50 



€l)e jTarmci's iHoittl)lg iHsitor. 



carried both off back into the wooJs, perhaps 

 twenty or tliirty miles, pleased to take and keep 

 iheni. Gathering in their wigwam nt night, the 

 Indians sent the boy out for fuel to keep uiive the 

 fire. The hny h;ul anticipated his escape, having 

 been tohi by his fatlicr that any one lost in the 

 woods wotdd be sure to find the setllemeuts by 

 pursuing tlie rising sijn. He had found a hollow 

 log and crawled into it. Soon tlie Indians oume 

 fortli and sounded the cry for '• Sam." He re- 

 mained still in bis place of concealment while 

 they continued their search. They retired keep- 

 ing up the cry " Sam — Sam ; the bears have got 

 Sam." He lay snug till the dawning of the morn- 

 ing sun, when be took his course east; end sub- 

 sisting on berries or ground-nuts for that and 

 some succeeding day.«, he came out at length to 

 the white settlement and was restored to his pa- 

 rents. The girl also was at'terwards returned 

 without injury. The <anyiDg these children oft' 

 was nothing more than a mischievous, playful 

 freak of the Indians. Living iu their midst, we 

 recollect no meution of an attack upon this neigh- 

 borhood settlement by Indians — the whites, we 

 believe, were always friendly. 



The wooden mansion two hundred years old 

 was to us a curiosity : reflecting that our own an- 

 cestors erected it and that succeeding generations 

 of them were born and lived here, we hope the 

 remaining part will be suffered to stand at least 

 as long as we shall live. The house has outlived 

 many occupants — it was the best style of build- 

 ing of two centuries ago. It had its fancy work 

 covhig directly below the roofing — its front door 

 capping was an imitation of the gingerbread Co- 

 rinthian style. Some sticks ^of that part of the 

 frame taken down were lying about : these slicks 

 were morticed with numeral figures indicating 

 the proper point of entrance for each joist or 

 beam to the place which should make all parts 

 of the frame come to be properly ailjusled. The 

 old house stood at least one hundred and thirty 

 years before it came to be shot at by the armies 

 of the mother cou.ntry, which, having platited the 

 colony of pilgrims in this wilderness by oppres- 

 sion, claimed the night to enslave their posterity ; 

 and the same old mansion, after such a riddling, 

 has stood seventy-one years longer (from 1775 to 

 1846) to be mutilated for the benefit of a business 

 which has been created by the application of 

 steam, not ever to be dreamed of by at least half a 

 dozen generations who have been born and lived 

 under its roof. 



There is no part of the United States more val- 

 uable and more highly improved iu its agricultu- 

 ral products than the land within three miles sur- 

 rounding the two Spy ponds, six miles out of Bos- 

 ton. The generations succeeding each other 

 upon this interesting spot are agricultural meni 

 all of whom from llie first have been taught to 

 labor with their own Immls. The very last year 

 these lands were cultivated may be said to he their 

 best year : wc do not believe there ever has been 

 one year of the more than two hundred in which 

 some improvement has nut been added. Hosts 

 of men and women with their descendants have 

 gone forth from those who first settled and were 

 born upon this gromnl ; tliey have carried their 

 habits of iinlusiry and thrift into all the Slates 

 of New England, and we believe fome of them 

 may be foimd in every State of the Union. Hut 

 there exists a fiict in relation to those which re- 

 main, which we know not of upon so extensive a 

 scale in any other nijij^hborhood. Much of the 

 land continues in the ownership of the game fam- 

 ilies and iiamus as thoFe of the original occupants, 



and the son has succeeded the liither laboring in 

 the same calling. It may be said oi' these fami- 

 lies that ihey are the best farmers to be foimd 

 any where in the world. They have never been 

 a people to be carried away by any enthusiastic 

 wildness or uncommon revival of religion; yet 

 their presi'iit condition is one of that moral ex- 

 cellence which is rarely exceeded in the imper- 

 fections of human nattn-e. These people, from 

 their position, have always labored more hours 

 than the people farther in the country,who would 

 not think of rising at two o'clock iu the morniug 

 to supply milk, vegetables, meal or meat for the 

 daily food of the people of a city half a dozen 

 miles distant. If there has been any fault in for- 

 mer years, it was that the education of hard work 

 in early youth left too little time for improvement 

 in the more scholastic accomplishments and fa- 

 miliarity with the fasJiionaJjIe literature of the 

 day. The wealth of this fafmer community is 

 now such that salaried instructors of both sexes 

 are engaged the year round to teach all the rising 

 generations of all classes and conditions gratui- 

 tously in whatever may be useful to qualify them 

 in the pmsiiits of life. The genteel high living 

 of die wealthy in the cities is certainly not more 

 desirable than that of the sons and daughter8,who 

 have all the means for human enjoyment that hu- 

 manity ought to crave. 



Although the editor of the Visitor classes him- 

 self as coming from the race and neighborhood 

 he has bnen describing, be can make no preten- 

 sions as being what they are: he left them at a 

 tender age for other scenes — he has tnixed w itii 

 those of other and more speculative habits — he 

 has associated with a moving race, some of whotn 

 after extracting the first virtues of a virgin soil, 

 leave it to improve their condition ; and others 

 of whom have thought the cultivation of any soil 

 was not the best employment. He has lived to 

 see neighborhoods settled and cleared, and all 

 of the name run out or run away from that ground. 

 The land and place of our birth presents an ex- 

 ception to almost all others. Of the owners and 

 occupants of that little town in the male line for 

 two hundred years are those of Adams, Culler, 

 Dost, Hill, Russell, and we believe we may add 

 as nearly of the same length, those of Pierce, 

 Prentiss and If'ellinglon. These family names 

 have become in that length of time so interwoven 

 by inter-marriage, that they are nearly all of blood 

 relation, and bring to this day in a nearer or more 

 remote line of consanguinity a large share of tlie 

 permanent iuhabilanle of the place. 



What has been remarkable in some of these 

 family names has been their great longevity. — 

 There is a tenacity to life in some families made 

 more apparent to our notice from the contrast 

 presenteil in other families, between whose chil- 

 dren for the first years there seems to be no per- 

 ceptible difference. Of the West Cambridge 

 long-lived races we think something has been 

 due as well to their uniform living as to the more 

 healthy occupation of working farmers, which all 

 the generations for the two centuries have pur- 

 sued. We believe the agricultural calling to be 

 that pursuit which the God of natine designed 

 for nnin; and in the pursuit of this calling is be 

 destined to live longest and to enjoy most in this 

 world, where, at the best, 



*' LilV as n ilrciim, and lime ai a stream, 

 Fly sM-iI"lly away, — 



Aim! iIh' fiiuiUvc moment refunca to stay — 

 And t--ternily*» licre." 



The editor and publishers of the Visitor may 

 count on each side of these families as their an- 

 cestry tho names of HUI, Culler, tf'eUitiglon, on 



the father's, and Adams and Russell on the moth- 

 er's side. With the exception of his own name 

 he takes the others within his own personal 

 memory. The first Abraham Hill camo from 

 England with the second emigration of settlers 

 at Charlestowu in 163G: bis name is given as of 

 that company in Frothingbam'a history of 

 Charlestown. From him our lineage comes down 

 iu a line of Abraham 2d, Abraham 3d, Zacha- 

 riah, Abraham 4th, Isaac Ist to Isaac 2d. The 

 Inst grandfather Ahraham,& soldier in three cam- 

 paigns to Ticonderognand the frontier in the war 

 of 175G, and a soldier three years in the war of 

 the revolution, lived to the age of eighty years, 

 and died about the year 1810. His son Abraham 

 lived to be 80 — Isaac to be 78 — and Thomas, yet 

 alive, is about 86. Abraham and Thomas, with 

 their father, were volunteer soldiers at Bunker 

 Hill: the eldest son, coming off the hill, had a 

 bullet shot through the rim of his hat. They 

 were botli revolutionary pensioners: the father 

 died before any pension act passed. His mother 

 was Rebecca Culler, who died in 1797, and ivas 

 born in 171 J, being 86 years old: all of her chil- 

 dren, five sons and six daughters, were living at 

 the time of her death: the sons were, Abraham, 

 Zachariah, John, Samuel and William Hill, all 

 of wliDin lived to hoover sixty years old. Down 

 to this time, in the direct line to us of two hun- 

 dred years, there has been no death of a male at 

 less than sixty years. The grandmother on the 

 Hill side was Susa7i Hellinglon: her children 

 were the three sons already named and four 

 daughters, all of whom were married and reared 

 families — all now deceased. She outlived her 

 husband seven years and died at the age of over 

 eighty years. Her nephew. Col. Jediilhan Wel- 

 lington, the delegate from Cambridge of the con- 

 vention which formed the first Conslilution of 

 Massachusetts, well recollected by us, died over 

 ninety years of age, a few years since. Charles, 

 the son of Jeduthan Wellington, has a farm in 

 West Cambridge, the greater part of which he 

 has converted from an almost sterile and rocky 

 mossy pasture, into fruit-bearing orcharils and 

 vegetable garden grounds— from which he real- 

 izes in rash six and eight thousand dollars in a 

 year. This farm has been taken off partly from 

 the ancient farm descending to his father, still 

 leaving that of greater than its former production. 

 On the mother's side we take tho name of 

 Adams, carrying our memory hack to our great 

 ancestor Thomas Adams, born in the old Adams 

 mansion to which we have alluded. He was born 

 in the year 1710, and died Oct. 1802, at the age 

 of 92 years. His eldest daughter, (Hannah) the 

 wife of Walter Russell, and mother of six sons 

 and one daughter, buried her husb;md in 1783 at 

 the age of 45, and lived herself to the age of 94 

 years. Of her children, the elder son James, liv- 

 ing on the ancient premises, died about one year 

 ago, aged 64 — his brother, the second son, (Wal- 

 ter) lives at the age of 83, and one other brother, 

 (John) 73, still lives in Vermont. The oidy daugh- 

 ter, (Hannah) our mother, died March 1, 1847, 

 aged 75 years. Besides his eKIcst daughter, Tho- 

 mas Adams had a son two years younger, born 

 Jan. 1745, who is still living. We scarcely need 

 say that wo commenced this article mainly for 

 the pur|)0se of introducing this centenarian to 

 the public. Humble as was his origin, and few 

 and restricted as were his opportunities for ob- 

 taining an education, we do not believe the whole 

 United Slates can furnish a parallel case of cul- 

 livated mind, improved, carried out and retained 

 for so great a length of time. This aged cenlen- 



