warmly attached to the usages of their Fathers, this circumstance will sufficiently explain the reason why they preferred to organize a Church on the Presbyterian model.

Prior to this event, the people had obtained occasional supplies of religious instruction and they afterwards increased their efforts in a matter justly deemed by them to be of the first importance. They however remained destitute of a permanent ministry for some years afterwards. In the mean time, Mr. Morrison, at the request of the town, regularly visited the place once, and often twice in the year, to dispense to the Church he had gathered, the Christian sacrament. The mode of administering the sacrements prevalent in the Church of Scotland was adopted here.

The census of 1790 gave to Antrim a population of 528. From this time, the town increased so rapidly as to double its numbers in the next ten years, exhibiting in the census of 1800 a population of 1059.

In the summer of the year last named, the place was visited with the Dysentery in its most malignant form. In the course of two months there were almost 70 deaths; a loss of about one fifteenth part of the whole population. In the adjacent town of Hancock, the mortality was scarcely inferior. Other towns, in that and the two succeeding years, suffered, though not in an equal degree, yet severely. Since that period, the most malignant form of that disease has been of rare occurrence in the State.

On the 3d of September, 1800, the Rev. Walter Fullerton was ordained as the minister of the Church and town. He remained here till 1804, when at his request and with the consent of the

people his connexion with them was dissolved. He was afterwards for a few years the Pastor of a Presbyterian Church and Society in Hebron, N. Y., from which place he was dismissed, and not long after died in the State of Maryland. On the 28th of Sept. 1808, the present minister of the Presbyterian Church and Congregation, John M. Whiton, was ordained.

In

Antrim was among the towns of New-Hampshire, first visited with the spotted fever. February, March, and the first half of April, 1812, there occurred about 200 cases of this disease, of which 40 terminated fatally. Frequently the attack began with a sudden and sharp pain in some of the extremities, and in some instances it carried off the sufferers in a few hours. It is noticeable that the adjacent towns, were at this very time almost entirely exempt from epidemic sickness. It has been since remarked to the writer by a distinguished Citizen of another town, that having occasion in the latter part of this winter, to pass through Antrim about midnight, the lights gleaming from almost every house at an hour when in times of prosperity the inmates are buried in peaceful slumbers, exhibited a more affecting image of disease and distress than he had ever before witnessed.

Some few years prior to 1822, an occurrence not easily explained, took place on the Tuttle mountain, in the west part of the town. Thefamilies in the vicinity were surprised by a loud, rumbling noise, of a few seconds duration, resembing an Earthquake. It was afterward discovered that from a spot on the north side of the mountain, of ten or twelve feet square, the earth had been thrown out to the depth of a foot, apparently by the sudden and violent eruption of a

torrent of water. In its descent the torrent cast up the earth thus ejected from its bed into two parallel banks, forming between them a channel for its air passage, down which it rolled some considerable stones, to the distance of several feet. The causes concerned in the production of an eruption so transient and singular, must be left to the conjectures of the reader.

The Presbyterian Church and Congregation, erected in 1826, a large and elegant brick Meeting House, near the centre of the town, furnished with a steeple and bell, at an expense of almost $7000. The same year, a Society of persons resident in the east part of Antrim, the west part of Deering, and Society Land, built an handsome brick Meeting House near the east line of the town, at an expense of about $5000. In the course of the next year, two small Churches were organized from among those who expected to attend at the east House, one of the Congregational and the other of the Baptist denomination. The Rev. Mr. Davis, a Baptist Clergyman, has for some time officiated at this house.

ous.

A reference to Carrigain's Map, and to the Gazetteer of New-Hampshire, will furnish a sufficiently minute topographical description of the Town. It possesses the usual proportion of professional men and mechanics; a social library; and ten school-houses, most of them commodiIt contains a Cotton Factory near the centre Meeting House. Within its limits are two small, but pleasant Villages; one in the north part of the town, called the "Branch" Village from its location on the north branch of Contoocook river; the other at the distance of two miles south-east of the centre, called the South Village.

From 1808 to 1833, a period of twenty-five years, the whole number of deaths, in the town was 464, giving an average of somewhat more than 18 in each year. The average population through this period has been about 1300, and the average proportion of deaths in a year is very nearly 1 in 70. Of this number of 464, fortyone were between seventy and eighty years of age, twenty-one between eighty and ninety, and six above ninety. These facts, it is believed, furnish a very favorable specimen of longevity, and shew that more than one seventh part of the population, attain to more than three score and ten years. Of the above number of deaths, five persons were killed by the fall of trees; two were drowned; one was killed by a fall from a building; one was crushed in a sawmill; and three were cases of suicide by hanging.

Deacon James Aiken, the second settler of the town, lived here half a century, and was distinguished for industry, perseverance, benevolence and christian piety. The Hon. John Duncan, a native of Londonderry, died here in 1823. He was for several years in the Legislature, either as Representative or Senator, and during a part of one session was Speaker of the House of Representatives, pro. tem. As a Ruling Elder of the Church, he sought its edification; and as a Magistrate, exerted a most salutary influence in persuading contending parties to an amicable adjustment of their controversies, often relinquishing his own fees as an inducement to a compromise. Deacon Isaac Cochran died in -1825, at an advanced age. Though his early advantages of education were extremley limited, he possessed a portion of real genius and had quite a turn for poetical composition. He was

a relative, an intimate friend, and a poetical correspondent of Robert Dinsmoor, a brother of Governor Dinsmoor, and well known in the State as the author of "The Rustic Bard."

Gov. Thomas Dudley's Letter to the Countess of Lincoln. March, 1631.

[The copy of Gov. Dudley's Letter to the Countess of Lincoln, from which the following is printed, has lately been discovered by one of the Publishing Committee in a manuscript, of the chirography of the beginning of the 17th century, and bound up with Johnson's Wonder Working Providence and Winslow's New England Salamander Discovered, works printed more than 180 years since. It is valuable ou account of its containing much more than the printed copy which was used by the annalist, Mr. Prince, and which is preserved in the 8th volume first series, of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. It is to be regretted that the first part of the manuscript is missing-how much cannot be ascertained, but probably only a small part. The description of the Bays and Rivers is wanting, and a few lines, giving some account of the Indians. It has been copied and compared with scrupulous care, the orthography not only being retained, but the abbreviations, and divisions into paragraphs. There is good reason to believe that the original printed copy was made from this manuscript, just so much of it being marked as was printed, and having the printer's mark for the end of the signatore. The introduction being lost from the MS., it is here copied from the Collections referred to.]

To the Right Honourable, my very good Lady, the Lady BRIDGET, Countess of Lincoln.

MADAM,

Your letters (which are not common nor cheap) following me hither into New England, and bringing with them renewed testimonies of the accustomed favours you honoured me with in the old, have drawn from me this narative retribution, which (in respect of your proper interest in some persons of great note amongst us) was the thankfullest present I had to send • over the seas. Therefore I humbly intreat your