Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1872-08-17
Horace Greeley in New Eamp.
shire.

Portsmouth. n. H., 16. Mr.. Greeley left
Portland at $50 this morning, accompanied
by a committee Of escort from Portland. En-
thusiastic demonstrations were made at the
different stations, and at the principal cities.
At Biddetord and Saco he left the car and
shook hands with the large conCourse of peo-
pie that had gathered there.
At l.f5 A. NJ, the trains arrived at Ports
mouth, and committee consisting of some
twenty gentlemen of Portsmouth and other
towns in the immediate vicinity received Mr..
Greeley, and conducted him with the accom-
panying party to the carriages that were in
waiting. They were then driven through the
densely crowded streets amidst the greatest
enthusiasm to the Rockingham House, when
after short interval he appeared upon the
steps of the hotel and was introduced to the
immense crowds in the streets by Hon. }. S.
ii. Trink, who addressed him in words of
welcome. Mr.. Greeley responded as fol-
lows:
My Friends and Fellow Citizens An un-
friendly critic has suggested that in my pas
sage through this State | have frequently re-
minded the people that | was a native of New
Hampshire. did speak of my birth here as
a reason why | was so greeted and honored
within your borders, not as a ground of eX-
ultation or pride on my part, for fellow citi-
ISlS, my Sdi IISl iSSOliSCllOlls dtidNl lobh-
ly to my native State. In the period Of fifty
to sixty years when | was child in New
Hampshire, l knew people better than can
claim to know them to-day l recollect that
the scenes and incidents of their great revo-
lutionary struggle, and still well remembered
by the older portion of the portion of the
people that King George the Third, against
whom these people made their protracted and
gallant struggle still lived and reigned through
most of that dread and something of personal
bitterness, mingled with their memories of
the fight with that perverse, narrow minded,
wrong headed ruler. | remember too, that
at the gatherings of families around some
neighbors' firesides they used to sing ballads
of the revolution, ike American taxation,
whereof the length was out of all proportion
to the depth OF the patriotism very far more
prominent than the poetry. l remember too,
somewhat OF the men of that period, for John
Stark the hero of the Pennington fight was
living at Amoskeag Falls, on the Merrmack,
he who told his men on the eve of that fight,
if they did not prove better man TO man than
the $50 a head Hessians before them, Molie
Stark would sleep widow that night. And
about that old veteran gathered regularly
each Fourth of July and other patriotic occa-
sions considerable but annually decreasing
band of veterans, to renew their recollections
of that fight. Beside him in our good old
town of Londonderry lived my mothers uncle
Colonel George Reed, who by faithful serving
throughout the Revolutionary war had earn
ed and secured the esteem and confidence of
George Washington, of whom he was pas
sionate admirer. | believe that New Hamp-
shire bred fewer demagogues while the
Colonial government was still tolerable, and
fewer Tories when the time had come to re-
sst British tyranny, than all the rest of her
sisters. In that day Daniel Webster was the
rising man of New Hampshire; but hardly
yet the leader of her bar, for Jeremiah Mason
still retained his residence at Portsmouth,
having not yet taken his departure for the
broad field afforded by the Boston bar; nor
had Jeremiah Smith concluded his brilliant
and useful career of the bar of Exeter.
Fellow Citizens Among these cherish
most and love most are the recollections OF
my mother, and of those dear to her and