In few places can the local features of the great Revolutionary struggle be as well studied as in the ample and well-preserved records of Andover. It would take many pages to tell what the town did in council and on the field, in business, and at the fireside, to encourage the patriots. So loyal was the town that its citizens were greatly trusted, and a portion of Harvard College library was sent there for its greater safety.
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A pleasant description of the town is given by Thomas Houghton, an Englishman, who, writing from Andover in 1789, mentions several characteristics of the people at that period. He says: “One thing I must observe, which, I think, wants rectifying, that is, their pluming pride when adjoined to apparent poverty,—no uncommon case!”
He adds that they grow “their own wool, which they also get spun, weaved, and dyed, and both the gentlemen I am with, Hon. Samuel Phillips and his father, who is a justice of the peace, generally appear in their own manufacture, in imitation of the British.”
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