This beautiful town stands between the two lakes Winipiseogee and Sullivan and is deeply surrounded on every side with the most luxuriant rural beauty. The neighbourhood of these exquisite lakes, studded throughout with small green islands, burdened with foliage,—the lofty mountains, near and distant,—the fertility of the soil, and the healthiness of the spot, form a nucleus of attraction which gives Meredith great preference over other towns in New Hampshire. The Winipiseogee communicates, by the river of the same name, with the Merrimack River, and is near five hundred feet above the level of the sea.

This is the only part of New England, as far as we are aware, in which Indians were regularly hunted by parties who went out for the purpose, and received a bounty for their scalps. We have alluded elsewhere to Captain Lovewell, who surprised and killed a large party of sleeping Indians, and was killed himself afterwards, in the famous “Lovewell fight.” The following tragedy, which took place on the Merrimack, in what was, in those days, the neighbourhood of Meredith, shows the provocation to this apparent inhumanity. In the year 1697, a party of Indians, arrayed in their war dresses, approached the house of Mr. Dustan. This man was abroad at his usual labour.