THE LEGISLATURE.
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��each, except in cases requiring the for- mation of classes, which were as follows : South Hampton and East Kingston; Hampton Falls and Seabrook ; Litchfield and Londonderry ; Hawke and Sandown ; Allenstown and Bow; Middleton and Brookfield; Effingham and OssipeeGore; New Hampton and Centre Harbor ; An- trim and Windsor ; Greenfield and Society- Land ; Wendell and Goshen ; New Lon- don and Wilmot; Dorchester, Orange and Dame's Gore; Thornton, Peeling and Ellsworth; New Holderness and Campton ; Hebron and Grotoii ; Alexan- dria and Danbury ; Lincoln and Franco- nia; Lancaster, Jefferson and Breton Woods, [now Carroll] ; Adams, Bartlett and Chatham; Cockburne, [now Colum- bia], Colebrook, Shelburne, Stewarts- town and Errol ; Northumberland, Strat- ford and Percy, [now Stark] ; Dalton and Whitefield.
CONCORD BECAME THE CAPITAL.
The writer cannot ascertain by legisla- lative journals that any discussion took place during the session of 1807, regard- ing the selection of a permanent place of meeting. But in the House Journal, June 19, of that year, is the following record : "The vote of yesterday, that the next session of the General Court be holden at Hopkinton came down from the Honorable Senate for the following amendment : that the word Hopkinton be erased, and Concord inserted, which amendment was concurred in ;" and, " Voted, That Messrs. Ham, Sweetser, Odell, Quarles, Fisk, Miller, Edgerton, Buffum, Webster, and Bedell, with such as the Senate may join, be a committee to wait on His Excellency the Governor, and inform him that the business of the present session is finished, and that the Legislature are ready to be adjourned to the last Wednesday of May next,to meet in Concord."
That the people of Concord, a long time before the above procedure, enter- tained the expectation that the Legisla- ture would, at some time, cease being a migratory body, is probable ; for on the 30th of August, 1790, they " Voted, To raise one hundred pounds for building a house for the accommodation of the Gen-
��eral Court." In consequence of that vote, a building was constructed on ground now occupied by the City Hall, and used by the State and the town up to the year 1819, when the Legislature commenced to occupy the edifice in which its sessions have ever since been held.
A RURAL NEW ENGLAND VILLAGE.
In 1808, the population of Concord was about two thousand, and nearly all those inhabitants who dwelt within a mile of the site upon which the State House was afterwards erected, lived upon the high- way since known as Main Street. The occupation of at least half of them was tilling the soil ; that of people in other sections of the town almost exclusively so. We were a rural population, just be- ginning to put on the appearance of a New England village. There was only one edifice in the town set apart for the public worship of God; the meeting- house" of the olden time, with a porch on two of its sides, and a towering spire, surmounted by the effigy of that bird whose crowing reminded Peter of his de- linquency in denying his Lord and Mas- ter. But, even then, the town contained a goodly number ot families of cultivated taste, who were well educated, accord- ing to the standard of that day, and in easy pecuniary condition. There were then several taverns along Main Street, each, however, of limited capacity, and a member-of the Legislature resorted for en- tertainment to private houses. "Taking Court boarders" was then the practice in a large number of families ; not so much, in some conspicuous instances, for pecu- niary gain, as to enjoy the society of dis- tinguished gentlemen in the Legislature. In these hospitable abodes was often found the best society of that day. Gov- ernor Langdon was a boarder in the fam- ily of Deacon John Kimball ; Governors Gilman and Smith made the mansion of Hon. William A. Kent— the same where General Lafayette tarried, while here two days in 1825— their home when in Con- cord ; and these chief magistrates were associated in their boarding places with other gentlemen in high social and polit- ical position. Hon. John Bradley, him-
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