had been with him many years, and who has proved himself a most successful merchant. He invested his money at that time (1864) in real estate, the care of which occupied him during his declining years. Many an impoverished family and poor widow have had occasion to bless his name from his forbearing kindness, it having been his principle to suffer rather than inflict wrong. He has been almost daily able to assist others, and has ever ascribed, with thankful heart, all his success to the love and beneficence of his Heavenly Father. He sold the homestead farm, now owend and occupied by Mr. George W. Ray, preserving the adjoining house, bought in 1830 by Benjamin and himself, with orchard and wood lot, for family use. Here it has been the custom of all the family, by his invitation, to spent many pleasant weeks every summer, the attachment of all towards the homestead and church in the place being remarkably strong. Hillsborough Centre being preferred, even by the grandchildren, to any celebrated summer resort or gay watering-place. Nine months after celebrating his golden wedding, in 1884, Mr. Gilbert was called to part with the beloved partner of his life, by whom he had two daughters. On August 6, 1885, he reached his eighty-first year. GENEALOGY--The name of Gilbert is eminent in the annals of the church, state and learning of England through several centuries. Its early home is in Devonshire; many branches planted in this country issued from this stock. The name is of Saxon origin, and means a bright or brave pledge. In 1060, Gilbert de Gaunt came in with William the Conqueror. In 1115 a Gilbert who joined the Crusades was father of Thomas a. Becket. In 1215 one is treasurer of Lincoln Cathedral; in 1240, archdeacon of Stow; 1414, bishop of London. In 1475 an Otho Gilbert is high sheriff of Devonshire. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, "that high-spirited and skillful mathematician and hydrographer," was born in 1539. His early youth was devoted to liberal studies, which, with his brothers,--Sir John, Sir Adrien and Sir Walter,--they pursued under one roff with the enthusiasm of great minds; they became valiant and well experienced in nautical affairs, and to the brothers Humphrey and Raleigh is ascribed the honor of laying the foundation of the trade and naval power of Great Britain. In 1570, Sir Humphrey proposed to Queen Elizabeth a plan for a university in the metropolis. Letters patent were granted him June 11, 1578, "to take possession of all remote and tortuous lands for himself and his heirs forever." His first voyage was unsuccessful; but five years later he discovers and lays claim to the Newfoundland fisheries, and while coasting along the country his vessel--the "Squirrel,"--went down in a violent storm, September 9, 1583. He was last seen sittin gin the stern with an open book in his hand, and his land words were, "We are as near heaven by sea as by land." His son, Raleigh Gilbert, of Compton Castle, had a son Humphrey, who in 1620, was five years old. That this is our ancestor is most plausible from the fact that a Humphrey Gilbert was in Ipswich, Mass., in 1648, and in 1650 bought one hundred acres near the bounds of Wenham; that his age, as shown by a deposition on his file, agrees with that of Sir Humphrey's grandson; and that the name Humphrey is in no other family of Gilberts either in England or in this country. His will was made in 1657-58. By his wife, Elizabeth Kilham, daughter of Daniel Kilham, he had one son, John, and three daughters. The descent from this son is as follows: 1. John Gilbert, married Martha Dodge; settled in Gloucester in 1704; had two sons, William and Jonathan; the latter died about 1800, aged eighty-six; a son of Jonathan died in 1836, also eighty-six. Three of the sons were representatives. 2. Daniel, married Elizabeth Porter; settled in Marblehead, Mass. 3. Benjamin, married Estha Perkins; settled in Brookfield, Mass. 4. Joseph, married (1st) Mary Coggswell; (2d) Elizabeth Whipple; settled in Littleton, Mass in 1748. His will was probated April 1, 1763. The children of Joseph by his wives Mary and Elizabeth were,-- (1) John, married Sarah Cummings (2) Samuel, captain in Colonel Prescott's Seventh Regiment (3) Mary (4) Elizabeth, married Aaron Stratton (5) Daniel (6) JOSEPH, born 1751, died 1777, first lieutenant in Captain Gilbert's company; married Sarah Robbins, born 1751; died in Hillsborough NH, November 25, 1828 (7) Abigail Haynes The children of Joseph by his wife Sarah were,-- 1. JOHN, born in Littleton, Mass, August 21, 1773; died in Hillsborough, NH March 30, 1857; married Susan Pollard (daughter of Benjamin Pollard), born in Billerica, Mass, October 8, 1773; died in Hillsborough NH February 10, 1850. 2. Pattee Gilbert, born September 27, 1776; married (1st) January 15, 1801, to Joseph Harwood; (2d) December 16, 1819 to William Willard; died March 9, 1860. Children: (1) Mary Wildwood Harwood, b. December 4, 1802; m. January 17, 1828, Steadman Willard; died December 26, 1877. (2) Joseph Gilbert Harwood, born July 27, 1804; married ---- Fletcher, of Westford; settled in California; had 5 children. (3) John Alfred Harwood, born March 27, 1807; died Aug 13, 1810. (4) Nancy Elvira Harwood, born March 17, 1810; d. July 16, 1810. Children of Mary Harwood WILLARD [see above]: (1) Alma Harwood Willard, born August 28, 1828; married George Kendall, June 23, 1864. (2) Mary Almeda Willard, born May 11, 1831; died Oct. 25, 1855. (3) Stedman Alfred Willard, born February 21, 1834; married Annette Putnam, January 29, 1865. (4) Lydia S. Williard, born December 15, 1837; married William G. Barrows, May 15, 1862. The children of John Gilbert and Susan Pollard, all born in Hillsborough,-- 1. Joseph, born January 10, 1799; died September 27, 1836; married Alvira Moore, of Marlborough, Mass., born 1800, died March 11, 1872. 2. Benjamin born July 7, 1801; died in California December 1852; not married. 3. John, born August 6, 1804; married, October 4, 1833, Mrs. Ann Burrows Attwill, born in Woodsbridge, England, June 10, 1802, died in Boston, July 16, 1884. 4. Nancy Dutton, born 1807; died December 25, 1844. 5. Sarah Tarbell, born 1816; died November 2, 1848. The children of Joseph Gilbert and Alvira Moore,-- 1. Almira, born February 1828; died August 8, 1833 2. Susan Page, born January 20, 1830; married Rodney S. Lakin, October 11, 1846; died June 7, 1852. Children,-- (1) Willis Gilbert Lakin, born September 11, 1847. (2) Clara Frances Lakin, born May 31, 1850, died Sept 7, 1851 (3) John Clark Lakin, born May 8, 1852 3. John Clark, born November 2, 1832; married (1st) August 23, 1855, Abby Jane Keay, born January 1, 1832, died January 3, 1861; married (2d) September 1, 1861, Lizzie Lake Keay, born August 15, 1834. Children,-- (1) Susan Alice, born January 16, 1858 (2) John Clark, born November 5, 1860; died June 8, 1861 (3) Mary Abby, born June 27, 1862 (4) James Porter, born January 25, 1867. (5) Carrie Louise, born August 23, 1870 (6) Bessie, born July 29, 1872 4. Hammond Barnes Gilbert, born September 1834; married in Colorado, October 28, 1869, Julia Etta Beverley, born in Paris, IL, dau of John Randolph Beverley, a descendant of the Beverleys and Randolphs of Roanoke, VA. Children: (1) Joseph Beverley Gilbert, born August 2, 1870. (2) Mary Florence Gilbert, born August 24, 1873, d. Feb 25, 1877 (3) Clifford Hammond Gilbert, born May 9, 1875 (4) JUlia Gertrude Gilbert, b Apr 27, 1878; d. Feb 27, 1880 The children of John Gilbert and Ann Attwill,-- 1. Elizabeth Burrows Gilbert, born in Boston, July 28, 1834; married, September 4, 1860, Henry Frost, born in Granby, Canada, May 18, 1832, son of Washington Frost and Samantha Lawrence. Children:-- (1) Henry Gilbert Frost, born December 7, 1864 (2) William Lawrence Frost, born April 5, 1868 2. Ellen Lizette Gilbert, born in Cambridge, Mass, March 21, 1845; married June 9, 1869, Moses Field Fowler, born in Yorktown NY, October 2, 1819. His father was Henry Fowler, born June 18, 1785, died May 12, 1859; and his mother was Phebe Field, born January 16, 1784, died November 10, 1862. Scarely had the above record of Mr. Gilbert's life, written according to his suggestions, gone to press when he was called to enter his eternal home. The summons was a welcome one, his last words being "I am all ready, I long to go." Thus the faith in an atoning Savior, which throughout life had been his comfort and support, brightened his last hours. In peace with his God and all men he closed his eyes upon wordly scenes, May 25, 1885. (end)