The Merrimack River: its source and its tributaries. Embracing a history of manufactures, and of the towns along its course; their geography, topography, and products, with a description of the magnificent natural scenery about its upper waters./ By J. W. Meader.

TIHE LIERRILMACK RIVER;
which he filled with credit to himself and advantag,e to the people.
He was governor in 1827, and again in 1829. Governor Pierce
was, even to his last years, remarkably social and genial, and was,
consequently, a companion for the grave and gay alike, his society
being sought by the youthful and vivacious as well as the sedate
and thoughtful.
This distinguished man, who possessed a lofty and resolute intellectual, and rugged physical organization, was still further distinguished by being the father of one of the Presidents of the United
States.
"On the 26th of December, 1825, it being his sixty-seventh
birthday, Gen. Benjamin Pierce prepared a festival for his comrades
in arms, the survivors of the Revolution; eighteen of them, all inhabitants of Hillsboro", assembled at his house. The ages of these
veterans ranged from fifty-nine up to the patriarchal venerableness
of nearly ninety. They spent the day in festivity, in calling up
reminiscences of the great men whom they had known, and the great
deeds they had helped to do, and in reviving the old sentiments of the
era of seventy-six. At nightfall, after a manly and pathetic farewell
from their host, they separated,'prepared,' as the old general expressed it,' at the first tap of the shrouded drum. to move and join
their beloved WAashington and the rest of their comrades who fought
and bled at their sides.' "
He died in 1839, at the mansion in Hillsboro', which had sueceeded the log cabin, on the very spot, now blooming and adorned,
where, fifty years before, his sturdy blows first made a clearing.
The late HIon. Chandler E. Potter was for several years a resident
of Hillsboro'. Judge Potter was for many years justice of the Police Court of the city of Manchester, and was, perhaps, more thoroughly versed in Indian lore and history than any other man in New
En,gland, if not in the country. Hlis admirable " History of Manchester" exhibits a vast research in this, as well as in history proper,
and in his unexpected decease the community has been deprived of a
historical repository as extensive and varied as interesting and useful.
Henniker is an uneven but very excellent farming town. The
hilly lands are unusually productive in the way of cereals and grazing facilities; the valleys, meadows, and intervals yielding well in
* IIawthorne.
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