Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/154

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132

��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��not less distinguished for his scholarly acquirements ; Hon. Ichabod Bartlett ; Judge Wm. H. Bartlett ; Joel Eastman ; Commissioner Eaton, and Rev. Horace Eaton, D. D., (if we may include the neighboring town of Sutton) ; and Daniel and Ezekiel Webster. The list might be greatly extended, had we room.

Mr. Corser for several years had charge of the Congregational Church at Sanbornton Bridge and Northfield, then feeble ; preaching in the Old Meeting House at Northfield Centre, probably the oldest building in town, a spacious structure, whose windowless, doorless, floorless shell yet stands, with galleries and pulpit sounding board still intact, and timbers as sound as they were nearly a hundred years ago.

Under Mr. Corser's ministrations the church grew and prospered, and in time the Old Meeting House was ex- changed for an elegant edifice at the Bridge ; and then, for the first time in its existence, what is now Tilton heard the sound of the church-going bell.

During the struggling days of the church, Mr. Corser used occasionally to take private students in the classics, and taught several terms in the Acad- emy.

Under his tuition Lucian com- menced the Latin Grammar late in the spring and finished Virgil's ^-Eneid dur- ing the fall of the same year. This he reviewed the following winter while teaching his first school.

To the Rev. Mr. Corser more than to any other individual does Mr. Hunt consider himself indebted for encour- agement and direction in the classics — studies for which he has ever since cherished an especial fondness. Mr. Corser died a few years since, and his monument stands in the ancient cem- etery of Boscawen, on a rising ground overlooking the intervals and placid waters of the beautiful Merrimack.

His son, Prof. S. B. G. Corser, blessed with an ample supply of railroad shares and a valuable interval faim on the Merrimack, still resides at the old homestead in Boscawen, intermingling.

��farming with literary pursuits. After graduating at Dartmouth he engaged in teaching for several years, until his father's advancing age and the wants of the farm requiring his presence, he resigned the professor's chair, engaged in agriculture, combined the farmer and student, and while not neglecting his broad acres, pushed forward his studies in the modern tongues, and to- day stands in the front rank, if not him- self the first in linguistic scholarship in New Hampshire ; and his literary in- fluence, though unobtrusive, has oper- ated powerfully upon many a student and teacher in the Granite State. A similarity of tastes between him and Mr. Hunt has produced a similarity of studies, and an epistolarj' correspond- ence, which has continued uninterrupt- edly for over thirty years ; and the result has been the production of several bulky volumes of letters, a i&w of which have been published under the pseudonyms of Long and Short. This acquaintance has been to Mr. Hunt especially val- uable as regards his linguistic pursuits. Their studies in French and German have been nearly identical, and their book- shelves perhaps contain a larger collection of choice French and Ger- man works in the original than any other private library in the state.

Another instructor was Prof. Dyer H. Sanborn, rather a famous teacher in his time, of no deep scholarship, but endowed with a wonderful faculty for gathering pupils. During his long- experience, he had iicquired many practical and curious ideas in regard to teaching, which he dispensed to his pupils with a liberal tongue, and by which many hundreds of teachers have profited. As he advanced in years he wearied of the work and retired to a small estate in Hopkinton, N. H., where in process of time he died at a good old age.

But we must leave this part of our subject and hasten to speak of what afterward proved to be Mr. Hunt's life work.

He commenced teaching in the Bay Hill District, Northfield, at the age of

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