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.

TIEE MERRILACKR RIVER;
his last remaining hope being to reach the land of sunset,- he left
this river and this land, the home of his boyhood and his manhood,
his only patrimony, the sacred resting-place of ancestral dust, the
pleasant and endearing associations of time, places and events,
records and traditions, the old familiar haunts of his people; above
all of which, lacerating his obdurate heart and filling his benighted
soul with pangs before unfelt, was'being forced and torn, as it were,
from these places which afforded him his chiefest pleasure and his
food, - " The smile of the Great Spirit; " "The beautiful waters of
the high place;" "The crooked mountain waters; and "The beauti ful island river with the bright, strong current and pebbly bottom."'
But it was useless for him to stru,gg,le against the immutable
decree of fate, and so he left all of these; the sceptre of his wilder ness empire fell from his grasp, his crown crumbled, his ancient
power and hereditary rule and supreme kingly prerogative were
stripped from him, and he was sent forth a beggar, an outcast, and a
vagabond, to be a stranger in a strange land.
Thus departed the aboriginal proprietor, while the march of
intellect, enterprise, skill, industry, and progress amply supplied
his place. Solitude no longer reigned supreme, or brooded over
river, hill, and dale; the vigorous stroke of the woodman's axe
resounded through the forest; roads were made; the log-house and
the school-house sprang into existence almost together; the little
church reared its tapering spire as if pointing out to sinful man the
*way to heaven, to God; the saw-mill creaked and grated in harsh,
unmusical cadence in many localities along the lesser tributaries of
the Merrimack; hamlets grew to be villages, and villages towns.
Skill, labor, and capital, that all-powerful triumvirate, united their
fortune and interest for the mutual benefit of all concerned, and,
with industry under intelligent direction for manager, pushed
steadily up the river, dispensing wealth on every hand, and building
cities, tilling and fertilizing the soil, reclaiming the rich, alluvial
intervals, while even the waste places of rocks and swamps and sand
were their most fruitful vineyards. Cities, and enterprises involving
the employment of millions of capital and multitudes of people,
sprung up, as if by magic. Every valley and hill within the radius of
this river's salutary influence produced its complement of beautiful
and noble women, as well as great, good, and brave men; and this
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