The settlement of Bedford was thus the outgrowth of an unquenchable thirst for civil and religious liberty. A profound conscientiousness added these simple, devout, frugal, and industrious people to the pioneer assailants of the North American wilderness. The ancient records and the published annals of the town afford a quaintly interesting picture of early New England civilization. Its background is the rock of religious faith, and to repeat the chronicles of the Bedford church for the eighteenth century is to write the history of the township for that period. The original grant required the maintenance of "a learned, orthodox ministry." The petition for the charter of Bedford set forth that "your petitioners, as to our particular persuasion in Christianity, are generally of the Presbyterian denomination," and assigned as the chief reason for asking incorporation that they "having been long destitute of the gospel, are now desirous of taking the proper steps in order to have it settled among us," but "not being incorporated by civil authority are in no capacity to raise those sums of money which may be needful." The official records of formal township proceedings abound in such entries as these:
Feb. 15. 1748. Voted—That one third of the time, Preaching shall be to accommodate the inhabitants at the upper end of the town; one other third part, at the lower end of the town; the last third, about Strawberrie hill.
July 26, 1750. Voted, There be a call given to the Rev. Mr. Alexander Boyd, to the work of the ministry in this town.
March 28, 1753. Voted, Unanimously, to present a call for Mr. Alexander McDowell, to the Rev'd Presbytery for the work of the ministry in this town.
March 13, 1757. Voted,—That Capt. Moses Barron, Robert Walker, and Samuel Patten, be a committee for boarding and shingling the meeting-house.
March, 1767. Voted,—That the same committee who built the pulpit, paint it, and paint it the same color the Rev. Mr. McGregor's pulpit is, in Londonderry.
June, 1768. The meeting-house glass lent out[1]; Matthew Little's account of the same. David Moore had from Matthew Little, six squares of the meeting-house glass; Daniel Moor had 4 squares of the same, Dea. Gilmore had of the same, 24 squares. November 20, 1768, the Rev. Mr. John Houston, had 24 squares of the same; Hugh Campbell had 12 squares of the same; Dea. Smith is to pay Whitfield Gilmore 6 squares of the same; James Wallace had 15 squares of the same; John Bell had 9 squares of the same; Joseph Scobey, one quart of oil.
A true record.
Attest, WILLIAM WHITE, Town Clerk.
[Extract from the "town meeting warrant" (call) for 1779]: As for some time past, the Sabbath has been greatly profaned, by persons traveling with burthens upon the same, when there is no necessity for it,—to see whether the town will not try to provide some remedy for the same, for the future.
The Bedford church has been ever the center of all public activity. Its officers have been the officers of the town. From its pulpit have been made all formal announcements. Within its walls have been inspired every important home measure, and its influence has stimulated each wise public action. In the early records the school-house also shares prominence with the meeting-house, and the later generations of Bedford's inhabitants were men and women of solid primary education and thorough religious training. Thrift and industry made them prosperous, and they raised large families of powerful men and vigorous women. The mothers and daughters shared in the field work, and even carried on foot to Boston the linen thread from their busy spinning wheels. Physical and moral strength characterized the race, and they built up a community of comfortable homes, severe virtues, strong religious instincts, a stern morality, and long lives. Neither poverty nor riches were to be found among them, and the simplest habits prevailed. Silks were unknown, and homemade linen was the choicest fabric. Brown bread was the staple of life, and wheat flour a luxury. Tea and coffee were rarely seen, but barley broth was on all tables. Shoes were only worn in winter, except to church on Sundays when they were carried in the hand to the neighborhood of the meeting-house. The saddle and pillion were used in journeys. Splinters and knots of pitch pine furnished lights. The hymns were "deaconed out" by the line at the meeting-house, and at the appearance of the first bass-viol in the gallery (about 1790) there was a fierce rebellion among the more austere of the worshipers. There was community of effort in all important enterprises, and no man needed aught if his neighbor could supply it.
But this frontier picture is not wholly stern in its lines. Along with this simplicity of life and severity of religious doctrine there was no lack of frolic and rough joking, and the other rugged characteristics were relieved by shrewd wit and native humor. The annals of Bedford are entertaining and abound in such anecdotes as these: Deacon John Orr (the grandfather of the mother of Zachariah Chandler) was a sturdy Irish-Scotchman, whose temper under extreme provocation once got the better of his devoutness and led him into a vigorous profanity of speech. This glaring dereliction in a church officer called for reprimand, and he was waited upon by the minister and a delegation of his brethren who asked, "How could you suffer yourself to speak so?" "Why, what was it?" His offending language was repeated to him. "And what o' that!" said he, "D'ye expect me to be a' spirit and nae flesh?" Late in life Deacon Orr visited Boston with a load of produce and put up at a house of entertainment where, after he had drunk several cups of tea, and refused a final invitation, the landlady said that it was customary to turn the cup upside down to show that no more was wanted. He apologized and promised to remember the injunction. The next morning he partook of a huge bowl of bread and milk for breakfast, and not wanting the whole laid down his spoon and turned the dish upside down with its contents on the table. The hostess was naturally angry, but was met with the statement that he had merely followed her own direction. The answer of a brother deacon to one of the congregation who complained, "I could na' mak yesterday's preaching come together," was a compend of practical Christianity: "Trouble yourself na' about that, man—a' ye have to do, man, is to fear God and keep His commandments." It is also told that the objections of one of the staunch Scotch Presbyterians of Bedford to the marriage of his daughter with an urgent suitor of Catholic parentage were overcome by the apt query, "If a man happened to be born in a stable would that make him a horse?" And to one of the rural theologians of the town is credited this contribution to ecclesiastical distinctions: "The difference between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists is this: The Congregationalist goes home and eats a regular dinner between services, but the Presbyterian postpones his until after meeting." After a most vigorous quarrel between the minister and one of the flock over a boundary line dispute, the wrathful member of the congregation was prompt at service on Sunday with the following explanation: "I'd have ye to know, if I did quarrel with the minister, I did not quarrel with the Gospel."
That this was a community of uncompromising patriotism follows from its character. In the French and Indian war the New England forces were at one time under command of Col. John Goffe, of Bedford, and the number of privates enlisted from that town was large. The New Hampshire regiment which joined the expedition of General Amherst against Canada, commanded by Colonel Goffe, was raised largely among the Scotch-Irish emigrants of Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, and had in its ranks many Bedford men. In the Revolutionary War a large portion of its able-bodied citizens were in the first American army that beleaguered Boston and fought at Bunker Hill; nearly or quite half of all who could handle a musket were with Stark at Bennington, and with Gates at Saratoga. General Stark lived but a few rods from the town line on the north, and one of his most trusted officers was Lieutenant, afterwards Colonel, John Orr, of Bedford. The town records abound with votes taken to carry out the measures proposed by the Continental Congress, and also chronicle one case of semi-Toryism and its punishment. In 1776 Congress advised the disarming of all who were disaffected towards the American cause, and the selectmen of the New Hampshire towns circulated this pledge among their people:
In consequence of the above Resolution of the Continental Congress, and to show our determination in joining our American brethren, in defending the lives, liberties, and properties of the inhabitants of the United Colonies, We, the Subscribers, do hereby solemnly engage and promise, that we will, to the utmost of our power, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, with arms, oppose the hostile proceedings of the British Fleets and Armies against the United American Colonies.
Among its Bedford signers were John Orr, Zachariah Chandler, and Samuel Patten (all ancestors of Zachariah Chandler,) and the report made from that town was this:
To the honorable, the Council and House of Representatives, for the Colony of New Hampshire, to be convened in Exeter, in said Colony, on Wednesday, 5th inst.
Pursuant to the within precept, we have taken pains to know the minds of the inhabitants of the town of Bedford, with respect to the within obligation, and find none unwilling to sign the same, except the Rev. John Houston, who declines signing the said obligation, for the following reasons: Firstly, Because he did not apprehend that the honorable Committee meant that Ministers should take up arms, as being inconsistent with their ministerial charge. Secondly, Because he was already confined to the County of Hillsborough, therefore, he thinks he ought to be set at liberty before he should sign the said obligation. Thirdly, Because there are three men belonging to his family already enlisted in the Continental Army.
Mr. Houston, who was thus officially reported as the only Bedford Tory, had occupied the town pulpit for over fifteen years, and was a man of scholarship and purity, but he had become a loyalist in sympathy at the outbreak of the Revolutionary troubles, and was as inflexible in conviction as his neighbors. Originally (in 1756) the town had voted that his salary should be at the rate of forty pounds sterling a year for such Sundays as they desired his services. When they felt unable to pay they voted him one or more Sundays for himself, and then deducted from his salary proportionately. In 1775, after prolonged controversy with him, his case was brought before town-meeting (on June 15th), and he was unanimously dismissed by the adoption of a vote setting off for his own use all the Sabbaths remaining in the calendar year. The town records contain this explanation of the action:
June 15, 1775. Voted—Whereas, we find that the Rev'd Mr. John Houston, after a great deal of tenderness and pains taken with him, both in public and private, and toward him, relating to his speeches, frequently made both in public and private, against the rights and privileges of America, and his vindicating of King and Parliament in their present proceedings against the Americans; and having not been able hitherto to bring him to a sense of his error, and he has thereby rendered himself despised by people in general, and by us in particular, and that he has endeavored to intimidate us against maintaining the just rights of America: Therefore, we think it not our duty as men or Christians, to have him preach any longer with us as our minister.