living in the latter town for a second or third time when, on
the death of his wife, when he was about seventy-five years
old, he sold out, and went to spend his remaining days with
his son Gilbert, living in Manchester; but, that son dying
before liim, he fovmd a home thenceforth in Londonderry,
with his older son John, whose farm all but joins that of the
Woodburns in "the High Eange," ā€” the respective houses
being but a hundred rods apart, ā€” and here, in his fulness of
days, he died, aged ninety-four. (My grandfather Woodburn
had died at eighty-five, nearly thirty years before.) A de-
voted, consistent, life-long Christian, ā€” originally of the Bap-
tist, but ultimately of the Methodist persuasion, ā€” exemplary
in deportment and blameless in life, I do not believe that my
grandfather Greeley ever made an enemy; and, while he
never held an office, and his property was probably at no time
worth $ 2,000, and generally ranged from S 1,000 to zero, I
think few men were ever more sincerely and generally es-
teemed than he by those who knew him.

My father ā€” married at twenty-five to Mary Woodburn,
aged nineteen ā€” went first to live with his father, whose farm
he was to work, and inherit, supporting the old folks and
their still numerous minor cliildren ; but he soon tired of this,
and seceded ; migrating to and purchasing the farm whereon
six of his seven children were born.



36 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

The old road to Amherst from the Merrimac, at what in
my childhood was Amoskeag Falls, crossed by a rickety
old bridge, with but two or three hovises in sight, and is now
the manufacturing city of Manchester, with twenty-five thou-
sand inhabitants, passes through the little village of Piscata-
quoag, near the mouth of the creek of like name ; thence
through the township and village of Bedford, and, zigzagging
over the gentler hills, descends, when about five miles from
"Amherst Plain," or village, and just on the verge of the
township, into the deep valley of a brook, not yet quite large
enough for a mill-stream. (The road now travelled is far
smoother and better, and passes a mile or two southward of
the old one.) The " Stewart farm," of some forty acres (en-
larged by my father to fifty), covers the hillside and meadow
north of the road, with a few acres south of it, and lies partly
in Bedford, but mainly in Amherst. The soil is a gravelly
loam, generally strong, but hard and rocky ; grass, heavy at
first, "binds out" the third or fourth year, when the land
must be broken up, manured, tilled, and seeded down again ;
and a breaking-up team, in my early boyhood, was made up
of four yoke of oxen and a horse, whereby an acre per day
was seldom ploughed. Across the brook were two or three
little knolls, of an acre or so each, in good part composed of
water- worn pebbles, ā€” the debris of I know not what antedi-
luvian commotion and collision of glaciers and marine cur-
rents, ā€” which, when duly fertilized and tilled, produced
freely of corn or potatoes ; but which, being laid down to
grass, utterly refused to respond, deeming itself better adapted
to the growth of sorrel, milk-weed, or mullein. The potato
yielded more bounteously then than it does now, and was
freely grown to be fed into pork ; but I reckon that Indian
corn cost treble, if not quadruple, the labor per bushel that
our Western friends now give for it ; while wheat yielded
meagrely and was a very uncertain crop. Rye and oats did
much better, and were favorite crops to " seed down " upon ;
" rye and Indian " were the bases of the farmer's staff of life ;
and, when well made, no bread is more palatable or whole-



RURAL NEW ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO.



37



some. The liop culture was then common in our section ;
and, though fearfully hazardous, ā€” there being no yield one
year and no price the next, ā€” was reckoned inviting and pro-
ductive. My father estimated hops at ten cents per pound
as profitable a crop as corn at one dollar per bushel.

My father bought and removed to this farm early in 1808 ;




The cot where I was born."



here his first two children died ; here I was born (Februaiy
3, 1811), and my only surviving brother on the 12th of June,
1812. The house ā€” a modest, framed, unpainted structure
of one story ā€” was then quite new ; it was only modified
in our time by filling up and making narrower the old-fash-
ioned kitchen fireplace, which, having already devoured all
the wood on the farm, yawned ravenously for more. Tliis
dwelling faces the road from the north on a bench, or narrow
plateau, about two thirds down the hill ; the orchard of natural
fruit covers two or three acres of the hillside northeast of the
house, wdth the patch of garden and a small frog-pond between.



38 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

It seemed to me tliat sweeter and more spicy apjjles grew in
that neglected orchard than can now be bought in market ;
and it is not a mere notion that most fruits attain their highest
and best flavor at or near the coldest latitude in which they
can be grown at all. That orchard was not young fifty years
ago ; and, having been kept constantly in pasture, never tilled
nor enriched, and rarely pruned, mvist be nearly run out by
this time.

Being the older son of a poor and hard-working farmer,
struggling to pay off the debt he had incurred in buying his
high-priced farm, and to support his increasing family, I was
early made acquainted with labor. I well remember the cold
summer (181G) when we rose on the eighth of June to find
the earth covered with a good inch of newly fallen snow, ā€”
when there was frost every month, and corn did not fill till
October. Plants grew very slowly that season, while burrow-
ing insects fed and fattened on them. My task for a time
was to precede my father as he hoed his corn, dig open the
hills, and kiU the wire-worms and grubs that were anticipating
our dubious harvest. To " ride horse to plough " soon became
my more usual vocation ; the horse preceding and guiding the
oxen, save when furrowing for or tilling the planted crops.
Occasionally, the plough would strike a fast stone, and bring up
the team all standing, pitching me over the horse's head, and
landing me three to five feet iii front. In the frosty autumn
mornino'S, the working teams had to be " baited " on the rowen
or aftermath of thick, sweet grass beside the luxuriant corn
(maize) ; and I was called out at sunrise to watch and keep
them out of the corn while the men ate their breakfast before
yoking up and going afield. My bare feet imbibed a prejudice
against that line of duty ; but such premature rising induced
sleepiness ; so, if my feet had not ached, the oxen would have
had a better chance for corn.

Burning charcoal in the woods south and southwest of us
was a favorite, though very slow, method of earning money in
those days. The growing wood, having then no commercial
value, could usually be had for nothing; but the labor of



RURAL NEW ENGLAND FIFTY YEARS AGO. 39

cutting it down and reducing it to the proper length, piling it
skilfully, covering the heap with sods, or with straw and earth,
and then expelling every element but the carbon by smothered
combustion, is rugged and tedious. I have known a pit of
green wood to be nine days in burning ; and every pit must
be watched night and day till the process is comjDlete. Night-
watching by a pit has a fascination for green boys, who have
hitherto slept soundly and regularly through the dark hours ;
but a little of it usually sufhces. To sit or lie in a rude forest-
hut of boards or logs, located three or four rods from the pit,
with a good fire burning between, and an open, flaring front
looking across the fire at the pit, is a pleasant novelty of a
mdd, quiet evening ; and many a jovial story has been told,
many a pleasant game of cards, fox-and-geese, or checkers
played, and (I fear) some watermelons lawlessly purveyed from
neighboring fields and gardens by night-watching charcoal-
burners. But the taste for turning out, looking for and
stopping the holes that are frequently burnt through the
covering of the pit, is easily sated ; while a strong wind tlmt
drives the smoke of fire and pit into the open mouth of your
shanty, and threatens to set fire to the straw flooring on which
you recline, is soon regarded as a positive nuisance, especially
if accompanied by a pelting storm. In a wild night, your pit
breaks out far oftener than in calm weather ; requiring con-
stant attention and effort to keep it from burning up altogether ;
thus consuming the fruits of weeks of arduous toil. And,
after a week of coal-burning, you find it hard to return to
regular sleep, but hastily wake every hour or so, and instinc-
tively jump up to see how the pit is going on.

Picking stones is a never-ending labor on one of those rocky
New England farms. Pick as closely as you may, the next
ploughing turns up a fresh eruption of boulders and pebbles,
from the size of a hickory-nut to that of a tea-kettle ; and, as
this work is mainly to be done in March or April, when the
earth is saturated with ice-cold water, if not also whitened
with falling snow, youngsters soon learn to regard it witli de-
testation. I filially love the " Granite State," but could well
excuse the absence of sundry subdivisions of her granite.



40 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

" Hop-picking " was the rural carnival ā€” the festive harvest-
home ā€” of those old times ; answering to the vintage of south-
ern France or Italy. The hop matures about the first of Sep-
tember, when the vines are cut near the ground, the poles
pulled up and laid successively across forked sticks lengthwise
of a large bin, into which busy fingers from either side rapidly
strip the hops ā€” each pole, when stripped, being laid aside and
replaced by another. The bin having been filled, the hops are
drawn to the kiln, wherein they are cured by exposure for
hours to a constant, drying heat from a charcoal fire below ;
after which, they are pressed, like cotton, into bales so com-
pact and dense as to defy easy disintegration. The pickers are
mainly young women ā€” the daughters of neighboring farmers
ā€” and the older children of both sexes ; while the handling
of the poles demands masculme strength and energy; the
work is pushed with ardor, often by rival groups employed at
different bins, racing to see which will first have its bin fuU.
The evenings are devoted to social companionship and rustic
merry-making; friends drop in to enjoy and increase the
festivity ; and, if hop-picking is not now an agreeable labor,
despite the sore eyes sometimes caught from it, then rui^al life
in hop-growing districts has lost what was one of its pleas-
antest features haK a century ago.



V.

MT EARLY SCHOOL-DATS.

MY mother, having lost her mother when but five years
old, was, for the next few years, the especial prot^g^e
and favorite of her aged grandmother, already mentioned,
who had migrated from Ireland when but fourteen years
old, and whose store of Scottish and Scotch-Irish traditions,
songs, anecdotes, shreds of history, &c., can have rarely been
equalled. These she imparted freely to her eager, receptive
granddaughter, who was a glad, easy learner, whose schooling
was better than that of most farmers' daughters in her day,
and who naturally became a most omnivorous and retentive
reader. There were many, doubtless, whose literary acqui-
sitions were more accurate and more profound than hers ;
but few can have been better qualified to interest or to stim-
ulate the unfolding mind in its earliest stages of develop-
ment.

I was for years a feeble, sickly child, often under medical
treatment, and unable to watch, through a closed window, the
falling of rain, "wdthout incurring an instant and violent
attack of illness. Having suddenly lost her two former chil-
dren, just before my birth, my mother was led to regard me
even more fondly and tenderly than she otherwise might
have done ; hence, I was her companion and confidant about
as early as I could talk ; and her abundant store of ballads,
stories, anecdotes, and traditions was daily poured into my
willing ears. I learned to read at her knee, ā€” of course,
longer ago than I can remember ; but I can faintly recollect
her sitting spinning at her " little wheel," with the book in



42



RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.



lier lap wlience I was taking my daily lesson ; and thus I
soon acquired the facility of reading from a book sidewise or
upside down as readily as in the usual fashion, ā€” a knack
which I did not at first suppose peculiar ; but which, being at
length observed, became a subject of neighborhood wonder
and fabulous exaggeration.

Two months before I had attained the age of three years,
I was taken home by my grandfather Woodburn to spend a
few weeks with him, and sent to school from his house, ā€” the




My First School-House.

school-house of his district being but fifty rods from his door ;
whereas, our proper school-house in Amherst was two miles,
and the nearest school-house (in Bedford) over a mile, from
my father's. Hence, I lived at my grandfather's, and went
thence to school, most of each Winter and some months in
Summer during the next three years.

My first schoolmaster was David Woodburn Dickey, a
nephew of my grandfather, a college graduate, and an able.



MY EARLY SCEOOL-DAYS. 43

worthy man, tliougli rather a severe than a successful gov-
ernor of youth. The district was large ; there were ninety
names on its roll of pupils, ā€” many of them of full-grown
men and women, not well broken to obedience and docility,

ā€” with an average attendance of perhaps sixty ; all to be
instructed in various studies, as well as ruled, by a single
teacher, who did his very best, which included a liberal ap-
phcation of birch and ferule. He was a cripple ; and it was
all he could do, with his high spirit and unquestioned moral
suiDeriority, to retain the mastery of the school.

Our next teacher in Winter was Cyrus Winn, from Massa-
chusetts, ā€” a tall, muscular, thoroughly capable young man,
who rarely or never struck a blow, but governed by moral
force, and by appeals to the nobler impulses of his pupils.
They were no better, when he took charge of them, than his
predecessor's had been, ā€” in fact, they were mainly the same,

ā€” yet his sway was far more complete, and the revolts
against it much rarer ; and when he left us, at the close of
his second term, a general attendance of parents on his last
afternoon, with a rural feast of boiled cider and doughnuts,
attested the emphatic appreciation of his worth. For my
own part, I could enjoy nothing, partake of nothing, so
intense was my grief at parting with him. It was the first
keen sorrow of my life. I never saw him again, but learned
that he was drowned the next Winter.

There was an unruly, frolicsome custom of "barring out"
in our New Hampshire common schools, which I trust never
obtained a wider acceptance. On the first of January, and
perhaps on some other day that the big boys chose to consider
or make a holiday, the forenoon passed off as quietly as that
of any other day ; but, the moment the master left the house
in quest of his dinner, the httle ones were started homeward,
the door and windows suddenly and securely barricaded, and
the older pupils, thus fortified against intrusion, proceeded to
spend the afternoon in play and hilarity. I have known a
master to make a desperate struggle for admission ; but I do
not recollect that one ever succeeded, ā€” the odds being too



44 RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

great. If lie appealed to the neighboring fathers, they were
apt to recollect that they had been boys themselves, and
advise him to desist, and let matters take their course. I
recollect one instance, however, where a youth was shut out
who thought he ought to have been numbered with the elect,
and resolved to resent his exclusion. Procuring a piece of
board, he mounted from a fence to the roof of the school-
house, and covered the top of the chimney nicely with his
board. Ten minutes thereafter, the house was filled with
smoke, and its inmates, opening the door and windows, were
glad to make terms with the outsider.

The capital start given me by my mother enabled me to make
rapid progress in school, ā€” a progress monstrously exaggerated
by gossip and tradition. I was specially clever in spelling,
ā€” an art in which there were then few even tolerably pro-
ficient, ā€” so that I soon rose to the head of the " first class,"
and usually retained that position. It was a custom of the
school to " choose sides " for a " spelling-match " one afternoon
of each week, ā€” the head of the first class in spelhng, and
the pupil standing next, being the choosers. In my case,
however, it was found necessary to change the rule, and con-
fide the choice to those who stood second and third respec-
tively ; as I ā€” a mere infant of four years ā€” could spell, but
not choose, ā€” often preferring my playmates, who could not
spell at all.

These spelling-matches usually took place in the evening,
when I could not keep my eyes open, and should have been
in bed. It was often necessary to rap me sharply when " the
word " came around to me ; but I never failed to respond ;
and it came to be said that I spelled as well asleep as awake.
I apprehend that this was more likely to be true of some
others of the class ; who, if ever so sound asleep, could
scarcely have spelled worse than they did.

We very generally complain of frequent changes in our
school-books, and with reason. Yet we ought to consider
that these frequent changes have resulted in signal improve-
ment ; that our school-books of to-day are not only far



MY EARLY SCHOOL-DAYS. 45

better than those of fifty years ago, but that their improve-
ment has not been fully paralleled elsewhere. A\nien I first
went to school, Webster's Spelliug-Book was just supplant-
ing Dilworth's ; " The American Preceptor " was pushing
aside " The Art of Heading " ; and the only grammar in use
was " The Ladies' Accidence," by Caleb Bingham, ā€” as poor
an affair as its name would indicate. Geography was scarcely
studied at all ; while chemistry, geology, and other depart-
ments of natural science, had never been heard of in rural
school-houses. " Morse's Geography," which soon came into
vogue, was a valuable compend of political and statistical
information ; but, having barely one map, would scarcely
pass for a school geography now. Very soon, Lindley Mur-
ray's Grammar and English Eeader came into fashion, ā€” solid
works, but not well adapted to the instruction of children of
eight to fourteen years. In fact, I spent considerable time on
grammar to little purpose, and made no decided progress
therein, till I had learned to scan my authorities critically,
and repudiate their errors. When I had pondered myself
into a decided conviction that MuiTay did not fully under-
stand his subject, and that his giving "Let me be" as an
example of the first, and " Let him be " as its correlative in
the third person singular of the imperative mood, were simply
blunders, which a deeper knowledge of grammar would have
taught him to avoid, I had broken loose from the shackles of
routine and iteration, and was prepared to accept all the light
from any quarter that might irradiate the science. Daniel
Adams (a New Hampshire man, now lately deceased) had not
then published his lucid and favorite Arithmetic, or, if he
had, it had not reached us; Pike's far more difficult work
was in general use. I cannot say what progress has very
recently been made ; but Greenleaf, some thirty or forty
years since, shortened the time and effort required to gain a
decent knowledge of English grammar by at least one half.
I believe like progress has been made in elementaiy treatises
in other departments of knowledge.

The first book I ever owned was " The Columbian Orator,"



4G RECOLLECTIONS OF A BUSY LIFE.

given to me by my uncle Perry (husband of my father's old-
est sister), as I lay very sick of the measles at my maternal
grandfather's, when about four years of age. Those who
happen to have been famihar, in its day, with that volume,
will recollect it as a medley of dialogues, extracts from ora-
tions, from sermons, from speeches in Parliament, in Congress,
and at the Bar, with two or three versified themes for decla-
mation, such as " Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise ! " and the
lines (since attributed to Edward Everett,^ but who must
have written them very young, if he wrote them at all)
beginning, " You 'd scarce expect one of my age to speak in
public on the stage," ā€” lines which I was dragged forward to
recite incessantly, till I fairly loathed them. This " Orator "
was my prized text-book for years, and I became thoroughly
familiar with its contents ; though I cannot say tliat I ever
learned much of value from it, ā€” certainly not 'oratory. The
first large work that I ever read consecutively was the Bible,
rmder tlie guidance of my mother, when I was about five
years old.

I attended school, rather irregularly, during the brief term
of my fifth and sixth summers, in the w^estern district of
Bedford, about a mile from my father's. For the next two
years, w^e li^'ed in that township, ā€” my father having rented
his own farm to a brother, and himself removed to the much
larger " Beard Farm," in the eastern part of that town, whicli
he had undertaken to work on shares. Here we were again
nearly equidistant from two school-houses ; living in the
northeastern district, but often attending the school at the
centre of the town, which was much larger, and generally
better taught.

Here I first learned that this is a world of hard work.
Often called out of bed at dawn to " ride horse to plough "
among the growing corn, potatoes, and hops, we would get as
much ploughed by 9 to 10 A. M. as could be hoed that day ;
when I would be allowed to start for school, where I some-

1 Their author, I have learned since the above was first printed, was Moses
Everett, a Massachusetts teacher of sixty to eighty years ago.



MY EARLY SCHOOL-DAYS. 47

times arrived as the forenoon session was half through. In
Winter, our work was lighter ; but the snow was often deep
and drifted, the cold intense, the north wind piercing, and
our clothing thin ; beside which, the term rarely exceeded,
and sometimes fell short of, two months. I am grateful for
much ā€” schooling included ā€” to my native State ; yet I trust
her boys of to-day generally enjoy better facilities for educa-
tion at her common schools than they afforded me half a
century ago.

The French have a proverb importing that in age we re-
turn to the loves of our youth. I have asked myself, " How
would you like to return to that cot on the hillside, and spend
the rest of your days there ? " IVIy answer, is that I would
not like it, ā€” that, though adversity drove me inexorably
thence, I have been so thoroughly weaned that I have no
wish to go back " for good." The cot still looks friendly and
kindly when I (too seldom) pass it ; the farm and the orchard
are still familiar objects, and I would gladly muse a sunny,
genial Autumn day there ; but my heart no longer recognizes
that spot as its home.

The last Summer that we lived in New Hampshire, an
offer was made by the leading men of our neighborhood to
send me to Phillips Academy at Exeter, and thence to col-
lege, ā€” the expense being so defrayed that no part of it should
fall on my parents. They listened thoughtfully to the pro-
posal, briefly deliberated, then firmly, though gratefully, de-
clined it; saying that they would give their children the
best education they could afford, and there stop. I do not
remember that I had then any decided opinion or wish in the
premises ; but I now have ; and, from the bottom of my
heart, I thank my parents for their wise and manly decision.
Much as I have needed a fuller, better education, I rejoice
that I am indebted for schooling to none but those of whom
I had a right to ask and expect jt.



VI.

ADIEU TO NEW HAMPSHIRE.

OUE tenancy of the " Beard Farm," in Bedford, answered
very nearly to my seventh and eighth years. That was
a large and naturally good farm, but in a state of dilapidation :
overgrown with bushes and briers, its fences in ruins, and the
buildings barely able to stand alone, ā€” the large two-story
house more especially far gone. My father had let his omti
farm, on shares, to a younger brother, whom he wished and
hoped thus to serve, while he was led to expect payment for