®I)C jTarmcv's iHcintl)hj Visitor. 



187 



gone by luive left it and with them much of the 

 business has flown to other locations. Still the 

 village viewed (Vom a distance is bcanliful. — 

 From it the first old turnpike pursued its way 

 up, up, up, in a direct line, turning down, down, 

 down, froni the apex, towards Grallon comity. — 

 Hero an improvement has been made avoiiling 

 tlie up and downhill travel several miles by a 

 new road of no greater distance, [iroserving near- 

 ly a level around the hill. At the norlhcrly part 

 of the town, the route of the Plymouth road is 

 through a valley lessening down to a ravine, sep- 

 arating the Salmon falls mountains which are a 

 contiimalion of the Ragged and Ivcarsarge moun- 

 tains by the breaUiiig through of the waters of 

 the Pemigevvassctt. This valley and ravine might 

 have been and probably was, also tlie former 

 channel uniting the Pemigevvassett and Winne- 

 jiisseogee waters several miles above their pres- 

 ent [loint of conlliience. A small lake at the 

 higher level of the valley or ravine lias no appar- 

 ent outlet: it is nndoiibily the source of supply 

 to the mill stream at the village of New Hamp- 

 ton, whose appearance Jibove ground is scarcely 

 a mile from the river, but which furnishes in the 

 distance water ])ower for saw mills and other 

 machinery. 



The hills of the three towns of Samlbornton, 

 Meredith and New Hampton are upon a larger 

 scale than almost any where else in the State. 

 Upon one of these as upon the opposite side of 

 the Salmon (alls mountains, we made our course 

 to call upon the friend now only remaining of 

 tlip family of the late Thomas Simpson, Esq. — 

 This veteran of the revolution, not less from his 

 remarkable vicissitudes and services in that 

 great drama, than for liis intelligence, enterprise 

 and (iiiblic spirit for many years after that service 

 was ended, deserves a more prominent notice 

 than any printed record has yet presenled, shin- 

 ing in that galaxy of worthy names whose re- 

 cord in New Hamjishire .shall be the future his- 

 tory, best teaching all siibseqiicnt ages by the 

 noble example which they have presented — 

 Thomas Simpson, of the same Irish extraction 

 of Cilley, M'Clary and Moore, which first |>i!eli- 

 ed down at Nottingham, Rockingham county, 

 about one hundred and forty years ago, was born 

 in that town. May 7, 17.5.5. Of studious habits, 

 Aviiile his father was eng.-iged in the business of 

 lumbering to the nearest landing upon Piscata- 

 qua river, as a driver of the team he took along 

 with him the Latin primer to prepare himself in 

 the riulimcnts of that language. He was a 

 man of iron constitiition and noble bearing, both 

 in form and face, and at the age of eighteen 

 years weighed 228 pounds. Of the time spent 

 with him some twelve to eighteen years since, 

 we now remember his stories of the men and 

 events of the war of the revolution — especially 

 do we recollect the exhibition of the scarification 

 of the wound he received on the 7lh October, 

 1777, at the last deadly conflict ))receding the 

 capture of Burgoyne's army at Saratoga. He 

 entered the service at the age of twenty years 

 as lieutenant second in a company commanded 

 by Meshech Weare, eldest son of President 

 Weare. In the campaign to Canada under Ar- 

 nold, young Simpson, attacked with the smal| 

 pox, lost an eye, which resulted in entire blind- 

 ness for several of the last years of his life. — 

 He was the friend and confidant of the lamented 

 Scammel, whose regiment performed the elite 

 service in the hard fought and well fought battle 

 of October 7, 1777. Capt. Weare, early in that 

 year, wounded in a skirmisli with the Indians nt 



the north and borne from the field upon the 

 back of his lieutenant, was succeeded by him in 

 the command of the company. Col. Scanuiiel's 

 regiment, in ahernato possession and retreat 

 from some artillery in an open field covered 

 with woods on all sides, held at bay the left of 

 the entire British lino for nearly an hour until 

 .Vrnold came up with the main body of Gates' 

 command to sustain them. Previous to the ac- 

 tion Simpson by Scaminel's direction in person 

 creeped through weeds and bushes to count off 

 in fifties the probable numbers of the enemy, 

 measuring and multiplying the men by the in- 

 creased distance of the line, and returiiiiig with 

 that information which emboldened the wary 

 commander to throw the whole energies of his 

 faithful followers into repeated returns upon the 

 attacking enemy, and parrying and driving 

 back every attempt to outflank and surround an 

 advance guard far inferior in |)oint of numbers. 

 Lt. Simpson represented the afterwards re- 

 creant Arnold on this day as a model of perfect 

 personal bravery, riding on horseback between 

 the two fires — leading the attack in n forlorn 

 hope, and leaping over the Hessian breast work: 

 he was wounded in the leg, and our hero useil 

 to remark that while condemned in body and 

 soul lor selling his country to the enemy, the leg 

 deserved a patriot's burial for the si^tvice done 

 on that great occasion. Lt. Simpson at the close 

 of the action anil near the Hessian breastworks 

 received a musket ball near the navel, which 

 glancing round the side between the exterior 

 fiesli and the ribs or cartileges of interior flesh 

 covering the abdoineii, resteil near the back 

 bone where it remained until the day of his 

 death. The late Dr. Edmund Chadwick of 

 Deerfield, a personal friend of Lt. Simpson and 

 surgeon of Scamniel's commaml, stated after- 

 wards that in dressing this wound fresh under 

 its infliction, he run his probe of the full length 

 of thirteen inches in addition to thumb and fin- 

 gers, able only to reach the leaden bullet, but 

 unable to move it back thongli the aperture by 

 which it entered. It Wiis deemed most prudent 

 not to attempt an extraction by cutting directly to 

 the |ilace of lodgment through the outside flesh, 

 of which at the liine the young ofiiccr was aliiin- 

 ilant in dimension as the length of the probe half 

 round the body proved. From any serious dis- 

 tress or inconvenience resulting of this wound 

 the officer was relieved in h few months, being 

 able that winter to return home and get married 

 to Betsey Kelley, daughter of the late Samuel 

 Kelley, Esq., who first settled in the lot of New 

 Hampton next adjacent to Meredith in the year 

 1775, where at its first opening he distinctly 

 heard the guns fired at the battle of Bunker Hill. 

 Lieut. Simpson wounded at the Hessian breast- 

 work in the battle of the 7th October, remember- 

 ed fiilling with his heavy supcriiicumbent weight 

 diiecliy upon a youth not having then attained 

 the full size and strength of manhood. Thirty 

 three years afierwards, in 1310, he was appointed 

 by the Marshal, the late Gen. Michael M'Clary, 

 a fellow soldier of the revolution, to take the 

 census of several towns of Strafford county. — 

 Tarrying in Tamwortli over Sunday, he attended 

 the religious services of the Congregational 

 church of that town which, subsequent to the 

 revolution, for nearly half a century, was under 

 the charge of the Rev. Sanuiei Hidden. Mr. H. 

 on leaving the church recognized the wounded 

 officer, and inquired if he remembered falling 

 upon and pinning down a boy at the Hessian 

 breast work in the battle of Bemis' Heights. — 



He had recognized the officer froiri his appear 

 pearance alone, his patch over the eye and his 

 unusual size: and now at the distance of more 

 than thirty years was he able to discover in the 

 person of an eminent luiiiister of the gospel 

 the youth he was unable to relieve when falling 

 at Saratoga, completely disabled under a shot 

 from the enemy. 



Capt. Simpson was again in the service of his 

 country until the close of the war, although 

 deprived of an eye, and pierced atid mutilated 

 with metal from the guns of the enemy. He was 

 appointed an acting quarter-master with the rank 

 of major: in this capacity, on horseback, at the 

 battle of iMonmoulh, he was thrown and one of 

 his legs iniiiilated, which in after life was even of 

 more serious pain and inconvenience than his 

 bullet wound. After the Revolution, Maj. Simp- 

 son came to New Hampton and settled down up- 

 on the broad eminence whose highest part over- 

 looks the waters of the Winnepisseogee, at the 

 distance of nearly thirty miles, the mountains far 

 to the east and north into the state of IMaine, and 

 the (ireen Mountain range of Vermont, as well 

 as the backbone range in New Hampshire, for 

 more than a hundred miles north and south, at 

 the point where the fiither of his wife had pitch- 

 ed in 1775. During the whole remaining term 

 of his life, until utterly defirived of sight, he was 

 known as a man in the active duties ol' public 

 life pertaining to a magistrate and municipal of- 

 ficer of the county and town of his residence, 

 he was, we believe more than once, a member of 

 the State Legislature. 



Our acquaintance with this family commenced 

 with the second son, the generous founder and 

 father of the New Hampton institution, v\'hicli 

 has so much houoreil and promoted the Christian 

 denomination of Baptists in New Hampshire: 

 that son, without pecuniary aid from his connex- 

 ions, had established himself in business at Bos- 

 ton before he was twenty-one years of age, in 

 which he continued with varied success, but al- 

 ways as the generous )iatron and aid of all his 

 friends, of whom we shall always account o,ur- 

 selves as among the most favored without a re- 

 turning equivalent, until in the midst of his days 

 he was arrested at the close of the year 1838, by 

 the hand of death, having been wounded in the 

 head by the upsetting of a carriage, while going 

 to South Boston on an errand of mercy in the 

 severity of winter. Climbing the long steep hill 

 which leads out of the direct travelled road to the 

 residence of the surviving brother, and youngest 

 son of the veteran whose life we have noticed, 

 wo remembered, on our last previous visit the 

 elder and the younger brother accompanying to 

 direct us, a few miles down the steep way, eight 

 years ago, on our way home after witnessing and 

 listening to the e.\ercises of both the female and 

 male departments of the Literary Institution, 

 drawing annually together an intercsttd and in- 

 teresting groupe of strangers from this and oth- 

 er States. On these occasions, year after year, 

 the late John K. Simpson was the life and soul 

 to this great feast of reason : to him, when there 

 was any thing necessary to be done for either de- 

 Iiartment of that excellent school, there was no 

 doubt or hesitancy. Himself the iiithcrof a large 

 and interesting group of sons and daughters, to 

 all those sons and daughters were given the ben- 

 efits of the highest instruction of this institution, 

 and to as many as four sons with the orphan son 

 of a younger brother, was added a collegiate 

 course, as [ueparatory to the advantage of readi- 

 ly entering upon the higher jirofepsions. With 



