Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/433

 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF SHELBURNE. 395

region, because its shape or position coincided with some conception he had formed of its scriptural namesake."

The first permanent settlers were Hope Austin, Daniel and Benjamin, Ingalls, who moved here in 1771. The next year Thomas Wheeler, Nathaniel Porter, and Peter Poor, came here, and were afterward killed by the Indians. In 1 781 came Moses Messer, Capt. Jonathan Rindge, and Jonathan and Sim- eon Evans. Capt. Rindge is well remembered by the old residents hi town as one of the most respected of the early settlers.

The early history is filled with incidents of toil and hardships which the pioneers were forced to undergo. Mr. Hope Austin, with his family, consisting of a wife and three children, moved into town the ist day of April, 1711, at a time when the ground was covered with five feet of snow. Ali the way from Bethel, a distance of twelve miles, they walked, Mr. Austin and two hired men drawing the furniture on hand-sleds, while Mrs. Austin carried her youngest child, an infant of nine months, in her arms, with Judith, aged six, and James, aged four, trudging by her side. When nhey arrived at their new home they found simply the walls of a log cabin, without roof or floor. To shelter them from the rains and snows they cut poles and laid across the walls. On these they laid shingles, covering a space only large enough for a bed. In this they lived until the next June. At the time of the Indian massacre in August, — spoken of in Segar's narrative, — they fled to Fryeburg, where they remained until the next March.

Daniel, or, as he was better known, Deacon Ingalls was well known and highly esteemed throughout the mountain region for his piety and benevolence, and his death was received by all with sadness. A man at Conway, who liked to annoy the Deacon with profanity and infidel cavils, said, when he heard of his death : " How straight Deacon Ingalls went up to Heaven when he died !" and, pointing upward with his extenderl finger, he continued, " no eagle ever went up straighter into the sky than he did when he drew his last breath."

His two sons, Moses and Robert, settled in Shelburne. They were both distinguished as being kind-hearted men, and a valuable addition to the young colony. Moses was brave and daring and a keen lover of hunting. Many reminiscences of him are current among the old residents, of which we will give our readers two. One Sunday he, with several companions, started down the Androscoggin on a moose hunt. They soon discovered one in the river, eating water grass. Moses fired, but it escaped, as they supposed, uninjured. On his return home his father asking him where he had been, he replied that he had been out hunting, seen a moose, and fired at it, but did not get it. To this his father said : " No, Moses, that was the devil you shot at instead of a moose. How dare you break the Sabbath ? " A few days after this he dis- covered the moose dead, near where he fired at it the previous Sunday. Re- turning home, he said : " Father, the devil is dead ! " "What did you say? Why, Moses! what do you mean?" "Mean? Why! I mean as' I said." replied he, " the devil is dead. You said the creature I shot at last Sunday was the devil, and, if so, he is dead, because I have just found the one I know I shot at, and he is dead enough." For a long time it was reported '• that Moses shot the devil." Ne-ir the center of the town is a steep ledge known as Moses' rock, named in honor of him. It is about sixty feet high and ninety long, rising at an angle of fifty degrees. It is said that during the early survey of the town, the best lot of land was offered to the one who would climb this rock. Accordingly, Moses stripped off his boots, and performed the daring act, running up the steep side like a cat.

Robert Fletcher Ingalls was undoubtedly the first temperance reformer in New Hampshire. He formed a band known as the " Cold Water Army,"

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