Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/209

 AGE OF JOHN LOVEWELL.

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��B.Moore, Concord; Standing Commit- tee, Nathan Adams and Nathan Parker, D. D., of Portsmouth; Prof. Hosea Hil- dreth, of Exeter; Committee of Publica- tion, Wm. Plumer, Jr., of Epping, Par- ker Noyes, of Salisbury, and John Far- mer, of Concord. Of the above the only survivor is George Kent, Esq., now re- siding in the city of Washington, at the age of eighty-one.

The first volume of the Collections of the Society appeared in the following year, consisted of 336 pages, and was printed by Jacob B. Moore. Others have been issued as the means of the Society — always small — have allowed. Its income has from the first consisted almost whol- ly of initiation fees and the annual tax upon its members ; usually two dollars. The Legislature votes a small sum annu- ally — the Society being justly considered its auxiliary in collecting materials of an historical character. For several years succeeding its formation the books, pam- phlets, manuscripts and other collections were deposited in an obscure apartment in

��the State House. Thence they were ti ans- ferred to a hall over the Concord Bank, and kept there for a very considerable period. The next migration was to an apartment in the Merrimack County Bank building— the Society still having money beneath it, although little or none in its treasury— near the north end of Main Street, where the property of this ancient institution has remained to this day. Several years ago the charter of the bank ceased by limitation, and by a persistent effort the funds— about $3000, were procured with which to purchase the bank building, and it is now the property of the Society. It is of brick, and slated ; is three stories high, exter- nally fire-proof, and no fires are permit- ted in the building. Here the great and very valuable collections of the Society are kept, in charge of a gentleman with the taste, historical knowledge, in- dustrious habits and civil deportment in- dispensable in the custodian of such treasures — Daniel E. Secomb, Esq.

��AGE OF JOHN LOVEWELL.

��[We copy the following from advance sheets of "Sketches of Old Dunstable," about to be pub- lished by E. H. Spaulding of Nashua. It is from the pen of John B. Hill, Esq., the venerable his torian of Mason, and may be regarded as showing with substantial conclusiveness that John Love- well did not ljve to the age accorded him.— Ed.]

��John Lovewell of Old Dunstable, did he live to be 120 years old? This ques- tion has been debated, but never definite- ly settled. No record is found of his birth or of his death, nor any entry or memorandum, answering to the charac- ter of a record, in which his age at the time of his death is stated. In the years 1825-26 I resided in Nashua, then Dun- stable. The tradition was then uniform and unquestioned that this was his age. Fox, whose book was published in 1846, (see Hist, of Dunstable, page 158, note), seems to have doubted the statement, but finally to have yielded credit to it (see page 157), and Kidder (in Expedi- tion of Capt. John Lovewell) adopts the

��traditional age without question. Mr. Farmer, also, in his letter to me, says he always doubted it, though it seems to have passed into history as an undenia- ble fact. But it appears to me that a careful examination of all the facts will show that there is no foundation for the statement. During my residence in Nashua I obtained from Moody D. Love- well, Esq., a descendant of John Love- well, the loan of the town records and other papers of Old Dunstable, which were then in his keeping, but which I understand are now in the City Clerk's office. This book and papers, purport- ing to be records of the town and church of Old Dunstable, commencing in 1673

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