The first settler in Hollis, New Hampshire, was Captain Peter Powers. He removed thither in 1731. His nearest neighbor, for a time, was ten miles distant; and in order to exchange courtesies it was necessary for the families to cross the Nashua river. It had but one convenient and safe fording place in that vicinity, and that one only when the river was low.

Having occasion, on a pleasant August morning, to visit her neighbor, Mrs. Powers mounted a Narraganset, hastened away, and reached the place of destination long before noon. Early in the after part of the day a fearful thunderstorm came up, and continued for several hours. Just at sunset the clouds began to break away, and Mrs. Powers immediately started on her return. She did not reach the river until some time after dark; and coming to the ford, she found the bank full and the water—as a narrator of the incident has it—"pressing on it with great rapidity." Added to this alarming circumstance, the wind had shifted and rolled the clouds up the sky again, so that the rain was descending in torrents, and drowning the threatening voice of the waves. Trusting to the experienced animal to keep the ford, and giving a slack rein, without realizing the danger, the courageous woman plunged into the black stream. The steed almost instantly lost its foothold, and "rolling in the waves at a full swim," made for the opposite shore. Missing the ford, and striking a forefoot on a rock in the bed of the stream, the animal was raised momentarily half way out of the water. Then plunging forward, it sank so deep that Mrs. Powers was raised from the pommel; but seizing the horse's mane as it rose, she held her grasp till they were safely on shore. The faithful animal soon found the right track, and in a brief hour Mrs. Powers was under the shelter of her cabin.