nearly a century elapsed before any other than a Presbyterian
or Orthodox Congregational sermon was preached therein, and
nobody that was anybody adhered to any rival church, down
to a period -^dthin the memory of persons still living. " The
Westminster Sliorter Catechism " — a rather tough digest of
Calvinistic theology, which aroused my infantile wonder as
to what a dreadful bore its longer counterpart must be — was,
within my experience, regularly administered to us young-
sters once a week, as a portion of our common-school regimen ;
and we were required to affirm that " God having, out of liis
mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to ever-
lasting life," &c., &c., as though it were next of kin to the
proposition that two and two make four. If there was any-
where a community strictly, thoroughly Puritan, such was
Londonderry down to at least 1800, as she mainly is to-day.
And yet there was more humor, m-ore play, more fun, more
merriment, in that Puritan community, than can be found
anyAvhere in this anxious, plodding age. All were measurably



24 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

poor, yet seldom were any hiingiy ; all wore coarse clothes,
made in utter contempt of the fashions which, in the course
of three or four years, had made their way from Paris to
Boston ; yet lads and lasses were as comely in each other's
eyes, though clad in coarse homespun, as if they had been ar-
rayed- in purple and fine linen, and redolent of lavender and
patchouli : and they danced with each other through long
winter nights with a vigor and zest rarely evinced at Almack's
or in Fifth Avenue mansions. Their weddings were far more
numerously attended and more expensive than are the average
in our day ; for not to be invited was an affi'ont, as it implied
discredit or insignificance ; and all who were invited expected
to eat and drink bountifully of the best that could be had.
A general discharge of musketry throughout the neighbor-
hood ushered in a wedding-day ; and the bridegrojom's party,
starting from his house, was met by the bride's at a point half-
way to hers, when one of each party was chosen to " run for
the bottle " to the bride's house ; and whichever won the race
returned with the prize to the waiting assembly; which,
having drunk all around, proceeded, under a dropping fire of
musketry, to their destination ; where — the ceremony having
been duly performed — drinking was resumed, and continued,
with alternate feasting and dancing, often till broad daylight.
Nor was this the worst. Our ancestors had somehow caught
from their Celtic neighbors, in the old country, despite their
general antipathy, the infection of " wakes " ; and the house
in which lay a corpse awaiting burial was often filled through
the night with sympathizing friends, who, after due religious
observances, proceeded to drown their sorrow in the strong
drink supplied in abundance, whereby strange transformations
were sometimes wrought from plaintive grief to exuberant,
and even boisterous, hilarity. Funerals were attended by
nearly every one who seasonably heard of them, and all would
have felt insulted if not asked to drink at least twice ; while
tliose who walked to the grave were entitled by usage to a
third glass, and at least a lunch, on their return. As none
were yet rich, while many were quite poor on their arrival,



OUR FOLKS AT LONDONDERRY. 25

many families were absolutely impoverished by the expense
imposed on them by the funeral of a deceased member ; while,
if a wedding and a fimeral occurred within a few months in
a household, it could hardly escape ruin. Happily, hviug in
frugal plenty, almost wholly on their own products, spending
much of their time in vigorous exercise in the open air, and
having but one doctor within call, they had great tenacity of
life ; so that funerals were few and far between.

The pioneers of Londonderry brought with them the Potato,
wliich, despite its American origin, was hardly known in N"ew
England till they introduced it from Ireland, where it had
already taken root and flourished. Some of them, having
spent their first winter in America in a neighboring settle-
ment of Massachusetts, planted there a few of the valued
tubers, which were duly tended by those to wliom they were
left ; but, the plants being matured, they gathered the seed-
balls from the stalks and tried to cook them into edibihty ;
but by no boiling, baking, or roasting could they render them
palatable ; and they gave it up that those Scotch-Irish had
unaccountable tastes.

Next Spring, however, when the garden was duly ploughed,
the large, fair " murphies " were rolled out in generous abun-
dance, and, being dubiously tasted, were pronounced quite
endurable. Like too many ignorant people, these novices in
potato-eating had begun at the wrong end. They could never
have made this mistake in Londonderry ; yet it is related that
the first pound of tea ever seen there was received as a present
from a Boston friend, and, being duly boiled as a vegetable,
and served up as " greens," was unanimously pronounced de-
testable, and pitched out of doors.

Flaxseed was brought from Ireland by the pioneers ; and
the growth of flax and production of linen early became im-
portant elements of the industry and trade of Londonderry,
though every operation, from the sowing of the seed to the
bleaching of the cloth, was effected by the simplest manual
labor ; and I can personally testify that " breaking flax," in
the bad, old way, is the most execrably hard work to which a



26 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

young boy can be set. A skilful, resolute man could hardly
make laborer's wages at it now, it" the raw material were given
him. When the matrons of the town had a neighborhood
gathering, — tea, like coffee, being then happily unknown, —
each took her "little wheel" under her arm to the house
whereto she had been invited, and the flow of conversation
and gossip ran on for hours to a constant " whir, whir " of
swiftly flying wheels. Whitney's Cotton Gin and Arkwright's
Spinning Jenny have long since dismissed those wheels to
tlie moles and the bats ; but, so late as 1819, my mother spun
and wove a goodly roll of linen from the flax grown on our
farm, bleaching it to adequate whiteness by spreading it on
the aftermath of a meadow, and watering it thrice per day
from a sprinkling-pot.

Poor folks have their vanities as well as the rich. Most of
the pioneers had been small farmers or artificers " at home " ;
and the rude log huts, which were at first inevitable, seemed to
many good wives to involve a sacrifice, not only of comfort, but
of social standmg. Hence it is related of the Morrisons, who
were among the first settlers, that the good dame remonstrated
against the contemplated homestead until assured that there
was no help for it, when she acquiescingly entreated : "A-weel,
a-weel, dear John, if it maun (must) be a log-house, make it a
log hcegher nor the lave " (a log higher that the rest).

The settlers knew that their homespun garments (often of
tow) contrasted strongly with the trim, dapper apparel of the
polished denizens of more refined communities ; but they
were not thereby disconcerted. Though Burns had not yet
strung his immortal lyre, his spirit so flooded their log-cabins
that he would have been welcomed and understood in any of
them, but would have excited surprise in none. Thus it is
related of tlie Rev. Matthew Clark, already mentioned, that,
among the audience in attendance on his ministrations was
once a young British military officer, whose scarlet uniform
far outshone any rival habiliments, and so fixed the gaze of
tlie young damsels present, that the wearer, enjoying the im-
pression he was making, not only stood through the prayer



OUR FOLKS AT LONDONDERRY. 27

with the rest, but remained standing after all others had sat
down, until the pastor had proceeded for some tune with his
sermon. At length, noticing a divided attention and its cause,
the minister stopped, laid aside Yns, sermon, and, addressing his
new hearer, said : " Ye 're a braw (brave) lad ; ye ha'e a braw
suit of claithes, and we ha'e a' seen them ; ye may sit doun."
The lieutenant dropped as if shot, and the sermon was re-
sumed and concluded as though it had not been interrupted.

Kev. E. L. Parker's " History of Londonderry," to which I am
indebted for many facts, gives the following specimen of Mr.
Clark's pulpit efforts. His theme was Peter's assurance that,
though all others should forsake his Divine Master, lie never
would ; and this was a part of his commentaiy : —

" Just like Peter — aye mair forrit (forward) than wise ;
ganging swaggering aboot wi' a sword at his side ; an' a puir
han' he mad' o' it when he cam' to the trial ; for he only cut
off a chiel's lug (ear) ; an' he ought to ha' s])lit doun his
head."

This was a gleam of the spuit evoked in the Siege of
Derry.

I fear I have nowise portrayed the perfect mingling of
humor and piety in the prevalent type of our Scotch-Irish
pioneers, — all of them baptized in infancy, and growing up
devoted members of the church, — all hearing the Bible read,
a hymn sung and a prayer offered, each morning at the family
fireside, and these exercises repeated at night, so uniformly,
that one of the early pastors, having learned that a parishioner
had retired without invoking the throne of grace, forthwith
repaired to his dwelling, called up the delinquent and his
family, made them kneel and renew their devotions, and did
not leave till they were finished ; and yet there was never a
people who loved play better, or gave it more attention, than
these. House-raisings, corn-huskings, and all manner of ex-
cuses for festive merry-makmg, were frequent, and generally
improved ; games requiring strength, rather than skill, espe-
cially ■v^^:"estlulg (with, I grieve to say, some boxing), were
favorite pastimes ; and it is recorded of the pioneers of Peter-



28 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

borough, N. H., — one of the several swarms sent out by the
parent hive in Londonderiy, — that, having cut each his hole
in the great woods, and reared his log-cabin, a meeting was
called to form a church, and generally attended. The object
having been duly set forth, some one started the cavil : " I
fear we are such a rough set — so given to frolic and drink —
that we are not good enough to constitute a church " ; but he
was instantly silenced by another, who, like a true Calvinist,
observed : " Mr. IVIoderator, if it be the Lord's will that He
should have a church in Peterborough, I am sure He will be
willing to have it made up of such materials as there are."
So it was.

The present township of Londonderry embraces but a frac-
tion of the original town, whose 144 square miles have been
sliced away to form the several townships of Deny, Wind-
ham, and parts of others, until it now probably contains less
than forty square miles. Though a railroad now crosses it, and
accords it a station, it has no considerable village, no lawj^er
(I believe) ; its people nearly all live by farming, and own
the land they cultivate ; three fovu^ths of them were born
where they live, and there expect to die. Some families of
English lineage have gradually taken root among them ; but
they are stiU mainly of the original Scotch-Irish stock, and
even Celtic or German " help " is scarcely known to them.
Simple, moral, diligent. God-fearing, the vices of modern civ-
ilization have scarcely penetrated their quiet homes ; and,
while those who with pride trace their origm to the old set-
tlement are numbered by thousands, and scattered all over
our broad land, I doubt whether the present population of
Londonderry exceeds in number that which tilled her fields,
and hunted through her woods, fifty to sixty years ago.



III.

"THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS."

THE Scotch-Irish founders of our Londonderry indignantly
eschewed the characterization of "Irish," which was
sometimes maliciously, but oftener ignorantly, applied to
them; stoutly insisting that, as stanch Protestants and
zealous upholders of the Hanoverian succession, they should
not be confoimded with the savage and intractable Celtic
Papists who were indigenous to Ireland. Devoted loyalty
was their pride and boast, and was usefully evinced in the
"Old French War," which lasted from 1756 to 1763, and
effected a transfer of the Canadas from Prance to Great Britain ;
yet the British assumption, directly thereafter, of a right to
impose taxes on the Colonies, without their consent, was here
early, promptly, zealously, persistently resisted ; and the ti-
dings that Colonial blood had been shed by British soldiers at
Lexington, Mass., on the 19th of April, 1Y75, operated like
an electric shock on this rural, peace-loving community.
Ten minutes after receiving it, John Stark — who had served
with distinction in the recent French war — stopped the saw-
mill in which he was at work, mounted his horse, and rode off
to Cambridge, leaving directions for his neighbors to muster
and follow. The two companies of Londonderry militia were
immediately assembled, and, though many had abeady has-
tened to the scene of action, a full company — the best blood
of the township — volunteered, choosing George PlEED their
captain. Six days after the Lexington fray, the two thousand
New Hampshire men now confronting General Gage were
organized by the convention sitting at Exeter into two regi-



30 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

ments, with Stark and Reed as their respective colonels.
Another regiment from this thinly peopled colony was soon
formed, under Colonel Poor ; but the left wing of our army,
stationed near Medford, was composed of the two regiments
commanded by Londonderry colonels ; and these, under Stark
and Eeed, were soon deputed to join the Connecticut men
under Putnam, and a Massachusetts regiment under Prescott,
in throwing up and holding the breastwork on Bunker's or
Breed's Hill, in Charlestown, which the British assailed next
day with such memorable consequences. Londonderry had
130 men behind those slight defences. In the struggle for
this position, the New Hampshire men lost 19 killed and 74
wounded.

Tlie three New Hampshire regiments were detached from
Washington's army to swell that which, in 1776, was organ-
ized in this State, under General Sullivan, for the conquest of
Canada ; but which, having invaded that Province, by way of
the Hudson and Lake Champlain, found itseK outnumbered
and compelled to retreat to Ticonderoga, losing a third of its
number by sickness, privation, and exposure. Eejoining Gen-
eral Washington, Stark's regiment was conspicuous in the
brilliant affair at Trenton, where it had the advance, and par-
ticipated in the succeeding actions at Princeton and at Spring-
field, N. J.

In the list of promotions made by Congress next Spring,
Stark's name did not appear ; whereupon, he promptly and
indignantly resigned. But, on the alarm of Burgoyne's inva-
sion from Canada, soon afterward, a fresh appeal to the pa-
triotism of the people was made by tlie General Assembly of
New Hampshire ; when Londonderry raised another company
of seventy men, besides contributing liberally to existing
organizations. In fact, there was nearly a levy en masse of
the able-bodied men of this State and the debatable lands
now known as Vermont. Stark was asked to take command
of the new militia, and did so ; stipulating only that he
should not be subordinate to any other commander. Hence, he
refused to obey General Schuyler's order to advance to and



"THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS." 31

cross the Hudson, giving excellent reasons therefor ; but, re-
maining within the territory his men were called out to pro-
tect, he fought and won — Aug. 26, 1777 — the brilliant battle
of Bennington, routing and killing Colonel Baum, the Hessian
commander, and taking five hundred prisoners. His speech
to his troops, on the brink of engaging, ran substantially thus :
" Boys, you see them Hessians. King George gave £4 7s. %d.
apiece for 'em. I reckon we are worth more, and wiU prove it
directly. If not, Molly Stark sleeps a widow to-night ! " There
have been more elegant and far longer speeches ; but this
went as straight to its mark as a bullet.

The danger to his State having thus been averted, Stark
hastened to join General Gates on the Hudson, Avas in the
council which fixed the terms of Burgoyne's surrender, and
was soon thereafter restored to position in the Contmental
line, — Congress making reparation for its oversight by pub-
licly thanking him for his victory at Bennington, and ap-
pointing him a Brigadier-General in the regular service. He
remained in the army till the close of the war, and lived
forty years thereafter, — dying May 8, 1822, in his ninety-
fourth year.

Colonel Eeed, though not awarded his rank in the Conti-
nental line, also served through the war, — taking part in the
battles of Long Island, Wliite Plains, Trenton, Saratoga, Still-
water, Brandywine, Germantown, and in Sullivan's Indian
expedition. Having at length risen to a Continental colonelcy,
he was in command at Albany in 1782, when he was favored
with several letters from Washington, of whose military and
political character he was evermore a passionate admirer.
Having left his family in haste, on the tidings of the first
shot, he paid it but two or three hurried visits in midwinter
till honorably mustered out of service after the close of the
war, in the Summer of 1783. Meantime his wife, Mary, sister
of my grandfather Woodburn, was the ruler of his household,
the manager of his farm and business, and the sharer in full
measure of his fervid, unwearying patriotism. He lived to
fill several public stations, including those of Brigadier-Gen-



32 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

eral and Sheriff of his county ; dying in 1815, aged eighty-two
years. His wife survived him ; dying in 1823, at the ripe
age of eighty-eight.

Never was a war more essentially popular than that waged
in support of American Independence, and never were the
issues involved more thoroughly debated or more clearly
understood by a people. Congress having, early in 1776,
requested the authorities of each township to ascertain and
to disarm all persons "who are notoriously disaffected to the
cause of America," the selectmen of Londonderry reported the
names of 374 adult males in that town who had severally
signed the following pledge : —

" We, the subscribers, do hereby solemnly engage and promise
that we will, to the utmost of our power, at the risk of our lives
and fortunes, with arms, oppose the hostile proceedings of the
British fleets and armies against the United American Colonies."

Of course, those who had already enlisted, and were then
absent in the Continental service, shoidd be added to the
above list, raising it nearly to five hundred; while barely fifteen
men in that entire community refused to sign. Several
" Tories," however, had abeady left, finding the place too hot
for them : among them. Major Eobert Eogers, of the " Ean-
gers," raised in 1756, who had served with distinction through-
out the French war ; but who now, taking the ^vi"ong side, was
proscribed, and fled to England, where he died. Colonel
Stephen Holland, who had been one of the most eminent and
popular citizens, and had held several important public trusts,
after concealing and denying his Toryism so long as he could,
finally proclaimed it by fleeing to General Gage at Boston ;
whereupon his property was confiscated. Nowhere was Tory-
ism more execrated; and the suggestion in the Treaty of
Paris that the Loyalists should be permitted to return to the
communities they had, to serve the king, deserted, was unani-
mously scouted and defied in full town meeting.

Dr. Matthew Thornton, whose name heads the list of signers
to the pledge aforesaid, soon afterward affixed his signature to
the immortal Declaration of American Independence. He



"THE TIMES THAT TRIED MEN'S SOULS." 33

was born in Ireland in 1714, but brought over when but
three years old ; early commenced the practice of medicine in
Londonderry, and steadily rose to esteem and competence.
He was a surgeon of the New Hampshire forces in the expe-
dition against Cape Breton, in 1745, and was a colonel of
militia at the breaking out of the Eevolution. He was Presi-
dent of the first Provincial Convention assembled in New
Hampshire after the retirement of the royal Governor Went-
worth, and was chosen by it a delegate to Congress, in which
he did not take his seat till November, 1776, when — though
it was the darkest hour of the struggle — he at once signed the
Declaration. After peace was restored, though no lawyer, he
was chosen a judge of the Superior Court, and afterward
Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas. He died in 1803, aged
eighty-nine.

From first to last, Londonderry furnished 347 soldiers to
the Ptevolutionary armies, while her whole number of adult
males cannot, as we have seen, have much exceeded 500.
Some of these served but for short terms ; yet, after making
every deduction, this record, from a purely rural township,
whose youth had for forty years been constantly drawn away
to pioneer new settlements, not only in different parts of
New Hampshire, but in Londonderry and Windham, Vermont,
Truro, Nova Scotia, Cherry Valley, N. Y., &c., &c., is one
which her children have a right to regard with affectionate
pride. And not only were town bounties — liberal, considering
the value of money in those days — paid to her volunteers, but
their families were shielded from want by the provident care
of her authorities and people. Food was scarce and dear ;
clothing was scarcer and dearer ; but those who fought their
country's battles were consoled by the thought that, whatever
might befall them, their wives and little ones should not
famish or freeze while bread or cloth remained. And, when
independence and peace were at length achieved, it was a
proud reflection that they had been won by the constancy and
devotion, not of a class or a portion, but of the entire people.



IV.

RURAL NEW ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO.

THEEE brothers named Greeley (spelled five dijfferent
ways) migrated to America in 1640. One settled in
Maine, where he has many living descendants ; another in
Rhode Island, where he soon died ; a third in Sahsbury, Mass.,
near the south line of New Hampshire, into which his de-
scendants soon migrated, if he did not. One large family
of them hail from Gilmanton ; another, to whom I am less
remotely related, from Wilton ; my own great-grandfather
(named Zaccheus, as was his son my grandfather, and his son
my father) lived in or on the verge of Londonderry, in what
was in my youth Nottingham-West, and is now Hudson,
across the Merrimac from Nashua (which was then Dunstable
or nothing). I never heard of a Woodburn of our stock who
was not a farmer ; but the Greeleys of our clan, while mainly
farmers, are in part blacksmiths. Some of them have in this
century engaged in trade, and are presumed to have acquired
considerable property ; but these are not of the tribe of Zac-
cheus.

My grandfather Greeley was a most excellent, though never
a thrifty citizen. Kind, mild, easy-going, honest, and unam-
bitious, he married young, and reared a family of thirteen, —
nine sons and four daughters, — of whom he who died youngest
was thirty years old ; while a majority lived to be seventy,
and three are yet living, — at least two of them having seen
more than eighty summers.

So many children in the house of a poor and by no means
driving farmer, in an age when food and cloth cost twice the



RURAL NEW ENGLAND EIFTY YEARS AGO. 35

labor they now do, made economy rather a necessity than a
virtue ; but I presume none of those children ever suffered
protractedly from hunger, while all of them obtained such
education as was afibrded by the common schools of sixty to
eighty years ago ; or, if not, the fault was their own. Still,
the school-houses were ruder and rarer, the teachers less com-
petent, and the terms much shorter, than now ; while attend-
ance was quite irregular, being suspended on slight pretexts ;
so that I have heard my father say that his winter's schooling
after he came of age — when for three months he hired his
board, attended constantly, and studied diligently — was worth
more to him than all that preceded it.

]My grandfather owned and worked small farms successively
in Hudson, Pelham, Nottingham, and Londonderry, and was