In the
westerly part of the town was a circulating library of some one hundred
and fifty volumes, gathered about 1816--the books were dog-eared, soiled
and torn. Among them was the "History of the Expedition of Lewis and
Clark up the Missouri and down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean," which
was read and re-read by the future correspondent, till every scene and
incident was impressed upon his memory as distinctly as that of the die
upon the coin. Another volume was a historical novel entitled "A Peep at
the Pilgrims," which awakened a love for historical literature. Books of
the Indian Wars, Stories of the Revolution, were read and re-read with
increasing delight. Even the _Federalist_, that series of papers
elucidating the principles of Republican government, was read before he
was fourteen. There was no pleasure to be compared with that of visiting
Concord, and looking at the books in the store of Marsh, Capen and Lyon,
who kept a bookstore in that, then, town of four thousand
inhabitants--the only one in central New Hampshire.
Without doubt the love for historical literature was quickened by the
kind patronage of John Farmer, the genial historian, who was a visitor
at the Boscawen farm-house, and who had delightful stories to tell of
the exploits of Robert Rogers and John Stark during the French and
Indian wars.
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