Andover

“ Travellers passing over the stage-road through Andover, have but an imperfect view of its soil. They can indeed see little but the bleak and confused pile of the Ragged Mountains on the north, and the darkly wooded sides of the Kearsarge on the west, There are several convenient dwellings, and good farms situated on the turnpike ”

“ So at Andover there was a high general range of intellect, yet there existed one master mind that dominated the whole sphere. The pulpit was his throne. I had never seen a man take so high a position on the mount of God as Professor Edwards A. Park, at the crest of his popularity and power, did as he rose to his own high level in his masterpiece, the Judas sermon. ”

“ The hint took with Ballard; and he forthwith sent men and horses to Salem village, and to the house of Mr. Parris, and brought to Andover old Tituba’s pupils Abagail Williams and Mary Walcot. When these came into the sick woman’s room, they said they could well enough see witch spectres hovering round her bed and person, but not being acquainted with any Andover people, they could not name the originals. Describe them says the husband; and they did so in language sufficiently vague to embrace half the women in the town;—and still fancy or malignity might select at pleasure ”

“ Andover abounds with hills and dales, being in some places rocky and barren. On the north is a range of mountains, which divides the town from New-Chester. It commences near the Pemigewasset river, and extends westwardly about ten miles to the intersection of the Grafton and fourth N. H. turnpikes. These mountains are called Ragged, from their appearance, being in all parts broken, and in many places bleak and precipitous. About two-thirds of the southern side are cleared, and afford good pasture lands. In some parts, settlements have been made, and snug farms formed some way up their sides. ”

“ Andover is the centre of a large agricultural district; its weekly markets and its fairs, held three times a year, are well attended, while at Weyhill, a village about 3 miles to the west, a fair is held every October, which was formerly one of the most celebrated in England. Malting is largely carried on, and there is an extensive iron foundry near the town; but the silk manufactures, once so prosperous, are now almost extinct. The Romans had a station at Andover, and the remains of their encampment are still to be seen in the neighbourhood. ”

“ The educational and business interests are nobly conducted and carried to great success, and the current life is representative of good old customs and earnest strivings for the best things.
A careful study of Andover life, such as Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D., had evidently made before writing his address for the dedication of the Memorial Hall, leads one to feel, what he has so well stated:—
“The more we look into the history of Andover the more we feel how thoroughly it is a characteristic New England town. ”

“ Both of them were in haste, but Longfellow had time enough to ask if the Andover gentlemen were all alive to their duty to the nation. Stowe said he thought they were, and Longfellow said, “If the New Testament won’t do, you must give them the Old.” Professor Stowe told me this in August of 1861, after the anniversary exercises of the class at Andover. The division between Rehoboam and Jeroboam had naturally played a very important part in the chapel exercises, with the obvious distinction that in our time it was the North which was in the right and the South which was in the wrong. ”

“ In many country congregations the elderly men--stiff old farmers--had a fashion of standing up in the middle of the sermon to stretch their cramped limbs, and they would lean against and hang over the pew door and stare up and down the aisle. In Andover, Vermont, old Deacon Puffer never let a summer Sunday pass without thus resting and diverting himself. ”

“ North Andover is a very beautiful piece of ground. Its surface is elegantly undulating, and its soil in an eminent degree, fertile. The meadows are numerous, large and of the first quality. The groves, charmingly interspersed, are tall and thrifty. The landscape, everywhere varied, neat and cheerful, is also everywhere rich. ”

“ Parris’s house, several young persons being seemingly afflicted, did accuse several persons for afflicting them, and many there believing it so to be; we being informed that if a person were sick, the afflicted person could tell what or who was the cause of that sickness: Joseph Ballard of Andover (his wife being sick at the same time) he either from himself, or by the advice of others, fetched two of the persons, called the afflicted persons, from Salem Village to Andover: which was the beginning of that dreadful calamity that befel us in Andover. ”

“ Hardly a town in New England holds stronger reminders of the past, or has a more intensely New England atmosphere than Andover, wherein the same decorous and long-winded discussions of fate, foreknowledge and all things past and to come, still goes on, as steadily as if the Puritan debaters had merely transmigrated, not passed over, to a land which even the most resigned and submissive soul would never have wished to think of as a "Silent Land." ”

“ And they are fitting up a telephone between Threlfall and some new rooms that he has taken for estate business in Pengarth."
"A telephone—at Threlfall!" murmured Andover.
"And Undershaw tells me that Melrose has taken the most extraordinary fancy for the young man. Everything is done for him. He may have anything he likes. And, rumour says—an enormous salary!"
"Sounds like an adventurer," grumbled Barton, "probably is."
Tatham broke in. "No, you're wrong there, Colonel. I knew Faversham at college. He's a very decent fellow—and awfully clever." ”

“ In few places can the local features of the great Revolutionary struggle be as well studied as in the ample and well-preserved records of Andover. It would take many pages to tell what the town did in council and on the field, in business, and at the fireside, to encourage the patriots. So loyal was the town that its citizens were greatly trusted, and a portion of Harvard College library was sent there for its greater safety. ”

“ Stowe's amusement at the situation. She declared the household was far better constituted to look after young cherubim than young male humans. Something of the canary-bird order would be much more in its line, she said. I believe he ran away the next day, probably understanding the fitness of things better than ourselves. At any rate I find a comforting note on the subject from Andover saying: "If we can do no more we must let him go. He certainly stands a better chance in his life's journey for the little good we have been able to put into him. ”

“ Evans, was also a combination of good qualities, and I believe there never was a more happy couple. She delighted to make every body happy about her. As for myself, the good disposition that I took with me to Andover, was in a great measure flogged out of me there; I was become impatient of controul, and had imbibed an ungovernable spirit, which led me into difficulties and disappointments, that I should otherwise have avoided. ”

“ Andocides, an orator and leader of the oligarchical faction in Athens; was four times exiled, the first time for profaning the Eleusinian Mysteries (467-393 B.C.) .
Andor`ra (6) , a small republic in the E. Pyrenees, enclosed by mountains, under the protection of France and the Bishop of Urgel, in Catalonia; cattle-rearing is the chief occupation of the inhabitants, who are a primitive people and of simple habits.
Andover, an old municipal borough and market-town in Hampshire, 66 m. SW. of London; also a town 23 m. from Boston, U.S., famous for its theological seminary, founded in 1807. ”

“ They are as different as our slave and free states, and in the same ways. Geneva seems like New England—the country around is well cultivated, and speaks of thrift. But, still, I find no land, however beautiful, that can compare with home—Andover Hill, with its arched elms, its blue distance pointing with spires, its Merrimac crowned with labor palaces, and, above all, an old stone house, brown and queer, &c. ”

“ He settled as a physician in his native town where he passed his entire life.
From 1837 to near the close of life he was a trustee of Phillips Academy and Andover Theological Seminary. He was also a trustee of Amherst College and was one of the original trustees of Thayer Academy of Braintree. ”

“ THOUGH the manuscript of the first edition of Anne Bradstreet's poems was nearly if not entirely complete before the removal to Andover, some years were still to pass before it left her hands entirely, though her brother-in-law, knowing her self-distrustful nature, may have refused to give it up when possession had once been obtained. But no event in her life save her marriage, could have had quite the same significance to the shy and shrinking woman, who doubted herself and her work alike, considering any real satisfaction in it a temptation of the adversary. ”

“ There are several aged people now residing in Andover, and who were among the earliest settlers.
↑ By Mr. Benjamin M. Tyler, of Andover. ↑ The timbers for the Concord Bridge, when it was first built, were procured near Chance pond. ↑ Originally called Stevens-Town, from the name of one of the grantees. ↑ The names of the original proprietors or grantors of Andover, were, Theodore Atkinson, Mark H, Wentworth, Richard Wibird, John Wentworth, George Jaffrey, Samuel Moore, Nathaniel Messerve, Thomas Packer, Thomas Wallingford, Jotham Odiorne, Joshua Pierce and John Moffat. ”

“ The facts of his life are these: He was born on March 11, 1845, at Medford, Massachusetts, the son of Rev. Abijah R. Baker, D. D., a Congregational clergyman, and of Harriet Woods, daughter of Rev. Leonard Woods, president of Andover Theological Seminary. His early education was received at Atkinson Academy, N. H., which he left at the age of eighteen to enter business in New York City. ”

“ He had eleven children. Francis,5 the fifth child, who was born January 26, 1731, and died April 3, 1795, married November 12, 1754, Eunice Jennings, and .settled in Andover. They had nine children, the fifth being Jonathan,6 who was born February 25, 1762, and died July 9, 1837. He married in 1792 Sarah Berry, of Andover. Francis,7 born August IS, 1793, the eldest of their four chiklren, dk'd at his home in North Andover in November, 1850. He married in 1815 Elizabeth Barker Foster, daughter of Nathan6 Foster, of North Andover, Mass. ”

“ At a general Court at Boston 6th of 3d month, 1646, Cutshamache, Sagamore of Massachusetts, came into the court and acknowledged that, for the sum of £6 and a coat which he had already received, he had sold to Mr. John Woodbridge, in behalf of the inhabitants of Cochichewick, now called Andover, all the right, interest and privilege in the land six miles southward from the town, two miles eastward to Rowley bounds, be the same more or less ”

“ Regret, on the one hand, for a monstrous and exposed surmise; on the other, instinctive resentment of the man's huge, unearned luck under the will that Melrose would have revoked had he lived a few more hours, as contrasted with the plight of Felicia Melrose; between these poles men's minds went wavering. Colonel Barton stood at the door of the inn before Faversham emerged for a few undecided moments, and finally walked away, like Andover, with the irritable reflection that the grounds on which he had originally cut the young man still largely stood ”

“ She is fourteen,—very pretty, or beautiful, I think Mr. Wilmot said, and that does not commend her to me. You know how susceptible Grant is to beauty, and there must be no more mistakes. The time is too short for that. Grant is going to Andover, which is not far from Meadowbrook, and if he knew of this girl, who is his second cousin, nothing could keep him from seeing her, and there is no telling what complications might arise, for she is undoubtedly designing like her mother, who won Gerold from the woman he should have married. Consequently you are to say 251nothing to Grant of this girl ”

“ In front of the little church Turner was waiting for him. She was dressed very prettily and the cold morning air had given her a fine colour.
"You don't look more than half awake," she said, as Vandover came up. "It was awfully good of you to come. Oh, Van, you look dreadfully. It is too bad to make you get up so early." ”

“ Vandover paused a moment upon the sidewalk, turning up the collar of his old cutaway coat against the cold trade wind that was tearing through the streets; he thrust both his hands deep into his trousers pockets, gripping his sides with his elbows and drawing his shoulders together, shrinking into a small compass in order to be warm. The wind blew the tails of his cutaway about him like flapping wings. He went up the street, walking fast, keeping to the outside of the sidewalk, his shoulders bent, his head inclined against the wind, his feet dragging after him as he walked. ”

“ It was always a matter of wonder to Vandover that he was able to recall so little of his past life. ”

“ During a brief but very pleasant sojourn at Ỻanover in May, 1883, I made some inquiries about the fairies, and obtained the following account from William Williams, who now, in his seventieth year, works in Lady Ỻanover’s garden:—‘I know of a family living a little way from here at ——, or as they would now call it in English ——, whose ancestors, four generations ago, used to be kind to Bendith y Mamau, and always welcomed their visits by leaving at night a basinful of bread and milk for them near the fire. It always used to be eaten up before the family got up in the morning. ”