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��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��fined place, with an " infinite variety" as great as the star-eyed Egyptian's could have been. The modern and the antique are so combined that there is nothing stale -about the village, nor does it cloy the appetite it feeds.
While we are partaking of the excel- lent cheer at the American House, let us take a backward glance at Exeter, and ascertain what manner of men set- tled the town, part of which is so new and garish that it can not be older than yesterday, part of which is quaint and drowsy, gray and moss-covered with age that tells of pre-Revolutiona- ry times.
We learn that at the time the great struggle was beginning in England be- tween kings and commons, during the time of John Hampden and Lord Strafford, there was also trouble in Massachusetts. It was the year 1638. The Antinomian controversy, under the leadership of Anne Hutchinson, after a bitter and violent contest, had been brought to a termination. The lead- ers of the party, by sentence of the General Court, were banished from the colony. Among these was the Rev. John Wheelright, a man of rare talents in any age, who led a large body of his disciples to the shores of Squam- scot river, where they purchased a title of land from the Indians, and proceed- ed to erect a settlement. The sur- rounding country was then an unbrok- en wilderness. Portsmouth and Dover on the Piscataqua were the only settle- ments within our state. Indians were numerous on every side. On the west, at Penacook, the royal Passa- conaway swayed the scepter ; on the south, where Lowell now stands, Run- nawit ruled the tribe of Pawtuckets ; and Wehanownowit was sachem of the Squamscots. And here in the dark and gloomy forest, in silence unbroken save by the savage warwhoop, the cry of wild beasts, or the solemn roar of the ocean, they made their earthly home, and laid the foundations of a government insuring to all the people the largest civil and religious liberty.
��•• Amidst the storm they sang.
And the stars heard and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free. The ocean eagle soared
From his not by the white waves foam, Aud the rocking pines of the forest roared :
This was their welcome home."
The second church organized in New Hampshire was the Congrega- tional church at Exeter, in the autumn of 1638, eighteen years subsequent to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, and fifteen years after the first settlement of the state. Dover and Portsmouth were already flourish- ing colonies. In the former place a meeting-house was erected as early as 1633, ar) d William Leverich, a "worthy and able puritan clergyman," was en- gaged as minister. But a church was not formed there till 1639, an ^ n o pas- tor was regularly settled till 1642. The first pastor installed at Portsmouth was in the year 1639, Dut no minister was settled in that place till late in 1 671. The only towns in the prov- ince in which ministers had been set- tled, previous to 1670, a whole half century from the landing of the Pil- grims, were Hampton, Exeter, and Dover. The organization of the church at Hampton occurred in the summer of the same year with that of Exeter.
Exeter played a great part in the revolution. A place of some eighteen hundred inhabitants at that time, she sent the noblest and best of her sons to fight for the cause of freedom. In the halls of legislation, too, many of her citizens played a part second to none. The court and assembly met there through the Revolution, and in the trying years of 1775 and 1777 he- roic scenes were there displayed. Her ship-yards were full of activity and bustle, and the noted and gallant sail- ors of Exeter vied with those of Ports- mouth in deeds of enterprise and dar- ing.
In 1 789 Washington visited the place, and this is what he says of it : "This is considered the second town
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