Charles Carleton Coffin | Page 8

Western lands were worthless. Wool could not be sold, and the
shearing for that year was taken to the town of Nelson, in Cheshire
County, and manufactured into satinets and cassimeres, on shares. One
of the pieces of cassimere was dyed with a claret tinge, from which I
had my first Sunday suit.
"Up to this period, nearly all my clothing was manufactured in the

family loom and cleaned at the clothing and fulling mill. In very early
boyhood, my Sunday suit was a swallow-tailed coat, and hat of the
stove-pipe pattern.
"The year 1840 was one of great political excitement,--known to
history as the Log Cabin and Hard Cider Campaign. General Harrison,
the Whig candidate, was popularly supposed to live in a log cabin and
drink hard cider. On June 17th, there was an immense gathering of
Whigs at Concord. It was one of the greatest days of my life. Six weeks
prior to that date, I thought of nothing but the coming event. I was
seventeen years old, with a clear and flexible voice, and I quickly
learned the Harrison songs. I went to the convention with my brothers
and cousins, in a four-wheeled lumber wagon, drawn by four horses,
with a white banner, having the words 'Boscawen Whig Delegation.'
We had flags, and the horses' heads labelled 'Harrison and Tyler.' We
had a roasted pig, mince pies, cakes, doughnuts and cheese, and a keg
of cider. Before reaching Concord we were joined by the log cabin
from Franklin, with coon skins, bear traps, etc., dangling from its sides.
Boscawen sent nearly every Whig voter to the meeting. I hurrahed and
sung, and was wild with excitement. I remember three of the
speakers,--George Wilson, of Keene, Horace Greeley, editor of the
New York Tribune, a young man, and Henry Wilson, also a young man,
both of them natives of New Hampshire. Wilson had attended school
with my brother at the academy in Concord, in 1837, then having the
high-sounding name of Concord Literary Institute. Wilson was a
shoemaker, then residing in Natick, Mass., and was known as the
'Natick Cobbler.' The songs have nearly all faded from memory. I recall
one line of our description of the prospective departure of Van Buren's
cabinet from the White House:
"'Let each as we go take a fork and a spoon.'
"There was one entitled 'Up Salt River,'--descriptive of the approaching
fate of the Democratic party. Another ran:
"'Oh, what has caused this great commotion the country through? It is
the ball, a rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.'

"Then came the chorus:
"'Van, Van, is a used-up man.'
"In 1839, I had a fancy that I should like to be a merchant, and was
taken to Newburyport and placed with a firm of wholesale and retail
grocers. I was obliged to be up at 4.30, open the store, care for the
horse, curry him, swallow my breakfast in a hurry, also my dinner and
supper, and close the store at nine. It was only an experiment on my
part, and after five weeks of such life, finding that I was compelled to
do dishonest work, I concluded that I never would attempt to be a
princely merchant, and took the stage for home. It was a delightful ride
home on the top of the rocking coach, with the driver lashing his whip
and his horses doing their best.
"I think it was in 1841 that Daniel Webster attended the Merrimac
County Agricultural Fair at Fisherville, now Penacook. I was there with
a fine yoke of oxen which won his admiration. He asked me as to their
age and weight, and to whom they belonged. He recognized nearly all
of his old acquaintances. I saw him many times during the following
year. He was in the prime of life,--in personal appearance a remarkable
man."
Thus far it will be seen that there was little in Mr. Coffin's life and
surroundings that could not be easily told of the average New England
youth. Besides summer work on the farm, and "chores" about the house,
he had taken several terms at the academy in Boscawen. During the
winter of 1841-42, while unable to do any outdoor work, on account of
sickness, he bought a text-book on land-surveying and learned
something of the science and art, yet more for pastime than from any
expectation of making it useful.
Nevertheless, that book had a powerful influence upon his life. It gave
him an idea, through the application of measurement to the earth's
surface, of that order and beauty of those mathematical principles after
which the Creator built the universe. It opened his eyes to the vast
modification of the landscape, and the earth itself, by man's work upon
its crust. It gave him the engineer's eye.