Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

162 RAMBLES ABOUT PORTSMOUTH.
age; and so favorable was the impression he made, that he
was immediately invited to share his labors. He soon after
accepted and entered upon his duties. It is reported that
thie charms of a certain Mary Montgomery, of Scotch
extraction, and who resided in Portsmouth, had a great
influence in inducing Mr. McClintock to accept a charge
which offered so little in a worldly point of view. This
lady Dr. McClintock married, and if she induced him to
accept the offer of the Greenland Society he never repented it. His salary was but $300 a year, with the parsonage,
a small and not over fertile farm. This seems little enough,
when we recollect that the Dr. had fifteen children to support, and the tax upon his hospitality was somewhat heavy,
as there were no hotels in those days, and the pastor was
expected to entertain all the travelling clergymen of his
own denomination, and other men of any note.
His children have amusingly related that whether the
cow gave more milk or less, the quantity was always the
same,-it was, to be sure, a trifle bluer. Dr. McClintock
had many calls to richer churches, but he preferred his
own people, to whom he was endeared by a long ministry
of forty-eight years of uninterrupted usefulness. During
the revolution he strongly espoused the side of the people,
as his temper was ardent, and he very easily broke the bond
of allegiance to a government to which his religious principles were opposed, and from which his ancestors had
suffered so much.
His character gave weight to his opinions, and we must
give him credit for courage, since he was so ready to stand
forth boldly in a doubtful cause, when in case of defeat his
ruin was certain. He was Chaplain at the battle of Bunker
Hill, and is represented in Trumbull's picture of that battle; and he has left a sermon on the adoption of the constitution, exhibiting the enlarged views of a patriot and
the temper of a Christian.