Gather 'round the fire, kiddies, it's time for some Concord Fables. The Insider dug up stories of Concord's legendary figures, and we think these historical heroes are every bit as exciting as Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. Those guys just had better representation. We've taken these stories, with little or no editing, straight from the pages of “The History of Concord,” by Nathaniel Bouton. Buckle up your buckskin and get your ramrods ready, we're about to take a trip back to pioneer times.
This installment of Concord Fables is all about Reuben Abbot, of the famed Abbot family. Reuben was a quite a specimen. He cleared land, blazed trails, and told tall tales. And did he fight a bear in a boat? You bet he did!
Reuben Abbot, son of James Abbot, was born in Andover and came to Penacook when a lad, with his father, about 1735. He was one of the most extraordinary men of his generation. Tradition affirms that when he was born he weighed but 4 pounds, and, as an object of curiosity, was put into a quart tankard and the lid shut down. His head and ears could be covered with a common-sized tea-cup.
As a young man he was distinguished for activity, strength, enterprise and energy. He drove the ox-team that conveyed the dead bodies of the townspeople who were massacred in the Indian raid of 1746. He and his brother James cleared and settled on land west of Long Pond, which was given them by their father, about 1754. Reuben built the house where his grandson Reuben and great-grandson Reuben Kilburn, would live. During his long life he was one of the most energetic and enterprising men in that section of the town. He was 6 feet in height, robust and strong, with bright blue eyes, and in old age very venerable in appearance. When 80 years of age he could swing a scythe and mow his swath with any man. At 90 years he shaved himself with a razor which he had owned 70 years. In shaving he never used a glass, but sat in his chair, and after lathering, placed the back of his razor carefully on his face, and turning it, shaved off the beard.
He would often relate the dangers and hardships he endured in the early period of the settlement. He said he used to kill deer enough to give him fresh meat through the winter, and also to salt down for summer. The deer-skins he dressed for mittens and for leather breeches, which, with a cocked hat, he continued to wear as long as he lived.
Among the stories of his exploits, which used to puzzle the children and grandchildren, were these: “That he once shot a deer with a single ball, and made six holes through its skin;” and at another time “he shot and killed a deer without making any hole in its skin, or even drawing blood.” After guessing in vain how it could be, the old man gratified the curiosity of his listeners by saying that in the first instance the ball passed through the fore legs and brisket of the deer, thus making six holes in the skin; and in the second, the bull entered one eye of the deer and lodged in its head.
Once, while in a boat on Long Pond, fishing, Abbot discovered a bear swimming towards him. Having his gun, he shot and wounded the bear, which thereupon, terribly enraged, still made for the boat. With the oars he defended himself, beat the bear off, and escaped without injury.
Abbot was a Puritan, of strict religious principles, a member of the church under Rev. Walker, constant at public worship, and careful to “command his children and household after him to keep the way of the Lord.” He retained his mental faculties in a good degree till the close of life. In his ninety-fifth year he related the incidents of the massacre in 1746, with surprising accuracy; and living long enough to see descendants of the fourth generation bearing his own name, Reuben, in the house which he built, he died May 13, 1822, aged 99 years and 10 months – being the oldest man that ever lived in Concord.
