Read Ebook: The Life of Cervantes by Calvert Albert Frederick

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"Prior to 1830 there was no stove in the meeting-house, and the introduction of the first stove brought about a deal of trouble. One man objected, the air stifled him. It was therefore voted that on one Sunday in each month there should be no fire.

"It was a bitter experience,--riding two and one-half miles to meeting, sitting through the long service with the mercury at zero. Only we did not know how cold it was, not having a thermometer. My father purchased one about 1838. I think there was one earlier in the town.

"The Sunday noons were spent around the fireplaces. The old men smoked their pipes.

"In 1835, religious meetings were held in all the school districts, usually in the kitchens of the farmhouses. There was a deep religious interest. Protracted meetings, held three days in succession, were frequently attended by all the ministers of surrounding towns. I became impressed with a sense of my condition as a sinner, and resolved to become a Christian. I united with the church the first Sunday in May, 1835, in my twelfth year. I knew very little about the spiritual life, but I have no doubt that I have been saved from many temptations by the course then pursued. The thought that I was a member of the church was ever a restraint in temptation."

The anti-slavery agitation reached Boscawen in 1835, and Carleton's father became an ardent friend of the slaves. In the Webster meeting-house the boy attended a gathering at which a theological student gave an address, using an illustration in the peroration which made a lasting impression upon the youthful mind. At a country barn-raising, the frame was partly up, but the strength of the raisers was gone. "It won't go, it won't go," was the cry. An old man who was making pins threw down his axe, and shouted, "It will go," and put his shoulder to a post, and it did go. So would it be with anti-slavery.

With their usual conservatism, the churches generally were hostile to the movement and methods of the anti-slavery agitation. There was an intense prejudice against the blacks. The only negro in town was a servant girl, who used to sit solitary and alone in the colored people's pew in the gallery. When three families of black folks moved into a deserted house in Boscawen, near Beaver Dam Brook, and their children made their appearance in Corser Hill school, a great commotion at once ensued in the town. After the Sunday evening prayer-meeting, which was for "the conversion of the world," it was agreed by the legal voters that "if the niggers persisted in attending school," it should be discontinued. Accordingly the children left the Corser Hill school, and went into what was, "religiously speaking," a heathen district, where, however, the prejudice against black people was not so strong, and there were received into the school.

Thereupon, out of pure devotion to principle, Carleton's father protested against the action of the Corser Hill people, and, to show his sympathy, gave employment to the negroes even when he did not need their services. Society was against the Africans, and they needed help. They were not particularly nice in their ways, nor were they likely to improve while all the world was against them. Mr. Coffin's idea was to improve them.

About this time Whittier's poems, especially those depicting slave life, had a great influence upon young Carleton. Learning the poems, he declaimed them in schools and lyceums. The first week in June, which was not only election time, but also anniversary week in Concord, with no end of meetings, was mightily enjoyed by the future war correspondent. He attended them, and listened to Garrison, Thompson, Weld, Stanton, Abby K. Foster, and other agitators. The disruption of the anti-slavery societies, and the violence of the churches, were matters of great grief to Carleton's father, who began early to vote for James G. Birney. He would not vote for Henry Clay. When Carleton's uncle, B. T. Kimball, and his three sons undertook to sustain the anti-slavery agitator, and also interrupter of church services, in the meeting-house on Corser Hill, on Sunday afternoon, the obnoxious orator was removed by force at the order of the justice of the peace. In the disciplinary measures inaugurated by the church, Mr. Kimball and his three sons and daughters were excommunicated. This proved an unhappy affair, resulting in great bitterness and dissension.

Carleton thus tells his own story of amateur soldiering:

"Those were the days of military trainings. In September, 1836, came the mustering of the 21st Regiment, New Hampshire militia. My brother Frederic was captain of the light infantry. I played first the triangle and then the drum in his company. I knew all the evolutions laid down in the book. The boys of Boscawen formed a company and elected me captain. I was thirteen years old, full of military ardor. I drilled them in a few evolutions till they could execute them as well as the best soldiers of the adult companies. We wore white frocks trimmed with red braid and three-cornered pasteboard caps with a bronzed eagle on the front. Muster was on Corser Hill. One of the boys could squeak out a tune on the fife. One boy played the bass drum, and another the small drum.

"We had a great surprise. The Bellows Falls Band, from Walpole, New Hampshire, was travelling to play at musters, and as none of the adult companies hired them, they offered their services to us free.

"My company paraded in rear of the meeting-house. My brother, with the light infantry, was the first company at drill. He had two fifes and drums. Nearly all the companies were parading, but the regimental line had not been formed when we made our appearance. What a commotion! It was a splendid band of about fifteen members,--two trombones, cornets, bugles, clarionets, fife. No other company had more than fifes or clarionets. It was a grand crash which the band gave. The next moment the people were astonished to see a company of boys marching proudly upon the green,--up and down,--changing front, marching by files, in echelon, by platoons.

"We took our place in line on the field, were inspected, reviewed, and complimented by Maj.-Gen. Anthony Colby, afterwards governor of the State.

"When I gave the salute, the crowd applauded. It was the great day of all others in my boyhood. Several of the farmers gave us a grand dinner. In the afternoon we took part in the sham fight with our little cannon, and covered ourselves with glory--against the big artillery.

"I think that I manifested good common sense when, at the close of the day, I complimented the soldiers on their behavior, and resigned my commission. I knew that we could never attain equal glory again, and that it was better to resign when at the zenith of fame than to go out as a fading star."

POLITICS, TRAVEL, AND BUSINESS.

Let us quote again from Mr. Coffin's autobiographical notes:

"In 1836 my father, catching the speculation fever of the period, accompanied by my uncle and brother-in-law, went to Illinois, and left quite an amount of money for the purchase of government land. My father owned several shares in the Concord Bank. The speculative fever pervaded the entire community,--speculation in lands in Maine and in Illinois. The result was a great inflation of prices,--the issuing of a great amount of promises to pay, with a grand collapse which brought ruin and poverty to many households. The year of 1838 was one of great distress. The wheat and corn crop was scant. Flour was worth a barrel. I remember going often to mill with a grist of oats, which was bolted into flour for want of wheat. The Concord Bank failed,--the Western lands were worthless. Wool could not be sold, and the shearing for that year was taken to the town of Nelson, in Cheshire County, and manufactured into satinets and cassimeres, on shares. One of the pieces of cassimere was dyed with a claret tinge, from which I had my first Sunday suit.

"Up to this period, nearly all my clothing was manufactured in the family loom and cleaned at the clothing and fulling mill. In very early boyhood, my Sunday suit was a swallow-tailed coat, and hat of the stove-pipe pattern.

"'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 never would attempt to be a princely merchant, and took the stage for home. It was a delightful ride home on the top of the rocking coach, with the driver lashing his whip and his horses doing their best.

"I think it was in 1841 that Daniel Webster attended the Merrimac County Agricultural Fair at Fisherville, now Penacook. I was there with a fine yoke of oxen which won his admiration. He asked me as to their age and weight, and to whom they belonged. He recognized nearly all of his old acquaintances. I saw him many times during the following year. He was in the prime of life,--in personal appearance a remarkable man."

Thus far it will be seen that there was little in Mr. Coffin's life and surroundings that could not be easily told of the average New England youth. Besides summer work on the farm, and "chores" about the house, he had taken several terms at the academy in Boscawen. During the winter of 1841-42, while unable to do any outdoor work, on account of sickness, he bought a text-book on land-surveying and learned something of the science and art, yet more for pastime than from any expectation of making it useful.

Nevertheless, that book had a powerful influence upon his life. It gave him an idea, through the application of measurement to the earth's surface, of that order and beauty of those mathematical principles after which the Creator built the universe. It opened his eyes to the vast modification of the landscape, and the earth itself, by man's work upon its crust. It gave him the engineer's eye. Henceforth he became interested in the capacity of every portion of the country, which came under his notice, for the roads, fields, gardens, and parks of peace, and for the making of forts, military roads, and the strategy of battle. In a word, the book and its study gave him an enrichment of life which fitted him to enjoy the world by travel, and to understand the arena of war,--theatres of usefulness to which Providence was to call him in after-life.

In August, 1843, in his twenty-first year, he became a student at Pembroke Academy. The term of ten weeks seemed ever afterwards in his memory one of the golden periods of his life. The teacher, Charles G. M. Burnham, was enthusiastic and magnetic, having few rules, and placing his pupils upon their honor. It was not so much what Carleton learned from books, as association with the one hundred and sixty young men and women of his own age, which here so stimulated him.

From the academy he advanced to be teacher of the district school on Corser Hill, in West Boscawen, but after three weeks of pedagogy was obliged to leave on account of sickness. He passed the remainder of the winter in lumbering, rising at 4 A. M. to feed his team of horses. While breakfast was preparing he studied books, ate the meal by candle-light, and then was off with his lunch of cold meat, bread, and apple pie. From the woods to the bank of the Merrimac the distance was three miles, and three or four trips were made daily in drawing the long and heavy logs to the water. Returning home after dark, he ate supper by candle-light, fed his horses, and gave an hour to study before bedtime.

The time had now come for the young man to strike out in the world for himself. Like most New England youth, his eyes were on Boston. With a recommendation from his friend, the minister, he took the stage to Concord. The next day he was in Boston, then a city of 75,000 people, with the water dashing against the embankment of Charles Street, opposite the Common, and with only one road leading out to Roxbury. Sloops and schooners, loaded with coal and timber, sailed over the spot where afterwards stood his house, at No. 81 Dartmouth Street. In a word, the "Back Bay" and "South End" were then unknown. Boston city, shaped like a pond lily laid flat, had its long stem reaching to the solid land southward on the Dorchester and Roxbury hills.

Young Carleton went to Mount Vernon Church on Ashburton Place, the pastor, Dr. E. N. Kirk, being in the prime of his power, and the church crowded. The country boy from New Hampshire became a member of the choir and enjoyed the Friday night rehearsals. He found employment at one dollar a day in a commission store, 84 Utica Street, with the firm of Lowell & Hinckley. The former, a brother of James Russell Lowell, had a son, a bright little boy, who afterwards became the superb cavalry commander at the battle of Cedar Creek in 1864. Carleton boarded on Beacon Street, next door to the present Athenaeum Building. The firm dissolved by Mr. Lowell's entering the Athenaeum. Carleton returned to his native town to vote. He became a farm laborer with his brother-in-law, passing a summer of laborious toil, frequently fourteen and sixteen hours, with but little rest.

It was time now for the old Granite State to be opened by the railway. The Northern Railroad had been chartered, and preliminary surveys were to be made. Young Carleton, seizing the opportunity, went to Franklin, saw the president, and told him who he was. He was at once offered a position as chainman, and told to report two weeks later. The other chainman gave Carleton the leading end, intending that the Boscawen boy, and not himself, should drag it and drive the stake. Carleton did not object, for he was looking beyond the chain.

The compass-man was an old gentleman dim of eyesight and slow of action. Young Carleton drove his first stake, at a point one hundred feet north of the Concord railway depot, which was opened in the month of August, 1845. The old compass-man then set his compass for a second sight, but before he could get out his spectacles and put them on, young Carleton read the point to him. When, through his glasses, the old gentleman had verified the reading, he was delighted. Promotion for Carleton was now sure. Before night he was not only dragging the chain, but was sighting the instrument. The result, two days later, was promotion to the charge of the party. What he had learned of land surveying was producing its fruit. In the autumn he was employed as the head of a party to make the preliminary survey of the Concord and Portsmouth road.

Unfortunately, during this surveying campaign, he received a wound which caused slight permanent lameness and disqualified him for military service. It came about in this way. He was engaged in some work while an axe-man behind him was chopping away some bushes and undergrowth. The latter gave a swing of the axe which came out too far and cut through the boot and large tendon of Carleton's left ankle. With skilled medical attention, rest, and care, the wound would have soon healed up, but owing to lack of skill, and to carelessness and exposure, the wound gave him considerable trouble, and once reopened. In after-life, when overwearied, this part of the limb was very troublesome.

It was not all toil for Carleton. The time of love had already come, and the days of marriage were not far off. The object of his devotion was Miss Sally Russell Farmer, the daughter of Colonel John Farmer, of Boscawen. On February 18, 1846, amid the winter winds, the fire of a holy union for life was kindled, and its glow was unflickering during more than fifty years. In ancestry and relationship, the Farmers of Boscawen were allied with the Russells of England,--Sir William, of bygone centuries, and Lord John, of our own memory. Carleton found a true "help-meet" in Sally Coffin. Though no children ever came to bless their union, it was as perfect, though even more hallowed and beautified, on the day it was severed, as when first begun.

The following summer was one full of days of toil in the engineering department of the Northern railway, Carleton being engaged upon the first section to be opened from Concord to Franklin. The engineering was difficult, and the work heavy. Breakfast was eaten at six in the morning, and dinner wherever it could be found along the road. Seldom could the young engineer rise from his arithmetical calculations until midnight.

Weary with such exacting mental and physical labor, he resigned his position, and became a contractor. First he supplied the Concord railroad with 200,000 feet of lumber, which he purchased at the various mills. This venture being profitable, he engaged in the lumber trade, furnishing beams for a large factory, timber for a new railway station at Concord, and for a ship at Medford. It was while transacting some business in Lowell, that he saw President Polk, James Buchanan, Levi Woodbury, and other political magnates of the period, who, however, were rather coldly received on account of the annexation of Texas, and war with Mexico.

Wishing for a home of his own, Carleton now bought a farm in West Boscawen, and began housekeeping in the following November. He carried on extensive lumber operations, hiring a large number of men and teams. He rose between four and five in the morning, and was in the woods, four miles away, at sunrise, working through the day, and reaching home after dark to care for the cattle and horses and milk the cows. None of his men worked harder than he.

ELECTRICITY AND JOURNALISM.

The modern age of electricity was ushered in during Mr. Coffin's early manhood. The telegraph, which has given the world a new nervous system, being less an invention than an evolution, had from the labors of Prof. Joseph Henry, in Albany, and of Wheatstone, of England, become, by Morse's invention of the dot-and-line alphabet, a far-off writer by which men could annihilate time and distance. One of the first to experiment with the new power--old as eternity, but only slowly revealed to man--was Carleton's brother-in-law, Prof. Moses G. Farmer, whose services to science have never yet been adequately set forth.

This inventor in 1851 invited Mr. Coffin to leave the farm temporarily, to construct a line of wire connecting the telegraphs of Boston with the Cambridge observatory, for the purpose of giving uniform time to the railroads. In this Carleton was so successful that, in the winter and spring of 1852, he was employed by Mr. Moses Farmer to construct the telegraph fire alarm, which had been invented by his brother-in-law. The work was completed in the month of May, and Charles Carleton Coffin gave the first alarm of fire ever transmitted by the electric apparatus. The system was a great curiosity, and many distinguished men of this country, and from Europe, especially from Russia and France, came to inspect its working.

Commodore Charles Wilkes, of the United States Navy, who had returned from his brilliant expedition in Antarctic regions, but who had not yet made himself notorious by a capture of the Confederate commissioners, proposed to use this electric system in ascertaining the velocity of sound. Cannon were stationed at various points, the Navy Yard, Fort Constitution, South Boston, and at the Observatory, in front of which was an apparatus and telegraph connecting with the central office. Each cannon, when fired, heated the circuit. Each listener at the various points was to snap a circuit key the moment the sound reached him. In the central office was a chronograph which registered each discharge in succession. The distances from each cannon muzzle had been obtained by triangulation. In the calm, still night, Commodore Wilkes and Professor Farmer stood in the cupola of the State House with the chronograph, holding their watches, and noting the successive flashes.

The experiments were not very satisfactory. Mr. Coffin, perhaps, possibly, because he was not a skilled artillerist, had the mortifying experience of seeing the apparatus in front of his cannon blown into fragments, but he made notes of the other reports. After a series of trials, the approximate result was obtained, that in a moderately humid atmosphere the velocity of sound was a little under nine hundred feet per second.

The exactions of the fire alarm service, owing to its crude construction, which compelled the attendants to be ever on the alert, told severely on Carleton's' nervous system. He therefore resigned in October, and went to Cincinnati to get the system introduced there. Herds of hogs then roamed the streets, picking up their living around the grain houses, and in the gutters. After three weeks of exhibition and canvassing, he found that Cincinnati was not yet ready for such a novelty, and so he returned to Boston.

The following winter was passed in Boscawen without financially remunerative employment, but in earnest study, though in the spring a supply of money came pleasantly and unexpectedly. He undertook to negotiate a patent for an invention of Professor Farmer's, and after considerable time disposed of it to a New York gentleman. Carleton's net profits were ,850.

"It was three months of hard study and work. I saw that what the public wanted was news in condensed form; that the day for stately editorials was passing away; that short statements and arguments, which went like an arrow straight to the mark, were what the public would be likely to read. I formed my style of writing with that in view. I avoided long sentences. I thought that I went too far in the other direction and clipped my sentences too short, and did not give sufficient ornamentation, but I determined to use words of Saxon rather than of Latin or Norman origin, to use 'begin,' instead of 'commence,' as stronger and more forcible.

"I selected the speeches of Webster, Lord Erskine, Burke, and other English writers, for careful analysis, but soon discarded Brougham and Burke. I derived great benefit from Erskine and Webster, for incisive and strong statement,--also Shakespeare and Milton. At that time I read again and again the rhapsodies of Christopher North, Professor Wilson, and the 'Noctes Ambrosianae,' and found great delight, also, in reading Bryant's poems.

"It was the period of white heat in the anti-slavery struggle, when the public heard the keenest debates, the sharpest invective. At an anti-slavery meeting the red-hot lava was always on the flow. The anti-slavery men were like anthracite in the furnace,--red hot,--white hot,--clear through. I have little doubt that the sharpness and ruggedness of my writing is due, in some degree, to the curt, sharp statements of that period. When men were feeling so intensely, and speaking with a force and earnestness unknown in these later years, a reporter would insensibly take on something of the spirit of the hour, otherwise his reports would be limp and lifeless. I was induced to study stenography, but the system then in use was complex and inadequate,--hard to learn. I was informed by several stenographers that if I wanted a condensed report it would be far better to give the spirit, rather than attempt the letter."

During the summer of 1854, Mrs. Coffin being in poor health, they visited Saratoga together, passed several weeks at the Springs, and visited the battle-field where his grandfather, Eliphalet Kilborn, had fought. Carleton picked up a bullet just uncovered by the plow, and in that bright and beautiful summer's day the whole scene of 1777 came back before him. From the author's map in "Burgoyne's Defence," giving a meagre sketch of the battle, he was able to retrace the general lines of the American breastworks. This was the first of scores of careful study on the spot and reproduction in imagination of famous battles, which Carleton made and enjoyed during his life.

He was also present at the International Exhibition in New York, seeing, on the opening day, President Franklin Pierce and his Cabinet. The popular idol of the hour was General Winfield Scott, of an imposing personal appearance which was set off by a showy uniform. He was the hero of the two wars, and expected to be President. In personal vanity, in bravery, and in military science, Scott was without a superior, one of the ablest officers whose names adorn the long and brilliant roll of the United States regular army.

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