Send a dove to the world with the hope of return;
He must close every portal but sighing and pain,
In a bosom that sorrow can never unlearn.
J. T. F.
_Boston, Oct., 1843._
CHRONICLES OF THE PAST.
NUMBER TWO.
THE application of names to places is often a matter of mere fancy,
without a semblance of appropriateness. The belligerent little State
of Rhode-Island, for example, bears no more likeness to the Isle
of Rhodes, from which it takes its name, than does a West Indian
war-club to the queue of a Chinese mandarin. The Bay State is no
more the State possessing a bay, than are half the sea-board States
in the Union; nor has Connecticut any more claim to the river which
enriches her meadows, nor Vermont to the greensward of her hills,
than has Massachusetts to the one, or Western Virginia to the other.
Far more mal-apropos, however, than all we have mentioned, is the
application of _palmetto_ to the chivalrous land of nullification,
since neither on upland nor lowland, rice field nor cotton-field,
saving only the dwarf specimens upon the sand-banks of Sullivan's
Island, is that fantastic tree of the tropics to be found any where
within the State. In truth, as a general thing, there is neither
character nor cleverness in the application of names to places; and
he who should form his notions of the different sections of our
country from the appellations they have received, would be much in
the condition of Bossuet's student of history, who had taken for his
text-books Gulliver's Voyages and Rabelais's Pantagruel.
There is, however, _one_ notable exception to the general fact.
New-Hampshire is rightly and truly designated the Granite State. Not
only in the bare sides of her stupendous mountains, and the broad
bases of her rugged hills, does she partake largely of this firm
conglomerate, but in her people also she seems to have compounded
no small share of the hard material. Stern, unbending, indomitable,
with physical frames like the gnarled oak, and characters rough as
the huge boulders upon her soil, New-Hampshire may boast a race
of men unequalled for energy and endurance by any other in the
world. It would seem as if the old Saxon legend, which makes Tor,
the war-god, hew the first man, with hammer and chisel, out of a
block of stone, and give him life with a flash of lightning, were
fully verified in these hardy sons of the mountains; for they are
almost literally men of granite, with electric spirits. It has
been my fortune, in a not uneventful life, to have travelled over
many portions of the world's surface, and to have seen much of
human manners and character; and I can truly say that I have always
returned to the barren soil of New-Hampshire with a higher respect
and a warmer love for the rude virtues of her sons; and it is now my
firm belief, should the day ever come, which may Heaven avert! when
dissensions will rend asunder that great charter of our freedom,
the Constitution, that Liberty, like the bird we have chosen for
her emblem, scared from her resting-place in the capitol, would find
her last and secure home among the dwellers on the hill-sides of the
Granite State.
This is not equally true, however, of every portion of
New-Hampshire. Along the southern borders of her territory the
spindle and shuttle have introduced a race who are strangers to the
simple virtues of her husbandmen; so that even they, tempted by the
lucre of gain, have sadly fallen from the primitive plainness which
was once their most enviable characteristic. Neither upon the rich
intervales of the Connecticut, where wealth comes unattended by her
handmaid labor, will you find the true specimens of her stalwart
yeomanry. It is in the distant up-country only, among the townships
far removed from the bustle of the manufactory and the crowd of
the market-place, that the rough husbandmen of the hard soil, the
sterling democracy of our degenerate age, are to be sought and
known. There they dwell, the honest country-folk of by-gone days,
undisturbed by the changes which time brings over other portions of
the world, contented lords of the heritage of their fathers.
Whether it is to be attributed to some peculiarities of climate or
of soil, or to some one of those other thousand influences which
are ever operating upon the physical frame, it is certain that the
maximum of bodily size and human life, over a considerable portion
of the Granite State, is at a higher standard than in any other part
of our country. It is capable of being demonstrated by the student
of history, that more of pure, unadulterated Saxon blood runs in the
veins of the backwoodsmen of New-Hampshire, than in any other class
of our people; but whether this has any thing to do with the fact
we have stated, cannot of course be determined. That fact, however,
is established beyond a doubt; and he who would see a peasantry of
sturdier frames and greater age than is to be found elsewhere in the
whole world, may find them scattered over the rough soil and along
the narrow valleys of the White Mountains. Six feet in height, and
one hundred and sixty pounds in weight, make elsewhere a man above
the customary standard; but in New-Hampshire scores of young men,
from six feet two inches to six feet five, and weighing a hundred
and ninety pounds, never deem themselves above the ordinary size. I
have in my mind's eye at this moment ten young men, who would weigh
two hundred pounds, _without a single ounce of surplus flesh_, and I
doubt not thousands over the State could be found to match them in
every way.
The portion of the State of which this is peculiarly true, lies
north of the Winnepisseogee lake. It is a country of all others
most uninviting to the farmer, and one wonders what could have
tempted its first settlers to have selected it as a home. Huge
rocks, tumbled from the mountains, lie thickly scattered over the
tillage-ground and pastures; ledges, bare or covered with dark
green moss, run for miles often through farms and homesteads;
precipitous banks and abrupt precipices swell and break over the
whole landscape; and the entire country is ploughed with deep
ravines, and barren with a scanty soil, beyond what any description
can convey. To the lover of nature, indeed, it is a country full of
beauty. Those old hills, black with forests of Norway pine, lying
like the sleeping guardians of the beautiful lake by their side; and
those rustic cottages, scattered along the narrow valley which the
retreating waters have left between themselves and the mountains;
and finer than all, the numerous water-falls that leap and dash
and gurgle onward over scaur and precipice and wooded cliff toward
the Winnepisseogee, which seems waiting like some gentle mother
to welcome her joyous children to her bosom; are well worth the
journey of many a long mile to the scenery-loving tourist. But the
people are poor. Toiling from year to year with unceasing industry,
they gain from the hard soil a bare livelihood, from youth to old
age. Happy indeed in their poverty; contented, unaspiring, and
satisfied if the last days of December shall find them no poorer
than they commenced the year, and the produce of the farm has
proved sufficient to pay the tax of poll and parsonage, and yield a
sufficiency for the winter's store.
The features of the country strike the eye accustomed to a more
dense population as singularly unique. One may travel those roads,
winding through the mountain passes and along the high palisades,
for days, and see neither village nor hamlet, nothing indeed but the
low, unpainted houses, sometimes prettily covered with jessamine
and ivy, but more often bare of all taste or adornment, saving the
solitary lilac-trees which stand in the corners of the court-yards,
or the old scented thorn-bushes by the side of the door. Looking
down sometimes from an elevation he has gained, they seem to the
traveller, those cottages, like martins' nests, dotting the curving
shores of some beautiful bay; and again from some deep ravine, they
appear like fairy domicils, perched high on the cliffs and ramparts
of the mountains. Interspersed in every few miles are the district
school-houses and the parish churches, the one almost invariably
standing upon the fork of two or more roads, and the other crowning
the summit of the highest hill attainable by horse and vehicle.
And then the country tavern, whose long shed and sanded hall give
surety to the stranger and his beast of a comfortable noon-tide
baiting; or, in the more solitary townships, where the places
of entertainment are few and far between, the quiet nook by the
forest road-side, where the dipper hangs beside the overflowing
water-trough, and the guide-board measures out the long miles
between him and his evening resting-place; each and all objects
of pleasant recollection to the traveller, as he muses upon his
journeyings in after life.
The effect of a mountain atmosphere upon the health and spirits of
mankind has long been known to the medical faculty, and has been
treated of by its most distinguished writers. Its equal tendency
to the extension of human life, however, naturally as it seems to
follow from the other, has been entirely overlooked. And yet this
is as capable of satisfactory demonstration as any fact connected
with the animal economy. Nor is this the only fact of interest in
regard to this subject, which presents itself to the attentive and
accurate observer. It is also capable of proof, that up to a certain
distance from the equator, the length of life increases in a steady
ratio with the degrees of latitude. In some recent statistics which
have been carefully taken, and which upon their completion will
be given to the world, it has been ascertained that the average
length of human life is thirteen per cent. greater in the mountain
districts of New-Hampshire than it is upon the sea-board country of
Massachusetts or Maine; fourteen per cent. greater than in New-York
or Pennsylvania; seventeen per cent. greater than in Virginia;
and twenty-two per cent. greater than in any State south of the
parallel of thirty-five degrees. There are indeed other causes to
be taken into the account, to which we cannot now refer, which are
every where recognized as having an important influence upon the
_physique_, if not indeed upon the _morale_, of the human race.
But entirely aside from these, the principle of an increasing
age directly following a diminishing temperature, can be most
satisfactorily shown; so that the rough mountaineer of New-Hampshire
has as much right to calculate upon the good old age of eighty-six,
as has the lordly planter of the Sea Islands to the premature
decrepitude of three-score.
This extreme old age to which the agriculturalists of New-Hampshire
attain, is perceptible to the most casual observer. Over the whole
country we have described, evidences of the truth of this force
themselves upon his attention, wherever he goes. The old man of
seventy-five years still mows his swath in the summer, and bends
his sickle in the autumn, with the elastic vigor of the prime of
manhood. The barn rings with the heavy strokes of the flail, swung
in alternate succession by the veteran and his grandson. The cozy
couple, who could tell you stories of their own experience in
revolutionary days, ride each Sabbath morning side by side upon the
pillioned saddle to the house of GOD. The simple head-stones in the
church-yard also, though they may often record the premature decay
of some bright blossom of the social circle, more frequently point
out the resting-places of those who were gathered to their graves
like the shock of corn that cometh in in its season. In the town of
Moultonborough, for example, where the population scarcely reaches
to thirteen hundred souls, no less than forty-four persons have died
since 1833, _whose average ages were ninety-eight years_. Of these
forty-four, twenty-six had exceeded a century, and the youngest of
the band was cut off at the premature age of eighty-seven. 'Think
of that, Master Brook!' But the oldest of the group, he who was for
many years the banner-veteran of our worthies, and whose memory,
we opine, will still be foremost for many years to come; he, our
hearty Scotchman, whose monument rises by the church-yard gate, he,
unshrinking, undismayed, stood erect under the accumulated weight of
_six score and seven full-told years_!
Brave old DONALD MCNAUGHTON! thrice honored be thy memory! Year
after year didst thou live on in the very greenness of decrepitude;
and though old Time filched one by one the glories of thy manhood,
it mattered little, so long as listeners would come to thy long
stories of the feats of daring at Louisburg and the Plains of
Abraham! Thou type of graceful covetousness, thou realization of
penurious modesty, it irks me to think that thou, at the last,
malgré thy unwearied care and long delay, shouldst have been forced
to pass the Lethean stream in leaky Stygian wherry! But Death took
thee unawares; and he whom thou hadst so long defied, impatient of
the delay, and distrusting perchance his skill to meet thee in open
day, stole upon thee in thy midnight slumbers, and carried thee,
a poor forked shape, unresisting because unconscious, to the pale
kingdom.
The history of Donald McNaughton's life would be replete with
worldly wisdom. Commencing life a 'puir bairn,' to use his own
phrase, though at the time to which he alluded he must well-nigh
have completed his fiftieth year, by unremitted industry and careful
economy he amassed a fortune, remarkable in a new and unproductive
country. Up to his one hundredth year he labored daily in the field,
and his best workmen could seldom surpass him in the amount of
labor. Even at that age it was not the decrepitude of years but of
an accidental injury, which laid the old man by, and to the very day
of his confinement, which preceded his death but a single week, he
personally superintended all the business of his homestead. At the
distant market-town in the coldest winter weather; at the polls on
every day of election through the 'sleety dribble' and miry roads
of earliest spring; at church and funeral, auction-sale and country
gathering, he was ever the foremost man. Indeed in all matters,
whether of state or church, public or private, he prided himself
upon his superior sagacity; and not without reason. Shrewd, careful,
far-sighted, firm in the tenacity with which he held, and cool in
the manner with which he expressed, his opinions, he retained over
three generations the undisputed sway of a superior man.
The secret of the great age to which he attained was in
contravention of all the principles of dietetics. No man was ever
more imprudent in his diet, or in his exposure to the weather. He
was, however, habitually cheerful; a consequence rather than a cause
of his continued healthfulness; and no war-worn hero ever better
loved, by the fireside of the wintry night, or under the summer
shade of his broad roof-tree, 'to count his scars, and tell what
deeds were done,' than did old Scotch Donald. How well I remember
the lighting up of his bright hazle eye as he would commence in his
broad highland accent some tale of flood or field; and how readily
we boys would quit the game of cricket or marbles, to listen to a
story of the wars by old 'Gran'fth McNaughton!'
Nor was it in narrative alone that the old man excelled. No man
better loved a ready joke, and no man better turned one, than
did he. I remember a pedler one day riding up to his door, the
poor beast he bestrode being ladened from shoulder to haunch with
the variety of wares which he had to dispose of. Greatly to our
surprise, old Donald met him at the door with a most cheerful
greeting, for we well knew that pedlers were his utter abomination,
and, offering him a chair, inquired what he had to sell. 'Oh,
every thing, Sir; every thing,' replied he of the packs; 'ribbons,
silks, calicoes, combs, thimbles, needles, scissors, gloves, belts,
sewing-silk--every thing, Sir, every thing! What will you have?'
'Got any grind-stones?' asked the old man. 'Oh, no Sir, I came a
horse-back.' '_Ah, I thought you came a foot!_' was the reply,
uttered in a tone and manner that sent the poor hawker out at the
door with a speed that no maledictions could have effected.
For many years Mr. McNaughton was the only justice of the peace in
the town where he resided; and a history of the cases which came
before him, and of his decisions thereupon, would furnish a new
chapter in civil jurisprudence amusing enough. Whatever may have
been the landmarks in law which influenced those decisions, it is
certain that they generally gave satisfaction, and were considered
by the parties in dispute as final beyond resort. Nothing gave the
old man more satisfaction in his judicial capacity than to puzzle
the lawyer, for we had but one in the county in those days, by the
decisions he pronounced, and his frequent reply to the objections
urged. 'So ye dinna ken my reasons, ye say, Mr. Bartlett, for the
decision I mad' to-day? Weel, weel, I ken them mysel', an' that's a'
sufficient in the law, nae doubt!' became almost proverbial in the
mouths of the people. I remember two men being brought before him
upon a charge of stealing the poultry of a poor widow, who lived in
the outskirts of the parish, for whose conviction, Esquire Bartlett,
from some personal pique, had made extraordinary efforts. The men
had been taken the night previous about ten o'clock, one in bed and
asleep, the other sitting up by his kitchen fire. There was but
little evidence of their guilt, and the advocate had to make the
most of every circumstance, in order to show a semblance of justice
in binding the men over for appearance at a higher tribunal. Of
course the situation in which each was found was strongly insisted
upon as a proof of guilt; and while one was awake at the dead of
night, stung by remorse for his crimes beyond the power of sleep to
quiet, the other was shown to be even more deep in iniquity, by the
utter indifference he manifested in going to sleep upon his pillow,
after the perpetration of the horrible deed. Without perceiving the
inconsistency of the two parts of his argument, the lawyer rested
his case, and waited for the decision, which the old justice was not
slow in giving. Calling the two culprits before his chair, he arose
and said: 'I dinna ken what lawyer Bartlett would ha'e a mon do, at
ten o'clock at night. Gin he sits up by his fire, he is a rogue for
sure; an' gin he gang to bed, he is nae honest mon! Here, you John
Wilkins, you may gang free this time, only never let me hear you
sitting up ayont ten at night again; and you, Sam Wilkins, you may
gang free too, gin you promise ne'er to shut your e'en till eleven
o'clock, whenever you rob a hen-roost!'
Although Donald McNaughton was the oldest man in the town, yet
there was not after all that visible contrast between him and his
associates, which a stranger would have expected. At that day, the
minister who sat above him in the pulpit, and who, though he did
not preach, still deemed himself able to do so, and the deacon who
administered the sacramental ordinance, were both nearly a century
in age. Of the former, one of that staunch little band of clergymen,
who, from the time the constitution was accepted up to the close of
the administration of Jefferson, stood manfully on the democratic
side, and lived, and preached, and prayed for the people's rights,
we have many anecdotes to relate at another time. If any man ever
deserved a record in the hearts of freemen, it was he, the faithful
pastor, the unswerving champion of the truth; and though it is a
long time since
'His labors all were done,
And the work he loved the best,'
yet it is fitting to call up from the past the spirits of those who
won for us the liberty we enjoy.
But the Deacon, good old Deacon Richardson, was in political
sentiment, as in every thing else, the very antipodes of the
minister. He too, however, was a veteran of the war of the
Revolution; and the stories he told, though not equal in interest
to the old Scotchman's, were yet not without their merit. Of his
years, the Deacon was the most agile person I ever saw; and up
to the age of ninety-four, would mount his horse, and ride over
hill and dale to church or tavern, with the speed of a reckless
plough-boy. Indeed he had a physical frame which seemed never to
feel the effects of old age; one of those lean, tough, shrivelled
bodies that wilt early, but decay late, and which, however seared
by increasing winters, still cling to life, like the last leaf to
the tree. At fifty years the good Deacon looked as old, and felt as
old, as he did forty years after. Through Saratoga, and Monmouth,
and Breed's Hill encounters, he had escaped unscathed; and but for
the untoward fall of the last forest-tree he ever chopped, there
was no reason apparent why he might not have lived through another
century. Cheerful, merry, and frolicksome as a lamb at midsummer,
the dapper little centenarian would frisk about among the matrons
and spinsters at our country parties, like the licensed beau of a
boarding-school. But with all his partialities for the sex, the
Deacon was never married. Why this was so, no one could ever tell,
unless, from a habit of stuttering, which nearly overcame him when
he was embarrassed, he found it difficult to get out words enough
for a proposal. And yet there were those among our lone damsels,
who, one would have thought, would have eked out the sentence when
it was once fairly begun, for the solitude of no man had ever more
commiseration from the gentler sex than did his.
Speaking of the Deacon's stuttering habit of talking, reminds me of
a reply he made to some brethren of the church, who had been deputed
to converse with him upon his known disaffection to a new clergyman,
whom the parish were about to settle. The _real_ objection which he
had to the minister was never known, but the _avowed_ one was the
inferior mental endowments which the sermons he had preached showed
him possessed of. This he urged upon the committee from the church,
and this they in turn combated and denied. At last, finding the
Deacon's objections to be indomitable, beyond the hope of removing,
one of the brethren said: 'Well, Deacon Richardson, let us grant you
all that you say, still I think you are wrong. We must not expect a
man of first-rate abilities in our little congregation. We must be
content with one of moderate talents. You know the Bible says, that
'one star differeth from another star in glory.'
'Humph!' replied the Deacon, 'I sh-sh-shouldn't care if you would
give us a _st-st-star_, but we do-do-don't want a _lightning-bug_!'
The minister was settled over the flock, however, and the old
man lived to overcome all his objections, despite his naturally
obstinate disposition.
Although Deacon Richardson was possessed of many excellent traits
of character, he was by nature rather inclined to an eager grasping
after wealth, a disposition which his solitary state greatly
confirmed and increased. For the last twenty years of his life the
attainment of wealth seemed to be his ruling passion, and he went
on, adding farm to farm, and mortgage to mortgage, until it began to
be feared that he would live to gain possession of all the property
in town. Apropos to this: I remember that a Methodist clergyman, who
had spent the night at my father's house, addressed a little boy,
(who happened to be passing while he was performing his ablutions at
the 'sink' by the door,) and received his answers somewhat in this
wise, greatly to the amusement of all within hearing:
MINISTER. Little boy, what is your name?
BOY. John, Sir.
MINISTER. John what?
BOY. John Berry, Sir.
_Minister._ Don't you think it is time for you to be thinking about
your soul, my boy?
BOY. Sir?
MINISTER. Don't you think it is best for you to be making
preparation for a future state? Is it not time for you to be
thinking about _another world_?
BOY. Yes, Sir; I think it is time, for father says Deacon
Richardson's _going to have all there is in this world_!