goods by pack-horse to Boscawen, town. What Mr. Cole wrote respecting Indians by no means disposes of the sole Claremont aborigine, our old friend Tousa, for Indians are a wandering people, and he was, probably, at that time absent, perhaps with the Indian settlement at Squakheag, now Northfield, Mass., perhaps in Canada. It may well be that after wandering, or trying some other habitation, Tousa longed for his old hunting-ground in Claremont, and returned there. At all events we much prefer to believe the tradition, of only eighty years until the story was printed, that for a time at least Tousa lived in Claremont, and was present, objecting, when the frame of Union Church was raised. (4) permission could not have come without much home discussion. The Church of England stood for things English, and was at the time far from being liked, even by those who troubled themselves little about the nicities of its doctrines or those of the dissenters. (5) The Rev. Mr. Peters, mentioned in the above letter, was the Rev. Samuel Peters of Hebron, Connecticut, graduated at Yale in 1757. The same who organized the parish of the Church of England in Claremont in 1770.(6) It has heretofore been believed that this parish, the second of the Church. of England in New Hampshire,—was organized in 1771; but the date of the above letter returning the thanks of "the Wardens and Vestry of the Church in Claremont." shows that it must have been earlier, probably in September, 1770. We know from Mr. Peters' letter to the Society (7) that he left Hebron with his clerk on September 10, 1770, and travelled up the Connecticut River valley visiting Claremont, Windsor, Thetford, Orford, Haverhill and other river towns. (8) He describes the inhabitants as "living without means of grace, destitute of knowledge, laden down with ignorance, and covered with poverty," not complimentary, nor necessarily to be accepted because Mr. Peters so wrote. (4) See a series of Historical Articles published in the National Eagle, Claremont, in the early fifties, also Granite Monthly, Vol. 51, p. 425, and Vol. 54, p. 41. (5) Such Church is described in nearly two hundred Wentworth town charters in New Hamphire and in the Hampshire Grants (now Vermont) in these words, "the Church of England as by Law Established:" but it was never by law established in New Hampshire, and in none of the colonies except Virginia and the Carolinas. The words in the Wentworth charters must, therefore, be taken as referring to conditions in England-see S. H. Cobb's Rise of Religious Liberty in America, pp. 74, 115, 290-300. (6) In the Churchman's Magazine for August, 1805, it is stated that the Church in Claremont was organized by the Rev. Samuel Peters in or about the year 1771. The date should have been 1770. (7) See Church Documents of Connecticut, ed. by Hawks and Perry-1864, Vol. II. pp. 162-164. (8) In the Political Magazine, London for November, 1781, Vol. 2, p. 656, Mr. Peters published a description of the Connecticut River, from which those familiar with it may learn much unknown to them before. "Above five hundred rivulets which issue from lakes, ponds and drowned lands fall into it; many of them are larger than the Thames at London.” "Rivulets," barely worth mentioning, but "larger than the Thames." with its even then wondrous traffic. What better calculated to impress the cockney? But the following, accepted readily enough by Londoners. may impress the people of Haverhill and Newbury: "At the upper cohos the river spreads twenty-four miles wide, and for five or six weeks ships of war might sail over lands that afterwards produce the greatest crops of hay and grain in all America." We sympathize with the Reverend Peters in his restraint. Why stop at a mere twenty-four miles in width with the water fast rising? Note continued on bottom of page 147. In October he crossed the Green Mountains, "16 miles over," to Manchester, finding his way "in a pathless wilderness, by trees marked and by compass"; he thence proceeded to Arlington, on the present New York line. On this journey "preaching as often as every other day I travelled 700 or 800 miles in a way so uneven that I was in peril oft." We can but admire Mr. Peters energetic activity, and note with regret that he later left an unenviable record in Connecticut, Boston, and even London, as an indiscreet and obnoxious Tory. In a search of his house at Hebron for arms, a punchbowl was broken, about which Mr. Peters made much ado, though no appropriation of materials suitable to be compounded in it is recorded. He soon fled for sanctuary to Boston, whence he wrote: "I am in high spirits. Six regiments are now coming from England, and sundry menof-war. So soon as they come, hanging work will go on, and destruction. will first attend the seaport towns." He soon sailed for England, where, by way of getting even, he wrote a "History of Connecticut," said by natives of that state to be worthy of a direct descendant of Ananias. Sabine, in his "American Loyalists,' says of Mr. Peters: "perhaps clergyman of the time was more obnoxious." Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, Yale 1759, a man of eminence, a no brother clergyman and a fellowtownsman in Hebron, said of him that of all men he ever knew Mr. Peters was "least to be depended upon as to any matter of fact." While in Claremont he was probably the guest of his fellow-collegian, Samuel Cole, and it was probably at the latter's house, and due to his initiative, that the parish in Claremont was organized. We may imagine these two worthies walking leisurely over Town Hill, on a pleasant autumnal afternoon, the clergyman, who had been ordained in England, discoursing to his untravelled companion upon the great size and unrivalled magnificence of London, a story which, we may rest assured, lost nothing in the telling. (9) No words in Mr. Cole's letters give so much information respecting the intellectual status of early settlers and their children as can be gathered, indirectly, from the few books mentioned by him; for these these furnished the greater part of the mental nourishment of both parents and children of the time. The words "Westminster Catechism" thus serve almost as a volume in themselves; for our forefathers, mostly dissenters from the Church of England, were brought up on it. This Catechism, a rigid embodiment of hard Calvinistic theology, was devised by the "Westminster Assembly" summoned by the insubordinate Long Parliament. As the re "Two hundred miles from the Sound is a narrow of five yards only, formed by two shelving mountains of solid rock, whose tops intercept the clouds." [This was at the Great Falls, now known as Bellows Falls.] "People who can bear the sight, the groans, the tremblings, the urly motion of the water, trees, and ice, through this awful passage, view with astonishment one of the greatest phenomenons in nature. Here water is consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration, that no iron crow can be forced into it: here iron, lead, and cork have one common weight, here, steady as time, and harder than marble, the stream passes irresistable; the lightning rends trees in pieces with no greater ease than does this mighty water.***. No living creature was ever known to pass through this narrow, except an Indian woman, who was in a canoe attempting to cross the river above it, but carelessly suffered herself to fall within the power of the current. Perceiving her danger, she took a bottle of rum which she had with her, and drank the whole of it; then lay down in the canoe to meet her destiny. She marvellously, [aided perhaps by the Great Spirit], went through safely, and was taken out of the canoe some miles below quite intoxicated, by some Englishmen. Being asked how she could be so daringly imprudent as to drink such a quantity of rum with the prospect of instant death before her, the squaw, as well as her condition would let her, replied: Yes it was too much rum for once; but I was not willing to lose a drop of it, so I drank it, and you see I have saved all." (9) The record of Mr. Peters activities may be found in F. B. Dexter's Biographies of Yale Graduates, 1745-1763, Vol. 2, pp 482-487; Sabine's Loyalists of the American Revolution, Vol. II, pp. 177-182; Trevelyan's American Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 278, 279, 375, and Batchelder's History of the Eastern Diocese, Vol. I, pp. 175, 176. sult of five years of deliberation by one hundred and twenty divines, nearly all Calvinists, it was published in 1647 and 1648 in two forms, the Larger Catchism, "for such as have some proficiency," and the Shorter Catechism "for such as are of weaker capacity." If we of a later generation were expected to commit to memory and to comprehend the to comprehend the Shorter Catechism, most of us would fail to measure up to the "capacity" for which it was designed. The Shorter Catchism was published here in many editions and large numbers but the form in which it came to be most widely used was in the numerous editions of the New England Primer, which for more than a hundred years was the school book of the dissenters, and almost the sole book for juvenile reading in America. With it millions were taught to read, and then, catechised unceasingly. Aside from the Bible no book printed in this country has had anything like the extended and enduring influence of the New England Primer. "An over conservative claim for it is to estimate an annual average sale of twenty twenty thousand copies, during a period of 150 years, or total sales of three million copies."(10) Every known edition printed in the eighteenth century, and most of those issued later, contained the Shorter Catechism which occupied nearly half the pages. Although a million or more copies are believed to have been printed in the eighteenth century less than fifty of these are now known to exist. The high prices,-more than $100-paid by collectors copies in good condition printed prior to 1800, attest their rarity. (11) for as Originally compiled by Benjamin Harris (12) the earliest edition, shown by an advertisement in an almanack, was published in Boston about 1689. Several other editions were issued before 1727 but none earlier has been found. In the edition of 1737 first appeared the four lines, "Now I lay me down to sleep," etc., author unknown. They were printed in almost every subsequent edition, and, with the Lord's Prayer, have been taught the world. over by millions of mothers to many millions of children kneeling at their bedsides. One edition only was printed in New Hampshire prior to 1800; and that by J. Melcher at Portsmouth, without date, but probably about 1795.(13) (10) The New England Primer. by Paul Leicester Ford, p. 19. To this book we are indebted for the greater part of the information respecting the Primer which appears in this article. (11) The first collector of this Primer, who began in 1840, found copies of only two eighteenth century editions; the next, who began at about the same time, after forty years of search, obtaind only nine Primers of that century. At the time Mr. Ford's book was published, 1897, the finest collections of Primers of the eighteenth century were those owned by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, six copies, and the I enox Library in New York. also six copies. In the latter is the copy of the edition of 1727, the earliest edition of which any copy has been found. The American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass, owned four copies. The wonderful Library of the British Museum had but one copy. The orly known copy of the J, Melcher, Portsmouth, N. H., edition was, in 1897, owned by Dr. Henry Barnard of Hartford, Conn (12) Harris also deserves distinction as the editor and printer of the first newspaper in America. This he issued, without permission, in 1690 under the name "Public Occurrances." As might have been expected it was promptly suppressed by Proclamation. (13) An edition was printed in Newbury, Vermont, "by Nathaniel Coverly Jun'r. For John West of Boston." It is regarded as an eighteenth century edition. If this is correct it was probably printed in 1799 or 1800; for Nathaniel Coverly Jun'r, printed an edition at Medford, Mass., in 1798. He apparently removed to Newbury, perhaps carrying the forms with him. The copy of the Newbury edition is owned by the American Antiquarian Society. Worcester, Mass, The title page is as follows: THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER, IMPROVED, OR AN EASY AND PLEASANT GUIDE TO THE ART OF READING, ADORNED WITH CUTTS, to which is added THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES' AND DR. WATT'S CATECHISMS, PORTSMOUTH; Printed and Sold by J. MELCHER Primer was The New England carried in stock and sold by all general stores in country four corners and villages. Some of the articles advertised for sale in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1783 were as follows: "Allblades Bibles, Brimstone, and, Broadcloths, Buttons, Buckles of different sorts. Pipes, Pins & Needles, Powder & Shot, Primers, [a Primer was always a New England Primer,] Rum, rod Nails, Saws, Spelling Books, Sugar, Tea, Testaments and a variety of other Articles." Primers were undoubtedly carried in general stock and hundreds of copies sold in Claremont in the eighteenth century as they were in all other New Hampshire towns. Can one of them of that period, outside the few collections, now be Z Zacheus he Did climb the Tree Even Zacheus' effort was not intended to be amusing. There was in all editions the rough woodcut of John Rogers, burning at the stake in Queen Mary's gentle reign, while his wife with nine small children, and one at her breast, look sadly on. The crude wood-cuts appear to have been prepared by selftaught wood engravers in the printer's shops, for in few of the different editions were they the same. (14) These were doubtless understood by countless children who were sorely puzzled in the effort to understand the nature of orignal sin, or the doctrine of election whereby so few were destined to be saved; or why, for Adam's Transgression, so long ago, "All Mankind. are under God's Wrath & Curse, and so made (14) Among the embellishments of some editions, prior to the Revolution, were crude wood-cuts of the reigning King and Queen. In the edition of 1737 the printer, lacking a cut representing the Queen, overcame the difficulty by using, with some erasures, a block prepared for a Queen in a pack of cards. It is doubtful whether among the purchasers the prototype of the lady was widely recognized. In another edition, issued soon after July 4th, 1776, the name John Hancock was substituted for George the Third; but the features of the portrait remained the same, liable to all Miseries in this Life, to Death itself, & to the pains of Hell forever."(15) Mr. Cole, it may be noted, asked for "particular directions" about teaching the Shorter Catechism; that "Golden Composure" as Cotton Mather in admiration called it. In addition to the Shorter Catechism we find printed in nearly all editions of the New England Primer a still further simplified catechism entitled "Spiritual Milk for American Babes," "By John Cotton," a dissenting divine who arrived in Boston in 1633. After demonstrating how slight the chance of being judged otherwise than wicked, the Reverend Cotton gives, as a last sip of his lacteal preparation, the following: "and the wicked shall be cast into everlasting fire with the devil and all his angels." Other gems designed to cheer the children may be quoted from from the Primer. F. "Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it from him." Frequent applications of the birch were, doubtless, prompted by this wise precept. L. "Liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:" Often cited in cases of inaccurate statement. U. "Upon the wicked God shall raise an horrible tempest." To be remembered at times of severe thunderstorms. A cause for the astonishing disappearance of the millions of copies of the New England Primer may be imagined. It seems, however, unlikely that any reliable statistics respecting it will ever be obtained. But the Puritanic Primer is not the only publication, pointing the straight and narrow path, upon which the return non est inventus must be made. Of Lewis' Catechism,- -25 copies of which, as we have seen, were sent to Mr. Cole, the Catalogue of Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum tells us that at least fifteen editions were published, the first in 1700. But not a copy is to be found among the four millions of volumes in the great libraries, general and theological, of Boston and Cambridge. (16) Whatever the unascertained teachings of Mr. Lewis' book, it is to be hoped they were less depressing than those of the Shorter Catechism. un In contemplating the religious instruction of New England children a century or two ago, we may wonder how they grew up to see anything other than gloom in life. But it should be remembered that the taught beauties of nature all around, and the child's natural joyousness, served as antidotes for much dismal teaching thrust upon him. And, as a great teacher of theology now tells us, the very attempt to understand these problems, with a chance of heaven on one side, hell on the other, was mentally stimulating. It is refreshing to find in an edition of the Primer, as early as 1767, any (15) Some of the extremely orthodox have been paired by the gradual extinction of this belief; as with the Calvinistic clergyman who remarked: "The Universalists believe that all men will be saved, but we hope for Letter things." A newly installed pastor said to a spinster parishioner: "I hope, madam, you believe in total depravity," and promptly received the reply: "Oh parson, what a fine doctrine it would be, if folks only lived up to it." (16) This Catechism was compiled by John Lewis, Vicar of Minster. It was translated into Irish and Welsh, but does not appear to have been printed in America. Lewis was the author of some twenty books, nearly all of historical value, and all to be found in the Libraries of Boston and Cambridge, although not generally reprinted, and issued in very small editions compared with those of his Catechism |