Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/55

THE HOME OF THE GILMANS. 41 land, Maine; another was the wife of Dr. J. G. Cogswell, who organized the Astor Library, in New York City.

After the marriage with his third wife, somewhere near 1814, Governor Gilman rented the old house on Water street, and removed to his wife's residence. Col. Peter Chadwick hired the mansion and lived there for many years. Col. Chadwick was clerk of the court at Exeter for a long time, a man of goodly presence, five feet eleven inches high, erect and broad shouldered, and with the courtly manners of the old regime. Of the good looking colonel there is related this exploit. Toward the latter end of his life he visited a son who was located in Illinois. Upon his return he purchased a horse and performed the whole journey on horseback, a distance of eleven hundred miles, being a fortnight on the way. This was a feat that few of this generation would care to perform. Col. Chadwick died in 1845, and the old house remained in the Gilman family, only until lately passing out of their hands.

The house on Front street, in which Gov. Gilman spent his last years, and where he died, is one of the large two-story-and-a-half dwellings, such as were built during the last of the eighteenth century. It stands near the street, with only a small yard between, and a white fence. The house was built by Kendall Lampson, in 1790. Mr. Lampson was an inn-keeper of large means, and a man of note in his day. He died near the end of the century, and the house became the property of Benjamin Conner, who sold it to Mrs. Hamilton. The rooms of the house are large and stately. The wide hall extended through the building to the rear. After the broad and ample parlor, the room of most interest in the house is the landscape chamber, so called. The room derives its appellation from the fact that over the fireplace is a large panel, with a picture painted upon it, the work of an English artist in the first of the present century. In this apartment John Taylor Gilman died, on a beautiful August day, 1828.

The latter part of the governor's life was spent in that retirement which, after such a public and excited career, could not have been uncongenial to him, in the rural occupations that he loved, and in the cultivation of the social relations. The memories of the past thronged upon him. He loved to recall the days of Washington, and he wore the old costume — long waistcoat, breeches, and queue — to the last. He was interested in all educational projects, and was for a long time one of the trustees of Dartmouth College, and president of the trustees of Phillips' Academy at Exeter. The site now occupied by the academy was given by Gov. Gilman, who ever felt an affectionate concern for its welfare. In 1818 Dartmouth College bestowed upon him the degree of LL. D.

Of a strong and original intellect, Gov. Gilman was a keen observer and a logical reasoner. Few men could see so far as he could, and he was always ready to act upon any and all occasions. As a man, he was ardent, impetuous, and unreserved, in his acts and feelings. A true patriot and an ardent lover of his country, he was ever wont to freely canvass the policy and motives involved in the old national struggles. Life's warfare over, he sleeps now near the home of his youth, among the friends of his boy-hood and noble man hood. But the turf rests lightly above his grave, and his name is sacredly linked with the other illustrious dead of our early history.

Of Governor Oilman's personal appearance we have several descriptions. He was six feet high, of a portly figure, and weighed about two hundred pounds. He had keen blue eyes, a fair complexion, light brown hair, a lion-like jaw, and a nose of composite order, being neither Roman, Greek, or Jewish. There was something of the celestial in it, and yet it stood boldly out and confronted the future without fear. His face had a certain resemblance to that of Holbein's