Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/395

 EDITOR'S TABLT'.

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��and low shoes with silver buckles. In short, he dressed in the prevailing style for gentlemen at that time. He was affable, but dignified, in manner. In religion he was a Universal ist.

Boston had not the sole honor of having a " tea party," for Kingston also enjoyed one about the same time. A peddler drove into the town with a wagon-load of the hated article, but the excited inhabitants unharnessed the horses and made a bonfire of the tea on the common. Probably it had never witnesseil so stirring a scene be- fore — excepting the massacre by the Indians which occurred there nearly a century previous. I am glad that the quiet old town still retains the English common. I saw it lately in one of those golden spring days, when the beautiful new year had thrown off the gloomy shackles of winter. The birds were twittering gaily from the trees, the grass was waving on the large and well kept green. At a little dis- tance back from it, on higher ground, stands the imposing, old-fashioned house built by Josiah Bartlett. White oak was the material chiefly used in its construction. On the other side of the common stands the village tav- ern, and a strain or two from a violin came floating across on the wind.

��The whole scene was so dreamy and peaceful that it seemed as if it must be one of those quiet country towns in England. No railroad here to mar its- brauty. Just beyond the old hostelry lies that part of the hamlet which slowly but surely encroaches upon the busy portion.

" The housRS ar« thatched with grass

anii flowers. Never a el«ck to toll th^ hours; Tlie marble doors are .nlways shut, You 111 17 not enU'V at hall or hut; All the village lie asleep. Never a grain do sow or reap; Never in dream do moan or si.:^h. Silent au.l idle and low they lie."

In one corner rest the remains of Josiah Bartlett, who died of paralysis May 19, 1795, in the 65t]-i year of his age. A simple monument of cut granite marks the spot, a fitting cov- ering for one of New Hampshire's most honored sons.

SOME OF THE AUTHORITIES COXSULTED.

Sanderson's Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.

N. Dvvighfs Sketches of the Lives of the Signerii of the Declaration of Inde- pendence.

B. .1. Lossing's Signers of the Declar- ation of Independence.

Allen's Biographical Dictionary.

Kambles about t'ortsniouth.

The Bartlett Familv, by lion. Levi Bartlett.

Newca-tle, Historical anil Picturesque.

Many Broadsiders, AtanuscrijiEs, Let- ters, &<t.

��EDITOR'S TABLE.

��Had Farmer and Moore been success- ful in so establishing their magazine in 1S22-4 that it had lived imtil this day, no one can calculate the value it would be to til!* present generation. What a mass of impoi-tant information would have been saved I Did the public of that day. who refused it proper support, realize that in allowinjr it to succumb they consigned to oblivion facts and deeds that would have interested their

��posterity for many generation^'? The money value of such a set of boaks wouKl amfjl}' repay anv family for pre- serving the numbers as issued.

In undertaking to establish the Gran- ite MoxTHLV, the writer had great en- thasiasrn and unlimited confidence in human nature. He personally made a canvass of nearly the whole state and got the magazine well established. From that point it ha^ grown, and has settled

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