--known to
history as the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. General Harrison,
the Whig candidate, was popularly supposed to live in a log cabin and
drink hard cider. On June 17th, there was an immense gathering of
Whigs at Concord. It was one of the greatest days of my life. Six
weeks prior to that date, I thought of nothing but the coming event. I
was seventeen years old, with a clear and flexible voice, and I
quickly learned the Harrison songs. I went to the convention with my
brothers and cousins, in a four-wheeled lumber wagon, drawn by four
horses, with a white banner, having the words 'Boscawen Whig
Delegation.' We had flags, and the horses' heads labelled 'Harrison
and Tyler.' We had a roasted pig, mince pies, cakes, doughnuts and
cheese, and a keg of cider. Before reaching Concord we were joined by
the log cabin from Franklin, with coon skins, bear traps, etc.,
dangling from its sides. Boscawen sent nearly every Whig voter to the
meeting. I hurrahed and sung, and was wild with excitement. I remember
three of the speakers,--George Wilson, of Keene, Horace Greeley,
editor of the New York _Tribune_, a young man, and Henry Wilson, also
a young man, both of them natives of New Hampshire. Wilson had
attended school with my brother at the academy in Concord, in 1837,
then having the high-sounding name of Concord Literary Institute.
Wilson was a shoemaker, then residing in Natick, Mass., and was known
as the 'Natick Cobbler.' The songs have nearly all faded from memory.
I recall one line of our description of the prospective departure of
Van Buren's cabinet from the White House:

"'Let each as we go take a fork and a spoon.'

"There was one entitled 'Up Salt River,'--descriptive of the
approaching fate of the Democratic party. Another ran:

"'Oh, what has caused this great commotion the country through?
It is the ball, a rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'

"Then came the chorus:

"'Van, Van, is a used-up man.'

"In 1839, I had a fancy that I should like to be a merchant, and was
taken to Newburyport and placed with a firm of wholesale and retail
grocers. I was obliged to be up at 4.30, open the store, care for the
horse, curry him, swallow my breakfast in a hurry, also my dinner and
supper, and close the store at nine. It was only an experiment on my
part, and after five weeks of such life, finding that I was compelled
to do dishonest work, I concluded that I nev