OLD HAMPTON IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

The events which occurred in Massachusetts before the outbreak of the Revolution aroused intense interest and sympathy at Hampton. The people of the town had early learned the lesson of independence and resistance to English claims; the descendants of the men who drove out Mason's tax-collectors were not likely to stand in awe of British regulars at Boston. At a meeting held February 7, 1774, the following resolution was passed; "Resolved: that we will to the utmost of our Power in ever Reasonable & Constitutional way, endeavor to promote & Defend the Happiness & Security of America, and if ever necessity Requires it, we will be ready in conjunction with our oppressed American Brethren, to Risque our Lives & Interest in support of those Rights, Liberties, & Privileges which our Supreme Lawgiver & our happy Constitution has entitled us to." While Hampton men fought in various battles of the war which followed, the larger part of Hampton's quota was engaged in the less dangerous but no less important duty of guarding the New Hampshire coast. In the War of 1812, Hampton was represented by the distinguished Major-General Henry Dearborn of North Hampton, who was commander-in-chief of the American forces on the Canadian border during the early years of the war. Hampton responded gallantly to the call for men at the outbreak of the Civil War; one hundred and eleven men enlisted, and twenty-six were killed or died in service.

The first "ordinary" or tavern was opened by Goodman Robert Tuck in 1654, and several others were soon after established. Each tavern-keeper was licensed by the court, and held by it to strict account. The license of Henry Roby, granted in 1669, reads as follows: "The court grants him license to sell beere & wine & strong waters by retailed & ye sd Roby doth bind himself in ye sum of 40 lb, on condition not to suffer any townsmen, men's children & servants to lie tipling in his house."

A number of stores were established in the early years, and prominent among the merchants were General Moulton and Colonel Toppan, both of whom became wealthy through their mercantile ventures. Colonel Toppan was a large shipowner, and while generally successful, he met with several serious reverses. A schooner owned by him was lost on the Banks, and a fine brig, after having been sighted inside the Shoals, was blown to sea by a northwest gale, and never heard from again. The crews of both vessels were largely Hampton men. General Moulton was decidedly unpopular with many of his democratic townsmen. They believed his wealth to be fabulous, and they were quite certain that it was not all gained by selling, to those who were vain enough to buy, the "fine braizery" and "winter and summer goods" which he so temptingly advertised in the New Hampshire Gazette. Rumours of dark dealings began to be current about the country side, and the tale that General Moulton was a Yankee "Faust" shaped itself into a definite legend, to be told at Hampton firesides until the present time. One dark and stormy night, so the story ran, when the lightning flashes revealed the broad marshes to the line of the sea, the general secretly met the Evil One, and bartered his soul for as much gold as his great top boot would contain. The money was to be dropped down the chimney throat into the boot, which would be placed on the hearth below. When the night for completing the bargain came, the general placed his boot, from which he had cut the toe, in the fireplace. The golden shower began to fall, and the great yellow pieces rolled out from the toe of the boot and lay in shining heaps in the bar of moonlight which fell across the floor. The spirit on the roof, perplexed and angry, inquired from time to time if the boot was not full, while the general roared from below that it had not begun to fill. But that was only one side of the bargain. On that summer day when the cry, "General Moulton is dead," passed from mouth to mouth among the men who were haying on the marshes, it was confidently supposed that he had been snatched away, body and soul, by the foul fiend of the air; and this belief was confirmed by the awe-struck bearers at the imposing funeral, who reported that the coffin was as heavy as if filled with stones. While the general may not have felt complimented by the circulation of such stories during his lifetime, he was doubtless shrewd enough to see that they added to his power over the superstitious people.

But General Moulton used other than supernatural means to amass his wealth. A single instance will illustrate his methods. On a clear night of November, 1764, a great English "mast-ship" came ashore on the North Beach, just south of where the fish-houses now stand. It is difficult to say how true the stories were, but it was darkly hinted that the ship was too heavily insured, that a part of the cargo had been secretly landed, and that the ship was beached through a previous arrangement with certain shrewd conspirators of Hampton. At all events General Moulton and Colonel Toppan were immediately appointed as keepers, by the Admiralty court at Portsmouth, and the goods recovered from the wreck were advertised to be for sale at their respective stores. In the meantime some of the village people had picked up a few articles on the beach, believing themselves no doubt entitled to a portion of the "spoils." These persons were placed under arrest by order of the keepers. This act produced so much bad feelings, that an armed mob assembled, which rescued the prisoners and gave the thrifty keepers a bad fright. So serious grew the disturbance that the riot act was read, and Governor Wentworth ordered the militia to be in readiness to assist the authorities. The excitement soon subsided, however, the goods were sold, and the two military gentlemen realized a profit of a thousand guineas each from the transaction

General Moulton owned at one time an immense tract of land, eighty thousand acres, it is said, north of Lake Winnipiseogee. In 1767, Colonel Stephen Mason led a colony of thirteen Hampton families to settle upon this tract. At Alton Bay they built a boat, no doubt of the Hampton whaleboat type, and its sail, woven by Madame Mason, was the first to catch the breeze on Winnipiseogee. Crossing the lake, they founded the town of Tamworth.

The Moulton and the Toppan families were neighbors, and lived in what was then considered princely style. They each had negro slaves and employed great retinues of servants. They vied with one another in princely hospitality, and it was rare that one house or the other was without its distinguished guest, Governor Wentworth, some official from the Bay, or a stranger from over the sea. In 1769 General Moulton's mansion was burned with all its contents, the loss being £3,000 sterling. Shortly after another was built, which is still standing. It was here that the great festivities were held when the general married his second wife, and it was here according to the legend that the rings were taken from the fingers of the new wife on her bridal night. Whittier has told the story in "The New Wife and the Old."

When the old general died, more ghosts haunted the house than ever visited the great drawing-room of the "House of the Seven Gables." In one room, even at the present time, it is said that a lamp will not remain lighted, but is blown out by a ghostly breath. The spirit of "Johnny Square-toes," the dwarf who was the general's body-servant, and who was said to share his supernatural powers, divided its time between the house and the old burying-ground. Madam Moulton, the general's stately first wife, was a frequent visitor, and the rustle of her brocade gown could be heard as she ascended and descended the broad stairs. The general himself so alarmed the occupants of the house by his nocturnal visits, that a devout minister of Amesbury was summoned to exorcise the uneasy spirit. After saying various prayers the good man solemnly nailed up the troublesome ghost in a closet. All this was long ago. The old house looks innocent enough now, as the visitor sees it in the summer sunshine; but pass it at night, when the light of the waning moon, red and sinister, is reflected from its windows, when the wreaths of marsh-fog takes shapes like gray ghosts about it,--let it be seen in this aspect, and the old tales take on a different meaning.

It is not known whether any special provision was made for teaching the children of the town before 1649. In that year the first public school was established in accordance with the following vote: "The selectmen of Hampton have agreed with John Legat for the present yeare insueing, to teach and instruct all the children of or belonging to our Town, both mayle and femaile (wch are capable of learning) to write and read and cast accountes (if it be desired) as dilegently and as carefully as he is able to instruct them. And allso to teach and instruct them once in a week, or more in some Arthodox chatechism provided for them by their parents or masters. And in consideration hereof we have agreed to pay the same John Legat, the som of Twenty pounds in corne, and cattle and butter." It is worthy of notice that the girls of Hampton were taught in the public school from the very first, contrary to the custom which prevailed in many New England towns. It was not always easy to provide payment in those days, even in "corn and butter," and John Legat was obliged to sue the selectmen for "schooleing & other writings done for ye Towne." Of the eleven schoolmasters employed by the town prior to the Revolution, eight were graduates of Harvard College. During the same period four of the ministers were also Harvard men, and in this way the town became warmly attached to the college and often contributed liberally to its support.

In 1810 Hampton Academy was incorporated by an act of legislature. While this school never attained the popularity of the academies at Exeter and Gilmanton, which were earlier established, its record was a most honorable one. Among its graduates have been Rufus Choate, ex-Senator Daniel Clarke of New Hampshire, Judge Morrill of Texas, and ex-Governor Grimes of Iowa. In 1872, the academy ceased to exist as a corporate institution, and became a part of the school system of the town.

The town of Hampton as originally granted was too large to remain long undivided. The new communities which sprang up within its borders desired independent governments, which were successively granted, until scarcely an eighth of the original territory was left to the mother town. Not unnaturally the people of the old town viewed these concessions with disfavor, and always resisted them as long as possible. The first grant made in 1694, to several Hampton families, was of a large tract of unoccupied land in the western part of the town. One of the petitioners was Ebenezer Webster, the great-grandfather of Daniel Webster. The grant was called Kingstown, and the territory which it included is now divided between the towns of Kingston, East Kingston, Danville and Sandown. The next division was in 1718, when after a long struggle the town of Hampton Falls was incorporated. This grant included the present town of Kensington, and a part of Seabrook. A settlement was very early made on the "Falls side," as it was called, Christopher Hussey moving there from Hampton in 1650. The town grew in importance almost as rapidly as did Hampton itself, and it was a natural feeling of pride, as well as considerations of economy and convenience, which led to the separation. The two villages, however, only three miles apart, have always remained closely united in common sympathy and respect. At Hampton Falls there lived, during the Revolutionary days, two of the most prominent men of the colony, Nathaniel and Meshech Weare, father and son. Nathaniel Weare removed from Newbury to that part of Hampton which is now the village of Seabrook, in 1662. From that time until the close of his life of eighty-seven years, he took a prominent part in public affairs. He was twice sent to England as the representative of the people, on secret and important missions connected with the Mason controversy. He was counselor for twenty years, and for a time chief justice. Even more distinguished was the career of his son Meshech, born in 1713. He was educated for the ministry at Harvard, but at the outset of his career the brilliant young preacher was drawn almost against his will into public service. He was a member of the General Court from the town of Hampton Falls, for a period of thirty years, from 1745 to 1775, when the royal government ended. During this time he was also colonel of the state militia. At the outbreak of the Revolution the attitude of Colonel Weare towards the cause of the colonists were anxiously watched, and his outspoken declaration in favor of liberty was received with great joy. He was a member of the convention which assembled at Exeter in 1775, and which resolved itself into a House of Representatives. This House elected a council of twelve members, of which Meshech Weare was chosen president, holding the office throughout the war. During the same period he was chairman of the State Committee of Safety. When the constitution was adopted, he was immediately chosen the first governor, or president as it was then called, of the new state. He declined a reelection, and retired to his farm, where he died two years later. His public services covered a continuous period of forty years. He was a blameless patriot, one of New Hampshire's most noble sons. In 1853, the state erected to his memory a monument, which stands on the village green at Hampton Falls.

The town lost still more territory before it reached its present size. In 1730 a large tract was annexed to the town of Rye, and in 1742 North Hampton became a separate town.

While other towns have been almost depopulated by the attractiveness of the growing West, the people of Hampton have been in a remarkable way loyal to the old homes and the old associations. Of the fifteen men who received the original grant of land, seven have descendants still living in the town. There are few deserted farms,--the soil is too productive for that; and in many cases the prosperous farmer is the sixth or seventh of the same line whose members have lived on the same spot, if not in the same house, and have tilled the same fertile acres. But Hampton has not been altogether ungenerous, and the town boasts among the distinguished men who have traced their lineage directly back to Hampton families such names as Daniel Webster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John G. Whittier, Lewis Cass, General Joseph D. Webster, General Henry Dearborn, and Bishop Chase of Ohio.

While Hampton people have been tenacious of the old associations, they have not been equally careful to preserve the old landmarks. There are a few very ancient dwelling-houses; but the public buildings of the early days, churches, school-houses and garrisons, have long since disappeared. The most interesting part of the town, historically, is easily accessible from the Hampton railway station. A few rods south of the station is Hotel Whittier, on the site of which a public house has been kept since Jonathan Leavitt opened his ordinary in 1713. In front of the hotel a broad avenue leads to the south. On the left of this road, nearly facing the hotel, surrounded by magnificent elms stands the Toppan mansion, built in the somewhat rare type of colonial architecture, in which two wings meet at a right angle. The house was built about the year 1720, by Dr. Edmund Toppan, and has been occupied by the Toppan family until very recently. On the right, at the turn of the road, a few rods farther on, is the General Moulton house. Square and massive, with huge plaster-covered chimneys, it still retains something of its ancient dignity. Taking the road to the left, a short distance from the Moulton house, is "Meeting-house Green." Every trace of the old church has vanished, but the parsonage, black and weatherbeaten, still faces the road. The building was erected in 1767, the laborers receiving "45 shillings old tenor & a gll of Rum per day." It was occupied as a parsonage until 1871. On the south side of the main road, just beyond its junction with the road which passes the meeting-house green is the old burying-ground, first set apart in 1654. If the visitor expects to find here those quaint and touching memorials of the earliest settlers which are so carefully preserved in most colonial towns, he will be disappointed. It is a matter of deep regret that this ancient burying-ground should have been so neglected. It has been allowed to grow up to brambles and bushes, and the old stones have been broken and buried beneath the accumulating soil. If the resting places of those eminent divines of early Hampton, Timothy Dalton and Seaborn Cotton, are known, they are not marked in any way. The tall stone with its stately inscription to the memory of Nathaniel Gookin is the earliest which marks the grave of a Hampton minister. The earliest stone which is now legible was erected in 1685, but that and all others of early date will disappear in a very few years if prompt steps are not taken to preserve them. The burying-ground at Hampton Falls, hardly less ancient, is similarly neglected. Near the entrance of this ground is the stone to the memory of Theophilus Cotton, the first minister of Hampton Falls, a flat tablet of slate, dated 1726. Near the grave of the learned pastor is a rough field stone, wonderfully well preserved, upon which is cut in rude and uneven letters this epitaph:

HEAR LIS THE
BODY OF RUTH
(S)ANBUN THE DAR
TER OF JAMES
SANBUN HO DIED
IN 1 YEAR OF
HUR AGE MAR
CH 14 DAY
1731.

Lovingly and tenderly the father the father must have cut the letters in those far off day's, in memory of the little girl who died, and when we think how his tears fell fast upon the rough stone, it becomes invested with sudden pathos and dignity. In another Hampton Falls burying-ground not far away on the Exeter road, is the stone which marks the obscure grave of a man who was once a famous preacher and scholar, Samuel Langdon, D. D., pastor at Hampton Falls, and later president of Harvard University.

The main street of Hampton village leads to the beach, three miles away, which has a history of its own quite apart from that of the town. The tide of summer travel long since left Hampton hopelessly behind. There is now no fashionable pageant of the summer months, and even the cottages are for the most part of a type of marine architecture now quite obsolete. No one who visits the beach in these days of its decadence would imagine that it was once one of the most popular resorts on the coast, the dangerous rival of Newport and Long Branch. A stock company built on Boar's Head, in 1826, a hotel for summer guests, one of the first erected exclusively for that purpose in the country. The original hotel, much enlarged and improved, stood on the bluff, a conspicuous landmark, until it was destroyed by fire in 1893. During the days of its prosperity it was a favorite resort of people from every state in the union. Hardly less popular were the Ocean House, which was erected in 1844, and burned in 1885, and the Hampton Beach Hotel, which is still standing.

The noble headland which stands between the north and south beaches, named "Bore's head" by the earliest settlers, commands a beautiful prospect. Southward at the mouth of the Merrimac rise the spires of Newburyport, and beyond them the low shores of Cape Ann reach out to sea, at night star-tipped by the twin lights of Thatcher's Island. Nearer at hand lie the broad sands of the "South Beach," where Whittier in fancy pitched his poetical tent. Eastward twelve miles as the sea-gull flies, just far enough to make them enchanted islands, the country of dreams, are the Isles of Shoals. One day they are so clear through leagues of bright, sea-scented air, that you can see the flag as it blows out free from the roof of the "Appledore." Again they seem to drift away to sea, in the heated land-breeze, or they are changed into fantastic and fading shapes by the mirage. Northward, adding an unexpected charm to the landscape,

"Agamenticus lifts its blue
Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er."

But it is not beach, nor bluff, nor islands of the sea, which make the chief attractiveness of Hampton scenery. It is the marshes. They bear no resemblance to those dreary stretches of muddy flats through which the railroads pass as they approach the sea-board cities. The Hampton marshes are so broad, the sea of sky and cloud which floats above them is so vast, that unpicturesque details, if they exist, are unnoticed. The marsh is at its best in late summer, when sea-birds begin to haunt its shining pools and rivers, when it is dotted with stacks of salt hay, and its surface is variegated with masses of rich color, vivid greens and reds and golds. The trees, clumps of pines and oaks which grow on the long promontories of upland which reach down into the marsh, occur at just the right intervals to break what might be too monotonous levels into charming vistas; the herds of great black and white cattle seem to arrange themselves in the most effective groups; and over all the marvellous lights and shadows play.

At the northwest corner of the village green is the Meshech Weare house, enlarged, but otherwise the same as when Washington, while the army was at Cambridge, spent the night in consultation with the president of the Committee of Safety. South of the square, on the right, is the little low country store, with its green shutters and its inviting jack-knife-scarred bench just within the door. And here you may see real country people who come to gossip and to trade; people who might have just stepped out of one of Miss Jewett's stories, not the sophisticated kind who have kept summer boarders. Across the way is a real inn, the "Wellswood," which was built in 1808, and which a kind Providence and intelligent owners have preserved substantially unaltered. It stands on the site of the "George," a famous colonial hostelry. It has its own history, too, for it has entertained distinguished guests without number, and once its spacious hall was used as an improvised court room, in which Daniel Webster made an eloquent plea. Just south of the inn, across green lawns, is Elmfield, the Gove mansion, where Whittier died.

Whittier's love for Hampton was great and he never failed, after the year 1860, to make an annual pilgrimage to it, even if his stay was very brief. It was so fitting that he should have spent his last summer there, in this beautiful old house, with his dearest friends about him, within sight, almost within sound of the sea. In the garden on the southerly slope below the house is a magnificent elm, with a rustic seat at its foot. It was here that the aged poet loved to sit through the long afternoons, until the level sunlight streamed through the gaps of the trees and across the marshes to the darkening sea. The room in which he died, with the precious relics of his occupancy, is sacredly kept as he left it. The quiet town seems still to feel the benediction of his presence.

The younger generation of the ancient town of Hampton is enterprising in spirit, and is looking of course toward the future. The popularity of the beach as a fashionable resort may never be regained. Some day, however, an electric road will be built from Exeter and Salisbury. The swarming thousands of the Merrimac valley will bring profit to the town, and will find health and amusement in their own way, a way in which beer and roller coasters and shore dinners will play a prominent part. This is, perhaps, as it should be; but it seems a pity that anything of the kind should happen. A spell should be cast over the town, and it should be cut off from the Merrimac valley and all other places where spindles are whirling and the fierce game of money-making is going on. The railroad should not come nearer than Exeter. Communication with Portsmouth and Newburyport should again be by "curricle and pair." The curfew should ring again, and the bell which used solemnly to toll the age of the dead. All the old houses should regain their former stateliness. Lights should shine once more in the Moulton mansion, and at the Toppan house punch should again be brewed in the great china bowl which was saved from the wreck of the "mast ship." Lotos and "the poppies of Cathay" would surely grow by the quiet pools of the marshes; and no one should be admitted to the town who would not drink of the draught of forgetfulness.