Chapter 3

The office is still kept in the Town Hall, and there is no reason to think that it will be removed from the spacious and commodious quarters it now occupies, for a long time to come. Few towns in the Commonwealth can present such an array of distinguished men among their postmasters as those of Groton, including, as it does, the names of Judge Dana, Judge Richardson, Mr. Butler, and Governor Boutwell.

By the new postal law which went into operation on the first of last October, the postage is now two cents to any part of the United States, on all letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight. This rate certainly seems cheap enough, but in time the public will demand the same service for a cent. Less than forty years ago the charge was five cents for any distance not exceeding three hundred miles, and ten cents for any greater distance. This was the rate established by the law which took effect on July 1, 1845; and it was not changed until July, 1851, when it was reduced to three cents on single letters, prepaid, or five cents, if not prepaid, for all distances under three thousand miles. By the law which went into operation on June 30, 1863, prepayment by stamps was made compulsory, the rate remaining at three cents; though a special clause was inserted, by which the letters of soldiers or sailors, then fighting for the Union in the army or navy, might go without prepayment.

[Footnote 1: Diary and Correspondence of Amos Lawrence, pages 24, 25.]

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LOVEWELL'S WAR.

By John N. McClintock, A.M.

On the morning of September 4, 1724, Thomas Blanchard and Nathan Cross, of Dunstable, started from the Harbor and crossed the Nashua River, to do a day's work in the pine forest to the northward. The day was wet and drizzly. Arriving at their destination they placed their arms and ammunition, as well as their lunch and accompanying jug, in a hollow log, to keep them dry. During the day they were surrounded by a party of Mohawks from Canada, who hurried them into captivity.

Their continued absence aroused the anxiety of their friends and neighbors and a relief party of ten was at once organized to make a search for the absentees. This party, under the command of Lieutenant French, soon arrived at the place where the men had been at work, and found several barrels of turpentine spilled on the ground, and, to the keen eyes of those hardy pioneers, unmistakable evidence of the presence of unfriendly Indians. Other signs indicated that the prisoners had been carried away alive. The party at once determined upon pursuit, and following the trail up the banks of the Merrimack came to the outlet of Horse-Shoe Pond in the present town of Merrimac, where they were surprised and overwhelmed by a large force of the enemy. Josiah Farwell alone of that little band escaped to report the fate of his companions.

Blanchard and Cross were taken to Canada. After nearly a year's confinement they succeeded in effecting their own ransom and returned to their homes. The gun, jug, and lunch-basket were found in the hollow log where they had been left the year before.

Enraged by these and similar depredations, the whole frontier was aroused to aggressive measures. John Lovewell, Josiah Farwell, and Jonathan Robbins at once petitioned for, and were granted, the right to raise a scouting party to carry the war into the enemy's country.

At this time the settlements of New Hampshire were near the coast outside of a line from Dover to Dunstable, except the lately planted colony of Scotch-Irish at Londonderry. Hinsdale, or Dummer's Fort, was the outpost on the Connecticut. To the north extended a wild, unbroken wilderness to the French frontier in Canada. Through this vast region, now overflowing with happy homes, wandered small bands of Indians intent on the chase, or the surprise of their rivals, the white trappers and hunters.

A large section of this country, fifty miles in width, was opened for peaceful settlement by the bravery of Captain John Lovewell and the company under his command. In this view their acts become more important than those of a mere scouting party, and demand, and have received, an acknowledged place in New-England history.

The company, which was raised by voluntary enlistments, was placed under the command of John Lovewell. This redoubtable captain came of fighting stock--his immediate ancestor serving as an ensign in the army of Oliver Cromwell. Bravery and executive ability are evidently transmissible qualities; for in one line of his direct descendants it is known that the family have served their country in four wars, as commissioned officers; in three wars holding the rank of general.[2]

At this time Captain John Lovewell was in the prime of life, and burning with zeal to perform some valiant exploit against the Indians.

The first raid of the company resulted in one scalp and one captive, taken December 10, 1724, and carried to Boston.

The company started on their second expedition January 27, 1724-5, crossing the Merrimack at Nashua, and pushing northward. They arrived at the shores of Lake Winnipiseogee, Februrary 9, and scouted in that neighborhood for a few days, when, from the scarcity of provisions, a part of the force returned to their homes.

Traces of Indians were discovered in the neighborhood of Tamworth by the remaining force, and the trail was followed until, February 20, they discovered the smoke of an Indian encampment. A surprise was quickly planned and successfully executed, leading to the capture of ten scalps, valued by the provincial authorities at one thousand ounces of silver.

Captain Lovewell next conceived the bold design of attacking the village of Pigwacket, near the head waters of the Saco, whose chief, Paugus, a noted warrior, inspired terror along the whole northern frontier.

Commanding a company of forty-six trained men, Captain Lovewell started from Dunstable on his arduous undertaking, April 16, 1725. Toby, an Indian ally, soon gave out and returned to the lower settlements. Near the island at the mouth of the Contoocook, which will forever perpetuate the memory of Hannah Dustin, William Cummings, disabled by an old wound, was discharged and was sent home under the escort of Josiah Cummings, a kinsman. On the west shore of Lake Ossipee, Benjamin Kidder was sick and unable to proceed; and the commander of the expedition decided to build a fort and leave a garrison to guard the provisions and afford a shelter in case of defeat or retreat. Sergeant Nathaniel Woods was left in command. The garrison consisted of Dr. William Aver, John Goffe, John Gilson, Isaac Whitney, Zachariah Whitney, Zebadiah Austin, Edward Spoony, and Ebenezer Halburt. With his company reduced to thirty-three effective men, Captain Lovewell pushed on toward the enemy. On Saturday morning, May 8, in the neighborhood of Fryeburg, Maine, while the rangers were at prayers, they were startled by the discharge of a gun, and were soon attacked by a force of about eighty Indians. Their rear was protected by the lake, by the side of which they fought. All through the day the unequal contest continued. As night settled upon the scene the savages withdrew, and the scouts commenced their painful retreat of forty miles toward their fort. Left dead upon the field of battle were Captain John Lovewell, Lieutenant Jonathan Robbins, John Harwood, Robert Usher, Jacob Fullam, Jacob Farrar, Josiah Davis, Thomas Woods, Daniel Woods, John Jefts, Ichabod Johnson, and Jonathan Kittredge. Lieutenant Josiah Farwell, Chaplain Jonathan Frye, and Elias Barron, were mortally wounded, and perished in the wilderness. Solomon Keyes, Sergeant Noah Johnson, Corporal Timothy Richardson, John Chamberlain, Isaac Lakin, Eleazer Davis, and Josiah Jones, were seriously wounded, but escaped to the lower settlements in company with their uninjured comrades, Seth Wyman, Edward Lingfield, Thomas Richardson, Daniel Melvin, Eleazer Melvin, Ebenezer Ayer, Abial Austin, Joseph Farrar, Benjamin Hassell, and Joseph Gilson,--names which should be held in honor for all time.

Both parties seemed willing to retreat from this disastrous battle, each with the loss of its chief. Paugus and many of his braves fell before the unerring fire of the frontiersmen, and the tribe of Pigwacket, which had so long menaced the borders, withdrew to Canada.

The ambitious young men of the older settlements had seen with jealousy a band of strangers, Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, granted a beautiful and fruitful tract, which already blossomed under the industrious work of the newcomers. They clamored for grants which they, too, could cultivate. Every pretext was advanced to secure a claim. No petitioners were better entitled to consideration than the representatives of those who had rendered so large a section habitable.

Massachusetts Bay Colony had long claimed as a northern boundary a line three miles north of the Merrimack and parallel thereto, from its mouth to its source, thence westward to the bounds of New York. Under the pressure brought to bear by interested parties, the General Court of Massachusetts granted, January 17, 1725-6, the township of Penacook, embracing the city of Concord, New Hampshire.

In May, 1727, a petition from the survivors of Lovewell's command was favorably received by the General Court, and soon afterward Suncook, or Lovewell's township, was granted. Only two of the company are known to have settled in the town--Francis Doyen, who was with Lovewell on his second expedition, and Noah Johnson. The latter was the last survivor of the company. He was a deacon of the church in Suncook for many years, received a pension from Massachusetts, and died in Plymouth, New Hampshire, in 1798, in the one hundredth year of his age.

Captain John Lovewell was represented in the township of Suncook by his daughter Hannah, who married Joseph Baker, settled on her father's right, raised a large family, and died at a good old age. A great multitude of her descendants are scattered throughout the United States.

The original grantees of the township, for the most part, assigned their rights to persons who became actual settlers.

In the year 1740, the King in council decided the present line as the boundary between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, thus leaving Suncook, and many other of the townships granted by the latter Province, within the former. For a score of years following, the settlers were harassed by the proprietors of the soil under the Masonian Claim, until, in 1759, a compromise was effected, and Pembroke was incorporated.

In 1774, a new township in the District of Maine, was granted, by the General Court of Massachusetts, to the "proprietors of Suncook," to recompense them for their losses. The township was called Sambrook, and embraced the present towns of Lovell and New Sweden; it was located in the neighborhood of the battle-field, where, a half century before, so many brave lives had been sacrificed.

NOTE.--The townships of Rumford and Suncook, both granted by Massachusetts authorities, made a common cause in the defence of their rights against the claimants under New Hampshire, known as the Bow proprietors. The latter, who were, in fact, the New Hampshire Provincial authorities, and who not only prosecuted but adjudicated the cases, brought suits for such small extent of territory in each case, that there was no legal appeal to the higher courts in England. The two towns therefore authorized the Reverend Timothy Walker, the first settled minister of Rumford, to represent their cause before the King in council. By the employment of able counsel and judicious management of the case, he was eminently successful, and obtained a decision favorable to the Massachusetts settlers. In the meanwhile, the proprietors of Suncook had compromised with the Bow proprietors, surrendering half of their rights--for them the decision came too late. The Rumford proprietors, however, were benefited, and Concord, under which name Rumford was incorporated by New Hampshire laws, maintained its old boundaries as originally granted,--which remain practically the same to this day.

[Footnote 2: General Timothy Bedel served during the Revolution; his son, General Moody Bedel, served in the War of 1812; his son, General John Bedel, was a lieutenant in the Mexican War, and brigadier-general in the Rebellion.]

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HISTORIC TREES.

By L.L. Dame.

THE WASHINGTON ELM.

At the north end of the Common in Old Cambridge stands the famous Washington Elm, which has been oftener visited, measured, sketched, and written up for the press, than any other tree in America. It is of goodly proportions, but, as far as girth of trunk and spread of branches constitute the claim upon our respect, there are many nobler specimens of the American elm in historic Middlesex.

Extravagant claims have been made with regard to its age, but it is extremely improbable that any tree of this species has ever rounded out its third century. Under favorable conditions, the growth of the elm is very rapid, a single century sometimes sufficing to develop a tree larger than the Washington Elm.

When Governor Winthrop and Lieutenant-Governor Dudley, in 1630, rode along the banks of the Charles in quest of a suitable site for the capital of their colony, it is barely possible the great elm was in being. It would be a pleasant conceit to link the thrifty growth of the young sapling with the steady advancement of the new settlement, enshrining it as a sort of guardian genius of the place, the living witness of progress in Cambridge from the first feeble beginnings.

The life of the tree, however, probably does not date farther back than the last quarter of the seventeenth century. In its early history there was nothing to distinguish it from its peers of the greenwood. When the surrounding forest fell beneath the axe of the woodman, the trees conspicuous for size and beauty escaped the general destruction; among these was the Washington Elm; but there is no evidence that it surpassed its companions.

Tradition states that another large elm once stood on the northwest corner of the Common, under which the Reverend George Whitefield, the Wesleyan evangelist, preached in 1745. Others claim that it was the Washington Elm under which the sermon was delivered. The two trees stood near each other, and the hearers were doubtless scattered under each. But the great elm was destined to look down upon scenes that stirred the blood even more than the vivid eloquence of a Whitefield. Troublous times had come, and the mutterings of discontent were voicing themselves in more and more articulate phrase. The old tree must have been privy to a great deal of treasonable talk--at first, whispered with many misgivings, under the cover of darkness; later, in broad daylight, fearlessly spoken aloud. The smoke of bonfires, in which blazed the futile proclamations of the King, was wafted through its branches. It saw the hasty burial, by night, of the Cambridge men who were slain upon the nineteenth of April, 1775; it saw the straggling arrival of the beaten, but not disheartened, survivors of Bunker Hill; it saw the Common--granted to the town as a training-field--suddenly transformed to a camp, under General Artemas Ward, commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts troops.

The crowning glory in the life of the great elm was at hand. On the twenty-first of June, Washington, without allowing himself time to take leave of his family, set out on horseback from Philadelphia, arriving at Cambridge on the second of July. Sprightly Dorothy Dudley in her Journal describes the exercises of the third, with the florid eloquence of youth.

"To-day, he (Washington) formally took command, under _one of the grand old elms_ on the Common. It was a magnificent sight. The majestic figure of the General, mounted upon his horse beneath the wide-spreading branches of the patriarch tree; the multitude thronging the plain around, and the houses filled with interested spectators of the scene, while the air rung with shouts of enthusiastic welcome, as he drew his sword, and thus declared himself Commander-in-chief of the Continental army."

Dorothy does not specify under which elm Washington stood. It is safely inferable from her language that our tree was one of several noble elms which at this time were standing upon the Common.

Although no contemporaneous pen seems to have pointed out the exact tree beyond all question, happily the day is not so far distant from us that oral testimony is inadmissible. Of this there is enough to satisfy the most captious critic.

Where the stone church is now situated, there was formerly an old gambrel-roofed house, in which the Moore family lived during the Revolution. The situation was very favorable for observation, commanding the highroad from Watertown to Cambridge Common, and directly opposite the great elm. From the windows of this house the spectators saw the ceremony to good advantage, and one of them, styled, in 1848, the "venerable Mrs. Moore," lived to point out the tree, and describe the glories of the occasion, seventy-five years afterward. Fathers, who were eyewitnesses standing beneath this tree, have told the story to their sons, and those sons have not yet passed away. There is no possibility that we are paying our vows at a counterfeit shrine.

Great events which mark epochs in history, bestow an imperishable dignity even upon the meanest objects with which they are associated. When Washington drew his sword beneath the branches, the great elm, thus distinguished above its fellows, passed at once into history, henceforward to be known as the Washington Elm.

"Under the brave old tree Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore They would follow the sign their banners bore, And fight till the land was free."--_Holmes_.

The elm was often honored by the presence of Washington, who, it is said, had a platform built among the branches, where, we may suppose, he used to ponder over the plans of the campaign. The Continental army, born within the shade of the old tree, overflowing the Common, converted Cambridge into a fortified camp. Here, too, the flag of thirteen stripes for the first time swung to the breeze.

These were the palmy days of the elm. When the tide of war set away from New England, the Washington Elm fell into unmerited neglect. The struggling patriots had no time for sentiment; and when the war came to an end they were too busy in shaping the conduct of the government, and in repairing their shattered fortunes, to pay much attention to trees. It was not until the great actors in those days were rapidly passing away, that their descendants turned with an affectionate regard to the enduring monuments inseparably associated with the fathers. Among these, the Washington Elm deservedly holds a high rank.

On the third of July, 1875, the citizens of Cambridge celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of Washington's assuming the command of the army. The old tree was the central figure of the occasion. The American flag floated above the topmost branches, and a profusion of smaller flags waved amid the foliage. Never tree received a more enthusiastic ovation.

It is enclosed by a circular iron fence erected by the Reverend Daniel Austin. Outside the fence, but under the branches, stands a granite tablet erected by the city of Cambridge, upon which is cut an inscription written by Longfellow:--

UNDER THIS TREE WASHINGTON FIRST TOOK COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, JULY 3D, 1775.

In 1850, it still retained its graceful proportions; its great limbs were intact, and it showed few traces of age. Within the past twenty-five years, it has been gradually breaking up.

In 1844, its girth, three feet from the ground, where its circumference is least, was twelve feet two and a half inches. In 1884, at the same point, it measures fourteen feet one inch; a gain so slight that the rings of annual growth must be difficult to trace--an evidence of waning vital force. The grand subdivisions of the trunk are all sadly crippled; unsightly bandages of zinc mask the progress of decay; the symptoms of approaching dissolution are painfully evident, especially in the winter season. In summer, the remaining vitality expends itself in a host of branchlets which feather the limbs, and give rise to a false impression of vigor.

Never has tree been cherished with greater care, but its days are numbered. A few years more or less, and, like Penn's Treaty Elm and the famous Charter Oak, it will be numbered with the things that were.

THE ELIOT OAK

When John Eliot had become a power among the Indians, with far-reaching sagacity he judged it best to separate his converts from the whites, and accordingly, after much inquiry and toilsome search, gathered them into a community at Natick--an old Indian name formerly interpreted as "a place of hills," but now generally admitted to mean simply "my land." Anticipating the policy which many believe must eventually be adopted with regard to the entire Indian question, Eliot made his settlers land-owners, conferred upon them the right to vote and hold office, impressed upon them the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, and taught them the rudiments of agriculture and the mechanic arts.

In the summer of 1651, the Indians built a framed edifice, which answered, as is the case to-day in many small country towns, the double purpose of a schoolroom on week-days, and a sanctuary on the Sabbath. Professor C.E. Stowe once called that building the first known theological seminary of New England, and said that for real usefulness it was on a level with, if not above, any other in the known world.

It is assumed that two oaks, one of the red, and the other of the white, species, of which the present Eliot Oak is the survivor, were standing near this first Indian church. The early records of Eliot's labors make no mention of these trees. Adams, in his Life of Eliot, says: "It would be interesting if we could identify some of the favorite places of the Indians in this vicinity," but fails to find sufficient data. Bigelow (or Biglow, according to ancient spelling), in his History of Natick, 1830, states: "There are two oaks near the South Meeting-house, which have undoubtedly stood there since the days of Eliot." It is greatly to be regretted that the writer did not state the evidence upon which his conclusion was based.

Bacon, in his History of Natick, 1856, remarks: "The oak standing a few rods to the east of the South Meeting-house bears every evidence of an age greater than that of the town, and was probably a witness of Eliot's first visit to the 'place of hills.'" It would be quite possible to subscribe to this conclusion, while dissenting entirely from the premises. It will be noticed that Bacon relies upon the appearance of the tree as a proof of its age. His own measurement, fourteen and a half feet circumference at two feet from the ground, is not necessarily indicative of more than a century's growth.

The writer upon Natick, in Drake's Historic Middlesex, avoids expressing an opinion. "Tradition links these trees with the Indian Missionary." For very long flights of time, tradition--as far as the age of trees is concerned--cannot at all be relied upon; within the narrow limits involved in the present case, it may be received with caution.