me and my body to decent buriall in hopes of a happy resurection through the power and strength and merits of my dear Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. As to my outward estate I dispose of it as followeth : To my eldest son, Matthew Harriman I give and bequeath all my lands & meadows in ye bounds of Haverhill provided he pay eight pounds which I am engaged to pay for him to Mr. Wainewright, and forty shillings in money to his sister, Mary, which if he doe not I reserve the percell of meadow I bought of Abraham Whittichar, called spike's meadow giueing it to my Executor hereafter named to enable him to pay the sd sum or sums, and to his son Matthew my grand child, I give my armes and amunition: to my son Jonathan Harriman I hereby confirme that which I have giuen him by deed of gift vpon marriage, and the new Leantoo built agst his Roome and my shop and loomes and all the working geers belonging to them and all my vtensills of husbandry and half my part of the hay boat. Also, I giue him the other half of my lands in Rowley provided he pay to his sister Hannah Boynton within six years after my decease in corne or cattle or both the sum of thirty pounds; and to his sister, Mary Harriman the sum of thirty pounds within three yeares after my decease; and suffer sd Mary to enjoy peaceably during her liueing vunmarried the end of the house next the street and two appletrees by s end, and two more appletrees in other part of ye orchard and the garden spot before that end of ye house which if he s Jonathan by himself or heires cause it not to be payed then my overseers here after named upon the desire of my daughters shall haue liberty to apprise so much land now giuen by will not giuen absolutely upon marriage as shall pay my s daughters what I should have payed. To my daughter, Hannah Boynton, I giue the sum of thirty pounds to be paid by Jonathan, her brother or lands upon nonpayment as expressed. To my daughter, Mary Harriman, I giue ye vse of the end of the house next the street so long as shee remaine unmarried and ye use of four appletrees as before exprest as my overseers shall set out for her use also I giue to be at her dispose emediately upon my decease two cows and such household stuff as I shall leaue and thirty pounds which Jonathan is to pay her as exprest or upon her decease before the time prefixt as shee may giue it when payable by will or deed of gift. Also my will is and I hereby constitute my sd son Jonathan my sole executor impowering him to pay my debts and funeral charges out of the moveable estate not before bequeathed and to pay himself such necessary charge as he may be at about my will and the remainder I giue to be equally divided by my overseers betwixt my s daughters, Hannah and Mary, within half a yeare after my decease. Further my will is and I hereby desire my beloved friends, Nehemiah Jewett and Joseph Jewett, senior, to be my overseers to see to the fulfilling of my sd will allowing for any time about sd betrustment they expend out of my estate notwithstanding what I haue ordered Matthew to pay; upon his paying ten shillings of silver money to my executors and two thousand of pine bords I acquit of the rest above mentioned: to Jonathan I giue my division in the comons near Caleb Jacksons about eleven acres in the roome of that I sold to Samuel Pearley that he had a share in. In wittness that this is my last will and testament, and that I revoke all former and other wills I have hereunto set my hand and seale this twelfth day of May Anno Dom, 1691. Signed sealed and declared to be his last will and testament in presence of us Wittnesses. JAMES DICKINSON, JOHN HOPKINSON. LEONARD HARRIMAN. [SEALED.] THE INVENTORY OF Y ESTATE OF LEONARD HARRIMAN, DECEASED, TAKEN BY YE SUBSCRIBERS Y FIFTH OF JUNE, 1691. Imprims, half ye house & half ye homestead & It.Hunsly hill lott andy acres nere it 6 acres It. yoxpasture marsh, ye whole 3 acres It.ye two acres of marsh at Oyster poynt It.ye acre at Wicam's Springs It.ye 2 acres at Sandy bridge It. ye highway marsh whole about 1 acre It. y marsh in partnership with Todd all about 1 acre It.y acre and bought of Thomas Nelson It.ye little ile in hoggile marsh creek and marsh It. quick or liueing stock It. 2 feather beds & bedding furniture, linen wearing clothes chest and pewter It. armes books brass iron wooden earthern and glass vessels and household vtensills and cloth It. Loomes and tackling and implements of hus bandry It. debts due to yo estate Totall 883 02 03 05 It. debts oweing to be paid out of ye estate and funeral charges And to prizing proving ye will & recording ΙΟ 14 08 ΟΙ 00 00 The above s apprizement made by us ye day and yeare above written as witnesses our hands. NATHANIEL ELITHORP, NOTE. Why, in this inventory, it is one half of lands, etc., is this: Jonathan already owned an undivided half all this property; it was given him on his marriage. A. H. WALTER, third son of Benjamin Evans and Hannah Flanders Harriman, and of the seventh generation from Leonard, the English immigrant, was born in Warner, New Hampshire, April 8, 1817. His birthplace is somewhat more than three miles southwest of the village of Warner, and about two miles distant from Henniker and Bradford town lines. It lies at the southern base of the Mink Hills, which elevations stretch around along the north in a semicircle. The hills at the rear of the homestead sink to the level of a broad meadow on its front. Rapid, sparkling brooks fall from the hills, and, meeting in the meadow, form the Harriman Brook, which, flowing southerly, joins another, and empties into the Contoocook River, a mile below Henniker village. The large, well-tilled farm upon which Walter was reared was uneven of surface and somewhat stony, but it had a warm, loamy, and productive soil. It was a pleasant farm, too, with its large orchards, green cultivated slopes, fine groves of maple, beech, and oak, and its substantial, not ungraceful buildings. Through life he cherished reverence for the place of his birth, as one of the most sacred spots on earth. He always appreciated the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque in nature, wherever found; but those features in the landscape of his childhood home, hallowed by precious associations, were ever dearest to his sight and memory. The view of the Mink Hills, or of Kearsarge, near or remote, was to him, through life, a delight. "Yes," he wrote in 1881, "I now think of the beautiful groves by the roadside, and along the banks of the brooks, where the birds sang sweetly in the spring, and reared their young, and whither, it is presumed, many of the same returned after the next vernal equinox. .. Great changes have taken place in that old neighborhood. Pleasant as it is, farms have been abandoned, as places of residence; young people, and old also, have gone out from that locality, so that now it seems a place deserted." Of the manifold labors of a large farm, Walter had his share. He became early acquainted with work. He never shirked labor, but rather enjoyed it. He could do his part, too, of whatever was in hand. One finds him, in his earliest teens, in the meadow, rake in hand, gathering a bushel of cranberries in an hour, a fact attesting both the ability of the young laborer and the productiveness of the meadow, which, in some years, yielded one hundred and thirty bushels. But while he was learning the salutary lesson of honest toil, a lesson never to be forgotten, he had a healthy fondness for amusement. In boyhood he knew every tree, brook, and cavern on the mountains about his home. He engraved names, with the cold steel, upon many a smooth ledge, and cut them with a knife upon the smooth-barked trees. The brooks in those days abounded with the speckled trout, and Walter and his brothers often followed them. They seldom failed to catch, in an hour or two, a "string" sufficient for the family breakfast or dinner. Sometimes, dispensing with hook and line, they would take the "fine fellows" in a basket, into which they drove them, often a dozen at a time. Sometimes they sought other "fry" on Day's and Colleague ponds, and occasionally with some peril. Once Walter and a younger brother had been fishing from the shore of the latter pond, situated in the edge of Henniker, and with little success. Finally, having found an old plank boat lying ashore, they got it off and went on board. Paddling out into the middle of the pond, they cast in their lines. The horn-pouts took hold with vigor, and at least a peck-measure full of them had been drawn in, |