Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1868-03-06
Aliseellanu.
From Horace Greeley's Autobiography.
Early New Hampshire Life.


Early New Hampshire Life.
Let me revert for little to our New
Hampshire life ere / bid it final adieu.
have already said that Amherst and
Bedford are in the main poor towns, whose
hard, rocky soil yields grudgingly, save
of wood. Except in the villages, if even
there, there were very few who could be
called fore-handed in my early boyhood.
Poor as we were, no richer family lived
within sight of our humble homestead,
though our western prospect was only
bounded by the Chestnut Hills," two
or three miles away. On the east our
range of vision was barred by the hill on
the east side of which we lived The
leading man of our neighborhood was
Captain Nathan Barnes, Revolutionary
soldier and Calvinist deacon, after whom
my brother was named, and who was
farmer of decided probity, and sound
judgment--worth, perhaps, $4,000. Though
an ardent Federalist, as were majority
of his townsmen, he commanded a COM
pany of exempts," raised to defend the
country in case of British invasion dur
ing the war of 1912.
The Revolutionary War was not yet
thirty years by-gone when l was born,
and its passions, prejudices, and its bal
lads, were still current throughout that
intensely Wing region. When neighbors
and neighbors' wives drew together at
the house of one Of their number, for an
evening visit, there were often interspersed
with Cruel Barbara Allen" and other
love-lorn ditties then in vogue, such rem
iniscences of the preceding ages as
american Taxation screed of some
fifty prosaic verses, opening thus -
While relate my story,
Americans give ear;
OF Brittan's fading glory
You presently shall hear.
I'll give true relation,
ATTEND to what say,)
Concerning the taxation
Of North America"
The last throes of expiring loyalty are
visible in this long drawn ballad-Bute
and North and even Fox, being soundly
berated for acts of tyranny whereof their
royal master, George III, was sole author,
and they but reluctant, hesitating apprc-
hensive instruments.
The ballads of the late war with Great
Britain we're not so popular in our imme-
diate neighborhood, though my mother
had good store of these also, and sang
them with spirit and effect, along with
"Boyne Water" "The taking of Que
bec," by Wolfe, and even Wearing of
the Green" which, though dating from
Ireland's '9S, has been revived and
adopted in our day with SO vast and de-
served an Irish popularity.
We were in the truest sense, democrats,
we Scotch Irish Federalists from Lon
donderry, where Jefferson received but
two votes in the memorable struggle OF
1900. When, for a single year at the
"Beard farm" our house echoed to the
tread of female help" whose natural
abilities were humble, and whose literary
requirements were inferior even to ours
that servant always ate with the family,
even when we had the neighbors as "com.
pany;" and though her wages were but
fifty cents week, she had her party, and
invited the girls of the neighborhood to
be her guests at tea, precisely as if she
had been daughter of the house. Nc
where were manners ever simpler, or so
ciety freer from pretension or exclusive.
ness, than in those farmers homes.
Hospitality was less bounteous and
kinship less priced than in the days Of
the Scotch-Irish pioneers hut there was
Still much visiting of relatives and social
enjoyment, especially in winter, when
hundreds returned to the old London.
derry hive from the swarms scattered al
over the east, some of them beginning tc
stretch away even to the far Holland
Purchase" in Western New York, ther
practically as distant as Oregon or Wal
russia now is. / remember when the
Doles left the "Chestnut Hills" to pitch
their tent in nlinois-then a far boldel
venture than migration to Sitka would
now be. / have often seen grandfather
Woodburn's house crammed for day.
| With cousins and nephews from Vermont