POLITICS, TRAVEL, AND BUSINESS.
Let us quote again from Mr. Coffin's autobiographical notes:
"In 1836 my father, catching the speculation fever of the period,
accompanied by my uncle and brother-in-law, went to Illinois, and left
quite an amount of money for the purchase of government land. My
father owned several shares in the Concord Bank. The speculative fever
pervaded the entire community,--speculation in lands in Maine and in
Illinois. The result was a great inflation of prices,--the issuing of
a great amount of promises to pay, with a grand collapse which brought
ruin and poverty to many households. The year of 1838 was one of great
distress. The wheat and corn crop was scant. Flour was worth $16 a
barrel. I remember going often to mill with a grist of oats, which was
bolted into flour for want of wheat. The Concord Bank failed,--the
Western lands were worthless. Wool could not be sold, and the shearing
for that year was taken to the town of Nelson, in Cheshire County, and
manufactured into satinets and cassimeres, on shares. One of the
pieces of cassimere was dyed with a claret tinge, from which I had my
first Sunday suit.
"Up to this period, nearly all my clothing was manufactured in the
family loom and cleaned at the clothing and fulling mill. In very
early boyhood, my Sunday suit was a swallow-tailed coat, and hat of
the stove-pipe pattern.
"The year 1840 was one of great political excitement,--known to
history as the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. General Harrison,
the Whig candidate, was popularly supposed to live in a log cabin and
drink hard cider. On June 17th, there was an immense gathering of
Whigs at Concord. It was one of the greatest days of my life. Six
weeks prior to that date, I thought of nothing but the coming event. I
was seventeen years old, with a clear and flexible voice, and I
quickly learned the Harrison songs. I went to the convention with my
brothers and cousins, in a four-wheeled lumber wagon, drawn by four
horses, with a white banner, having the words 'Boscawen Whig
Delegation.' We had flags, and the horses' heads labelled 'Harrison
and Tyler.' We had a roasted pig, mince pies, cakes, doughnuts and
cheese, and a keg of cider. Before reaching Concord we were joined by
the log cabin from Franklin, with coon skins, bear traps, etc.,
dangling from its sides. Boscawen sent nearly every Whig voter to the
meeting. I hurrahed and sung, and was wild with excitement. I remember
three of the speakers,--George Wilson, of Keene, Horace Greeley,
editor of the New York _Tribune_, a young man, and Henry Wilson, also
a young man, both of them natives of New Hampshire. Wilson had
attended school with my brother at the academy in Concord, in 1837,
then having the high-sounding name of Concord Literary Institute.
Wilson was a shoemaker, then residing in Natick, Mass., and was known
as the 'Natick Cobbler.' The songs have nearly all faded from memory.
I recall one line of our description of the prospective departure of
Van Buren's cabinet from the White House:
"'Let each as we go take a fork and a spoon.'
"There was one entitled 'Up Salt River,'--descriptive of the
approaching fate of the Democratic party. Another ran:
"'Oh, what has caused this great commotion the country through?
It is the ball, a rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'
"Then came the chorus:
"'Van, Van, is a used-up man.'
"In 1839, I had a fancy that I should like to be a merchant, and was
taken to Newburyport and placed with a firm of wholesale and retail
grocers. I was obliged to be up at 4.30, open the store, care for the
horse, curry him, swallow my breakfast in a hurry, also my dinner and
supper, and close the store at nine. It was only an experiment on my
part, and after five weeks of such life, finding that I was compelled
to do dishonest work, I concluded that I never would attempt to be a
princely merchant, and took the stage for home. It was a delightful
ride home on the top of the rocking coach, with the driver lashing
his whip and his horses doing their best.
"I think it was in 1841 that Daniel Webster attended the Merrimac
County Agricultural Fair at Fisherville, now Penacook. I was there
with a fine yoke of oxen which won his admiration. He asked me as to
their age and weight, and to whom they belonged. He recognized nearly
all of his old acquaintances. I saw him many times during the
following year. He was in the prime of life,--in personal appearance a
remarkable man."
Thus far it will be seen that there was little in Mr. Coffin's life
and surroundings that could not be easily told of the average New
England youth. Besides summer work on the farm, and "chores" about the
house, he had taken several terms at the academy in Boscawen. During
the winter of 1841-42, while unable to do any outdoor work, on account
of sickness, he bought a text-book on land-surveying and learned
something of the science and art, yet more for pastime than from any
expectation of making it useful.
Nevertheless, that book had a powerful influence upon his life. It
gave him an idea, through the application of measurement to the
earth's surface, of that order and beauty of those mathematical
principles after which the Creator built the universe. It opened his
eyes to the vast modification of the landscape, and the earth itself,
by man's work upon its crust. It gave him the engineer's eye.
Henceforth he became interested in the capacity of every portion of
the country, which came under his notice, for the roads, fields,
gardens, and parks of peace, and for the making of forts, military
roads, and the strategy of battle. In a word, the book and its study
gave him an enrichment of life which fitted him to enjoy the world by
travel, and to understand the arena of war,--theatres of usefulness to
which Providence was to call him in after-life.
In August, 1843, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at
Pembroke Academy. The term of ten weeks seemed ever afterwards in his
memory one of the golden periods of his life. The teacher, Charles G.
M. Burnham, was enthusiastic and magnetic, having few rules, and
placing his pupils upon their honor. It was not so much what Carleton
learned from books, as association with the one hundred and sixty
young men and women of his own age, which here so stimulated him.
From the academy he advanced to be teacher of the district school on
Corser Hill, in West Boscawen, but after three weeks of pedagogy was
obliged to leave on account of sickness. He passed the remainder of
the winter in lumbering, rising at 4 A. M. to feed his team of horses.
While breakfast was preparing he studied books, ate the meal by
candle-light, and then was off with his lunch of cold meat, bread, and
apple pie. From the woods to the bank of the Merrimac the distance was
three miles, and three or four trips were made daily in drawing the
long and heavy logs to the water. Returning home after dark, he ate
supper by candle-light, fed his horses, and gave an hour to study
before bedtime.
The summer of 1844 was one of hard toil on the farm. In July he became
of age, and during the autumn worked on his brother-in-law's farm,
rising at five and frequently finishing about 9 P. M. It is no wonder
that all through his life Mr. Coffin showed a deep sympathy, born of
personal experience, with men who are bound down to physical toil.
Nevertheless, the fine arts were not neglected. He had already
learned to play the "seraphine," the instrument which has been
developed into the reed organ. He started the project, in 1842, of
getting one for the church. By great efforts sixty dollars were raised
and an instrument purchased in Concord. Mr. Coffin became the
"organist," and also taught singing in the schoolhouse. Three of his
nieces, excellent singers, assisted him.
The time had now come for the young man to strike out in the world for
himself. Like most New England youth, his eyes were on Boston. With a
recommendation from his friend, the minister, he took the stage to
Concord. The next day he was in Boston, then a city of 75,000 people,
with the water dashing against the embankment of Charles Street,
opposite the Common, and with only one road leading out to Roxbury.
Sloops and schooners, loaded with coal and timber, sailed over the
spot where afterwards stood his house, at No. 81 Dartmouth Street. In
a word, the "Back Bay" and "South End" were then unknown. Boston city,
shaped like a pond lily laid flat, had its long stem reaching to the
solid land southward on the Dorchester and Roxbury hills.
Young Carleton went to Mount Vernon Church on Ashburton Place, the
pastor, Dr. E. N. Kirk, being in the prime of his power, and the
church crowded. The country boy from New Hampshire became a member of
the choir and enjoyed the Friday night rehearsals. He found employment
at one dollar a day in a commission store, 84 Utica Street, with the
firm of Lowell & Hinckley. The former, a brother of James Russell
Lowell, had a son, a bright little boy, who afterwards became the
superb cavalry commander at the battle of Cedar Creek in 1864.
Carleton boarded on Beacon Street, next door to the present Athenaeum
Building. The firm dissolved by Mr. Lowell's entering the Athenaeum.
Carleton returned to his native town to vote. He became a farm laborer
with his brother-in-law, passing a summer of laborious toil,
frequently fourteen and sixteen hours, with but little rest.
It was time now for the old Granite State to be opened by the railway.
The Northern Railroad had been chartered, and preliminary surveys
were to be made. Young Carleton, seizing the opportunity, went to
Franklin, saw the president, and told him who he was. He was at once
offered a position as chainman, and told to report two weeks later.
The other chainman gave Carleton the leading end, intending that the
Boscawen boy, and not himself, should drag it and drive the stake.
Carleton did not object, for he was looking beyond the chain.
The compass-man was an old gentleman dim of eyesight and slow of
action. Young Carleton drove his first stake, at a point one hundred
feet north of the Concord railway depot, which was opened in the month
of August, 1845. The old compass-man then set his compass for a second
sight, but before he could get out his spectacles and put them on,
young Carleton read the point to him. When, through his glasses, the
old gentleman had verified the reading, he was delighted. Promotion
for Carleton was now sure. Before night he was not only dragging the
chain, but was sighting the instrument. The result, two days later,
was promotion to the charge of the party. What he had learned of land
surveying was producing its fruit. In the autumn he was employed as
the head of a party to make the preliminary survey of the Concord and
Portsmouth road.
Unfortunately, during this surveying campaign, he received a wound
which caused slight permanent lameness and disqualified him for
military service. It came about in this way. He was engaged in some
work while an axe-man behind him was chopping away some bushes and
undergrowth. The latter gave a swing of the axe which came out too far
and cut through the boot and large tendon of Carleton's left ankle.
With skilled medical attention, rest, and care, the wound would have
soon healed up, but owing to lack of skill, and to carelessness and
exposure, the wound gave him considerable trouble, and once reopened.
In after-life, when overwearied, this part of the limb was very
troublesome.
It was not all toil for Carleton. The time of love had already come,
and the days of marriage were not far off. The object of his devotion
was Miss Sally Russell Farmer, the daughter of Colonel John Farmer, of
Boscawen. On February 18, 1846, amid the winter winds, the fire of a
holy union for life was kindled, and its glow was unflickering during
more than fifty years. In ancestry and relationship, the Farmers of
Boscawen were allied with the Russells of England,--Sir William, of
bygone centuries, and Lord John, of our own memory. Carleton found a
true "help-meet" in Sally Coffin. Though no children ever came to
bless their union, it was as perfect, though even more hallowed and
beautified, on the day it was severed, as when first begun.
The following summer was one full of days of toil in the engineering
department of the Northern railway, Carleton being engaged upon the
first section to be opened from Concord to Franklin. The engineering
was difficult, and the work heavy. Breakfast was eaten at six in the
morning, and dinner wherever it could be found along the road. Seldom
could the young engineer rise from his arithmetical calculations until
midnight.
Weary with such exacting mental and physical labor, he resigned his
position, and became a contractor. First he supplied the Concord
railroad with 200,000 feet of lumber, which he purchased at the
various mills. This venture being profitable, he engaged in the lumber
trade, furnishing beams for a large factory, timber for a new railway
station at Concord, and for a ship at Medford. It was while
transacting some business in Lowell, that he saw President Polk, James
Buchanan, Levi Woodbury, and other political magnates of the period,
who, however, were rather coldly received on account of the annexation
of Texas, and war with Mexico.
Wishing for a home of his own, Carleton now bought a farm in West
Boscawen, and began housekeeping in the following November. He carried
on extensive lumber operations, hiring a large number of men and
teams. He rose between four and five in the morning, and was in the
woods, four miles away, at sunrise, working through the day, and
reaching home after dark to care for the cattle and horses and milk
the cows. None of his men worked harder than he.
Although railroad building stimulated prices and gave activity to
business men, the flush times were followed by depression. To secure
the construction of a railway to the mast yard, Carleton subscribed
to the stock, and, under the individual liability law of that period,
was compelled to take as much more to relieve the company from debt.
Soon he found, however, in spite of hard work for both himself and his
wife, that farming and lumbering together rendered no adequate
returns. Relief to mind and body was found in the weekly arrival of
_Littell's Living Age_ and two or three weekly papers, in agricultural
meetings at Concord and Manchester, and in the formation of the State
Agricultural Society, of which Carleton was one of the founders.