Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[37] seat in the meeting-house with the negroes, and they banished Roger Williams. He was of the most prayerful life and conversation, and his followers, in their belief, differed from the Puritans on little else than the question, whether the use of any considerable water was necessary fully to convert a confessed sinner into a Christian, and constitute him a member of the Church of God. The Anabaptists were also banished, and Quakers were prohibited from coming in under a penalty of one hundred pounds, which the person who brought them must pay, and carry them back besides. And if a Quaker was found there not coming by sea, he was to be punished by death.¹

Indeed, the distinction between the two colonies was that during all this time freedom from religious persecution found its home in New Hampshire. So well was this understood in the mother country, that New Hampshire was largely settled by the cadets of good Episcopalian families, and loyalty to the royal government was so substantially maintained therein that when, under Charles II., the monarchy was restored, while Puritan Massachusetts shielded Goff and Whalley, the regicides, none of the attainted or proclaimed thought of taking refuge in New Hampshire.

A most remarkable accession to its population, and one which has had the best influence upon the character of its people, came from Ireland. It was a colony of Scotch Presbyterians which had settled in the Province of Ulster in the reign of James I. They had borne the brunt of the siege of Londonderry; they had been the right hand of King William in the battle of Boyne Water; and, being oppressed by their Catholic neighbors after James had been routed from Ireland, they emigrated to New Hampshire. They established themselves in the centre and northern parts of the province, naming their new settlements after their Irish homes, so that to-day, going through their towns of Derry, Londonderry, Chester, Antrim, and Hillsboro, one would almost think that he was travelling in the north of Ireland. These men in position at home were far above the ordinary ranks of life. They were of exceedingly vigorous physical organization; so much so that there was added to them great length of days. The first planters in Londonderry lived to an average of eighty years; some lived to ninety, and others to one