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 MERRIIVACK RIVER;
Salisbury beach is considered remarkably beautiful, and is much
frequented.
West Newbury was taken from the ancient town of Newbury in
1819. It is a good farming town on the south side of the Merrimack.
Marble and a variety of hornblende or amiantaus, the finer varie ties of which have been manufactured into cloth which will not burn,
and a mineral sometimes called asbestos is quarried here. There are
also carriage manufactories, but the principal business is professional
farming, carried on by gentlemen of means, who realize twenty per
cent. of pleasure to one of profit. There is on the highway on the
Merrimack a bridge known as the "Chain Bridge."
Ould Newberry," as it was anciently called, was settled in the
spring of 1635. It derives its name from Newbury, a town in
England; being so named by the wish of Rev. Thomas Parker, who
was the first minister, and who had formerly preached in Newbury,
England. The Indians called the place Q~tascacunquen, which sig nifies a " waterfall," - in this case the waterfall on Parker River.
There were ninety grantees of the town, most of whom, in a small
vessel, came round the coast, entered the Merrimack River, and
landed where the city of Newburyport now stands. The first white
child, Mary, daughter of Thomas Brown, was born in 1635. Joshua,
son of Edward Woodman, was born the same year. The first named
lived to the patriarchal age of eighty-one years.
In 1657, Thomas Macy was prosecuted for a violation of the law
,against harboring or entertaining Quakers. It appears that, during
a violent shower of rain, several men sought shelter under his roof.
They were strangers to him, but two of them proved to be William
Robinson and Marmaduke Stephenson, who were afterwards hung in
Boston for the heinous crime of being Quakers. These gentlemen
inquired the way to Hampton, and in about three-fourths of an hour,
the storm abating, went their way. For this act of anti-Puritanic
hospitality, although he protested his entire ignorance of the persons
or their religious character, and offered a humble apology for the
grave (!) offence, Mr. Macy was fined thirty shillings. Being himself
a Christian gentleman of the practical type, he was disgusted with
the bigotry and intolerance exhibited, and, embarking his family and
effects in an open boat, "left the country," and went to the island
of Nantucket, where he passed the remainder of his days.
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