field were classed together and Esquire John McClary was annually chosen to represent them in the convention at Exeter.

Esquire John McClary was a prominent member of the first convention to organize a colonial government, and afterwards in framing our state government, and was an active member for twenty years. He was treasurer of the Committee of Safety from 1777 to 1783. This committee had power to call out troops at such time and in such numbers as they deemed necessary.

In 1780 he was elected to the council, and annually for the four succeeding years. In 1784 he was chosen to the council and also to the senate, and served as member of that honorable body for three years.

He was tall, erect, commanding, dignified, and made an excellent presiding officer. In early life he was married to Elizabeth Harvey of Nottingham. When she came to this town with him they rode on horseback, she having for a whip a willow stick which she stuck in the ground near the entrance of the driveway leading to the McClary house. The tree is now standing which grew from the twig placed there by the hand of the bride, 161 years ago.

They had four children,—the oldest son, John McClary, Jr., was killed at the battle of Saratoga in 1779. They had but one daughter, Mollie, who married Daniel Page of Deerfield.

The McClarys owned a very large landed estate which was divided into several valuable farms for the sons and daughters. In 1741, Esquire John built a one story house on the south side of the road. This house was enlarged at various times and

became the venerable looking mansion it now is. For twenty-five years it was the headquarters of the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, and the Society of Cincinnati, of which he was president, met here three times. Many of the schemes influencing the early history of New Hampshire were concocted within its walls. In it great men have been born and have lived. In its dining hall famous men have sat at the board. In its chambers distinguished statesmen, jurists, and heroes have slept. Before the wide fireplace in the reception room have gathered the wit and beauty of a time when men were strong, and women fair, and wine was red. No wonder that the echoes of long lost and forgotten music are said to return at night when darkness and silence reign.

Alone in this great guest chamber one might fancy he had for companions the shades of Daniel Webster, Jeremiah Mason, General Sullivan, and other distinguished men, who have in other days slept within its walls. It is at present owned and occupied by Michael McClary Steele, of the fifth generation of the McClarys, and great grandson of Esquire John. This is the most historic place in all southern New Hampshire, and a visit here will be found very interesting. The present owner is a gentleman of ability and will receive you most cordially.

General Michael McClary, second son of Esquire John, married Sally Dearborn, daughter of Dr. Dearborn of North Hampton. They had five children. The oldest, John, born, in 1785, was of great personal beauty and accomplishments. He was representative, senator, and held a clerk

ship at Washington. He was killed by a falling timber while assisting to raise a shed, when but thirty-six years of age. The funeral was said to be the largest ever held in the Suncook valley.

The second son, Andrew, born in 1787, sailed for Calcutta and was lost at sea. General McClary also had three daughters of rare attraction. The oldest, Nancy, married Samuel Lord of Portsmouth. A son of theirs, Augustus, once purchased a part of the McClary estate and improved it for some years. Elizabeth Harvey married Jonathan Steele, a lawyer from Peterborough. They settled on the homestead now owned and occupied by their son, Michael McClary Steele. The third daughter, Mary, married Robert Parker of Fitzwilliam. After the marriage of Ann McClary, the youngest daughter of the old emigrant, to Richard Tripp, they settled on the farm now owned by Samuel Quimby, where he cleared a small place and erected buildings thereon.

The country being new and they being poor, they were subject to many hardships, but being ScotchIrish they were strong and muscular and enabled to endure the hardships which circumstances compelled them to pass through. Tradition says she was able to pick up a barrel of cider from the ground and place it in the cart. And at one time she traveled on foot seven miles through the woods to visit a neighbor, carrying a child in her arms, and the cloth to make a shirt. After making the shirt, she returned home the same day. There are many other instances that might be related that go to show the wonderful muscular power which this woman possessed.

In the year 1781, they, with their two sons, Richard and John, moved on the place now occupied by the writer at Short Falls, they having cleared a few acres previously. At this time their nearest neighbor lived where Benjamin Fowler now resides. They afterwards built a sawmill, just above where the Short Falls bridge is, where they sawed out fourinch white oak plank and sold them for one dollar and fifty cents a thousand, delivered on the hill near the house where Hiram Holmes now resides, where they were purchased by parties from Durham for shipbuilding, using the money to pay for the land, the price of a thousand of lumber paying for an acre of land.

D. H. Hurd's history of New Hampshire says: "The town of Epsom has furnished many worthy men. during the past one hundred and fifty years who have held positions of trust and honor in the state and nation, but none stand out in such bold relief or are more worthy of remembrance than the McClarys. In fact no family in the Suncook valley fills. so large a space in its history or the hearts of its people. For nearly a century they were the leading influential men in all our civil, political, and military affairs, and were identified with all the important events and measures that received the attention and governed the acts of the successive generations during that long period of time. We know of no instance in our state where history has so sadly neglected to do justice to a family which has rendered so efficient service in defending the rights and promoting the interests of our commonwealth and nation, as in this instance."

N determining the validity of any nation's claim to discovery, political conditions, national life, maritime enterprise, and colonial settlement are important considerations. A turbulent and changing government, unrest at home, an adventuresome and commercial spirit, are the greatest incentives to emigration, discovery, and settlement. Especially is this true in the case of the Norsemen whose preeminent characteristics were adventure, discovery, and colonization. Norway and Sweden have a much greater seacoast than almost any other country of equal area. Their maritime situation had early invited the Norse to commerce and sea-faring. These were further stimulated by the barrenness of the soil, which provided a scanty subsistence and drove many either to traffic with foreign nations or to plundering. Emigration was also caused by political revolutions. The usual effect of a change in the government was the exodus from the country of numerous jarls with their followers.

The adventuresome spirit of the inhabitants of Norway and Sweden, and the discoveries and settlements hitherto made, are seen in the fact that from an early time these searovers had made their way to almost every maritime country and to the islands of the sea. Depredations on the coasts of Northumberland and Scotland were made by the Norse in 787 and again in 793 and 794. After

the eighth century these free-booters continually preyed upon Scotland, Ireland, England, Flanders, and Normandy. In the Danish invasion of England large numbers of the Norse took part. From an early time Norse influence was felt in the Shetlands, Hebrides, and Orkney islands, where considerable numbers had settled. The neighboring island of Iceland was found by them in the tenth century. After the victory of Harold Fairhair in the battle of Hafrs Fjord, many of the leading jarls and nobles, with their families and dependents, sailed to Iceland and the Scottish isles. Erik the Red, being driven out of Iceland, discovered Greenland and made the settlement of Brattahlid.

Nautical knowledge was developed among the Norse to a high degree, and was more complete with them than among any other people. First and last the Northmen were seamen. They were equally at home whether on land or sea. In their crude, open boats they would spend weeks on the sea, often without chart or compass, guiding their course by the stars. Some have doubted the possibility of the Norse making trans-Atlantic voyages in the simple, open boats they then used. To remove this doubt, Captain Anderson, with a small crew and a boat modeled after the Viking ships of the tenth and eleventh centuries, successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1893. Furthermore, repeated voyages to all northern British and Baltic regions

had perfected their knowledge of seamanship as well as their acquaintance with the sections visited.

The story of the Norse voyages to America is contained in certain Icelandic historical writings, chief of which are the Sagas in the Arna Magnean collection and the Flatey book. Here are recorded four expeditions of considerable size and several smaller ones. The first of these was about 985 when Bjarni Herjulfsson, on a journey from Iceland to Greenland, was driven out of his course until he sighted a low-lying wooded land. Leif, son of Erik the Red, was stimulated by this news to fit out an expedition for the exploration of this new land.

Accordingly in the year 1000, with thirty-five men, he set sail for America. The land they first saw was barren and covered with flat rocks. To this they gave the name Helluland, and, without tarrying long, set sail southward. The next land reached was level and densely wooded, hence they called it Markland. After continuing a southerly direction, they at last entered a landlocked bay and sailed up a river which ran from west to east. Salmon abounded-in that region and on the shores vines and grapes were found, whence they called the land Wineland.

In 1003

the rest hastened home. Thorfinn Karlsefin and Snorri Thorbrandson resumed the exploration with sixty men, five women, and several kinds of cattle. They remained two winters in Wineland and bartered considerably with the natives, until the latter were frightened at the bellowing of a bull and waged battle. The next expedition was conducted by Freydis, Helgi, and Finnbogi, who had two ships and sixty-five men. During the winter in Wineland Freydis instigated a merciless slaughter of the party of Helgi and Finnbogi, after which she and her company returned to Greenland. Various other expeditions

were undertaken to Wineland after this date. Thus in 1121 another voyage was made, and in 1347 Markland was revisited by certain seamen from the Icelandic colony of Greenland. That the regions explored were on the North American coast, and not elsewhere, is conclusively proved by the descriptions of the courses taken and the lands visited. It is stated in the sagas that all the expeditions sailed in a southwesterly direction from Greenland. The description of the climate, natives, and regions explored applies best to the eastern coast of North America, and Wineland corresponds with known localities on the New England coast.

The main line of evidence for the substantiation of the Norse claim is to be found in the historical sagas contained in the Arna Magnean collection and the Flatey book. While some of the sagas of Icelandic literature are mythical and unreliable as historical evidence, the credibility of the saga of Erik the Red is generally