Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/279

 Historical Incidents.

��267

��IlSrCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY OF LEMP-

STER, N. H.

By C. S. Spaulding.

��It was about thirty years after the granting of the town charter of Lerap- ster to Richard Sparrow and sixty- one others of those sturdy yeomanry who hewed for themselves a home in the wilderness, that Capt. Jonathan Spalding settled in Lempster. He was born at Westford, Mass., Aug. 23, 1770. His boyhood days were spent on his father's farm. He ac- quired more than a common school education. He married Milly Ben- nett ; she was the daughter of Capt. James Bennett, an officer of the Rev- olution.

Soon after his marriage, in 1791, Mr. Spalding came to Lempster. He employed his time farming and clearing the forest in summer, and in teaching the only school in town in winter. Mr. Spalding became a prominent and influential citizen, and enjoyed the entire confidence of his fellow-townsmen, and filled most of the offices within their gift.

He also organized the town militia, which in 1804 consisted of two com- panies, one commanded by himself and the other by his brother James, who lived on a farm adjoining his ; and it was said of them that they were the best drilled troops in the old sixteenth regiment of state militia, and on training days Lempster street resounded with martial array. The companies vied with each other in military tactics and discipline.

"They lived their homely lives The plain old-fashioned way, Thanksgiving once a year, And general muster day ;

��Town-meeting in the spring— Their holidays were few,

And very gravely kept. When the old flag was new."

— Harper.

��Mr. Spalding removed to Jericho, Vermont, in 1819, where he died Jan. 23, 1823, leaving the homestead farm in Lempster in possession of his son Sewell, who was born on the 19th of April, 1792.

When Sewell was twenty-two years of age, during the last war with Great Britain a requisition upon the town of Lempster was made by Gov. Gilman of New Hampshire for a detachment of nine men to be sent to Portsmouth. The militia were called out on the twelfth day of September, 1814, and mustered in the old meeting-house-. The selectmen offered a bounty of one dollar, and twelve dollars per month wages, to volunteers ; but the men were very reluctant to enlist, and no one seemed to step forward. When the fife and drum were brought in, and they commenced marching through the aisles of the old church, reviving the scenes of " seventy-six," the required number soon joined in line, and Sewell Spalding and his brother James were two of the nine men wanted to fill the quota of the town.

" A brave old race they were Who peopled then the land,

So man of them ashamed Tosliow his horny hand: —

Hands that had grasped the sword Now drew the furrow true;

For honored was the plow

��When the old flag was new.

��—Ibid.

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