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Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society
Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society Author:Jacob Bailey Moore Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Diaries Of The Rev, Timothy Walker, The First And Only Minister Of Concord, New Hampshire, From His Ordination, November 18, 1730, To His Death, September 1, ... more »1782. EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY JOSEPH B. WALKER. PREFATORY NOTE. The Rev. Timothy Walker, author of the following diaries, was the first minister of Pennycook, now Concord, N. H., and from the organization of its church to his death, a period of fifty.two years, its only one. He was born in Woburn, Mass., on the 27th day of July, 1705, was graduated at Harvard College in 1725, and settled at Pennycook on the 18th day of November, 1730. This was his first and only settlement. As did his neighbors, he went there to stay, and at once identifying himself with all their interests, he devoted to these the energies of his entire life. He possessed good mental abilities, a good eduation, strong common sense, and marked wisdom. He was not only their spiritual advisor, but their legal and temporal counsellor as welL His modest salary, insufficient for his support, was supplemented by the income of the parsonage lands and the farm which was given by the proprietors of the township to their first settled minister. He thus became a farmer as well as minister, and, through this relation, was brought into more intimate sympathy with his people than he might otherwise have been. His pacific feelings and good sense contributed to the maintenance of friendly relations with the neighboring Indians, liable at any time to be provoked to acts of violence by imaginary grievances or the wiley counsels of the French. But, pacific as was his disposition, he held firmly to the sacred right of self-defence. When,therefore, some twenty years after his settlement at Pennycook, a company having little existence but upon paper laid cl...« less