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.

TIIE IERI C IVE;
form the beauty of youth; it ripened to maturity; it became the
State of New Hampshire,- a member of that union which binds
together a mighty confederate Republic."
A union having afterwards been consummated of these settlements
with Massachusetts, and the latter having extended her jurisdiction
over them, Wheelwright was no longer secure; he fled from the
power of his persecutors, and located at Wells, Maine. In the
course of time he was graciously permitted to return, which he did,
to Hampton, where he'resumed his ministry. I-Ie afterwards, when
Cromwell, who was his personal friend and school-fellow, was in
power, went to England and obtained an audience. Cromwell recognized him as an old friend, and was greatly pleased with the interview. Turning to the gentlemen about him the protector remarked,
"I remember the time when I have been more afraid of meeting
Wheelwright at foot-ball than of meeting any army since in the
field."
Wheelwright found himself in favor, and received a gratifying
appointment. After the restoration, he returned to New England,
and died in 1680, being upwards of eighty years of age.
Sometime about 1660 a frightful and fatal delusion broke out
among the New Hampshire and Massachusetts colonists, which was
known as witchcraft.
Persons, principally old women, it was believed, colluded with the
devil, by which the demoniac qualities and powers of his satanic
-majesty were imparted to them, enabling them to appear in strange,
fantastic shapes to the terror-stricken community, such as flying
thlrougl the ar astride of a broomstick; appearing unexpectedly in
unusual places in the form of a black cat or some other animal, also
in many unaccountable guises; possessing the power to disappear and
reappear at will through key-holes, knot-holes, and other impossible
apertures, as well as to afflict any person in the community at pleasure
with strange maladies, such as fits and painful contortions of the
body, burns, chills, callousness,choking sensations, - in short, a thlousand and one maladies that flesh is not properly heir to, and which the
most scientific disciples of Aalen could neither remedy nor relieve.
As an illustration of the senseless and unreasoning frenzy which pervaded all classes on tlhis subject, one of the witch trials at Portsmouth
* Barstow.
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