Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/198

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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��are the pictures of two Indians, life size. There they tower in their furs and plumed coronets, as if guarding the stairway. They are said to be the portraits of two forest sagamores with whom Captain Macpheadris had deal- ings in the fur trade, and who, very likely, feasted with him more than once in his grand mansion.

There are other pictures to be seen in this hall- way : the walls fairly glow with life. Here rides Gov. Phipps on his war charger, large as life, and painted in the full costume of a Brit- ish officer. Four or five hundred square feet are covered with sketches in color, landscapes, views of distant cities, figure pieces, and Biblical scenes. Some of these sketches are unique. On one side is seen Abra- ham offering up Isaac, with all the accessories — the angel, the ram, &c. — the patriarch clad like a buccaneer of the seventeenth century. Near by sits a lady at a spinning wheel, who is interrupted in her labors by a hawk lighting among her chickens.

There are ten great chambers in the house, all of them wainscotted to the ceiling, and several of them contain- ing the original furniture. Here are two bridal chambers, dim and fra- grant, with azure hangings and cur- tains of pale gold. And there are death chambers, too, where the cold, white faces have laid, staring out from their funeral shroud. Ah, what a mystery is this death, coming upon us in the midst of our activity, and lay- ing us prostrate and helpless beneath the sod ! How it faces us in life, like the mumni)' at the Egyptian feast, ever reminding us of the night that Cometh to all men ! Happy he who has learned not to fear this darkness.

Across the hall-way from the parlor is the old dining-room of Macphea- dris and Warner, now the family sit- ting-room. In it the visitor finds a choice store of family relics — china, silver-plate, costumes, old clocks, and

��the like. In one corner stands an ancient bookcase made of mahogany. It was purchased by Jonathan War- ner in 1750, and is an artistically con- structed affair. Doors almost as heavy as those of a bank vault, secret draw- ers and sliding panels, and locks of fine, curious workmanship, make up a wonderful memento of the crafts- man's skill. Inside is a collection of antique volumes, several of which have the autographs of the colonial councillors. One of the books is the Hexalpha, or Commentary upon Dan- iel, printed in London in 16 10. There is also a book of prayer, printed in 1739, which was presented by Gov. Benning Wentworth to his sister, Mrs. Macpheadris, and contains his signa- ture.

The old house is full of odds and ends. A bric-a-brac hunter could here find his paradise. In the treas- ured family relics there are a hundred curiosities which our limits will not allow us even to mention, and which would be more pleasing to the anti- quarian than a feast. Nor are the at- tractions all on the inside. The first lightning-rod ever put up in New Hampshire protects the Warner house to-day from the electric bolt. It was put up under the personal supervision of Benjamin Franklin himself, nearly a century and a quarter ago.

The present owner of the mansion is Mrs. John N. Sherburne, whose hus- band was the great nephew of Jona- than Warner. Sarah Warner, his sis- ter, married Henry Sherburne and was mother to Sarah Sherburne who married Woodbury Langdon, and of Samuel, the father of John N. Sher- burne. Col. J. N. Sherburne died in 1866. The mother of Henry Sher- burne, who married Sarah Warner, was Dorothy Wentworth, a sister of the first Governor John, so that in the veins of the present proprietors the mingled blood of Sherburne, Warner, and Wentworth flow in one rich stream.

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