130
��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.
��as common to the Hunts and Chases ahke ; namely, an irresistible inclina- tion to rove. Hardly one in a hundred in the branches we speak of has re- mained permanently settled in the ■olace where he was born. And this accounts in part, perhaps, for the fact, that general!}', though hard workers, they have been able to accumulate so small a quantity of this world's goods. Whether these names originated in the far off ages on account of this tendency to a nomadic life, we will not attempt to decide. At any rate, the members of the two races, as represented in the family of Anthony C. Hunt, began to migrate very soon after their copart- nership was formed. After residing in Gilmanton, Sanbornton, and the ^Veirs, — a year or two in each,— the family with others took up its march in quest of a home in thctwilds of a neighbor- ing state.
Between two ranges of the Green Mountains, in the northern part of Ver- mont, lies the romantic town of Wood- bury, sparsely settled, hilly, yet with an excellent soil wherever the rocks allow it to be reached. Near the southern border, some 400 feet in height, rises a perpendicular cliff called Nichols' Ledge. At its foot, much like the ]\Ian of the Mountain's Wash Basin, in Franconia Notch, only much larger, is spread out in circular form, with scal- loped shaped shores, one of the pret- tiest lakelets in New England. Between this and West Hill in Cabot, is a plain about a mile in width, on which some- what over fifty years ago occurred an episode in the town's history now al- most forgotten, but of considerable consequence to our narrative.
To this spot, then covered with jn'imeval forest, there emigrated from Sanbornton, N. H., and vicinity, about the year 1815,3 colony of from twenty- five to thirty persons. There was Parker Chase, senior, the patriarch of the company, the third in direct de- scent from Aquila Chase, one of the three brothers who came from England to Newbury, Mass., and whose descend- ants for the last fifty years have claimed
��that a prodigious sum of money, — called the "Chase Property," — amounting to many millions, awaits them in England ; but the golden glitter of which they are probably never destined to see. There were with him his sons, — Parker, junior, Aaron, Hazen, James, Seth, — mostly adults, married, and blessed with large families, — and several grown- up daughters, among whom were Mary, the wife of Anthony Hunt, who formed one of the colony, and her sister Lydia, who had married Jacob Nute, also a member of the company. There were Moses Rollins with his family, and others. They were joined also by sev- eral native families from other parts of that and the adjoining towns, some of whom were strange specimens of hu- manity. There was tough old Collins, of great but unknown age, still active as a cat, always wearing an exceedingly tall, cone-shaped woolen cap, in-doors and out ; which, with his harsh voice, savage aspect, and the fact that he was commonly freighted with a heavy cargo of liquor, rendered him a fearful object to the children, who always passed his door on the run. There were the bare- footed Farrs — barefooted all, old and young ; Kenistons — and among them one named Ben, a thin, weazened, dried- up dwarf, with a tremendous nose ; and several others, each with some striking peculiarity.
Mr. Hunt at first built a log house, in which Lucian was born, a few rods south of the big ledge ; and a few years later, a framed house, still nearer the mountain — the birthplace of his daughter Almira. His eldest daugh- ter, Sarah, and his eldest son, Lucian, who died in his fifth year, before the birth of his second son, were both na- tives of Sanbornton.
Their life here was such as was ex- perienced by first settlers generally in New England. Trees were felled and burned on the ground, and from their ashes a kind of potash, or salts, as it was called, was manufactured. This and maple sugar were the principal ex^ ports, and their backs the only means of transportation. Tough old woolen-
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