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;
ITS SOURCE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
CHAPTER I.
New Hampshire. - Voyage of Columbus. - The Cabots. — Capt. John Smith. - Pierre du
Guast.- De Champlain. - Discovery of the Merrimack. - Mason and Gor,ges. - La conia. - The First Settlement of New Hampshire.- Wheelwright.- The Puritans.
- Witchcraft. - Rapid Settlement of New Hampshire.
THE State of New Hampshire, limited in territorial dimensions
to a mere patch or speck on the map of the continent, with a climate
rigorous and inhospitable, a rugged, sterile, and comparatively unproductive soil, possesses, notwithstanding, these physical disabilities, and many others, a rare combination of those necessary and
peculiar elements which alone secure a nation's greatness, and exhibit a community intelligent, prosperous, and happy.
T~e history of New Hampshire extends over a period of more
than two centuries, and though it embraces a broad and varied record, it is still replete with patriotic works and fearless daring, and
noble achievements.. Planted in a wilderness, in the very midst of
wild and ferocious beasts, and still more intractable, implacable, and
savagre men, her colonists had no other alternative but to push or be
pushed. Withl them it was to be a great success or a great failure.
WVith such men as the indomitable pioneers of New I-Hampshire,
men, who in company with the early navigators, had led the van
along the trackless and hitherto unknown seas, or bared their
breasts to the pitiless pelting of the lead and iron hail of internecine strife; or, better still, had wrung from mother earth a sustenance, and a tribute to their industry and skill with the plough,
the spade, and the sickle, - with such men as these there could be
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