Our River Has, Probably, Very Near
The Smallest Allowance.
The story is current, at any rate,
though I believe that strict history will not bear it out, that
the only bridge ever carried away on the main branch, within the
limits of the town, was driven up stream by the wind.
But
wherever it makes a sudden bend it is shallower and swifter, and
asserts its title to be called a river. Compared with the other
tributaries of the Merrimack, it appears to have been properly
named Musketaquid, or Meadow River, by the Indians. For the most
part, it creeps through broad meadows, adorned with scattered
oaks, where the cranberry is found in abundance, covering the
ground like a moss-bed. A row of sunken dwarf willows borders
the stream on one or both sides, while at a greater distance the
meadow is skirted with maples, alders, and other fluviatile
trees, overrun with the grape-vine, which bears fruit in its
season, purple, red, white, and other grapes. Still farther from
the stream, on the edge of the firm land, are seen the gray and
white dwellings of the inhabitants. According to the valuation
of 1831, there were in Concord two thousand one hundred and
eleven acres, or about one seventh of the whole territory in
meadow; this standing next in the list after pasturage and
unimproved lands, and, judging from the returns of previous
years, the meadow is not reclaimed so fast as the woods are
cleared.
Let us here read what old Johnson says of these meadows in his
"Wonder-working Providence," which gives the account of New
England from 1628 to 1652, and see how matters looked to him.
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