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.

ITS SOURCE AVD ITS TRIBUTARIES.
CHAPTER VII.
concord. - The Peunacooks. - First Settlement. - State Institutions. - Ex-Prelient
Pierce. - Isaac Hill. - Count Rumford. - Bow. - IIooksett.
HIAVING explored the head-waters of the Merrimack, and entered
the vast amphitheatre where it first appears to a very select audience, and where from tiers of high encircling benches the gods of
the mountains look down upon its opening career, its "leap for
life," its noisy tumbling from rock to rock in sheets of milky foam,
as it were, into real, tangible being; where they firom their thrones
rich draped in fleecy clouds, and the invisible subjects who people
their dreary realms, almost "solitary and alone," look down upon
its slender proportions, listen to its liquid, soul-inspiring music, and
bid it God-speed on its journey of usefulness and toil; following it
on this journey along the route it has chosen to take, and traversing
the course of each of its principal branches for the purpose of obtaining desirable and reliable information, matters of fact, of importance,
and of interest, and also to procure such information as will most
clearly disclose and exhibit a modicum of the importance and value
the Merrimack River already is, as well as the undeveloped power it
still possesses to the people of New I-Iampshire and Neew England,
and leaving the principal forks, a short and pleasant march of twenty
miles, and the beautiful city of Concord is reached.
Concord is the heart of the Commonwealth, the Merrimack River
the main artery, and its tributaries the veins and capillaries through
which its throbs and pulsations are felt in the most remote extremities of the State. The history of Concord, anterior to its occupation by the pale-face, as well as during its progress to its present
condition of importance in the way of wealth, population, power, and
influence, seems to have been intimately connected with that of the
fine river wvhich has its course through the centre of the State, and
this, its capital city. It has been the fortune of Concord, whether
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