DEACON REUBEN MARTIN AND FAMILY

Reuben Martin must have taken up his residence in this town within twenty years after its first settlement.  The precise date has not been ascertained by the writer.  He came, while a young man, from New Hampshire, it is believed from Weare, or some town in its immediate vicinity.   He made for himself a farm on the highest elevation over which the old South road from Bradford Village to Corinth Center now passes: where he long lived, and  finally died.    His brother Samuel, father of Rev.  Solon Martin, now of West Fairlee, occupied a farm a little further West.    Reuben Martin was for several years a Deacon of the first, and only Calvinistic Baptist church in Bradford, whose meeting house stood at the North end of the Upper Plain, nearly opposite to where Mrs. James McDuffee now lives.   Both the church and their house of worship had disappeared long before his decease; but he held fast his integrity, and honorably sustained his ecclesiastical title to the day of his death.  The wife of Deacon Reuben Martin was Sarah White, a daughter of Hon. Noah White, for some time one of the Judges of Orange County Court. Her parents emigrated from Haverhill, Mass., in 1763. They passed through the then trackless wilderness between Concord, N. H., and Newbury, Vt., bringing their infant Sarah in their arms, and camping out at night on the ground, with no roof over their heads but the star spangled canopy of the heavens.  The family remained at Newbury for a few years only, when they removed to Bradford, where this daughter subsequently united with the Baptist church, married Dea.  Reuben Martin, and became the mother of four sons and seven daughters : all of whom lived to years of maturity, and nearly all married and had respectable families of their own. This mother in Israel having lived in Bradford a little over seventy-two years, on 7th of June, 1840, at the age of seventy-nine years and nine months, passed away, sustained and cheered by the hope of a glorious immortality.

The early settlers with large families were sometimes reduced to what we should now think rather straightened circumstances. On one occasion, as we are told, Deacon Martin, to obtain bread for his family, traveled to Weare, N. H., a distance of one hundred miles or over, and brought home, on his horse's back, one bushel of rye and two bushels of corn.

Dea. Reuben Martin died at his old home, in Bradford, May 23, 1841. aged eighty-six years, one month and four days.

The children of these parents were,

1 William Martin, born December 5, 1782, a man of excellent moral character, and a highly esteemed physician, who for several years practiced in this town. His residence was on the South road, some half or three-quarters of a mile East of his father's. He married Huldah Kidder, of West Fairlee ; and died October 22, 1841, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, leaving her with four children. Both the Doctor and his wife were members of the Congregational church in this place. 

2 Daniel Martin, born November 6,1784 ; he remained through life a worthy citizen of Bradford, and died March 7, 1870, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. I give here some extracts from an obituary notice, which I prepared for publication soon after his decease.  Daniel Martin, Esq., married Sophia Tyler, a worthy woman of Randolph, Vt., with whom he lived happily for a little over fifty-six years, and who bore to him three sons and three daughters, and departed from this life January 17, 1870, only eight weeks before his own decease.  These parents, thus united in life and in death, left but one surviving child, their daughter Britana, now Mrs.  Samuel T. Shaw; and one grand-daughter,  by an older sister of Mrs. Shaw, who married Micah Norcross, Esq.  This grand-daughter is now the wife of Mr. Prescott Davis. To these two ladies Esquire Martin is understood to have bequeathed his property, to their entire satisfaction. He was a man of correct habits, who wished to have all matters of business rightly transacted and settled.

On this account, and in view of his well-known integrity and capability, he was called by his fellow-townsmen to the performance of various official trusts and duties.  For some years he officiated as one of the town listers, overseer of the poor, and justice of the peace, if not in other offices. As justice of the peace he is said to have been chosen for twenty-four years in regular succession, and then, after a short vacation, for several years more.  Esquire Martin probably knew more, from personal acquaintance, respecting the early inhabitants of this town, and of its by-gone events and transactions, than any person now living; and it is to be lamented that he did not leave, as he had been earnestly requested, a written statement of his vivid and interesting recollections.  One singular incident he once related to the writer of this notice. He said, on a certain occasion in the early settlement of this town, about forty horses were sent late in autumn from Haverhill, Mass., and turned loose into the meadows along on the Connecticut River to browse on the wild grass and on bushes through the winter, and take care of themselves as they would ; and that in the spring they were taken out in good condition. Such a saving of hay and oats and care, on the part of horse keepers is not, however, likely to be again attempted.  Esquire Martin's farm joined on the East that of his father; where, devoted chiefly to agricultural pursuits, in the practice of industry, frugality and strict temperance, and in pleasant intercourse with his neighbors, he passed his somewhat protracted life in quietude and comfort.  He did not seem to grow old as many do, but retained the various capacities and powers, both mental and corporeal, of mature manhood remarkably. When over eighty years of age, lie was in conversation still social and cheerful, and in his movements erect and sprightly. A neighbor relates that on a certain occasion he saw him, when thus advanced in years, catch his horse, which had strayed a little away, put on its bridle, and from the middle of the road spring on to its back and ride off, as if he had been in the vigor of youth.

He never made any public profession of religion, but was strictly moral, and is understood to have expressed a hope that in early life he had found his Savior to be precious; and when, in old age, stricken down by paralysis, but still blessed with the full exercise of mental powers, he died peacefully, hoping for salvation through Him alone.

Very few of our inhabitants of an age so great as was that of this venerable man are now left. All will soon be gone. May they, without exception, have their lamps trimmed and burning, ever ready for the coming of their Lord, however suddenly that momentous event may occur.

"The fathers, where are they? What man is he that liveth and shall not see death.

3 Anna, eldest daughter of Dea. Reuben Martin, born October 23, 1786, died a worthy maiden. 

4 Hannah, born February 15, 1789, became the second wife of Jeremiah Corliss, of Bradford, had two daughters and one son, and died November, 1867, aged seventy-eight years and nine months.   See the Corliss family. Biographie Index

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