FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64  
65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   >>   >|  
amples set before them. * * * * * ROBERT ROGERS, THE RANGER. By JOSEPH B. WALKER. No man has been universally great. Individuals who have made themselves prominent among their fellows have done so by achievements in special directions only, and confined to limited portions of their lives. Particularly true is this remark when applied to Major Robert Rogers, the Ranger, who, in our last French war, greatly distinguished himself as a partisan commander, and gained as wide fame as did any other soldier of equal rank and opportunity. I do not introduce him here as a saint, for, as is well known, no quality of sanctity ever entered his composition; but rather, as the resolute commander of resolute men, in desperate encounters with a desperate foe; as a man eminently fitted for the rough work given him to do. And just here and now I am reminded of a remark made in his old age by the late Moody Kent, for a long period an able member of the New Hampshire bar, and there the associate of Governor Plummer, George Sullivan, and Judge Jeremiah Smith, as well as of Jeremiah Mason, and the two Websters, Ezekiel and Daniel, all of whom he survived. Said Mr. Kent, one day, evidently looking forward to the termination of his career, "Could Zeke Webster have been living at my decease he would have spoken as well of me, yes, as well of me as he could." If one can summon to his mind and heart the kindly charity attributed to Mr. Webster, he may, should he care for it, find a comfortable hour in the society of this famous Ranger. He was born of Scotch-Irish parents, in the good old Scotch-Irish town of Londonderry, New Hampshire, in the year 1727.[A] At the time of his birth, this was a frontier town, and its log houses were the last civilized abodes which the traveller passed as he went up the Merrimack valley on his way to Canada. It was the seed-town from which were afterwards planted the ten or a dozen other Scotch-Irish townships of New Hampshire.[B] It was the first to introduce and scatter abroad Presbyterian principles and Irish potatoes over considerable sections of this Province. [Footnote A: Stark's History of Dunbarton, p. 178.] [Footnote B: Parker's History of Londonderry, p. 180.] Parson McGregor and his people had been in their new homes but four years when they had ready for occupancy a log school-house, sixteen feet long and twelve feet wide. It was in this, or in one like it
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64  
65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Hampshire
 
Scotch
 

commander

 

Ranger

 

desperate

 

resolute

 

Londonderry

 

introduce

 

Footnote

 
Jeremiah

History
 

Webster

 

remark

 

spoken

 

living

 
decease
 

attributed

 

charity

 
comfortable
 

society


kindly

 

summon

 

famous

 

parents

 
Merrimack
 

Parker

 

Parson

 

McGregor

 

Dunbarton

 

considerable


sections
 
Province
 
people
 

school

 

sixteen

 
twelve
 

occupancy

 

potatoes

 

principles

 
valley

passed

 
traveller
 

houses

 

civilized

 

abodes

 
Canada
 
townships
 
scatter
 

abroad

 
Presbyterian