clings to a rural neighbourhood of the
township, a crossroads section pointed out to visitors as Page's Corner.
And it was to Elizabeth Page, the bright and capable daughter of his
father's old friend and neighbour, that the doughty John Stark was
married in August, 1758, while at home on a furlough. The son of this
marriage was called Caleb, after his maternal grandfather, and he it was
who built the imposing old mansion of our story.

Caleb Stark was a very remarkable man. Born at Dunbarton, December 3,
1759, he was present while only a lad at the battle of Bunker Hill,
standing side by side with some of the veteran rangers of the French
war, near the rail fence, which extended from the redoubt to the beach
of the Mystic River. In order to be at this scene of conflict, the boy
had left home secretly some days before, mounted on his own horse, and
armed only with a musket. After a long, hard journey, he managed to
reach the Royall house in Medford, which was his father's headquarters
at the time, the very night before the great battle. And the general,
though annoyed at his son's manner of coming, recognised that the lad
had done only what a Stark must do at such a time, and permitted him to
take part in the next day's fight.

After that, there followed for Caleb a time of great social
opportunity, which transformed the clever, but unpolished New Hampshire
boy into as fine a young gentleman as was to be found in the whole
country. The Royall house, it will be remembered, was presided over in
the troublous war times by the beautiful ladies of the family, than whom
no more cultured and distinguished women were anywhere to be met. And
these, though Tory to the backbone, were disposed to be very kind and
gracious to the brave boy whom the accident of war had made their guest.

So it came about that even before he reached manhood's estate, Caleb
Stark had acquired the grace and polish of Europe. Nor was the lad
merely a carpet knight. So ably did he serve his father that he was made
the elder soldier's aid-de-camp, when the father was made a
brigadier-general, and by the time the war closed, was himself Major
Stark, though scarcely twenty-four years old.

[Illustration: STARK HOUSE, DUNBARTON, N. H.]

Soon after peace was declared, the young major came into his Dunbarton
patrimony, and in 1784, in a very pleasant spot in the midst of his
estate, and facing the broad highway leading from Dunbarton to Weare, he
began to