Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/145

 THE OLD RED MILL. 123

nearly thirty years. That he was regarded as a valuable acquisition to any new settlement, is shown by the effort made by the Proprietors of No. 6 (now Henniker), to induce him to transfer his interests to that town. In August, 1753, the proprietors, aforesaid, chose a committee of three " to treat with Baricas fernom about the building a saw-mill in No. 6, and his not Complying with their terms they are to have Power to treat and Seetel with any other Person about building the saw-mill."

Although no immediate result followed this action of the proprietors of Henniker, some eight or ten years afterwards, Farnum settled in that town, on the southerly shore of Long Pond, which body of water, on this account, was known for fifty years, as '* Farnum's pond." Here, Barachias Farnum gave his attention, largely, to agriculture. He also had an interest in a blacksmith shop, standing near his house, and in a mill which stood on the rushing brook which is the outlet of the pond above mentioned. But, shortly after the Revolution, our Miller disappears from Henniker and from the public records. Whither he went, and where his days were ended, it is not known. His dust sleeps somewhere in the wide world, unmarked by any visible tombstone.

On the very shore of this willow-fringed river, which carries The Old Red Mill, is the birthplace of one of Concord's celebrities — Nathaniel H. Carter. He was born in 1787. He graduated at Dartmouth in iSii; read law at Albany, New York ; commenced the publication of a paper in that city, under the auspices of De Witt Clinton and others, which he conducted with great ability for a number of years, and until failing health admonished him to lay aside his weighty cares. In 1825, '6 and '7, he made an extended tour in Europe. He visited England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Italy and Switzer- land. Finding no improvement in his health, he spent the winter of 1827-8, on the island of Cuba. His last visit to his native town was in the autumn of 1828. He was received with great cordiality by the people of Concord, but his pale, thoughtful face gave evidence that he was rapidly nearing " the jaspar sea." He returned again to Europe, and died at xMarseilles, France, in 1830, at the age of forty three. While here, on this last visit, in 1828, he passed much of his time seated on the bank of the stream where it flowed at his youth- ful feet ; and while there seated, he composed that feeling poem which gives classic immortality to Turkey river, — a fractional part of which poem will close this article.

TO MY NATIVE STREAM.

��Hail ! hail again, my native stream.

Scene of my childhood's earliest dream !

With solitary step once more

I tread tliy wild and sylvan sliore,

And pause at every tuiT. to gaze

Upon thj^ dark mea :d'ring maze.

What though obscure thy woody source ;

Wliat though unsung th}^ humble course ;

What if no loftj% clissic name

Give to thy peaceful waters fame ;

Still can thy rural haunts impart

A solace to this saddened heart.



Farewell ! farewell ! though I no more May ramble on thy rural shore, Still shall thy quiet wave glide on, When he who watched its flow is gone, And his sole epitaph shall be Inscribed upon some aged Tree.

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