The rich legacy : memories of Hannah Tobey Farmer, wife of Moses Gerrish Farmer

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

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THE RICH LEGACY

Contents

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I. Blackberry Hill i

II. The Father's Memorial ...... 21

II. The Father S Memorial

RICHARD SHAPLEIGH, the father of Mrs. Farmer, was the son of Samuel and Betsey (Yeaton) Shapleigh. He was born May 30, 1794, and died Oct. 11, 1840, aged forty-six years, his very prime. "He died before his work was done," said Horace Littlefield, of Wells, who well knew him; and so say all in whose memories he lives. But God says, " Our works follow us " ; and, if they do, others bring them to a full completeness, and Mrs. Farmer never doubted her call and equipment to accomplish what her father had greatly desired, but died too early to complete. She was in actual character a duplicate of her father's mental, moral, and religious life; and perhaps the only one of the many children of his household who was in face and character his exact image. She frequently affirmed that she should live to evolve the broken ideals of the father she idolized, and for whom she yearned until her earthly days were all counted.

Richard Shapleigh' s mother, Betsey (Yeaton) Shapleigh, was born in Epping, N.H., and is remembered because of her shrewd grasp of the earthly goods which were hers by right of dowry, and for the temper which sometimes manifested itself by very crisp silences, broken now and again by words which were sharp, quick, and cool as a rifle. In her husband's disposition of a part of the real estate, she did not always add her autograph to the deeds ; and, in her widowhood, she claimed the yearly rent of her legal thirds of the said property. It is now remembered that the wife of one of her sons (Mrs. Jane Shapleigh) sometimes went quietly and paid the old lady her quarterly due; and the son, who had purchased the father's land, was kept in ignorance of his mother's demand, and thereby spared the rebellion and honest indignation which might have stirred his otherwise quiet breast.

Samuel Shapleigh, the father of Richard, was the counterpart, fortunately, of Betsey, his wife. He was impressive in his pleasantness. His memory is genial and fresh to-day because of his genuine, natural goodness and willingness, — traits which he transmitted with abounding interest to his son Richard and his grand-daughter Hannah.

Samuel and Betsey had six sons and one daughter; and of this group, who lived to maturity, it might be enough to say of the son Richard that he was the father of Mrs. Farmer. But a fuller revealing of this true man may the better help us 1 to understand the singular goodness and continued^ zeal of the daughter of his love and joy.

Richard Shapleigh was a perfect type of a country 'squire of fifty years ago. One who well remembers him, and who is himself of reputation to-day (Haven Butler, Esquire), says : " Not five men in a hundred would equal him, and probably none excel him." It is strange how varied were his duties and professions in church, town, and State. He was not a lawyer, and yet he was so well read that he had his office in association with another (Shapleigh & Burleigh). He drew up wills, filled out deeds, settled estates, was legal adviser in all sorts of county needs, disputes, and difficulties, collected debts, made arrests, and by wise adjustments and prudent counsels saved many a case from trial by jury. He was justice of the peace, deputy sheriff, representative for two terms (1828-29) in the General Court at Augusta; a teacher for years, perhaps as long as he lived, in the public schools of the different towns in which he resided; a practical and accurate surveyor, having a natural love for mathematics, and his dimmed and rusty instruments are to-day among the treasured relics which the grandchildren, whom he did not live to see and love, treasure in respect to his memory. He was possessed also of the dental instruments of his day, and was an adept in relieving forever the sufferings of aching teeth; and what is quite surprising, considering the exquisite kindness of his heart and the constant deeds of benevolence and love of his hands, he excelled in the use of the gun, and was unfailing in bringing down the game, — a bit of cruelty pardonable perhaps in the days when the Society for the

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had not even been a dream, and never a word to mitigate the distress of beast and fowl had been uttered. With this love of the woods and the gun was combined a desire for pets. He secured and fondled his turtle doves, entrapped and educated the gray squirrels, and delighted in their encaged pranks; while the dog and the cat were always a domestic incorporation.

It was not alone that he had native tact in these varied professions and pursuits, but his daily demeanor was more than his acquirements. The universal testimony is that his stately bearing, his strong and balanced brain, his invariable courtesy and politeness, his thorough as well as his general information, gave him the respect of the entire county; for he was known abroad as well as in his town and home. He probably settled his relation to God and the church in the freshness of his life, and his religious strength and power increased with his years. Whatever was honorable became a graft in his life, and was made the more honorable by his practical and experimental development and use of it. Mrs. Farmer, a little before her departure, wrote of her father's religious history: —

"My own sainted father became a Christian in early life; and, if ever a man was faithful to God, I think he was. He had the courage to stand for the right in the face of the world. Those who held different theological views loved him for his fearlessness. He was mild and sweet in his ways, but the moment he saw wrong-doing connected with even a good movement Satan knew his effort was a lost one."

This unflinching will to be true and correct gave 'Squire Shapleigh the parish confidence, and it is not strange that he is recorded as a deacon of the church and its clerk. He was the right hand of the clergymen under whose ministrations he sat, giving them his constant and vocal support in the mid-week prayer sessions as well as in the executive and financial needs.

He began what may be called his public career as a naval seaman in the War of 1 812. All young men of that period were obliged by law "to train." Every town had its military company, which was usually its pride; and the "general training-day" was the gala event of the year. Richard Shapleigh and his three older brothers had preference for the navy, and entered as seamen, and served during the war in that capacity.

As a public school teacher, as well as a family disciplinarian, he can never be forgotten. The magnetism of his voice, presence, and eye, is yet a vital power, though the text of the book may long since have faded from memory. Mrs. Farmer, in a letter to a young friend, gives a delightful reminiscence of this sterling teacher and father, as well as a glimpse of the days when the Puritan spirit was a cherished inheritance; and, as Mr. Shapleigh was educated under the tutorage of the parish minister, Rev. Samuel Chandler of Eliot, it is

\6 quite remarkable that he did not imbibe the constant flavor of the veritable Puritan in its severity as well as its delightful integrity. "My father," writes Mrs. Farmer, "was a teacher, and governed his schools with his eye. Once, when taking up school duties afresh, he found a collection of rods under the desk. He asked if the scholars knew what they were for. A young man, as tall as my father, said promptly, but rather roughly, 'They are to whack us over the head.' Father responded, "Since they can be of no use to us, I will burn them.' Another big boy said, 'I guess you'll find a want for them before the week is out'; and all the scholars laughed outright. My father stood as erect as a statue, and turned his eyes from one part of the room to the other; and in a moment the house had the stillness of the grave. He had twelve children of his own, and not one of them ever felt the weight of his hand. The spirit that governed his home was taken into his schools, — the home where the voice of prayer and song was heard every morning. What would he say to-day if he could visit some places where boys and girls are preparing for life's battles? I never heard a cross word spoken by my father or my mother to one of their children, and I was almost eighteen years old when the shadow fell which changed the course of my life's current."

Of his family discipline and manner of training, perhaps no incident will reveal the method clearer than his response to Hannah, when she desired to enter a childlike but very natural complaint. She came one day from school in high dudgeon because a mate had decidedly maltreated her, and her indignation was righteous according to the accounting of her companions. To her father she began the dire story, and he very quietly interrupted her by asking, —

"Hannah, what day is it?"

"Wednesday, father."

"Well, supposing you tell me all about it a week from to-day; that is, next Wednesday."

"Next Wednesday? Why, I shall forget all about it before then."

"Well, dear, if you forget it in less than a week, maybe you had better leave it unsaid."

The child saw the point in a twinkling, and the lesson was lifelong. Many and many were the unsaid words of her divinely human days.

A show of very uncertain character, but of great fascination, arrived at Berwick; and the sagacious Shapleigh children agreed not to mention it to mother, but to make an immediate appeal to father. With assurance of success, they ran and made their requests known. He quietly smiled upon them; and, with the love of a great heart, and yet, with a look that indicated that he quite well understood and read the childlike escapade, he answered, "Go, dears, and see what mother says about it."

As deputy sheriff and justice of the peace, several interesting and amusing incidents are family remembrances. He went one early serve a writ. Knocking at the door, he asked if the man were within. "Well," said the wife, "it depends on who you are. If you are Sheriff Shapleigh, he's gone away, and you can't find him; but, if you are anybody else, he's out in the hay-mow." He had an unflinching courage, and never failed to go where official duty and philanthropy called. It is remembered that a lusty and brutal inebriate had beaten his wife and defied his neighbors, when 'Squire Shapleigh was sent for to do what others had failed to accomplish. Before Mr. Shapleigh appeared, the infuriated animal had supplied himself with a club like a weaver's beam, and had brandished it with the threat that the 'squire's brains should be scattered to the four winds. Mr. Shapleigh, with the serenity of a summer day, walked up to the fury, looked him in the eye, shackled his fists, — the man's vim was as a wilted weed. Trouble was over. No word of authority, no brandishing of club, no apparent human effort; but the evil had succumbed. The presence and balance of a well-ordered intellect and life is a mighty factor sometimes.

During his terms of legal office he was occasionally overtaken by night, and could not reach the county jail with his handcuffed prisoner; and he was obliged to keep him at his house until morning. He would appeal to the prisoner's honor, tell him he would take off his shackles, and carry him to his house without a word to embarrass him, if he would prove himself worthy of his liberty.

He would give the man a bath, a clean night-shirt, a wholesome bed; and never did a culprit break the integrity of his promise or cease to respect the sheriff.

When Mr. Shapleigh was elected representative to the General Court at Augusta, it was not so much as a partisan that he was sent as because of his fitness as a man and a citizen. His Democratic opponent was Sheldon Hobbs. A quaint incident of the election is told by Haven Butler, Esq., of Berwick. His father (Oliver Butler) had purchased a new and brightly painted sleigh before the eventful day of the ballot. In his zealous desire to secure the votes of all the Whigs to send 'Squire Shapleigh to Augusta, he drove up street and down to carry the aged, the decrepit, the incapacitated, to the polls. And when, in the flush of the successful election, he appeared at his dinner table, and with beaming face announced to his family the desired result, he found no radiance in the eyes of his spouse, and only the rather tart response, "But you have worn all the paint from the runners of the new sleigh in doing it." All victories cost a good deal, and all joys are liable to be dampened.

III. Fireside Legends

FROM the memories of the father, Richard Shapleigh, we can turn now to the glimpses of his wife and the mother of his children, Olive (Tobey) Shapleigh, and unveil the home days of her ancestral New England family in the simple, sincere period of but few embellishments, and when all the interests of a neighborhood or parish were in common. The joys intermingled. The sorrows were one.

Olive was the third of the seven children of James Tobey, ship carpenter, and Hannah (Shapleigh) Tobey, his wife. James Tobey died at Eliot the day after Christmas, 1846, aged seventyeight years. His birthday was June 22, 1769; and his wife Hannah, whom he tenderly loved to the end, was born two days later. They were married Nov. 5, 1792, and journeyed in most endearing fellowship till the Golden Wedding had been passed four years. At the time of his departure, Alfred Little of Boscawen, a guest at a delightful "Tobey Gathering," wrote the following verses, which appeared in local prints : —

The good old man is dead,

Gone to his heavenly home, While weeping mourners strew

The cypress o'er his tomb.

Once, only once, did I

Before this old man stand, When, leading her, his wife,

He eager grasped my hand.

Together then they stood,

And these words did he say : " Our ages are the same

Within a fleeting day.

" For four-and-fifty years

We've shared each other's joy, And ne'er a word unkind

Been suffered to alloy.

" Our children, they are seven,

Have risen to fill our place ; Nor in our home has death

E'er left his cruel trace ! "

Oh, I remember well

That beauteous, aged pair, As hand in hand they stood

So eloquently there.

And, when the fading eyes

Were closed in Death's embrace,

A smile of heavenly glow

Beamed o'er the old man's face.

Hannah, his loving wife, lived until her ninety-second birthday, June 24, 1861. She had the singular desire that the date of her birth should be the date of her death. God indulged her in her wish. She was a woman of rare poise of nerve and muscle. In her girlhood she was returning through the woods to her home on horseback. Suddenly the bridle was grasped by a ruffianly hand, as if the intent was to end her progress, and possess either herself or her horse. With perfect control of the situation and peril, she struck her steed a blow, which startled him to an instant spring, and with the same breath she gave the arm that had presumed to interfere with her progress a stroke like the weight of a cudgel ; and she only knew that the demon was left somewhere sprawling in the underbrush, while she rode on like a princess. She neither sought to know his name, his purpose, nor what became of him. She did not allow the sudden adventure to frighten her from any further horseback journeys when occasion demanded them. She was perfectly at ease on Dobbin's back, and one of the grand old willows on the margin of Tobey Pond grew from the riding stick which she pressed into the yielding soil as she one day dismounted at the pasture bars.

Her perfect self-possession was an inheritance, it may be, from her own grandmother, whose tragic death even did not rob her of the careful, unselfish remembrance of others or fill her with anxious thoughts of her own well-being. This grandmother of Hannah Tobey (on her mother's side) was Dorcas Bartlett. She lived in the fearful time of Indian warfare and revenge. It was Lord's Day;

and, sitting upon the pillion behind her husband, she was returning from the meeting-house. The worthy couple in the strength of their days were riding through the pasture (now owned by Chandler Shapleigh); and the unerring bullet of an Indian brought her to the earth. Her husband sprang in his fright and agony of heart from his horse to lift her up; but, with the fainting breath, she said: "It is death to me. Escape, and save the children." He perceived the inevitable, jumped upon his horse. Others fled with him to his own farm-house, and the barricade of himself and his neighbors proved effectual. From that hour the desperate grief of the husband nerved him to hunt the red men; and once, when he was obliged to escape and secrete himself in a hollow tree, he heard savage threats as swift feet passed in deadly pursuit.

Hannah Tobey earned the reputation in her very girl-life of "a lass with a great deal of pluck," and she was also exceedingly agreeable in her companionships and a favorite with all her mates. One of the legends yet told of her is the novel way she undertook to reconcile an old man and wife. The irritated dame had domiciled herself below stairs, and had left the entire upper rooms to her husband's convenience and pleasure. Both lived in glum silence. Hannah was but a girl, yet she understood the parish gossip. One evening, walking home with her mates, she determined to give the old lady a scare, and send her to her husband for protection. Loitering behind the young people, she stepped softly to the door. The latchstring had been drawn in for the night, and the candle was extinguished. It was an ancient door and rickety. The resolute Hannah gave such an unearthly rap that every peg in it rattled, and the frightened woman hurried upstairs to her husband's protection. The sudden terror broke the silence, and the couple made up.

When Hannah married James Tobey in 1792, she went to live in his father's house and family, as James could not be spared from the paternal hearth. It was the date when property was delegated by the fathers to the sons, and the broad acres were kept in the family name for generations. The Tobey land was first possessed as a grant, and was still in the name in 1861, when Hannah Tobey died.

In the year 1800 the original house of the Tobey grant was vacated for a new house a few rods away. The elate of this new home is identical with the birth of the fourth of the seven children, the babe born June 3, 1800, whom they named Isabel, and who is now the last survivor of the household and saintly matron of ninety-two years, whose name will necessarily blend again and again with the narrations of these pages. Olive, the mother of Mrs. Farmer, the third of the seven, was the last birth in the earliest house.

When James Tobey was married, he was not "a professor," but had both the principle and the moral courage to read the Scriptures aloud every

Sabbath afternoon after the sermon. The family reading for the week-days was the "Columbian Orator," "The Preceptor," and the weekly New Hampshire Gazette. "And we never dreamed," said old Aunt Isabel, "that we should ever have any more books or better ones."

All the children of this household were allowed to go to singing-school. Widow Rogers rented a room in her house to an elderly man, who came once a week in a boat. His son came with him, to have a care of him in crossing the Piscataqua, lest some evil befall him in the darkness of the return: for the tin lanterns of that day were of but little service, and friction matches were hardly in the market. Both James and Hannah were lovers of song, and in their youth sat in the Sunday singing seats; and the sweetness of Hannah's voice continued till her daughters were grown up and married. And, even then, mother and three of her wedded daughters, Olive Shapleigh, Lydia Adams, Isabel Knowlton, sang together in the old sanctuary, and listened alike to Parson Chandler's wisdom.

Allusion has been made to the willow which grew from the riding stick of grandmother Hannah. The grand old trees, which are an inspiration to artist and poet, as well as the delightful shade of an August day, on the border of Tobey Pond, are all indebted for their origin to the thoughtful care and, may we not say, the poetic taste (unconscious perhaps) of the plain but sensible couple, James and Hannah Tobey. The husband struck the crowbar into the marginal soil of the refreshing waters, while Hannah, the young wife, carried the sapling willows in her arms, and placed them in position; and so we have the grateful trees, old, shaggy, and catching to the eye, and of peculiar interest to those who know them as grandmother' s trees. Is there not an Arab aphorism that every man is honorable who begets a son, owns a horse, or plants a tree? Desert wisdom is not to be despised. Let us give grateful words to grandmother's memory.*

The simple domestic life of Hannah Tobey was charming. She was the incarnation of quietness and kindness. When her seven children realized that mother kept steadily along under every circumstance, and was never confused by her own or her neighbor's haps, one of her lads determined to disturb, once at least, her equilibrium. He loaded the old king's arm, and crept stealthily beneath the open window, where the mother sat darning the weekly stockings, as ancient mothers always did. But even the most unexpected explosion in the most unthought of place and moment did not cause the quiet face a shade or expression of alarm. She kept along with the darning needle and her placidity; and her roguish son was foiled, and the mother only smiled.

A delightful feature of her every-day life, in the

* While this page is being written, an artist, F. H. Tompkins of Boston, while at Greenacre-on-the-Piscataqua, charmed by this ragged stretch of willows, puts them on canvas, and thus gives them a perpetual remembranceabsence of books, was the repetition of old ballads and Puritan hymns and the frequent singing at her work. The twenty-six stanzas of "The Factor" and the twenty-eight of "Daniel in the Lion's Den," as popular a hundred years ago as the latest novel is to-day, the riddle of Jonah's house, and the yet ruder rhyme of Adam as the "Top of the Tree," which would hardly be tolerated in the Woman's Journal, she recited over and over to her little brood as they helped in the household duties or sat before the winter hearth ; and to-day the dear aunt Isabel can render unhesitatingly these old-time ballads and sing her mother's hymns, though she never saw one of them in print. How far that mother's candle throws its beams!

This ancient Hannah had the frugal ways of the wise woman of Solomon's proverbial pen, for she spun and wove her flax, and her deft fingers made her own wedding outfit; and her wedding linens have been in use one hundred years. Unto this day are preserved the table covers which she wrought before her marriage, from the pulling and rotting of the flax to the weaving of the threads. She taught her daughters whatever she had learned; and they, too, knew what it was to pull the flax, then to rot it, then to break, swindle, and comb it, and then spin it into the threads which were woven in the homely loom. It was homespun, to be sure; but no wonder matrons and daughters were proud of a toil that was serviceable for a century and as white as the riven snow. In addition to all this, she caught the happy art of that clay of weaving the fringes that gave beauty and finish to certain fabrics of domestic service.

The thrift of the family enabled the mother to be kind to the people of fewer comforts than her own. It is remembered that one came to her saying, "Mrs. Tobey, you haven't any so and so?" giving names to some necessities. "Well," Mrs. Tobey responded, " you say I haven't" ; and she at once brought forth the desirabilities.

In September, 1814, a curious event occurred in the family. Mary, one of the daughters (afterwards Mrs. Oliver Paul), was taken distressingly ill. She was nine years old the previous February. The history of her sufferings is in part inspirational, and should surely be woven into the family story : —

James Tobey, her father, had a fine vegetable garden at his Eliot home, the household pride. Hannah, the mother, was walking in it one afternoon, looking after its interests, while the father was at his ship-building in the Portsmouth yards, four miles away. Her daughter Mary came to her, and said, "Mother, my head aches, my throat is sore, my ears ache, and I ache all over."

"You have taken cold, child; and mother will put you to bed and sweat you."

The mother instantly repaired to the house, and made the hot porridge usually administered when people were in chills and fevers. The child pleaded that the cradle might be brought below stairs and she lie in it. It was a wide cradle, made when twins had been added to the family. The indulgent mother did not object, and sat by it during the evening, thinking the child would wake and go to her usual bed. By the light of the candle she noted that the tongue had protruded. A little later there was an increase, and at a third look the astonished mother discovered the swollen tongue was below the chin. Dr. Emery was called, and in a few days the physicians of neighboring towns came in consultation. Eventually, the teeth were pressed out by this enlargement, and for five months the swollen tongue hung lower than the chin. The child could neither speak nor hear. No medical treatment helped or revealed the disorder. The silent, suffering, deaf child became a skeleton.

In February, 1815, when the emaciated Mary had reached her tenth birthday, she sat in her sister Isabel's lap. A feather was upon the table, and the child motioned for it. It was given her, and she signified a wish to write. Isabel told her mother, who at once brought a quill and the inkhorn. The child by signs asked for the bellows as a paper-rest. The mother, seeing her actual intent to write, took her into her own lap ; and, placing the paper upon the old-fashioned press-board, the child wrote an inspirational prescription, which was a mystery, to the family at the time, and always remained so. And surely no explanation need be ventured three-fourths of a century later. The old yellow sheet, with Mary Tobey's girl signature, remains ; and we wonder not, as we read it, at the mother's surprise: —

"You must git some fishes Livers and fry them out and take The oil and put it on my Tongue, and you must take A Piece Of Boiled Pork and cut it in thin slises, put it on my throat, and put it two Thicknesses on my throat. It is the Dropsy on my tongue. The inside of my head Is all swelled up and that is the reason i cant hear. It has been made known to me by some higher powers than there is on earth or ever will be till the day of judgment: it was the lords doings though it is marvel In my Eye. I want you to git it As soon as you can to put on. With my Poor hands i have ben inabled to let you know what the lord has mad known unto me.

" The Lord is good and kind to me And O how Thankfull i ought to be."

"Mary Tobey."

This was the writing, as serious to the household as the handwriting on the walls of Belshazzar's palace. The mother was too sensible to let her amazement bewilder her, and she was too practical not to allow the apparently inspirational paper to be tested. At once the pork was put on to boil, and a messenger despatched in his boat to James Tobey, to ask him to bring home the fishes. When James saw the hasty approach of his neighbor, his heart pulsed as he said, "Is my poor Mary dead? "

But the strange paper was given him; and, with a loving and sensible father's quickest step, he went for "undressed fishes," and then rowed his boat across the Piscataqua as perhaps he never had before. Implicitly was every direction obeyed; and, shall we say strangely, within twenty-four hours the tongue had shrunk naturally within the mouth. Dr. Emery came and pressed the teeth, and within the next twenty-four hours they were in line. The child was in normal conditions once more, except the hearing. That was not restored. But again the little Mary wrote: —