But Special I Remember Thee,
Wachusett, Who Like Me
Standest Alone Without Society.
Thy Far Blue Eye,
A Remnant Of
The sky,
Seen through the clearing or the gorge,
Or from the windows of the forge,
Doth leaven all it
Passes by.
Nothing is true
But stands 'tween me and you,
Thou western pioneer,
Who know'st not shame nor fear,
By venturous spirit driven
Under the eaves of heaven;
And canst expand thee there,
And breathe enough of air?
Even beyond the West
Thou migratest,
Into unclouded tracts,
Without a pilgrim's axe,
Cleaving thy road on high
With thy well-tempered brow,
And mak'st thyself a clearing in the sky.
Upholding heaven, holding down earth,
Thy pastime from thy birth;
Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other,
May I approve myself thy worthy brother!
At length, like Rasselas and other inhabitants of happy valleys,
we had resolved to scale the blue wall which bounded the western
horizon, though not without misgivings that thereafter no visible
fairy-land would exist for us. But it would be long to tell of
our adventures, and we have no time this afternoon, transporting
ourselves in imagination up this hazy Nashua valley, to go over
again that pilgrimage. We have since made many similar
excursions to the principal mountains of New England and New
York, and even far in the wilderness, and have passed a night on
the summit of many of them. And now, when we look again westward
from our native hills, Wachusett and Monadnock have retreated
once more among the blue and fabulous mountains in the horizon,
though our eyes rest on the very rocks on both of them, where we
have pitched our tent for a night, and boiled our hasty-pudding
amid the clouds.
As late as 1724 there was no house on the north side of the
Nashua, but only scattered wigwams and grisly forests between
this frontier and Canada. In September of that year, two men who
were engaged in making turpentine on that side, for such were the
first enterprises in the wilderness, were taken captive and
carried to Canada by a party of thirty Indians. Ten of the
inhabitants of Dunstable, going to look for them, found the hoops
of their barrel cut, and the turpentine spread on the ground. I
have been told by an inhabitant of Tyngsborough, who had the
story from his ancestors, that one of these captives, when the
Indians were about to upset his barrel of turpentine, seized a
pine knot and flourishing it, swore so resolutely that he would
kill the first who touched it, that they refrained, and when at
length he returned from Canada he found it still standing.
Perhaps there was more than one barrel. However this may have
been, the scouts knew by marks on the trees, made with coal mixed
with grease, that the men were not killed, but taken prisoners.
One of the company, named Farwell, perceiving that the turpentine
had not done spreading, concluded that the Indians had been gone
but a short time, and they accordingly went in instant pursuit.
Contrary to the advice of Farwell, following directly on their
trail up the Merrimack, they fell into an ambuscade near
Thornton's Ferry, in the present town of Merrimack, and nine were
killed, only one, Farwell, escaping after a vigorous pursuit.
The men of Dunstable went out and picked up their bodies, and
carried them all down to Dunstable and buried them.
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