BmaM^MMmiHi.1 i'l i^i. 



Conducted by ISAAC HILL. 



Published by WM. P. FOSTER. 



" Those icho labor in ike earth are the chosen people of God, whose breasts he has made his pecuHur depositefiir substantial and genuine tiiV/uc. "-Jefferson. 



VOLUME 1. 



CONCORD, N. H., APRIL 15, IS39. 



NUMBER 4. 



Gov. Pierce entered the army near the com- 

 mencemen: of the war of tlic revolution, at the age 

 of nineteen yeara. Having served until the close 

 of the revolution, as a corporal, sergeant and sub- 

 altern eommissioned ofHcer in the Massachusetts 

 line; he commenced with many other soldiers of 

 the revolution, in what was tlien the wild pari ul 

 Hillsborough County, and located himself in the 

 town of Hillsborough. He tlien had no family, 

 and pitched his own tent in the woods at about the 

 age of twenty-seven years. The first intimation he 

 had of any aquaintance with public men in the 

 State, was the reception of a commission from the 

 Governor of the State as Brigade Major, for the 

 brigade then composing the county of Hillsbo- 

 rough ; for which office he afterwards learned he 

 was^'indebtcd to a distinguished General officer oi 

 Massachusetts, who informed the E.xecutive that 

 Bueh a man had removed into the county. Hills- 

 borough at that tJr.ie was classed with Hennikcr in 

 the choice of representative to the General Court. 

 Maj. Pierce attended a meeting of the voters of the 

 two towns at Henniker, and, although a stranger in 

 the colleague town, was at once elected a member 

 of the State Legislature. From this time he rise in 

 his military office to the rank ot Br gd.cr General; 

 and in the civil department he was soon made a 

 magistrate, and after being representative, was a 

 inember of the Council, Slierifl'of his County, and 

 finally terminated his public career by retiring 

 from the otKce of Chief Magistrate of t!ie State 

 in 1K30. 



Now at the age of eighty-one years.he has been suf- 

 fering ur.der partial paralysis for nearly two years, 

 resigned and hajipy in the rellection that he may at 

 any°momenl be called to give up that life which for 

 more than eighty years has been spent in a career 

 of usefulness, of which few men of any age can 

 boast. The enthusiasm with which Ihis veteran 

 enters on everv subject connected with his former 

 life, is to us a matter of admiration and wonder. A 

 fanner, who in the midst of other labors and cares 

 in high public employments has always applied his 

 ownliand to the work, he takes up the subject now 

 with all the vivacity of youth. 



The following letter leads us back in imagina- 

 tion more than half a century, when its author fell- 

 ed the trees of the forest with his own hands — 

 when he sought and obtained a competence from 

 the labors of the field, enabling him to e.xtend a 

 irenerous hos])itality and to open his doors to ac- 

 quaintance far and near. This point in the charac- 

 ter of a man who stands second to none in 

 usefulness that has ever preceded him in New 

 Hampshire, is by no means inferior to any other 

 constituent of his high character. It required a 

 portion of that courage which never quailed in tlie 

 presence of a\i enemy to penetrate tli) forest — to 

 clear off its lieavy growth and to prepare 

 the waste places to yield food for the susten- 

 ance of man and beast. In this behalf, Gov. 

 Pierce has done his full share, besides attending to 

 every public duty that had been devolved upm him 

 by the partialitv of his fellow citizens. He basset 

 a worthy examjde of an almost unlettered youth, 

 unlf-taught, qualifying himself to discharge the dif- 

 ficult duties of various public offices ; and at the 

 same time being behind none of his neighbors as a 

 practical cultivator of mother earth. Let h:s zeal 

 oj! tliis subject be an exemplar to every young man 

 whose ambition shall prompt him to deserve well of 

 his country by acquiring from the productive 

 fruits of his own labor real independence. 



Hilhborough, March 26, 1833. 



My Dear Sir :— I have been highly gratified by 

 listening to the perusal, (being myself too feeble to 

 fead much) of portions of the three first numbers 

 of your Farmer's Visitor, i am rejoiced to learn 

 that you are engaged in so useful and important an 

 enterprise, feeling confident, from my knowledge of 

 your tastes and* habits, that you will, by means of 

 this publication, greatly advance the agricultural 

 interest. I have been a practical farmer ever since 

 the termination of our revolutionary struggle, and 

 was a member of the Hillsborough County Agrl. 



mltural Society, during its existence. One year I 

 raised five hundred and one bushels of potatoes 

 upon one acre of ground, for which the committee 

 iwarded me the highest premium, although 1 con- 

 fess, that to procure so unusual a crop, 1 was not 

 sparing of my manure. Farming, of the various 

 professions of life, is most congenial to my feelings, 

 and whatever is calculated to promote its interests, 

 has ever been a source of deep interest to me ; and 

 jjer.'i'i^is what attaches me more to this class of orir 

 population, is the consideration, that it is the bone 

 ind sinew of this nation. Upon them we depend, 

 whenever the enemies of our country dare trespass 

 upon our soil, to meet them at the point of the bay- 

 onet and force them to commence a retrogade 

 march. This icc have always done, and I believe 

 :ind trust shall ever continue to do. ^ * ^ >* 



I wish every farmer of New Hampshire might 

 read your valuable periodical, and hope your pat- 

 rons will continue to increase in the same propor- 

 tion that they hove done since your first number 

 was issued. Place my name on your subscription 

 list for three copies commencing with the January 

 number, sending me the nine back numbers if you 

 have them on hand, and Franklin will advance you 

 the subscription money. 



Yours, very truly, 



BENJ.\MIN PIERCE. 



His E.\celleiicy Isaac Hill, Concord, N. H. 



We print the foregoing letter with the 



preliminary remarks precisely as they were prepar- 



ed and already in type on the 1st of April. That 

 day was the hist in the eventful history of the sol- 

 dier, the civilian, the patriot, the farmer, v.dio has 

 filled up his life in usefulness to his country, and 

 who has participated, at first humbly, and at lasta- 

 mong the foremost, in every struggle encountered 

 by patriots and brave men to propel this great na- 

 tion in her miirch to honor, glory, immortality. 



Gen. BENJAMIN PIERCE died April 1st, 1839. 

 at llio good old age of eighty -one years. As the 

 events of his life, interesting to all, are more pecul- 

 iorly so to the farmers of his adopted State, of 

 whom he was a pioneer, we need make no apology 

 for ii-ivinchimin the columns of our humble month- 

 ly journal a more than usual notice. His exam- 

 ple cannot be lost on any mm whose eye shall pe- 

 ruse this notice — his virtues will be remembered by 

 every man to whom he was personally known. 



Tlie subject of tkis article was born at Chelms- 

 ford, Massachusetts, December 2.5th, 1757. His fa- 

 ther, Benjamin Pierce, died wlien the son was six 

 years of age, leaving a family of ten children, of 

 whom he was tlie seventh. From the period of his 

 father's death he was placed under the care of an 

 uncle, Robert Pierce, a yeoman of the same town, 

 and continued with him engaged in agricuUur.al 

 pursuits for more than ten years. He was plough- 

 ing in the field on the U'th April 1775, when the 

 nelvs arrived that Americans had been shot do«'n 

 by the British at Lexington : leaving the field im- 

 mediately, he took his uncle's gun and equipments, 

 and marched to Lexington, as did hundreds of oth- 

 ers within the sound of llie discharging cannon 

 and nnisketry, or within the reach of the report of 

 the first spiliuig of blood. The British troops hav 

 incr fallen back, he pursued his march toward 

 Boston that night, and the next morning enlisted 

 in Capt. Johi-iFord's company, and was stationed 

 for the time at Cambridge. With this company he 

 was in the battle of Bunker Hill. Alluding to the 

 perfidy of Gen. Gage to the people of Boston, in 

 detaining their goods after stipulating to let them 

 n-o with their effects — to the defeat of a large body 

 of his troops "by the country people at Lexington" 

 to the action at Bunker Hill, in which the Brit- 

 ish troops were twice repulsed, and at the third on- 

 set "gained a dear victory"— Doct. Franklin v rote 

 his friend Doct. Joseph Priestley, then in England: 

 "F.noun-h has happened, one would think, to con- 

 "vince'your ministers that the A- lericans will 

 " fight, and that this is a harder nut to crack than 

 '■ they imagined. We have not yet applied to any 

 " foreign power for assistance. And we have now 

 " an army on the establishment, which still holds 

 "yours besieged." Young Pierce was ot this ar- 

 my ; and he was one of the few who having enter- 



ed at the commencement, continued in the service 

 to the end of the wnr of the revolution. 



His regiment was that of the late Col. John 

 Brooks of Medford, afterwards Governor of Massa- 

 sachusetts, in whose personal friendship he long 

 participated. We have not at hand the means for 

 stating with precision all the actions in which the 

 subject of this notice was engaged. The gallan- 

 try of his rnginient was particularly conspicuous in 

 the battles at Bhemis" Heights on the 2'.!ri Septem- 

 ber, and gth October, 1777, which preceded the sur- 

 render of the arm}' of Burgoyno, Oct. 17, 1777. 

 Doct. Franklin wrote to Gen. Gates from Passy in 

 France some time afterwards, saying "The pride of 

 " England was never so humbled by any thing as 

 "by your capitulation at Saratoga." Young 

 Pierce was in tliese hard fought actions, as well as 

 in the many otiiers in which his company and regi- 

 ment participated during eijrht years service. 



He served to the end of all fighting in the war of 

 our Independence, and after the peace was retain- 

 ed in the regiments which went with Gen. Wash- 

 ington to take possession of the city of New York. 

 He continued under arms until the last troops were 

 disbanded at West Point in February 17S1, going 

 through the several grades of common soldier, cor- 

 poral, sergeant, ensign, lieutenant, and leaving the 

 army inccmniand of a company. 



Although he received under the roof of his uncle 

 all the kindness and home bred afiection that he 

 iniglit have met in his own father's house if the 

 latter had lived, yet his means for obtaining an ear- 

 ly education were exceedingly limited. Towns like 

 Chelmsford, being then almost the outside of the 

 new settlements which lingered year after year 

 without much improvement and with comparative 

 poverty to a majority of the inliabitnnts, had very 

 limited advantnges f)r instructing the youth : in- 

 deed there were few men or women in the country 

 towns who were qualified to instruct. English 

 grammar, the higher branches of arithmetic, geog- 

 raphy, and other studies, now common in all our 

 schools, were not taught at all in the country towns: 

 such a book as a dictionary explaining the meaning 

 of English words, would be found in the hands of 

 no family, except perhaps in that of the clergyman 

 of the town who had received a college education. 

 Dilworth's spelling book and the Psalter were the 

 only books for reading and spelling; and most of 

 the males, and very few if any of tlie females, ad- 

 vanced l^urther than to write and cypher. Three 

 weeks schooling in a year with such advantages as 

 these, was all the education originally received by 

 young Pierce previous to his entering the army. 

 When advanced to be an officer, lie chanced to fall 

 upon a school master in the army, to whose instruc- 

 tion he has frequently remarked he was more in- 

 debted for improvement, especially in arithmetic, 

 than to all other sources. 



We may observe here that Gen. P. was much 

 more sensitive to Iiis want of education than others 

 had occasion to be for him. His good sense was, 

 however, more apparent in all his productions than 

 his correct orthography. With a very slight change 

 of grammatical construction, his productions were 

 always fit for the press : he never put upon paper 

 a sentence that was unfit for the public eye. Since 

 his partial paralysis, he has generally carried on his 

 written correspondence by an amanuensis; and 

 Ije,^ we have his ideas as accurate as the move- 

 ments of the clock. 



He returned to Chelmsford at the termination of 

 his service, but in consequence of the depreciation 

 of continental pajjer money, in which lie had re- 

 ceived pay for about nine years' wages in the revo- 

 lution, he' soon found himself nearly destitute of 

 funds. He w:is employed in 1785 as an agent to 

 explore a tract of land in New Hampshire, owned 

 by Col. Stoddard, now known as the town of Stod- 

 dard in Cheshire county. Having accomplished 

 that business, as he was passing homeward on 

 horseback down the northwesterly stem of the Con- 

 toocook river called "the Branch," he called at a 

 log hut in the woods. Here he purchased a tract 

 of land of about fil^y acres of the owner, and re- 

 turned to Chelmsford, where he passed the winter. 

 In the spring of 178(5 he returned to the ground 

 he had lately purchased, and there in his hut, "sol- 

 itary and alone," commenced the clearing of his 



