When the great war for the suppression of the Southern Rebellion came on, and the life of the Union was at stake, the same old spirit was found unabated.  A descendant of the family of Raymonds, emulating the example of his ancestors, rallied his company to the front.  At the end of the war, Lieutenant-Colonel John W. Raymond brought back, in command, the remnant of his veteran regiment, with its tattered banners; two of his predecessors in that commission having fallen in battle.  The youthful patriot, William Lowell Putnam, who fell at Ball’s Bluff on the 21st of October, 1861, was a direct descendant of Nathaniel Putnam.  It is an interesting circumstance, that the names of men who trained in the foot company and with the troopers on the fields and roads about the village meeting-house two hundred years ago have re-appeared in the persons of their descendants, in the highest lines of service and with unsurpassed distinction, in the three great wars of America,—­Major-General Israel, and Brigadier-General Rufus, Putnam, in the War of the Revolution; Brigadier-General Moses Porter, in the War of 1812; and Major-General Granville M. Dodge, in the War of the Rebellion.  The last-named is a descendant of a hero of the Narragansett fight, and was born and educated in Salem Village.

Several lawsuits, particularly in land cases, have been referred to.  They indicate, perhaps, to some extent the ingredients that aggravated the terrible scenes we are preparing to contemplate.  They served to keep up the general intelligence of the community through a period necessarily destitute of such means of information as we enjoy.  Attendance upon courts of law, serving on juries, having to give testimony at trials, are indeed in themselves no unimportant part in the education of a people.  Principles and questions of great moment are forced upon general attention, and become topics of discussion in places of gathering and at private firesides.  Of this material of intelligence, the people of the village had their full share.  It was their fate to have their minds, and more or less their passions, stirred up by special local controversies thrust upon them.  As a religious society, they had difficult points of disagreement with the mother-church, and the town of Salem.  While they were supporting a minister and trying to build a meeting-house for themselves, attempts were made to tax them to support the minister and build a new meeting-house in the town.  There was a natural reluctance to part with them, and it was long before an arrangement could be made.  The great distance of many of the farmers from the town prevented their exercising what they deemed their rightful influence in municipal affairs.  They felt, that, in many respects, their interests were not identical, and in some absolutely at variance.  These topics were much discussed, and with considerable feeling at times on both sides.  The papers which remain relating to the subject show that the farmers understood it in all its bearings, and maintained their cause with clearness of perception and forcibleness of argument and expression.  At one time, they were very desirous to be set off as a distinct town, but this could not be allowed; and, finally, a sort of compromise was effected.  A partial separation—­a semi-municipality—­was agreed upon.  Salem Village was the result.