NIHS Newsletter - Week 21, 2025

Who was Timothy Farrar?

Timothy Farrar

Carl Toko and I were contacted by the library about this portrait and a box of photographs owned by Gilbert Thomson. The portrait is of Timothy Farrar, brother of Reverend Stephen Farrar. He played an important part in our nation’s history.

Judge Timothy Farrar - From the 1914 Town History

Judge Timothy Farrar - From the 1914 Town History
(Brother of Rev. Stephen Farrar)

Born June 28, 1747; died Feb. 21, 1849; 
Married Oct. 14, 1779, Anna Bancroft, daughter of Capt. Edmund Bancroft 
Anna died May 1, 1817;


He graduated from Harvard College in 1767, taught in and near Concord two or three years, came to New Ipswich as a teacher in 1770, and according to the vote of the town in the next spring he must have been the first teacher to teach in all the districts in succession, the grammar scholars from the entire town being supposed to follow him around from district to district.

He soon became the possessor of the land upon which his brother James had begun to build. In 1774 he had not only the lot but also a part of each of the lots adjoining it upon the east and west. And now, at the age of twenty seven years, his fellow citizens seem to have begun to recognize a broader ability to be employed in public matters, and gave him a responsible duty as chairman of a committee to protest and finally to refuse payment of a tax held to have unjustly assessed by the King's justices sitting as a Court of Sessions. 

In 1774 he was chosen first selectman. His military experience was comprised in five day's service at the time of the Concord alarm. The Revolutionary government of the state, consisting of a Provincial Congress in session at Exeter, acting in conjunction with the Committees of Correspondence, on the same day issued to him a commission as major in the Minutemen (of New Ipswich) then being enrolled and comprising about one-fourth of the
militia of the state, and also appointed him Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, with a request that he would accept the latter as being the most difficult to fill. With this request he complied and held the position for sixteen years, when his judicial success was recognized by an appointment to the Supreme Bench of the state as associate justice, and eleven years later as chief justice. 

This last appointment, however, he accepted with reluctance, and retained only a single year, but in 1803, having resigned his seat on the Supreme Bench, he was reappointed to the Court of Common Pleas of his own county. Here
he presided for ten years, which with three years in a newly formed judicial circuit comprising three counties, completed a period of over forty years devoted to judicial service.

The value of that service is perhaps sufficiently evidenced by the statement of Daniel Webster that he "never knew a judge more calm, dispassionate, impartial, and attentive, or more anxious to discover truth
and to do justice.” 

He seemed to feel that his judicial duties left no place for partisan activities, and although repeatedly urged to be a candidate for election to Congress and to the governorship of the state he constantly refused, and declined office when once elected to represent the town in the Legislature. He made an exception, however, of the brief duties of a Presidential Elector, which he performed four times, perhaps having a different feeling in that matter on account of the strenuous endeavors which he had felt called to undertake in the critical year when it was to be decided that the several states were really to form a nation.

An apparently reliable tradition concerning this critical period perhaps rightly has place here. In June, 1788, the prospect of the adoption of the Federal constitution was by no means bright. Eight states had accepted it, but the ninth one, necessary to make the previous ones effective, was very doubtful. The New Hampshire convention was in session, and was not far from evenly divided on the question. Judge Farrar was not a member of the convention, but his Federal belief was too strong to permit him to rest without putting forth all his logical and persuasive powers to influence the decision. He seems to have been unable to move the New Ipswich delegate, Charles Barrett, who was an Anti-Federalist in belief, but tradition declares that at that time he was said to have convinced a sufficient number of the (other)
 delegates of the absolute necessity of a real union in place of an hardly more than nominal confederation, and that the resulting vote was 57 to 47.

When it was remembered that four days later Virginia, the largest of the thirteen states, by the earnest labor of James Madison decided in the same way, and a month later the eminently potent efforts of Alexander Hamilton barely won the approval in a very small majority, without which the union in name would have been geographically disunited, it seems that the three names of Madison, Hamilton, and Farrar stand locked together in the efforts of a national birth.

Judge Farrar's public life closed in 1816, and at the age of sixty-nine years he retired to his farm, his books, and an honorable ease. His latest years were passed at the home of his daughter in Hollis, where he died at the age of one hundred and one years, seven months, and twenty-four days. In 1847, when he
had lived a few days more than a century, his Alma Mater bestowed upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, which without doubt pleased him, but which educed only the remark, “They have given me a feather to stick in my night
cap.”

James Roger Diaries Entries - 1908

19^th May 1908 (Tuesday)

Fair and warm. Cool wind. David at Ashburnham. I planted a row of onions. Telephoned Hamish to send flowers for cemetery vases which came in afternoon.

20^th May 1908 (Wednesday)

Warm and cloudy. Wind S to S.E. threatening rain at night. David ploughing at Walker’s till 300 pm. Then finished ploughing in top field and harrowed garden. Also paint steps at Mrs. Spofford’s. I sowed some aster seeds also cabbage seed, carrots and turnips got p.c. from Hamish.

21^st May 1908 (Thursday)

Dull and muggy. Winds variable. Flies biting then rain began at 4 pm. David on roads. Mother and I put in some flowers at back door. I cut some lots in cemetery. Roger_David went to Depot for chairs for town hall and brought hammock for Mrs. Amee and chick feed and corn for us.

22^nd May 1908 (Friday)

Rain wind N.E. misty and showery all day. David and Daniel making a gate for front garden and unpacking chairs in Hall. I fixed brooder and brought over chicks from incubator house (115) Sold 21 chicks to D. Brown and 26 to Shir ared (?) Highbridge. Got letter from Hamish.

23rd May 1908 (Saturday)

Cloudy. Warm day wind S.W. David at Greenville for grain &c. Jim cut lots and I trimmed. Got papers from Roslin. Mr. Huckins up today. Jim Bolton’s son died yesterday and to be buried tomorrow.

24^th May 1908 (Sunday)

Fine day warm and sunny. Mr. Peacock preached a memorial sermon from the text in John “Ye have entered into their labours”. S.S. after 7 present. C.E. at night. Mr. P. leader. Bring a Christian and the ballot. Effie Prichard & Mrs. Bracket from Peterboro called here and went to Oscar Bolton’s funeral. Mr. Hale from Whalom put up his horses here for an hour or two. There was a carriage upset and horse ran away and was caught up here. The team belonged to some Ashby folks. Mr. Hooper and wife walking around today. Our little town waking from its winter sleep.

25^th May 1908 (Monday)

Fair and warm. Wind S.E. David on roads with Royce. I was in cemetery all day getting lots fixed &c. David got contract to paint the golf house. (75 dollars) to commence painting 1^st June. Aurora at night.

Contra Dancing in New Hampshire: Then and Now

presented by Dudley Laufman

Saturday, June 7 at 1:30 p.m.

New Ipswich Library (6 Main Street)

Since the late 1600s, the lively tradition of contra dancing has kept people of all ages swinging and sashaying in barns, town halls, and schools around the state.

Contra dancing came to New Hampshire by way of the English colonists and remains popular in many communities, particularly here in the Monadnock Region.

Dudley Laufman brings this tradition to life with stories, poems and recordings of callers, musicians, and dancers, past and present. Live music, always integral to this dance form, will be played on the fiddle and melodeon.

In a career that spans over seven decades, Dudley Laufman is recognized around the country for his artistry as a folk musician and dance caller. While working on a NH dairy farm in the late 1940s, he was introduced to contra dancing and immediately smitten. Mentored by Ralph Page, a master caller from Keene, Dudley called his first dance in 1948. By 1965, he was known throughout New England and was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival. In 1999, Laufman performed at the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival in Washington, DC. Other awards soon followed, including the NH Governor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement (2001) and the Country Dance and Song Society of American Lifetime Achievement Award (2007). In 2009, he earned the National Heritage Fellowship, the highest honor for traditional artists. A poet and song writer as well, he co-authored Traditional Barn Dances and has recorded several CDs. A resident of Canterbury, Laufman regularly performs with the Canterbury Orchestra, which under his leadership has produced five recordings.

Generously supported by the Stearns-Burton Lecture Fund, this program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.