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.

THE MERRIMACK RIVER;
lowing-named gentlemen: Ward one, William G. Perry; two, Ezra
Huntington; three, William P. Newell; four, I-lorace B. Putnam;
five, Daniel Connor; six, Joseph Rowley; seven, Chancey Favor;
eight, George Gerry. City Clerk, Joseph E. Bennett, Esq.; Treasurer and Collector, IHenry R. Chamberlain; City Marshal, William
B. Patten.
As Manchester is a new place, having sprung up, as it were, in a.
day, it has neither colleges, or other richly endowed, long,-established. and celebrated institutions of learning; but, since the organization of the city government, it has devoted itself to the interest
of education with untiring zeal and energy, and the result is, that
Manchester is blessed with facilities for education inferior to those
of no other town in the State. The first school-house ever built
within the present limits of the city was near Amoskeag Falls in
1785, and nothing could exhibit the spirit of progress in a more
favorable light than contrasting its cabin-like, seven-by-nine proportions, its inconvenience, its total destitution of comfort and of finish,
with the magnificent edifice. recently completed for IHigh School
purposes.
Another school-house was built at what is called the Centre, soon
after the one at the falls, but this most important interest of any
community made little or no progress until Manchester became a
city; it is now, however, on the flood-tide of prosperity and success.
. Moody Currier is chairman of the Board of Education; Joseph
G. Edgerly, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and William
Little, Esq., Clerk.
The new IIigh School house was completed in 1867, at an
expense of fifty thousand dollars, exclusive of the building site;
beside this there are about forty school-houses in this city, many of
them fine buildings. The number of pupils the past year, was four
thousand, employing seventy teachers.
There are eight wards in the city, with one hotel and two churches for (not in) each ward. The first church ever built in Manchester was commenced in 176w, and finished, so far as to be fit for occupation, in thirty years. This was at the Centre; but it was not
until 1840 that any clergyman was settled in town, which was over
the First Congregational Church at Amoskeag.
212