346
��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��THE ROLFE-RUMFORD HOUSE.
��BY FRED MYRON COLBY.
WE have lately read the lament of an American writer that his native country is one without a background of reminiscence. Henry James, jr., when he lifted up his voice in this manner must have been suffering from the effects of indigestion induced by a hearty dinner eaten under the palatial roof of a duke or a marquis whose lineage went back to the Norman con- quest. American history barren? No patriot, no scholar will admit that. To the unspoiled American the memories of Pocahontas and Weetamoo, of Lord Fairfax and Sir William Pepperell, of Lady Arabella Johnson and of Lady Wentworth, of Franklin and Langdon, of Washington and Stark, of Portsmouth and Bennington, are as suggestive and more sufficing than many a noble En- glish name or royal residence. The mummies in the Art Museum have anti- quity enough, but what background of reminiscence have they as compared with our familiar names of Jefferson, Adams, Henry, Webster, and Pierce, which are full of suggestion, and mean something ! Our country no background of rem- iniscence ? Let us see.
Concord is rich in memories dearer to its children to-day than they can be a thousand years hence. Length of days and multitudinous events have not yet had the cumulative power to thrust into dimning remoteness the persons and places of two centuries ago. Where the burnished dome of the State House is set against the sky, floated, in the ancient time, the crimson banner of St. George, with its crowns and lions and unicorns — " the flag that has braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze." Around are the old harvest grounds of the royal Passaconaway, where the Penacook women labored and Weetamoo sung. Historic houses and historic graves are on either side. A little way oft" is the graveyard where lies a president of the United States beside his wife. Still nearer is the house where he lived and where Hawthorne visited. Here, in the rear of Cyrus Hill's Block, is the old printing office of Isaac Hill, from which issued the weekly sheets of the " Patriot," then a power in the land. It is used for other purposes now, being a tenement house. At some distance, on Spring street, stands the mansion where Hon. William A. Kent gave a reception to General Lafayette, and where Ralph Waldo Emerson married his first wife. Here, in full view of the glittering finial of the State House, is the house where Samuel Finley Breese Morse painted some of his best pic- tures before he became more famous as the inventor of the electric telegraph. Down Main street is the brick mansion-house of ex-Gov. Isaac Hill, and where many subsequent Governors congregated. Clear down at the " South End " is the old home of Count Rumford, and that of his gifted but eccentric daughter, the benevolent Countess Sarah. And all the way from "South End" to " North End " stretches that wide and beautiful street called Main, canopied half the distance by the drooping branches of the bordering elms ; that street that has listened to the tramping and the shouting attendant upon the visits of two presidents, Monroe in 1817, and Jackson in 1833. The train that accom- panied the hero of the Hermitage was a noble one. There were Van Buren the Vice-President and afterward President, Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, and subsequently a candidate for the Presidency, Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Navy, and the military heroes, Miller and McNeil. Here was the mustering place of the old Colonial Eleventh New Hampshire Regiment, with fire-lock and bayonet. Gay and stately in their military trappings strutted Andrew
�� �
