Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/268

 250

��AN OLD SKETCH OF LANCASTER.

��He had scarcely struck fire in his camp, when he heard several moose wading from the shallow side of the pond to- ward deep water. He then uncorked his powder horn, put several bullets into his mouth, and waited until the moose in front was nearly immersed in water. He waded in where the water was about one foot in depth, and took his position, not in rear of the moose, lest they should swim over the pond, but at a right angle with their track, and an easy musket shot from it. On his appear- ance, the four moose, as he had anticip- ated, chose rather to wade back than swim over, and commenced their retreat in the same order they had entered the pond ; that was, one behind the other at some distance. In a moment the moose which had been in the rear, was now in front in the retreat ; and, com- ing within reach, he was shot at. The powder horn was then applied to the muzzle of the gun, a bullet followed from his mouth, with the celerity which hunters only know. The second moose was fired at, the third, and fourth in rapid succession, when Lt. Stanley found time to give a fifth discharge to the moose then in the rear. Three fell at the water's edge, the other staggered to the top of the bank where he fell dead. But the greatest destruction of the moose occured in March, when the 4 snow was deep and stiffened after a thaw. They were then destroyed with- out mercy by professional hunters who used only the skin, tallow, and nose ; which last, and a beaver's tail, is proba- bly more acceptable to the epicure than all the refinements of Roman laxury. One hunter, by name Nathan Caswell, killed in one season ninety-nine moose, most of them wantonly, not saving even the tallow or all of the skins. This brought him into disrepute among the settlers, who sometimes refused him their houses. The settlers however were more provident, always observing the injunction to Peter, with a slight modification, "Arise, slay," only "to eat." A moose of the largest class is about eight feet high and will weigh over nine hundred pounds. Deer and wolves were unknown till long after the

��first settlement, as were also eels, till the otter were exterminated.

From the village in Lancaster the roads diverge in four directions toward the sea board ; in one toward Canada, and in another westward. This central location gives the town most of the business, mercantile and professional, in the counties of Essex and Coos, per- formed by five store keepers, seven law- yers/our physicians, one bank with a cap- ital of fifty thousand dollars, and one Fire Insurance Company, to which may be added a flour mill with three sets of stones, four saw mills, three clapboard and three shingle machines, one exten- sive clothier's mill, a tannery, machinery for carriage making, blacksmith work, coopering and many other mechanical operations. Our religious establish- ments are very respectable, consisting of a Congregational Church, Methodist, Episcopal Society, three meeting houses, many Baptists, Unitarians, Freewill Bap- tists, Some quakers, christians, restora- tionists, and no mormons. We have also an Academy in successful opera- tion, and a very convenient brick Court House, and Jail often without tenants. There is also a Printing Press in town, from which issues a weekly newspapar entitled the Coos County Democrat. Its politics is indicated by its title. The town contains three hundred voters, and probably about fifteen hundred in- habitants.

One of the most magnificent specta- cles I have ever witnessed, common in early times, now rare, was tracts of twenty, thirty, and sometimes fifty acres of heavily timbered land, a large pro- portion of which was evergreen, mixed with deciduous trees, cut down one or two years, and in a dry season, with fire attached to the windward side of the lot, the flame ascending with fearful velocity, far above the tallest of the trees (for it was a rule in those days, if the trees were felled by the job, to leave four of the largest on each acre stand- ing) and the vast columns of dense and rapid smoke, obscuring the sun's brib liant light, nearly and perhaps quite equalling Napoleon's description of the burning of Moscow.

�� �