Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/383

 THE ROLFE-RUMFORD HOUSE. 347

McMillan, His Majesty's Colonel, Lieutenant-Colonel Stickney and Major Thompson. Here was the marshaling of the patriots to march to Boston, with Stickney and Walker at their head. But why enumerate? These are but a small fraction of the memories which to-day, as in the past, make glad the heart of Concord. As one stands in the State House where the voices of Webster, Pierce, Atherton, Phillips, Greeley, and Hale, have thundered eloquence, or saunters along the streets where Lafayette, Jackson, Van Buren, and Benjamin Thompson once paced up and and down, does he not indeed have a back- ground extensive and richly colored enough ?

In fact, around one little spot, a brown, time-stained, weather-beaten house, there cluster memories that might exalt even a Windsor or a Kenilvvorth. Here is a building that has a background of reminiscence that one need not be ashamed of. We refer to the Rolfe-Rumford house. ^Valk a mile from the State House to the " South End," across the railroad bridge, and you will see the old house, standing serene and meditative at the left, amid a grove of firs, spruces and majestic elms. It is a large, square, two-story building, with a wing, also of two stories, at the rear. The house is of wood, and was stately and costly in its day, with paneling and carving. I'he estate is finely situated on a bend of the Merrimack, the historic Merrimack, of which Whittier sings, from which it is separated only by a country road running behind it. x\t pres- ent spring freshets have made threatening inroads in its rear. It consists of about thirty acres and has upon it two small cottages, beside the famous man- sion-house.

The Rolfe-Rumford house was built in 1764 by Col. Benjamin Rolfe. Col. Rolfe was a great man in the colony in ante- Revolutionary days. He was born in 1710, and was the son of Henry Rolfe, one of the original grantees of " Penacook " He was a man of scholarly attainments, having graduated at Harvard in 1728. Able, wealthy, and enterprising, he was a man of authority, holding the highest offices of the settlement. He was the town clerk of Rum- ford for many years, and was the first one chosen to represent the town in the (General Assembly of New Hampshire. In 1 745 he held the commission of Colonel in the province under Governor Benning Wentworth. By inheritance and his own industry he acquired a large property, and was by far the wealthi- est person in Concord. He lived according to his means, after the fashion of the day. His large estate was worked by slaves and servants to the number of a dozen. He purchased and owned the first chaise ever used in Concord, in 1767. It had, says Dr. Bouton, a standing canvas top, and probably cost about $60, which would be about equal to the sum of ^^240 in these days.

This old time magnate lived a bachelor until he was nearly sixty. At that age he lost his withered heart to Miss Sarah Walker, the oldest daughter of Rev. Timothy Walker, who was thirty years his junior. Miss Walker was beautiful and accomplished and a "blue blood." The Rolfes at the "South End," and the Walkers at the " North End," with the Coffins, Eastmans, Bradleys, and Stick- neys, sandwiched between, were the aristocracy of old Rumford. They lived differently from the other people, usurped most of the offices, and controlled the business and social interests of the town. The marriage, therefore, of Col. Rolfe and Miss Walker must have been one of the grand events of the colony. It occurred in the year 1769. We can imagine the gay concomitants of the wedding, the bridal feast, the congratulations of the aristocratic guests, and the going home of the bride in the canvas-topped chaise to become the mistress of the great house. That this union of May and December was otherwise than a happy one we have no reason for believing, but it was very short. On the 20th of December, 1 771, Col. Rolfe died, leaving his widow the wealthiest person in the settlement, and the mother of a young child less than a year old.

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