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THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR. 



Eng'a id towns is intimalcly onnncctpd tlie liistoi^ of 

 that l}i<rlily iiiiiirovcd intellect whoso influence has 

 spread thi-oiigh our hmd. it was a wise provision 

 in the grants of onr first townships tliat left in the 

 most of tlieni a sliare of tlie hind to the fust minis- 

 ter of the gospel, fur tlie support of the ministry 

 end for the support of scliools. A minister. al fund 

 in Wilton amounting to aborit two tliousaud seven 

 hundred dollars was obtained from the sale of the 

 ministry h t, the income of whirh is now annually 

 appropriated. The first meetuig- house in tlie town 

 was erected in 1752: this was used until 1773, and 

 was then taken down. 



The second meeting house, the house in which 

 the centennial discourse was delivered, Sept. a.5, 

 1S3!), was erected in 1773, before the commence- 

 ment of the American revolution. In those days 

 counlry towns rarely had more than one house of 

 worship; and this was a house in which every in- 

 dividual of the town, high and low, rich and poor, 

 had an interest. The house was peculiarly the 

 property of the town, and was regarded as so much 

 more valuable than other houses erected by human 

 hands as the concerns of the future Vife we're deem- 

 ed of more consequence and involving a hitrher in- 

 terest than those of the present, and as thiifgs eter- 

 nal should be regarded above ;hiiigs temporal. 



A most interesting event connected with the his- 

 tory of Wilton was "the disaster attendinj the rais- 

 ing of the second meeting house in that town on 

 the memorable 7th day of September, 1773. A. 

 mong the singularities attending the lives of our 

 ancestors was the freedom withVliich, on certain 

 occasions, they made use of ardent spirits. The 

 raising of buildings was even with the best of them 

 an apology for drinking, that in tlie present time 

 would be no where e.\cused : and those who dear- 

 ly love the use of alcohol would shrink from an 

 exhibition such as Mr. Peabody discloses when he 

 says of the raising in Wilton— " Among other 

 things, which, might indeed, in part account for 

 the accident that li^llowed— the town 'Voted to 

 provide one barrel of West India rum, five barrels 

 of New England rum, one barrel of good brown 

 sugar, half a box of good lemons, and two loaves 

 of loaf sugar, for franiing and raising the meeting 

 house.' " It was considered as hardly a disparaire"- 

 ment even to a religious professor, on an occasfon 

 such as the raising of a meeting house, to leave the 

 ground gloriously disguised; but the wary men of 

 that age were always careful that no man should 

 remain upon or about the frame who had not the 

 perfect use of his mind and his limbs. The awful 

 calamity at the Wilton raising, the verses and the 

 story of which had been the wonder of our child- 

 hood living at a distance in another State, is thus 

 told 1^ the reverend author of the centennial ad- 

 dress : 



Appaliug and dreadful accident. 



"It was a beautiful September morning. And 

 now might be seen coming in by every road, and 

 from the neighboring towns, great numbers, men 

 women and children, to see the show. Some came 

 on foot; some practised the method, unknown in 

 modern days, of riding and tying ; some were on 

 horseback, with their wives or sisters behind on a 

 pillion. It was an occasion of universal expecta- 

 tion. The timbers were all prepared, the workmen 

 ready, and the master workman, full of the dio-ni- 

 ty of his office, issuing his orders to his aids. "aH 

 went on prosperously. The good cheer, the ex- 

 citement of the work, the crowd of spectators, men 

 looking on, women telling the news, boys playino- 

 their various games, all made it a scene "of o-eneral 

 rejoicing. The sides of the house were already up 

 and also a part of the roof at the cast end of"' the' 

 building. One of the raisers from Lyndeboroucih, 

 Capt. Bradford, liad brought over his wife, whom' 

 he left, on account of illness, at the place wliere 

 Mr. Baldwin now resides, while he himself went 

 on to take part in the work. Having to pass alono- 

 the cenlre of the building, he observed that the 

 middle beam, extending across the church, was not 

 properly supported. A post was under the cenlre 

 hut It was worm-eaten, and was already beoinninJ 

 to yield and give way under the pressure. °ln rais"- 

 ing the middle part of the roof, the wei.rht of the 

 workmen would come in great measure on this 

 beam, which was evidently not strong enourrfi lo 

 bear up the timbers and men. He immediateTv as- 

 cended the roof and informed the master-workman 

 who, be,n<r made over confident by the success thus 

 far replied to him, that ,f he was afraid he mi<rht 

 go home ; that they wanted no cowards there In- 

 dignant, he immediately went down, and started off 

 for his wile with the purpose of returning home 

 But before he had reached Mr. Baldwin's, Uie men 

 had alrf^ddy proceeded forward, confident and elat- 

 ed at their progress. They were swarming upon 

 the unsupported beam and the planks and tnabers 



which rested on it. They were raising up, with 

 much exertion and shouts of direction and encour- 

 agement, the beams and rafters, when suddenly, as 

 he was anxiously looking back, he saw the frnme 

 already erected,' tremble, the men shrink back a- 

 ghast ; the building seemed to rock to and fro, 

 and suddenly all, timbers, lools and men, rushed 

 down together in one mingled mass, in the centre. 

 The cpash was so loud as to be heard nearly a mile. 

 For a moment all was silent, and then the air was 

 filled with groans, and outcries, and shrieks of ter- 

 ror. There were fifty-three men on the frame that 

 fell. Three were instantly killed; two died very 

 shortly afterwards ; others were crippled for life, 

 and most of them were more or less mangled or 

 wounded. To understand the impression that the 

 event made at the time, it must be remembered that 

 the whole population of the town, men, women and 

 children, was scarcely five hundred. It was like 

 so many men lost overboard from a ship at sea. It 

 caused a genera! mourning, for there were few fam- 

 ilies which had not lost a friend, or connexion, or 

 some one of whose friends were not among the 

 wounded. At a Fast which was kept, Mr. Liver- 

 more preached from the words, (Ps. cxxvii, 1,) 

 %vhich then must have been peculiarly impressive : 

 "E.Ycept the Lord build the house, 'they Ubor in 

 vain that build it." Superstition came in to dark- 

 en the event. A man by the name of Isaac Russell 

 had been killed by the fall of a tree which he had 

 himself cut, and it was ascertained that the fatal 

 beam was made of this self-same tree. 



"The people soon met again to erect the build- 

 ing, and the superstilion of the day seemed to have 

 some reasonable ground ; for a new beam, substi- 

 tuted in the place of the former, likewise fell. The 

 house was, however, finally completed neartheend 

 of the yciiT 1774, and dedicated Jan. 5, 177.5, when 

 Mr. Livermore preached a sermon from 1 Chron. 

 xxix, 14 : "But who am I and what is my people, 

 that we should be able to offer so willingly after 

 this sort? for all things came of thee, and'of thine 

 own we have given them." In July 20, 1804, the 

 house was struck with lightning, and the nii'ddle 

 post of the east end rent from top to bottom, where 

 it may now be seen clamped togeth'er by an iron 

 bolt." •' 



This meeting house in Wilton, like most of the 

 old meeting houses in the hill towns of New Eno-- 

 land, stands on some of the highest ground in the 

 town. It was the practice of the fifst settlers to 

 carry the roads over the high hills, and frequently 

 "solitary and alone" the meeting house somewhere 

 near the centre was usually the prominent object 

 to be seen at a distance. About six or eio-lit m'lK.s 

 westerly and 'southwesterly of Wilton churches 

 (there are now three churches on Wilton hill, two 

 of which have been lately erected) is "Boundary 

 mountain," stretching several miles to the north- 

 east from New Ipswich to the confines of Green- 

 field, and forming a line between Temple on the 

 east and Sharon ai.d Peterborough on the west : 

 from a poiuf in Temple on this mountain might be 

 counted twenty,- years ago twenty different meetim^ 

 houses in as many towns. Manv of the new chui" 

 ches since erected are clustered 'in factory villnD-cs 

 upon the streams, so that some of them are oufof 

 sight, otherwise we might see now from the same 

 point nearly double the former number. 



Looking back many years we are struck with the 

 contrast of the former hardy with the present ef- 

 feminate age. In those churches erected upon the 

 hills open to the coldest blasts of winter there were 

 uo stoves nor fires, nor cusiiions on which to loll 

 with easy indolence : neither was male or female 

 wrapped in costly foreign furs. Clad in whole- 

 some thick homespBii, with cowhide or other thick 

 leather shves, nearly the whole adult pop>ilation, 

 some travellnig two, some four, and some five and 

 SIX miles, were early and steady at church on Sun- 

 day. In summer on horses that carried at least 

 double— in winter on sleds drawn by oxen— those 

 n-ho were unable to walk \yere transported to 

 cJiurch. This wus the earlv practice in Wilton as 

 It was in most of the New England towns. It is 

 mentioned in this liistory that tlie first chaise in 

 Wilton was introduced in 1770 by the first minis- 

 ter, Kev. Mr. Livermore, and was the only one pri- 

 or to the revolution : gig wagons, now so 'common, 

 were iiot known until Idia. Double horse sleighs, 

 to hold as many as ten or twelve persons, were 

 there introduced as early as 1777, and then beo-an 

 to supplant ox-sleds. " Dorchester-Canada," now 

 Ashburnham, the place of our residence, which was 

 settled as early as Wilton and had its hill meeting 

 house of much the same age and in better styl? 

 than we have ever seen any other of the kind, and 

 which has now a village pop-jlation of nearly a 

 thousand people, as late as 17.06 had not a chaise or 

 other whe«l carriage of plensure. In the winter of 



ISOO, at a Thanksgiving gathering a wortliy farm- 

 er of the same town v\'ho had only a family of 

 daughters, drove his oxen and sled laden with the 

 precious burthen to unite in the joyous evenino- 

 meeting of both sexes. " 



Unanimity in snpporting the clergyman. 



For the first eight years of the existence of Wil- 

 ton, the same unanimity pervaded that town that 

 has prevailed In many other towns in New England 

 in relation to their religious affairs. The business 

 of supporting the minister of the town was former- 

 ly as much a matter of municipal regulation as is 

 now the support of schools, the taking care of the 

 poor, or the building and repair of common high- 

 ways. The three fust clergymen of Wilton were, 

 Rev. Jonathan Livermore settled Dec. 13, 1763,and 

 resigned in 1777; Rev. Abei Fisk, settled Nov. 

 1776, and died April 2], 1809; and Rer. Thomas 

 Beede, settled March 2, 1803, resigned Jan 23, 

 1820. As a fact illustrative of the change of the 

 times, iVIr. Peabody says— "When Mr. Beede was 

 settled in 1803, there was not a dissenting voice in 

 the town, not one who declined paying the minis- 

 ter's tax on any ground whatever." 



An excellent man and minister. 



With the settlement of the Rev. Mr. Beede in 

 1803 first commenced the acquaintance of the edi- 

 tor of the Visitor with that town and many of its 

 respected inhabitants. He remembers an distinct- 

 ly as though it were but yesterday the faces of her 

 ancient Abbots, Burtons, Batchelders, Gray, 

 Greelcs, Livermores, Morgan, Parkhurst, Petten- 

 gill, Putnams, Rockwoods, Russell, Spauldings, 

 Wilson, Whiting and oth.ers; but as a clergynmn 

 and guide, as the pattern of Christian peace and 

 usefulness, respected by all, beloved by all, who ' 

 for the space of twenty years was never known to 

 utter a reproach or to deserve or receive reproach, 

 the name of Thomas Beede, not only in his own 

 town of Wilton, but in all adjacent towns within 

 the compass of twenty miles, is embalmed in the 

 memory of the oldest inhabitants. Our residence 

 was at first ten, and for the Inst thirty years has 

 been about forty miles from Wilton; yet have we 

 had frequent opportunities to "read, learn, mark, 

 and inwardly digest" his many excellent precepts, 

 and to admire both his social and relicrious charac- 

 ter. He froqntntly supplied the pulpit at Amherst, 

 where we resided in our minority; we have not on- 

 ly listened to his sermons, but the manv which his 

 hearers called into print, the hand which now writes 

 has composed almoEt exclusively the lypvs of sev- 

 eral in each year for seven successive years ; and 

 we never saw from his pen or heard from his mouth 

 an unmeaning, a weak, an ill-natnred, or an im- 

 moral sentence or idea. If any man has lived in 

 this State whose power of " mora] suasion" has 

 been exercised beyond that of another, and exer- 

 ei.sed lo be felt, the esteemed clergyman of Wilton 

 who has been named is that man. 



The usefulness and efforts of Mr. Beedo were 

 not confined to the desk ; they were directed to the 

 worldly not less than the spiritual welfare of the 

 generation which has been born and grown up 

 since the commencement of the present century. 

 Living on a sin.Tll salary which we believe hardiy 

 equalled four hundred dollars a year— a finished 

 scholar, a writer with all the ease and purity of 

 style of an Addison — he was the voluntary instruc- 

 tor of the j'oung men of his town and vicinity. 



Rev. Warren Burton, a native of this town, and 

 the author of a book entitled the " District School 

 as it was — by one who went to it" — pays his min- 

 ister and instructor the following compliment in a 

 speech at the celebration : 



" My earliest impressions about a "minister" 

 were, that he was the most awful being in the 

 world. Next to him the school-master, jiidgino- 

 from what I had heard, appeared to my imagination 

 awful above all olhers. With what profound dread 

 was it then, that I look my way for the first time 

 to the winter school; for the awful school-master 

 whom I was to meet was no other than the still 

 more awful minister — that great man, tall man, 

 dressed in black, who preached and prayed in such 

 solemn tones on the Sabbath. How my heart fail- 

 ed me and how my little frame trembled as I enter- 

 ed the school house door. But how difti?rent was 

 my experience from what I had anticipated I That 

 awful man received me \vith so sweet a smile and 

 spoke in such tender tones, and in all things treat- 

 ed me and all the rest so gently, that my feelings 

 were at once changed to those of confidence and 

 love. Never shall I forget the delightful impres- 

 sions whicti this near intercourse m.ade on my ten- 

 der mind. Never after that did I see him in the 

 pulpit with any other than feelings of respectful 

 affection. He too fitted me for college, and thro 

 al! my earlier life my mind received good infiuen 



