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: REV. STEPHEN PEABODY AND WIFE OF ATKINSON, NEW HAMPSHIRE AN OLD-TIME PASTOR " A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich on forty pounds a year." Goldsmith. In the general attention now given to the men and customs of a century ago, an old-time pastor and his wife deserve special recognition. Rev. Stephen Peabody, the first settled minister of Atkinson, N.H., was born in Andover, Nov. 11, 1741. He was a descendant of Lieut. Francis Peabody, who came to this country in the " Planter" in 1635. He was the son of John and Sarah (Ingalls) Peabody. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1769, a classmate of Theophilus Parsons. He was a poor boy, and used to tell in after life of his struggles to obtain an education, earning his board at college by waiting on the table, and carrying with him from home the linen he needed during the term, which his loving sisters had laundered. He was twenty-eight years old at graduation, the textit{pater omnium of his class, and it was not a little to his credit that his age did not alter his resolve to obtain an education. Having fixed upon the ministry for his profession, he studied in the family of a minister, forit was before the day of theological seminaries, and defrayed his expenses by working on a farm and teaching school. He was ordained at Atkinson as pastor Nov. 25, 1772. This town was a part of land purchased of the Indians by the inhabitants of Pentucket, now Haverhill, Mass., and set off into New Hampshire as a part of Plaistow, and had been separated from that town and incorporated Sept. 3, 1767, five years before the settlement of Mr. Peabody. It seems strange to this generation to learn that the reason for the separation was that the people might have their own church and minister. In their application t...