138 



^l)C iarmci-'s iHontl)lu IJisitor. 



this generous patron of llie ])Oor and ineritorions, 

 more efteciive an;l more generous lo the New 

 Hampton Seminary than any other man to any 

 oiIkm- literary institution tliat mer lived in 'New 

 llainpsliire, our anf)iiainiiinr(; opened to the Simp- 

 son connexion. The parents at honje with tlie 

 tluee sons some time setth.'<l in IJoslon, Imvc each 

 paid the great debt lo nature. 



As a point most instructive to the memory, vve 

 find tlie grave-yards, wiiere rejiose the majority 

 of tlie men of our acquaintance in the Slate du- 

 ring the tweniy years of our first .'^ojouin at the 

 capital of tlie State. The head stones of the 

 yard of the families of Kclley and Simpson upon 

 their own premises, gave the death of the first 

 Samuel Kclley as cccurring June 98, 1813, at the 

 age of 80: his son, the second Samuel Kelley, 

 died in 1832, aged 73: another son of the elder 

 Samuel, was William B. Kelley, who also died 

 in New Hampton, and was the liillier of tliree 

 sons, who were scholars and men of some emi- 

 nence in the state of Pennsylvania— one of whom 

 died at Ilarrishmg, while sitting as a member of 

 the State Senate, whose ■;rave we visited while 

 jiassing a day at the Pennsylvania capital, in the 

 year 1832. The only sister of the first family of 

 Kelleys, Betsey, wife of Thomas Simpson, died 

 in 1820, aged 72; and the husband, Thomas 

 Simpson, died Nov. 37, 1835, aged 80 years. 



With no especial purpose of this visit when 

 leaving home in the morning, after traversing and 

 remarkin;; the continued prospei ily and grad- 

 tial improvements of our fanner friends in that 

 part of Concord ( some six miles) on the East 

 side nprth of Federal Bridge, the whol« length 

 of Canterbury ami Northfield by the centre-meet- 

 ing-houses, and Saudbointou with its magnificent 

 hill anil mountain views — its modest farm hous- 

 es altacheil to hundred-foot barns, with ordiards 

 and jnrdeiis, neat and flouiisliiiig, lying about 

 them: — Sandbornton, large enough of itself for a 

 county, in its whole length; we bethought oiir- 

 selves while in the gulf, formed at a ])ointoftime 

 anterior to the existence of man by the attri- 

 tion and flowing of waters, after form had been 

 given to ihe earlh and the glorious sun had first 

 illuminated the darkness which had long cover- 

 ed the «arth as with a mantle, as the post merid- 

 ian shades of evening were approaching, of the 

 cheerful spot u|)on the higher ground where we 

 liad visited eight years befmi — where v^e had en- 

 joyed the evening's interview with Dr. Sharp and 

 ayoutlifnl coterie around him — a man and a di- 

 vine wilh jiis " whole heart open,'' who has been 

 the patlcrn and the pride of his denomination at 

 the metrojiolis of New England for the last forty 

 years, supplying well the place of aStillman and 

 a Baldwin, who, themselvc's self-made, laid the 

 foundation of a seci of Christians now slauding, 

 without llie protection of interfering civil legis- 

 lalion, upon efjuiil ground of respectability with 

 the prevailing denomination supported by law in 

 this Slate prior to the toleration act of 181!). We 

 called at a plain and modest house, surrounded 

 by fruit trees of giafled ajiples hanging in clus- 

 ters — a flour shing )()ung nursery sloping upon 

 the side-hill down lotbe valley of a lower nieiiil- 

 DW, w hicli had beiui dilcbeil ale' llie contents ol 

 black muck drawn or wheeled out, as the embryo 

 of a future enlarged manure bed, intended toliring 

 into fruitful bearing the alniosl naked gravel 

 knolls surrounding, w liobe original ferlilily had 

 long since been worn out by repeated croppiiigs : 

 we called here to iiiipiire the tmii in the road 

 which up its long steep would enable lis to mount 

 tlie Kelley hill of Nuw llainptoii. Recognized 



by the occupant of these premises, although per- 

 sonally unknown to him, the unassuming gentle- 

 man of the house of one story informed us that for 

 want of a better man he hud from Sandbornton 

 stood in the place of one of the two representa- 

 tives in the legislature of the present year; that 

 he was the settled minister of the third congrega- 

 tion of Baptists in Sandbornton ; that he preach- 

 ed in yonder church — pointing at a mceting-honse 

 standing upon a branch road at no great distance, 

 which had been erected since we last passed that 

 way ; that he contrived to live in that spot with 

 a lovely group of a wilt; and nine children (half 

 a dozen of the youngest, of that graduated size, 

 so slightly ilifTeriiig as to make it difjicult to mark 

 the younger from the older ) upon Ihe small sti- 

 pend voluntarily contributed by his parishioners, 

 amu.-iiig himself at the same time with his farm 

 and nursery operations in which at no very great 

 distance of time he is fair to realize upon a small 

 spot of what was |)oor land, as much profit as 

 many a larger operator, who makes that his sole 

 business, will derive from a larger farm. With- 

 out his solicitation he had been unexpectedly 

 elected by the voice of the town this year to a 

 civil office, to discharge the duties of which had 

 consumed the week-days of more than a inonlh 

 of the most busy time of the farmer. Giving us 

 the particular information necessary to keep on 

 the proper road out of the ravine, Mr. C. gener- 

 ously invited us to the spare room which his mod- 

 est premises afforded for a night's tarry, to ac- 

 cept which we most assuredly had been tempt- 

 ed if circumstances had not fixed the determina- 

 tion not to stop short on our way of that spot 

 where the recollection of valued departed friends 

 could be better revived. 



The adopted eldest sou of Thomas Simpson — 

 a most estimable man, who, since the decease of 

 the late William B. Kelley, for nearly tliirly years 

 has been the taillifnl and accommodaling jiost 

 master of the village whom no partisan office- 

 seekers ever yet have aliempled to disturb — 

 should have been named as connected wilh the 

 laiiiily. The oldest of the four sons was ten years 

 younger than the marriage of !Maj. S., in 1778; 

 Ihe youngest, now at the age of about forl_\-five 

 years, well sustains the reputation of the family 

 in the character of civil magistrate and judge of 

 his county, and of a patlern farmer lo such ol 

 his neighbors as desire ihe improvement of the 

 Ibnndaliou-calling which can alone preserve the 

 wealth and morals of llie republic. This gen- 

 lleiiian, living apparenlly fiir the purpose of soft- 

 ening the |)illo\v of his aged i)arents through the 

 helplessness of old age and disease, and lo stand 

 in the place of father to the children of bis broth- 

 ers, making them a home at New Ilamplon in 

 ihe tender years of minority, while obtaining 

 iheir academical ruilinuuils, remaiiu d a bachelor 

 to the age of about forty )ears, keeping np a lain- 

 ily all the time necessary for these several objects 

 while the parents and the brolhers live.l. Wise 

 ill his generation, about six years ago he took as 

 the partner of his cares a younger llian liimself, 

 the great grand-daughter of his gianil-falher, of 

 the first liiiiiily upon the hill, the near neighbor, 

 whom he used lo joke when a prattling child as 

 wailing Ibr'until grown up, lo become his future 

 wife. As yet the Judge has exhibited but a [inu- 

 city of his usual tact at accnmnhilion in the ac- 

 cession of an only child, a promising boy of four 

 years, of w hose education, should iherc be no ad- 

 dilioii, feai'ti may not he enlerlaineil that liiere 

 will be injury from too great imlidgencc. We 

 are uf those who believe that a family of chil- 



dren is better brought up by encouragement to 

 good deeds ihan by puuisiiment for bad ones; 

 and we carry as wc advance in life the notion to 

 the extent that the child, who claims more intlul- 

 gcnce in the presence of stranger visitors than is 

 wont to the perfect convenience of "children of 

 a larger growth," w ho at the moment cover and 

 occujiy the whole ground, should be borne with 

 in small jieccadilloes, and taught to avoiti their 

 repetition by as little of severity as possible. The 

 better educated men and women of this country 

 of the generalion raised under our observation, 

 are the children who have grown up in the fear 

 only of the displeasure of parents whose good 

 o|iinioii and example to them were above nil 

 price. 



Froniing the look-out pinnacle looking over 

 New England more than half of the distance 

 at every point of compass — central at the point 

 of terriiiny, as nieasured upon the map of New 

 Hampshire, and as nearly central as might be 

 upon the map of ihe six New England Stales, 

 is the farm-house and buildings of Judge Simp- 

 son. High above the. region of early and late 

 li osts, giving to fruits and vegetables over the v:d- 

 leys the vantage ground often of a full forlnight 

 at the beginning and ending of summer, such a 

 farm as this should not be the less valued that 

 access to it can be gained only by climbing up 

 the steep hill. So much more productive is the 

 soil of most of these hills in the Granite Slate 

 that notnithstaudiiig the inroads of time, the ef- 

 fects of rain and Host, are continually carrying 

 down materials for fertilizing the valleys below, 

 the capacity is continued where nothing is carried 

 to them for the abundance of crops taken away. 

 In this fact fanners should learn that the faculty 

 of our mother earth to produce can never be ta- 

 ken away ; that long as seed lime and harvest 

 shall continue, so long has the Almighty fiat fixed 

 the fact that nature will restore to every acre of 

 land ever cultivated all that ferlility which has 

 ever been taktui from it. 



Judge Simpson, upon his hill farm at New 

 Hampton, is doing bis |iart in the example of 

 what we esteem the right kind of farm culiiva- 

 tion. IMaiiily by ihe effect of deeper ploughing 

 upon a field huig cultivated, generously manured 

 ill two previous crops, he has this year raised 

 spring wheat at the rate, calculating by the ascer- 

 tained ijiiauliiy from a single stook, of very near 

 forty bushels to ilie acre. From this field the 

 crop ol » heal had been taken; but the living 

 principle in the soil, iurnsed by the moving of llie 

 subsoil in the deeper ploughing, was observable 

 in the luxuriant green clover springing up as an 

 aftergrowth in the -season when a severe drought 

 had arrested the growth and made bare the pas- 

 lure ground of the surrouiuling territory. The 

 capacity of the higher — we had almost said the 

 highest of the mounlaiii swells of our Stale to 

 retain their li\iiig green growth long afier the 

 drought has turned the plain lands to dry naked- 

 ness, is one among the ileiiis leading to our en- 

 lire change of opinion in the relative value of u 

 billy, a miiiintaiiious, and even a rocky country, 

 lo a smoolli plain or even a land w illi nnilulaliiig 

 prairies where scarcely a rock or a pebble ob- 

 structs their easy cultivation. 



We linger too long, perhaps, upon the first en- 

 trance ill New Hampton, and ilie tiimilieii upon 

 the Kelley hill. Over the limits of llii^ town, 

 upon the same hill, in Mereilltb, a near neighbor 

 to riioinas Simpson, resided the late Judge Moon- 

 ey, for many years known as the friend of tlio 

 widow and the fatherless to the entire population 



