Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-07-17
MISCELLANEOUS.
A NEW HAMPSHIRE FARMER.

y NEW fANhlEh'
A correspondent of the New York Tri-
bune, over the signature of the cold Man of
the Mountain" gives the following account
of a farmer Of the olden time:-
{" Old Colonel Holmes was one Of the like
lest of men, | don't know but | may say the
very likoliest, | have ever seen among men,
| though he was all his days a farmer here
among the rocks, and scarce ever went of his
farm for fifty years. lie began down here
in Campton, when there had hardly been a
| stroke struck in the woods. There was a lit
tie spot of clearing, | believe, on the lot he'd
went on to-and a log barn had been put up
on it. He and his wife lived in the barn all
summer, the first summer they came up here
from Connecticut. They came all the way
he on foot, with his axe y. his shoulder,
and she on horseback, with the bed bound on
behind her, and the coprer kettle hanging by
the old mares side. 1t was all they had, and
the roads want near so good then as they are
now. Col. Holmes was a young man then
Just " out of his time" He lived on that
! land fifty years, and died on it. He was
hardly ever out of town or off of his FARM
They teased him to 90 to General Court one
year, / believe, but couldn't make him 90
| again. cit was small business" he said,
g for anybody that had any other to mind"
And he said sit was a bad thing to have so
many laws, and to be tinkering them over SO
often" He cared nothing about Office, or
politics or parties. He didn't read any books.
lie didn't need to. He said but little, but
what he said was always right. He was as
sensible a man, friend Tribune, as ever Ben
Franklin was, and a much better man, to my
mind, and greater, take all the circumstances.
/ He Eunl thnro oil ,l4,A no II ,n1
cleared up his farm, and did an amount of
good there, all unpraised and unseen, and for
the sheer good and beauty of it, as [ hardly
believe Ben franklin was man enough to
have done. He had a grand old-fashioned
farm, and grew forehanded, and finally rich,
without ever trying to, or caring anything
about money. lie never was a hard working
man. Hardly ever worked till he got tired.
Never hurried. He wouldn't hurry for a
thunder-shower in hay time. "Let it rain
he would say-'it will do somebody some
good. What signifies killing ourselves for a
load Of hay 2" lie never drove his men, and
never hurried them, except at table, and then
not to have them get done. Come he
would say, call hands, take hold-there's
enough" And it was royal to see him sit
ting at the head of his old, long kitchen Ia
Bile, with his twenty men, and as much the
1 equal VI me lulllDltSl Oh lneH all, as ne cOQlu
possibly be, with his great, generous heart
and princely head. He had a head, friend
Tribune, worth going a Journey to see-an
old Connecticut, Roger Sherman sort of a
head, by the tell-for | never saw Roger
Sherman's head-tho' | have Col. Holmes
when he was at work, bareheaded, in his
field among his men. 1t wasn't a head like
Daniel Webster's or Zekiel's-not one o
these high, precipice sort of heads. 1t was
a middling forehead for height, but wide anC
beautifully pilched-a sort of honest man
forehead and head, covered over with hair a,
fine as silk, and laying in tufts, like feathers
on the neck Of an eagle-and along after HI
was sixty, as white as Moosehillock of a No
venber morning.
" 1t was princely to sec the old man work
ing about among his men. He had a small
gray eye-all sense and honesty-and look
ing as if he couldn't bear anything ungener
Gus or small. And that was his nature. Hi
leading trait of'character was a great gener
osily. And there never was his equal, t
my knowledge, among the poor people.
never saw anything equal to the way he,
help the poor. Give him good measure
David" the old man would say. to a onee
sort of man that always lived with MIN, an
who used TO say the Colonel lived with hi,
-" give him good measure-don't streak
he's come a good ways, and there's enouu
of He always had plenty of corn ii
s%carcest of years. The earth. as if aware {
his great nature never put him of with a stir
gy harvest. He never, those years, woul
sell a k0rnol Of corn to anybody that couI
bring the money for it. lie said, - there wa
the poor around him that couldn't pay, IN.
must be seen to-" And to them he turne
out the yellow corn and the hay. With h
barns fall, in the scarcest seasons, he nev,
would sell a lock of hay to anybody but II
poor-and 10 them always at the prices
times Of plenty; and to "pay in work viii,