History of Amesbury - Merrill.org

374 HISTORY OF AMESBURY.
legislature and Orlando S. Baley was chosen to fill the vacancy.
A new street was located east of the Congregational church
at West Amesbury and accepted.
Rev. T. D. P. Stone was installed pastor over the Congre-
gational church and society at the Mills October ist.
There were several cases of small-pox at West Amesbury this
spring, three of which proved fatal, viz. : Mr. Ezra B. Clark
and Elizabeth M. Clark, his daughter, and Mrs. Rhoda Nichols,
wife of Hon. William Nichols. At the Ferry, Mrs. Dolly Hoyt,
wife of Thomas Hoyt, formerly of Pond Hills, died of the same
disorder.
Jan. 1 2th. The new church built last year at West Amesbury
was this day dedicated with appropriate services.
The population of the town, by the census taken this year,
is three thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven, an increase
of seven hundred and thirty-four in ten years. The number of
houses is six hundred and twenty-seven, and of families seven
hundred and forty-eight.
Open rebellion against the
1861.
authority of the United States in
the South was now causing great excitement and alarm, especially
as a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers had been made by
the President to restore peace and enforce the laws of the
country.
A town meeting was called April 27th to take measures to
raise volunteers to meet the call, and the patriotism and sense
of the meeting was very fully expressed by the following pre-
amble and resolutions offered by William C. Binney, Esq., and
unanimously adopted by the meeting :
"Whereas the constitutional government of our beloved country
is in danger of being overthrown by the assaults of armed trai-
tors who, having solemnly sworn fealty and allegiance to that
glorious Constitution, formed by the wisdom of our fathers, and
having entered into a solemn compact with all the people of
the United States 'in order to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the
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