Hon. M. P. Wilder,

[From Hon. ROBERT INGALLS.]

SHELBURNE, Oct. 27, 1853.

and other Sons of New Hampshire, at Boston:

It would have been to me exceedingly pleasant indeed-I can hardly conceive of anything more so than to have accepted your very kind and flattering invitation to attend the coming Festival of the Sons of New Hampshire, at Boston; nothing but public duty would retard from so doing. As a citizen of New Hampshire, I ever like the phrase, whether it pertains to those yet struggling with the fatigues and hardships of this rugged clime, or to those who have sought a distant field, better adapted to their stalwart stride.

I have now spent a long life amongst these aged mountains and stupendous elevations - they are my almost daily association; but hard and unpolished as they are, I yet cling to them as objects dear, and am induced to believe this attachment not merely visionary, from the fact that those of our most distinguished sons who have been induced to change their residence, and have distinguished themselves so nobly in their new field of action, never forget New Hampshire, the land of their sires.

Whether we change or retain our citizenship, let us ever consider ourselves an association for promoting, by every pure, refined, and holy principle, the onward march of the descendants of our old family to the highest elevation of human fame.

I presume that you will not deem it inappropriate during your festive hours, to pay an additional tribute to the memory of the immortal Webster, the country's and the world's benefactor; not forgetting the career of our late lamented Ichabod Bartlett, whose memory may well be cherished for ages to come for the high order of talent he possessed, and for the honorable and elevated stand he ever maintained in every position of his brilliant life.

Accept my repeated thanks for your kind invitation, on which I shall reflect with a heartfelt pride.

I am your ob't servant,

ROBERT INGALLS.

15

My Dear Sir:

[From ALFRED LANGDON ELWYN, M. D.]

PHILADELPHIA, October 11th, 1853.

May I, through you, return my very sincere and grateful thanks to the Committee of the Sons of New Hampshire, for their invitation to the Festival on the second of next November. I accept the invitation with great pleasure, but with hesitation, as it is a season in which I am not my own master, and though now I think I may be able to be with you, yet something is very likely to occur that may deprive me of the pleasure.

But if it be possible, I know of nothing that will be more agreeable than to shake hands with a thousand or more hardy and intelligent "Graniteers," men who reflect high honor on their native State.

Hon. MARSHALL P. WILDER, Chairman.

Sincerely yours,

A. L. ELWYN.

My Dear Sir:

[From Hon. LORENZO SABINE, Ex-Member of Congress.]

FRAMINGHAM, October 31, 1853.

I have to thank you for the invitation to the "Festival of the Sons of New Hampshire," on the second of November. Engagements, made previous to the receipt of your note, and not, I fear, to be postponed without injury to others, may not allow me to attend. But I desire to connect myself in some way or another, with the men of the Hills and of the Granite, who, like myself, have become citizens of the mother State of the north. May I be allowed to say then, first, that while my family descent and the place of my birth are matters of no concern to anybody in the wide world, yet, as I continually meet gentlemen who assume that my parents were English, or British American, I would avail myself of this occasion to correct such an impression. Shall I be excusable for the additional remark, that both of my grandfathers helped to achieve the independence of our country—the one, under Stark, at Bennington; the other, under Washington, at Trenton.

I am a native of the county of Grafton. Well do the recollections of my boyhood go back to the Ox-bow, with the beauties around it—to Haverhill Corner, where the "Barlow knives" and the wondrous stocks of gingerbread kept in the shops tempted me to open the little wooden wafer-box which contained my savings, and made me bankrupt.

Well, too, do I remember my emotions when crossing the rough, frail

bridges which spanned the mild Ammonoosuk, and when gazing upon the mountains of Franconia, and "the gothic battlements of the White Hills." I have not seen either since the year 1821. On my last visit, my friend Governor Kent- who by the by, is one of the best fellows I know ofwas a travelling companion a part of the way. Six horses were attached to the stage, and passengers rode with the driver on the top, and with the luggage. We walked up the hills just as Jeremiah Smith told his second wife his first wife did; and, in a word, had a weary day of it.

In Chester we killed a black snake of monstrous size, which we bound to the baggage-rack of the coach, and carried in triumph to Concord. A crowd greeted us as we drove up at the hotel, and our prize was soon seen by hundreds. The Governor, I think, had about completed his studies at Harvard University. As for myself, I had parted with my widowed mother in Maine, to seek my fortune. You hardly ever knew—unless wiser than most-a New Hampshire boy who, at the start, possessed either money or friends; and so this part of my story may be left to your imagination.

The next time I saw Kent, he was Mayor of the city of Bangor. He wore a towering white hat-as sleek as his face- and sported a large magisterial cane, and seemed to me a mighty big man. The affray with the snake occurred to me in a moment; but it was not meet that a humble fish dealer of the frontier should thrust himself unbidden upon the notice of the "Mayor," and so I passed him in silence. As soon, however, as I became a "Lyceum-lecturer," I reminded his worship of the adventure in Chester, and found that his recollection of it was as fresh as my own. We have not failed to recount the marvellous feat whenever we have met, from that day to the present. Few serpents of the creeping kind live, I suppose, in the memory of man for the space of thirty-two years. I pass intervening events at a single bound. You cannot but have a good time on the second. You will dwell upon the " sons "who espoused the Whig side in the war of the revolution. You will not forget the " sons who have won enviable renown in the councils of the nation. But it is quite possible that some good men, who adhered to the royal cause in '76, may escape the notice of all. May I meekly suggest that, on this high Festival-day, the feeling of brotherhood should be permitted to have its full flow, and to prevail over mistakes committed two generations ago. A great people now, we can afford to be both just and generous towards those who, born British subjects, preferred to live and die in allegiance to the crown. I venture then to offer a sentiment in memory of

JOHN WENTWORTH The last Governor of the British province of New Hampshire, and the last Surveyor General of the King's woods in New England: - his eminent literary taste and attainments-his successful exertions to secure to Dartmouth College its charter rights

his love of, and zeal in, agriculture-his unwearied attention to all the interests of his people, made him for a time, their idol; but a "loyalist" he died- -a cast-a-way, and in exile. Let us forget his errors, and treasure only his virtues, and his services to his native colony to our native State.

Meaning after all this talk on paper, to be with you if in my power,* I am, dear sir,

Permit me to express to you my sense of obligation for the honor of an invitation to attend the Festival of the Sons of New Hampshire.

Having, in my boyhood, been adopted by this State; having been fanned for sixty-six years by the breezes from her granite hills, nourished by the products of her exuberant, though hardy soil, educated by the means which her institutions afford, and performed the labors of a protracted life among her sons and citizens, I regret that my infirm health compels me to decline the invitation to be present at the coming festival. But, hoping to be there in imagination and feeling, I subscribe myself, with high regard to the occasion,

Your friend and obedient servant,

ROSWELL SHURTLEFF.

TO MARSHALL P. WILDER, and others, the Committee, etc.

[From Professor UPHAM, Bowdoin College.]

BRUNSWICK, ME., October 15, 1853.

Gentlemen:

In answer to your kind invitation to attend the Festival of the Sons of New Hampshire, to be held in the city of Boston on the second of Novem

* Mr. S. was present, but as he was suffering from indisposition he declined to speak. The officers of the Association, desirous of connecting his name with the Festival, place his letter in their account of the proceedings.

ber, I regret to say, that the duties which I am called to discharge here will render it difficult, and, I think, impossible, for me to be present on that interesting occasion.

I am not insensible, however, of the honor which is done me by your invitation; and I feel that you have conferred a benefit upon me, at this period of my life, and after recently returning from a journey amid other scenes in distant lands, in reminding me of the home of my youth, and in awaking a thousand associations which make that home dear to me. It is many years since I left my native State; but her streams, her hills, her mountains, the valleys where I strayed, the flowers that grew among the rocks, the associates of those early days, in the glow of youth and in the brightness of beauty, all exist like living pictures in my memory, and have become a part of my existence. The fame of commonwealths does not depend exclusively upon the greatness of their wealth, or the extent of their territories. New Hampshire is a small republic; but if the fulfilments of her future history should correspond to the beginnings and presages of the past, she is destined to an immortal memory.

When I was quite a child, and before my mind had expanded itself to the comprehension of our great nationality, I had formed some ideas of the boundaries, the physical features, and the history of the little State which we love. In the neighborhood in which I lived was the town library, and, as my father was one of the associated owners, I was not long in exploring a portion of its few hundred volumes; and I think that no volume interested me more, at that early period, than Belknap's History of New Hampshire. It was in that excellent work, which combines great learning and candor with the merits of a simple and classic style, that I learned something of the trials of the early settlers of the State, the history of some of the distinguished men under the colonial government, and the part taken by New Hampshire in the revolutionary struggle. It was then that I first became acquainted with the names of Weare, Stark, Sullivan, and Langdon; and learned that the sons of New Hampshire had an influence beyond their own territorial limits, and could make their proud mark on a nation's history. And from that day to this I have endeavored to make myself acquainted with the life and labors of the many distinguished men, of different religious and political views and associations, but all allied together by the love of truth and the claims of patriotism, who have been the ornaments and the just pride of the State. I listened with delight in early life,—and as I recall it now, it seems but yesterday,—to the minute legal learning of Smith, the matchless reasonings of Mason, and the touching and perfected eloquence of George Sullivan, the worthy son of a justly celebrated father. And who, among the numerous children of New Hamp