108 



®l)C jTarmer'a iBontl)!^ btsttor. 



tion other than to think upon llie matter for wri- 

 ting out such an address as the occasion requir- 

 ed. In feeble health that morning we sat down 

 to our desk at first vviili the expectation of writing 

 a leller excusing our omission and neglect for a 

 non compliance with our engagement to the 

 board. We looked upon the c|Uotation from the 

 Psalms of a short chapter which we had design- 

 ee as an apposite introduction, sorry to lose so 

 much labor as that of even irnn.scribing that for 

 no particular pur[)Ose. Instead of writing the 

 excuse, we commenced weaving into words the 

 thread of our discoiu-se : we wrote five hoursi 

 almost unconscious of the passing of as many 

 minutes, until awakened from the reverie by a 

 call to dinner. Finding we had done enough of 

 this kind of labor for one day, we went to the 

 field that afternoon, pleased to see the corn then 

 hoeing having grown more in one week since the 

 first hoeing than in all its previous growth of 

 the summer. Tuesday morning wc arose fresi 

 for writing the address with a double renewal- of 

 strength from yesterday, thinking possibly we 

 might be ready with an apology for the address 

 by the erening. Writing and tearing from the 

 sheets as we generally do when working under a 

 press and for the press, at the ringing of the bell 

 for twelve o'clock we came to that point where 

 we thought we might stop ; and without having 

 disturbed or read one page of the thirty four ad- 

 ditional pages of manuscript written, we con- 

 cluded in our own mind that we had been quite 

 as suceessfid as if we had taken a whole week's 

 time for the preparation. 



With this long introduction, we go hack to the 

 point of first setting out to say that at the whistle 

 of tlie Franklin cars coming in at ten o'clock^ 

 Wednesday, July 7, we hastened to the depot 

 ready to return in them. Here we tarried over 

 three hoius, until past one o'clock, V. M., wait- 

 ing the arrival of the cars from Boston, which 

 were deiaineil full two hours in consequence of 

 the incompetency of the engine to carry forward 

 with the usual celerity the largest train ot" pas- 

 sengers [lassing on mere ordinary business rlian 

 had ever came over the road ; seven full cars 

 with probably not less than Com- hundred pas- 

 sengers came up to the Concord depot in this 

 train behind the time. Oji the previous Thurs- 

 day an engine with a single car passed over the 

 road containing the President and those who at- 

 tended him, with the watch we marked the time 

 te he exactly twenty min\ites in running the fif- 

 teen miles from Lowell to Nashua, and twenty- 

 five tnituites running the (jighteeu miles from 

 Nashua to Manchester. The slower pace of the 

 larger train on the 7th July may be attributed 

 entirely to the want of motive power afliirded in 

 the first engines constructed for this road. 



Slow in pace from Concord to Franklin, we 

 had some opportunity to see the ingenious turn- 

 ings and twisti'igs by which the fonndaliou lias 

 been laid for an excellent road along the line of 

 Merrimack river nearly twenty miles above the 

 Concord depot. The level of this road (lower 

 by n number of feet than the level of the Mon- 

 treal road now imder the process of construction 

 for the first twelve miles near the east bank of 

 the Merriujack) is just above high-water mark ol 

 the highest conmiou frcHliets — upon that level 

 which ill the Concord road below admitted of a 

 construction of the road the whole distance ol 

 thirty-five miles with a filling no where exceed- 

 ing fifteen feet, and no considerable excavation 

 excepting in the very short distances by the falls 

 in How, Ilookselt and at Amoskeag. 



The way this work has been done over the 

 road from Concord to Franklin shoidd be most 

 satisfactory to the owners of the road and the 

 public to be accommodated by it. In its green 

 and unfinished state the road went into operation 

 on the first of January last ; within a lew weeks 

 it was destined to encounter one of the most se- 

 vere winter freshets, breaking it up in its various 

 exposed part.s. These exposed parts are, first 

 the passage of the Horse shoe pond directly after 

 leaving this village, where the current of a 

 freshet sometimes has the force of the whole 

 water fury of the swollen river : here the winter 

 trial (lid no more damage than might any where 

 be expected from a sudden and severe storm 

 breaking the frost of an artificial bank. 



One mile further on we come to that very uncer- 

 tain and extremely dangerous point, the Farnum 

 eddy deepened far itito earth's soft bosom by the 

 turning of waters over and around the ledge 

 which comes out in the bed of the river at the 

 point of the Rattlesnake heights. Here the riv- 

 er has been barred out and barricade<l by the 

 split granite clamped upon the outside filled in 

 with rocks and gravel so that the water in its 

 highest state must be obliged to keeji up its line 

 of march more directly outside of the road, 

 making the whole einbaiikment of solid stone 

 and gravel saving the passage way of granite left 

 for the trfftisit of the mountain brook which here 

 unites with the river. 



Not many rods further an egress is given to 

 the water of the strea'u running more than a 

 mile along the margin of the hill supplying from 

 Long pond the power for various mills and man- 

 ufactories near the west village. In no part of 

 the world is there more charming scenery than 

 that presented in the lake to which we have al- 

 luded, all shut out as it is of view to the travel- 

 ler through the town. Around that fine sheet of 

 water grow the first fruits of the season brought 

 to our market — eaily peas, potatoes and other 

 vegetables — cherries, plums, strawberries, peach- 

 es, pears anil apples. The farmers here are al| 

 thriving — many of them during the last year 

 have built elegant new barns much more finish- 

 ed IVir comfort than many houses inhabited by 

 men and women. However, that man who 

 hfariit his trade of early raising vegetables at 

 West Cambridge, and who is first and foremost 

 of the markets in Concord, still contrives lo patch 

 up and live in the old upright farm house of the 

 first owners which had stood nearly a humlred 

 years. If he has not fully paid for his farm in 

 the lt:w years he has occupied it, he must have 

 laid by a lioide of money which he has taken 

 every season for his (Jirni produce. 



Further on and just after letiviug the depot of 

 the West Parish village, which may lose in its 

 tavern husiiu-ss possibly, but which will gain al- 

 most every thing else by the construction of the 

 railroad, the old current of the river crossed 

 twice has been tiiriied from the west to the east 

 side of iSewall's Island which is passed in it.s 

 whole extent by the road' keeping straight for- 

 ward instead of bending to the turn in the river. 

 From all appearances, the fillings in across the 

 old cIiiiiiikM will be as peiuiaiient as the earth it- 

 self; the divideil waters are united, and there 

 sccMiis to lar niithing to prevent the making of 

 land by gradual introduction of sand and sedi- 

 ment lioiii above so as to unite Scwull's Island 

 with the main land on the west side. The old 

 barn constructed some seventy-five years ago by 

 the laio Jonathan Eastman and John Bradley, 

 behind the corn-bin of which the latter choked 



to death with his own grasped hand an euor~ 

 mous wild-cat or Siberian lynx, still stands upon ' 

 this island. We observe its owner, Mr. Clongh, 

 this year has substituted as a part of the roof of 

 this ancient barn modern shingles for the orig- 

 inal old fashioned clapboard shingles. This 

 island lies off against the original grant of five 

 hundred acres, marked down to John Endicott. 

 one of the first governors of Massachusetts 

 made more than one hundred and eighty years 

 ago, which was then sought as a choice morsel 

 far in the wilderness more than half a century 

 prior to the first settlement of the town. Tlie 

 grant passed into the hands of a Mr. SeWall of 

 Massachusetts, and was known under the natne 

 of the Sewall farm, and now constitutes as 

 many as half a dozen of the finest intervale 

 farms of the town. Sewall's Island, a refuse 

 part of this grant, containing possibly forty or 

 fifty acre.s, was secured for a trifle,and cleared by 

 Messrs. Easttnan and Bradley. Many thousand 

 bushels of Indian corn and other grains and 

 many hundred tons of hay bad been taken from 

 this island with little ever carried back upon it to 

 renovate the soil. It might easily be made, and 

 no doubt will in a few years become as prolific 

 as ever. The value to its owner will be enhanc- 

 ed by the passage of the railroarl, since the fill- 

 ing in upon the west side to the centre of the 

 old river bed must belong to him. 



A little further on the railroad encounters the 

 Sewall's falls and a bend of more than a mile in 

 extent to be straightened by again twice crossing 

 the channel and turning that in a straight direc 

 tion over to the east side. For this |)urpose an 

 excavation made directly across the point of en- 

 trance to the peninsula it was believed wotdd 

 enlarge itself by the force of the water turned 

 by damming up the river at either cud. The 

 plan was rendered more difficult of execution 

 than had been at first calculated in cousequenco 

 of the hardness of the clayey deposite at the 

 point of excavation. 'I'be waters of the severe 

 winter freshets forced themselves rather through 

 the obstructions over the old circuitous channel 

 than through the stiff clay which had been its 

 former barrier. Uniutermitted and almost incredi- 

 ble labor and effort at this point has at length 

 nearly if not entirely overcome the <litficultic.i. 

 The railroad has purchased the intervale called 

 Goodwin's puint which is turned from the east 

 to the west side of the river ; ami to the value of 

 this may al.so he added the filling in lo the cen- 

 tre half the width of the river the distance of 

 nearly a mile when the horse-shoe shall be filled. 

 The road then touches ami passes over the 

 splendid intervale of the Rolfc estate at the north 

 line of the town — ati estate which not only em- 

 braces so<ne two or three hundred acres of best 

 iiilervalfr, but many acres of upland still more 

 valuiible including a large portion of the build- 

 ing lots of the rising village of Fisher.sville and 

 one half the falls and iniK privileges wiihin half 

 a mile of the mouth of the Contoocook. This 

 stream with water power at intervals sufticient 

 for miKs and fiictories on the ilisinnre of many 

 miles in all its branches, the main stream com- 

 *ing down more than sixty miles from the .south- 

 west comer of tlie Stale, fills nearly a hundred 

 li^et at a short distance from its mouth : it is 

 mori' wild than the Merrimack which unites at 

 FranUhn above the waters of the Winuipissiogeo 

 find Pemigewassett. The railroad crosses the 

 Contoocook directly at its mouth, and at the 

 mouth passes over the celebrated island at which 

 long anterior to any settlement in this part of the 



