Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/79

TRAVELING ACCOMMODATIONS IN HOPKINTON. 71 ing the rest of the year the old town dozes silently upon the water and dreams of its great days departed.

The last spot we visited was the ancient grave-yard, — a fitting finale of this brief sojourn. As the grave closes the mortal career of man, so we chose that this cemetery should be the end of this day's scene of active, varied, picturesque transitions. Verily a good place to forget the vanities of this life. The old grave-yard itself is dead. Pomp, pride, ambition, and even grief itself are all at an end. Black slate headstones and the costlier marble monument, stand in a ruinous state side by side. Noble dust slumbers beneath the sod, and once in a while we can decipher an ancient crest or the name of some colonial magnate.

We wish we could have lingered longer within its sacred precincts. It is good for man sometimes to forget the things of this life, and to realize the common fate of all mankind. And these old cemeteries have charms yf their own. Both the ethical and the historical faculties are aroused as well as the spiritual in the contemplation of such burying-grounds. Among all our old cities places of similar historic interest are found. Translate these localities north of the White Mountains and how many annual pilgrimages they would receive. So long as they remain within a pleasant foot ramble they are rarely visited, but if the circumstanc transpired that we suggested, those localities would be designated by some enduring monument, and a pebble from the soil would be treasured as a mantel curiosity.

Roads are generally constructed in fulfilment of the immediate wants of the existing community. The first roads in Hopkinton were laid out to suit the then present condition of things. One of the earliest acts of the proprietors was to take measures for establishing needed roads. On the 14th of February, 1737, a a vote was passed appropriating twenty pounds for clearing a road from Rumford (now Concord) to the centre of the new township, and to be used in constructing roads north and south to the extent the appropriation would allow. On the 13th of May it was enacted that the money appropriated for clearing roads be collected by the first of July. On the 20th of December a sum of forty-four pounds, accumulated in the treasury, was appropriated for the clearing of the road to Rumford. Dea. Henry Mellen, Daniel Claflin, John Jones and John Brewer were made a committee to confer with the selectmen of Rumford in reference to the proposed road. On March 29, 1738, it was voted that the money granted to clear the road should be assessed in the following May, showing that a previous vote to collect had not as yet been fulfilled. One the 30th of September of the same year, it was voted that a road be constructed from Rumford line to the meeting-house spot or place; also from Meeting-House Hill west to Contoocook river; also a road on the east side, to accommodate lots; also from the meeting-house place to the Great Meadow, so called; and from the meeting-house to the township north.

The first roads were merely paths traced through the native wilderness. As population and occupation increased, fences and walls became in demand.