" Flint returned the
challenge with a suit, which I think was adjusted without a trial, but
the controversy contributed to the dissolution of the settlement.
Flint left the town to which he returned once in my boyhood and
preached a sermon in the new meetinghouse, that had been substituted
for the old one used in the days of Zabdiel Adams, of Timothy Flint,
and David Damon.
After leaving Lunenburg Flint went with his family to the valley of the
Mississippi, and led the life of a wanderer, floating down the river
with his family and making his way back as best he might. In these
expeditions children were born and children died. He wrote two
romances founded on Western primitive life, and a history of the
Mississippi Valley. Time may give to his works a value that they did
not appear to possess when they were published. Flint was recognized
in the town as a man of ability, but he failed to secure the
affections or even the confidence of the people. He was a man of
ready faculty, being able to write his sermons Saturday evening, with
his children around him.
Parson Adams, a cousin of John Adams and the predecessor of Flint, had
lived among his people as a chieftain. He was not only the spiritual
teacher, he was supreme in most other matters. Unlike the Adams family
generally, he had a rough wit and a sententious practical wisdom about
common things not unlike the kindred conspicuous qualities in Dr.
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