Rolled the tranquil Merrimack."
The Indian's feeling about "These bare hills, this conquered river," was not strange. But to us it naturally occurs that we are more likely to wake up with our scalps on our heads, instead of sleeping our last sleep, while they dangle at a red man's girdle. Yet the very state of warfare that at that time existed between the races showed that in the settlers themselves was an element of savagery not yet eliminated. For in all this fierce strife of the tomahawk and the gun, the Quaker ancestors of the poet Whittier who met the Indians, armed only with kindness and the high courage of their peaceful convictions, were treated by the red men as friends and superiors. In the raids of general devastation they were unmolested. Their descendant has a natural right to express the pathos of the Indian's lot.
There is a fine exhibition of human nature in the records of the first settlement of Amesbury. The place was called "Salisbury new-town" until 1669, and was merely an offshoot of the latter, though much larger in extent than it is today, for now it is only about six miles by three. Then it reached up into what is now Newton, N.H. But why should not the people of those days have been generous as to the size of townships, for as to land, they had the continent before them where to choose?
But in regard to the human nature. The settlers of Salisbury went at first only beyond the salt marshes, their town being what is now East Salisbury. The forests beyond had a threatening look, and were much too near. It was determined, therefore, to drive them back by having clearings and settlements across the Powow. So, December 26, 1642, about three years after this little colony had crossed the Merrimack, a town meeting was held in which it was voted:—"Yere shall thirtie families remove to the west side of ye Powowas river." This motion was very easy to carry. But it had not been voted what families were to move on beyond the immediate protection of the small colony at East Salisbury. Who was to go? Every man sat still in his place and nodded to his neighbor with a "Thou art the man," in manner if not in words. It seems to us a very little thing to give or take the advice, "Go West young man,—or woman." But it was very different then. To do it meant, besides living encircled by forests, to be obliged to go on Sunday through these forests, worse than lonely, to the meeting-house at East Salisbury, and always with the possibility of being at any moment obliged to flee all the distance to that town for comparative safety, perhaps of being obliged to flee in the night. Signals of alarm were arranged by the General Court. Alarm was to be given "by distinctly discharging three muskets, or by continual beat of the drum, or firing the beacon, or discharging a pesse of ordnance, and every trained soldier is to take the alarm immediately on paine of five pound." It was also ordered, "That every town provide a sufficient place for retreat for their wives and children to repaire to, as likewise to keepe safe the ammunition thereof." And also, "That all watches throughout this country bee set at sunset at the beat of the drums, & not bee discharged till the beate of the drum at sunne rising."
But those old Puritans were not men to be bundled by any of the weaknesses of human nature. In ten days, when it was found that nobody had started "westward, ho!" another town-meeting was held, in which, in spite of the dangers to be encountered by the new colony, the first vote was re-affirmed, and it was decided that "the thirtie families be chosen by ye seven men," probably the selectmen. And to ensure the matter, it was determined that this vote should not be repealed except by the consent of every freeman in the town. So, in the spring, this tiny colony went out to Salisbury new-town.
In 1647, a law was passed requiring every township of fifty families to maintain a school. This is the way that the preamble reads:—
"It being one chiefe pr'ject of y't ould deluder, Satan, to keepe men from ye knowledge of ye Scriptures, as in former times by keeping ym in an unknown tongue, so in these latt'r times by pr'suading from ye use of tongues yt so at least ye true sense & meaning of ye original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, yt learning may not be buried in ye grave of o'r fath'rs in ye church & commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavor. It is therefore resolved," &c.
It seems overturning the cornerstone of our forefathers' intentions to banish from our schools the Scriptures, those finest examples of the strength and beauty of the English language, to say nothing of their lessons in individual self-government, which is the only foundation that a republic can be built upon.
From this old law have grown up all the public schools of Amesbury. There is now a high school, and there are, of course, the required number of small schools; some of these in the outlying districts having very few scholars.