284
��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��ten to one no record could be found in the village paper of those days. Probably little if any demonstration was made in the reception of governors until after the expiration of the first ten years of the present century. The more aged inhabitants of Concord rec- ollect the escort of governors into town after the year 1810. John Lang- don was governor as long ago as 1 788, and his last incumbency was from June, 181 1, to June, 181 2. He held the office in the -years 1788, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1810, and 1811. The incumbency of John Taylor Gil- man embraced the years 1794, 1795, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803, 1804, 1813, 1814, and 181 5. He was, during some of these years, attended to the capital by "Lon- don," a colored servant, who is spoken of by aged people as figuring in the company by whom his master was met at some distance hence, and escorted into town. Gov. Langdon, as pre- viously mentioned in the Statesman, boarded at the North End, a portion of the time in the family of the late Dea. John Kimball, whose benign counte- nance beams from one of the pages of the History of Concord. Gov. Gil- man often, perhaps always, was the guest of Hon. William A. Kent, in a mansion which stood upon the site of the present South Church. It is re- markable that a gentleman of the mod- erate ability of John Taylor Gilman should have been the incumbent so long : but there were undoubtedly cir- cumstances which caused him to be a popular favorite that can not, at this distance ot time, be known. Accord- ing to tradition, Philip Carrigan, Esq., secretary of the state, and author of the only large map of this state ever pub- lished, was chairman of the committee appointed to notify Mr. Gilman of his nomination for governor. Being a modest man, to whom his selection was a perfect surprise — unlike the nominations of the present day — he ex- pressed a want of proper qualifications for the office, to which Col. Carrigan quickly replied : " Never mind, never
��mind ; it does n't require much of a man to be governor of New Hamp- shire."
Gov. Samuel Bell and Gov. Plumer were, we think, the guests of Hon. Isaac Hill, himself, many years after, governor. We have no recollection of the ceremonies attending the incoming of Gov. Plumer. Gov. Bell did not come to the capital until Friday of election week. The legislative com- mittee met him at Johnson's tavern in Boscawen — the public house which still stands on the north side of Contoocook river, a part of the village of Fish- erville — and the procession was led by a company of Concord cavalry, in command of Joshua Abbot. VVe are unable to account for the gov- ernor-elect being met on the bor- der of Concord in that direction — he being an inhabitant of Chester — unless he had been holding a term of the Superior Court, of which he was one of the associate justices, at Ha- verhill or Plymouth.
Hon. Levi Woodbury, of Ports- mouth, was escorted into town by the usual legislative committee and a cav- alcade of citizens. He came hither from Haverhill, Grafton county, where he had just held a term of the Superior Court. He was met at Brown's tavern, in West Concord, and when passing into this portion of the town was pro- nounced, by ladies along the route, the handsomest man in the crowd. He was governor only one year, being suc- ceeded by Hon. David L. Morril, who was a resident of Goffstown. Gov. Morril was met by a committee of the legislature, a committee of citizens of Concord, and a cavalcade, near the site of St. Paul's School, and was con- ducted to the residence of his brother, Hon. Samuel Morril, nearly opposite the present city hall. After he reached his boarding-house this somewhat amusing occurrence took place :
When the procession was forming, in front of the recently demolished Co- lumbian hotel, to proceed to Millville, a very pompous, but not very acute, gentlemm, of that class who take great
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