THE HOME OF THE GILMANS.
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friend and neighbor, Mrs. Joseph Dustin, now in her seventy-ninth year, is the only representative among us of that numerous family.
I have thought this man’s life worth relating, inasmuch as it illustrates the upward growth of a poor boy, without education, who, ere he was twenty years old, burdened himself with a family, and then, by a life of earnest industry and integrity seldom equaled, rose, by successive gradations, until he became the patriarch of the town, and was held in respect and honor throughout the state. After a toilsome and thoughtful life of seventy-one years he passed away, and was buried in yonder grave-yard. His wife survived him about five years. They traveled together over the road upon which they started in their youth, more than ten lustrums of years. The legend that encircles his head-stone is an affectionate tribute to his virtues. “The just shall be held in everlasting remembrance.”
��THE HOME OF THE GILMANS.
��BY FRED MYRON COLBY.
��A gloomy May sky was over the earth when I first saw Exeter — Exeter, the ancient Squamscot, long the politi- cal rival of Portsmouth, for many years the capital of the state, the seat of a famous school, and rich with his- toric associations and memories of great men. Squamscot river was dull and rough, the leaves had not yet clothed the trees with their habit of green, a slight, disagreeable drizzle of rain made it dismal overhead and nasty under foot ; but the attractions of the ancient borough could not be hid even under a glowering sky. As I rode to the American House, from the sta- tion of the Boston and Maine Railroad, I could not help remarking the beauti- ful situation of the village, the metro- politan appearance of its business blocks, its wide streets, its many ele- gant private residences, and its noble old elms, many of which shook their patriarchal limbs in the breezes that tanned the cheeks of heroes who sailed with Pepperell, to Louisburg, or shook the sails of Revolutionary privateers that sailed from Exeter wharves to meet the red cross of Great Britain.
The place is a busy one. The falls of Squamscot river furnish a vast water power that is well improved. There
��are cotton factories and machine shops. Hard-waie, notions, paper, furniture, carriages, gas, tin, boots and shoes, are made here ; and at either end of the town great tanneries, with pict- uresque but rather uniragrant heaps of hemlock bark stacked in the broad yards, tell their own story of labor and revenue to the utilitarian, and to the sentimentalist sing mournful requiems of departed forests, of rock-ribbed hills laid bare, and of lonely roads where once the graceful, fadeless, foli- age of the evergreen monarchs made cool shade in summer sun, and warm protection from winter winds.
But despite the industry and demo- cratic proclivities of its people, Exeter is very aristocratic. The whole air breathes of a courtly atmosphere, even when distant from the court house. The houses seem to have thrust them- selves back in proud dignity from the street, placing broad lawns between, or else they stare down upon the visitor with the haughty, overbearing aspect of an ancient dowager. Doubtless the old town is not unconscious of its past worth and dignity, or of its pres- ent wealth and prosperity, so we can forgive it much of its patrician man- ners. It is a beautiful, attractive, re-
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