THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Ex Libris Katharine F Richmond and Henry C. Fall \l . /Ci^J^^^r-y +269 f, > WAYSIDE JOTTINGS OR RAMBLES AROUND THE OLD TOWN OF CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, AND ITS SUBURBS BY HOWARD M. COOK CONCORD, N. H. EDSON C. EASTMAN 1910 To My THREE GRANDCHILDREN, DORIS G. COOK, MARION H. COOK, AND FRED L. COOK, THIS VOLUME is AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 1066722 PREFACE The reason for the writing and publication of THE WAYSIDE JOTTINGS may be told in a few words. I had been reading Charles W. Brewster's "Ram- bles About Portsmouth," published first in the Portsmouth Journal, of which he was the editor, and republished in a book form. The thought oc- curred to me that a series of local sketches of Con- cord and its suburbs might be of interest. I had been a resident of Concord for about fifty years, and during that time had taken a good many ram- bles around the old town. I was also somewhat familiar with its history. Accordingly I began this series of local sketches in the Concord Evening Monitor in the fall of 1907, and continued the writing of them till the spring of 1909. Some of the miscellaneous sketches were published in the Concord Daily Patriot, till thirty- five of them have appeared from time to time in these local newspapers. I have been interested in writing them and their publication in book form has been a labor of love, as whatever returns are received over and above the cost of publication will be devoted for the benefit of my three grandchil- dren, whose names appear in the dedication. I am under especial obligations to some of the older residents of Concord for their appreciation of the "Jottings" and for their testimonials as to its vi Preface merits, which were of material assistance in secur- ing advance subscriptions enough to defray the cost of publication. I am also indebted to Henry McFarland, the author of the interesting volume, "Sixty Years in Concord and Elsewhere," for advice, and who kindly offered to make any needed corrections in the copy. I got a good deal of historical informa- tion from Dr. Nathaniel Bouton 's ' ' History of Con- cord," and also from the "New History of Con- cord," compiled by the History Commission. I hope that the readers of this volume will be interested in its perusal and will agree with the opinion of Arthur H. Chase, librarian of the state library, as given in his testimonial: "The state library has subscribed for THE WAYSIDE JOTTINGS because it believes the series of local sketches to be of important and reference value. ' ' HOWAKD M. COOK. CONTENTS I. First ramble about Concord commences at the corner of South Main and Pleasant Streets. Pleas- ant Street to South Street. Through this street to Broadway and Rollins' Park. II. Rollins' Park to Wheeler's Corner, through South Street to Bow Mills. Turkey River. Na- thaniel H. Carter's tribute to it. His poem, "To My Native Stream." III. Bow Mills to "Portsmouth" bridge. Whittier's tribute to the Merrimack in his poem, "Our River." Through Hall Street to the old Rolfe mansion. The home of Benjamin Thompson, af- terwards known as Count Rumford. IV. Butters' Tavern, an old-time hostlery. Ramble along the west side of South Main Street. The old residents on the line of this street of fifty or more years ago. Arrival at the starting point of our first ramble. V. Plan of Main Street as it appeared in 1827. Main Street formally laid out in 1785. Pleasant viii Contents Street formerly known as the "Hopkinton Road." The visit of George Thompson and John G. Whittier to town in 1835. Their mobbing. "Pleasant View," the home at this time of Mary Baker G. Eddy. VI. Garrisons built in the town of Rumf ord in 1733- '46. Number 4 garrison located on the line of Pleasant Street at Millville. The sites of six other garrisons. VII. The Rumf ord massacre on the "Hopkinton Road" in 1746. The dedication of the Bradley monument in 1837. St. Paul's School and the first rector, Dr. Henry E. Coit. VIII. Changes in North Main Street in fifty years. The conflagration of August, 1851. The remodeled court house. The site of the first log meeting house. The North Church. Dr. Nathaniel Bou- ton, its fourth pastor. The destruction by fire of the "Old North" Church in 1870. IX. The Old North Cemetery. Site selected in 1730. Blossom Hill Cemetery. Consecrated July 13, 1870. Exercises at the consecration. X. East side of South Main Street. The change in its appearance in fifty years. Some of the old resi- dents. Contents ix XI. The first religious service in Concord Sunday, May 15, 1726. The battle between the Penacooks and Mohawks on "Sugar Ball" bluff. The East Concord Congregational Church. SewalTs Falls. Great expectations of East Concord as a manu- facturing center. "Elmcroft" built in 1755. XII. East Concord again. "The Port" its original name. Scotch-Irish the first settlers. The old ferries on the Merrimack. The first bridge that spanned the river erected in 1795. XIII. The primitive way of worship in Concord. The formation of the West Concord Church in 1832. Rev. Asa P. Tenney its first minister. "Rock-Ribbed" Rattlesnake Hill. XIV. Penacook. The ' ' Burrough. ' ' Joseph Walker the first settler. The first woolen mill built by Richard Kimball and Jeremiah Abbott. XV. Two hundred and fifty men enlisted in the Civil War from Penacook. The death of Maj. William Brown at Fort Steadman, Va. The Baptist Church dedicated in 1858. The Penacook House built in 1787. The Bonney brothers. Dustin's Island. Dedication of the monument to Hannah Dustin June 17, 1874. x Contents XVI. On the line of the "Old Hopkinton Road." Dimond Hill. Isaac N. Abbott's home. The birth- place of Grace Fletcher Webster. The Kimball garrison. XVII. Hopkinton village. The old residents of the vil- lage in the forties. Once the temporary capital of New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Antiqua- rian Society. XVIII. St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Hopkinton village. Erected in 1827-'28. The Lafayette elm. The general's visit to Hopkinton in 1825. XIX. The execution of Abraham Prescott January 6, 1837, at Hopkinton village. Probably the cause of the erection of the New Hampshire State Hos- pital at Concord. The old Fletcher house. XX. Bow, one of the hill towns of Merrimack County. "Meeting-House HilL" Wood Hill and the Old Home Day celebration held in Hammond's grove on its summit. XXI. On the road to Dunbarton. The Oliver Bailey farm. The birthplace of Henry M. Putney. Dun- barton Center, "a city set on a hill." The old town house. Some teachers in the old-time schools. Contents xi XXII. Rattlesnake Hill in the West Concord district. Interesting facts from the "New History of Con- cord" in regard to the development of the granite industry. XXIII. Lake Penacook, a gem in the crown of Concord. The evolution in the methods of supplying water for domestic uses. The history of the Concord water works. XXIV. Concord's shade trees. Rev. Timothy Walker planted the first North End elms in 1764. The "Webster-Coffin Elm" planted in 1782. Other fine elms. The rock maples. The Washington oak on Stickney Hill. XXV. The old-time stores and merchants of Concord. The modern way of displaying goods. W. W. Easterbrook Old-time merchants. XXVI. C. C. Webster, the veteran grocer. Webster & Tuttle the first firm to deliver groceries. Main Street in the early fifties and the merchants at that time. XXVII. Concord not famed as a manufacturing center. A pleasant rural city. A large amount of mental suffering within its borders in hospital and prison. What the railroads have done for Concord. MI Contents i XXVIII. Up and down the Merrimack in the old boating days. The era of the canal boat. The Merrimack in the days of inland navigation. The method of the propulsion of the boats. XXIX. The logging days on the Merrimack. Anecdote of Rev. Augustus Woodbury. Amoskeag Falls, the favorite resort of the Indians. Gen. John Stark. XXX. A chat with the Webster Elm. Set out in 1782 by the Coffin brothers. Reminiscences of the olden time as given by the elm. The burning of the Old North Church in 1870. XXXI. A trip to Manchester on the electrics. Pembroke Street. Pembroke granted to the heirs of the sur- vivors of the Lovewell expedition. The Blanchard Academy and the gymnasium. XXXII. Rev. Abraham Burnham, an old-time minister of Pembroke. Reminiscences of him by a student at Blanchard Academy. Hooksett and its odd name. Bonney's tavern. Down the turnpike to Man- chester. The new North End in the Queen City. XXXIII. Gov. Frank W. Rollins' recollections of the North End. He speaks of it as he remembered it when a boy. Fort Eddy and the Indian associ- ations. Contents xiii XXXIV. Governor Rollins' reminiscences continued. A sketch of those who lived at the North End. XXXV. Governor Rollins' reminiscences concluded. The burning of the North Church. The days of the old hand-engines. The Old North when occu- pied as the Methodist Institute. XXXVI. The "Plains." Formerly a great place for for- est fires. The Merrimack Agricultural Society fair ground. The "glacial epoch." The camp- ground of the State Guard. XXXVII. Conclusion of the "Jottings." The physical characteristics of Concord. A goodly heritage for the dwellers in it. A law-abiding city. Its edu- cational privileges. The early settlers, religious men and women. What has the future in store for our rural city on the banks of the Merrimack ? WAYSIDE JOTTINGS WAYSIDE JOTTINGS I. When the late Charles W. Brewster was editor of the Portsmouth Journal, he published in that paper a series of local sketches, entitled, "Rambles About Portsmouth. ' ' They were largely of an his- torical character, were afterwards published in two volumes and were highly interesting. They were authority on local historical matters, and it is per- haps due to this fact that no regular history of Portsmouth has ever been written. Though Con- cord is not so rich in historical associations as Old Strawberry Bank, yet there are a number of ram- bles that one can take around the city that will bring to mind matters and events in Concord's his- tory that would be interesting and profitable to consider. For instance : Our first ramble might be laid out so as to include Pleasant Street to South Street ; down South Street to Broadway; down Broadway, through Rollins' Park, to Rockingham Street; thence to Wheeler's Corner at the junction of South Street and the Iron Works Road ; then along South Street to Bow Mills; thence by the road to Bow Crossing and Bow Junction ; returning by the 4 Wayside Jottings way of Hall, Water and South Main Streets to our point of starting, making a ramble of probably six or eight miles. It carries one a little way out of Concord into the famous town of Bow, which in the days of Timothy Walker, claimed jurisdiction over the most of Concord, then the town of Rumford, and but for Mr. Walker going to England and successfully contending against this claim, we might now be inhabitants of Bow, and that town the capital of New Hampshire. Our ramble, then, commences at the southwest corner of South Main and Pleasant Streets, where the Acquilla building now stands. Memory goes back to the time when the first South Church stood upon this site. The writer attended the last ser- vice held in this church, on a Sunday evening in the summer of the year 1859. The Rev. Mr. Trask, familiarly known as "Anti-Tobacco Trask," held forth at that time against the use of the weed. Whether his fervid denunciations had anything to do with the destruction of the church, the writer is not prepared to state, but this church on that night was numbered with the five churches of Concord that from time to time went up in flame and smoke, the others being the old North, the new North and the First and Second Unitarian churches. No doubt the site of the new South Church, on Pleas- ant Street, is a more desirable one ; but an historic residence was thence removed, where Col. William A. Kent lived for so many years ; and under whose roof Lafayette was entertained on his visit to this Wayside Jottings 5 country ; where Daniel Webster often stopped, and where Ralph Waldo Emerson was married. The site of the Pleasant Street Baptist Church was once occupied as the residence of Hon. Thomas W. Thompson, once a member of Congress from this state. This house was moved a short distance on to Elm Street, in the rear of this church, and made over into tenements, as the Kent house was moved to South Spring Street, and is now the home of W. A. Stone, Jr. Near the corner of Pleasant and South Streets was the home of Gov. Walter Harriman, who was one of the best stump speakers that the writer remembers of hearing in the old-time political campaigns in New Hampshire. The next house south, now the home of John P. Nutter, was formerly the residence of Judge Matthew Harvey, who was also a governor of New Hampshire way back in the thirties. South Street is of a generous width and is lined for the most part with a good class of houses. Amongst the earliest to be erected, at the north end of the street, were the houses that were owned and occupied by Col. Ephraim Hutchins, one of Concord's post- masters, now owned by Harry G. Emmons; the house occupied by Daniel H. Fletcher, one of Con- cord's old-time builders, now owned by Nathaniel E. Martin; the house occupied by Gov. Nathaniel B. Baker, another of New Hampshire's governors, now owned by Mrs. Alonzo Downing. Farther along the street, G. D. Huntley and W. E. Emer- son have erected good-looking and comfortable 6 Wayside Jottings homes; Norris A. Dunklee and Hiram 0. Marsh added to the attraction of the street in the erection of their substantial homes ; and now W. M. Cressy, the playwright, has added to these by the erection of a fine residence on the corner of South and Lincoln Streets. It strikes the writer that sometime in the near or remote future the locality at the intersection of South, Downing, West, Broadway, and Clinton Streets, known aforetime as "Noyes' Corner," will be one of the business centers of Concord. Most of the travel that comes from the towns of Bow, Dunbarton and Weare passes through this inter- section of streets. Recently, a new grocery store has been built on the corner of Broadway and West Streets, and Homer Van Cor has filled it with a stock of goods. In the triangular plot of land, bounded by Broadway, West and South Streets, is a fine location for a small park, which might be a counterpart of that at the North End, at the junc- tion of North State and Penacook Streets. It would be also an appropriate place for the Rogers fountain, that we used to hear about on paper, but which has not as yet taken on a material form. Broadway is rightly named and is lined for a portion of its way with comfortable homes. Why more of the vacant lots, near the lower end of this street, have not been built upon, the writer is not prepared to answer. The streets on the west of it are fairly well occupied with dwellings. Its nearness to the Boston & Maine railroad shops Kntraiu'o to Rollins I'ark Kntranee to White Park Wayside Jottings 7 makes this section of the city a desirable one for homes for the workmen. Though the electric line furnishes a convenient means of getting up town, the laying of the track through South Street and Broadway has not improved them for purposes of driving. Rollins Park is one of the prettiest gems in the crown of Concord, and we may be sure that it will be so continued in the future annals of the city. How a lumberman would like to set a steam saw- mill in the grove and thus convert the noble pines into lumber, and make a howling wilderness of one of "God's first temples!" Some of these pines must be more than a century in age, and remind one of the time when all over the state old-growth pine was about the only kind of a tree that was fit to be used for lumber. But here on one of the seats is a good place to rest, as it were, in the first leg of our ramble, and to call to mind, as probably others have done who have come here for a restful time, those beautiful lines of Longfellow: If thou art worn and hard beset With trials that thou would'st forget; If thou would'st read a lesson that will keep Thy heart from fainting, and thy soul from sleep, Go to the hills and groves, no tears Dim the sweet look that Nature wears. 8 Wayside Jottings II. Going on the second leg of our ramble takes us along the old highway that lies on the west of Rollins' Park running from South Street to Rock- ingham Street. It takes us by the smaller park where the young deer are having the time of their lives, the high wire fence that surrounds the park, through whose valley runs Bow Brook, being a complete protection from the dogs and the hunters in the open season. A short distance along Rock- ingham Street brings us to Wheeler's Corner, which takes its name from the fact that the family of Wheelers, grandfather, father and grandson, we believe, were born or have lived in the old one- story house, probably all of one hundred and fifty years in age, that stands at the junction of South and Rockingham Streets and the Iron Works Road, this last name being given to this road from the fact that, years ago, iron ore, dug elsewhere, was made into pig iron at the mill near the bridge that spans Turkey River. Giles Wheeler, a descendant of the family from which this corner takes its name, lives in a neat cottage across the street from the old Wheeler house, which was his birthplace. Mr. Wheeler, in his profession of architect, has done a good work for Concord in designing and superintending the erection of structures of a private and public char- acter during the last forty years. Amongst the more prominent of the public buildings of which he Wayside Jottings 9 superintended the erection were the government building, the state library and the high school building on School Street. Though Mr. Wheeler is along in years, he is not laid on the shelf by any means, but is interested in the furtherance of the interests of the City of Concord. From Wheeler's Corner to Bow Mills, we pass by a succession of comfortable dwellings, the most of them being on small farms devoted to the raising of garden truck. The soil of these farms is light, similar in its character to that on the ''Plains," over the river. Timothy Hammond, near the lower end of the street, formerly a resident of Bow, has for some years been a successful raiser of carrots and onioYis mainly, for which he finds a ready sale. Ex-Congressman Baker resides with his brother, John B. Baker, on this street, just over the division line in Bow. Bow is unique among the other towns in Merri- mack County, at least, in that there is nothing within its borders that can be called a village. At Bow Center is a Baptist Church, the town house and perhaps a half dozen dwelling houses. At Bow Mills there is a somewhat larger collection of dwell- ings and a store, and a W. C. T. U. hall. The mill privileges here are good, and Mark Upton carries on quite a business at his sawmill and shingle mill. The old brick grist-mill has ground its last grist, and its water wheel has made its last revolution. It formerly was a place where a good share of the grain from Concord and surrounding towns was 10 Wayside Jottings ground, but other mills elsewhere now are doing its work. It would be interesting to know how many thousand bushels of grain have been ground in this old mill, between its upper and nether mill-stones, and so converted into food for man and beast. Turkey River, in some respects, is a peculiar stream; it also has a peculiar as well as homely name. As Nathanial H. Carter says in his poem, "To My Native Stream": What though obscure thy woody source, What though unsung thy humble course; What if no lofty classic name Gives to thy peaceful waters fame, Still can thy rural haunts impart A solace to this saddened heart. Though if its name is not a "lofty classic" one, once a year at least to old and young it is an euphonious name, one that is on everybody's lips, and what it represents is in everybody's mouth, at least if they have the price to pay for it. It takes its name from Turkey Pond, and the name was given to the pond from a fancied resemblance to a turkey Great Turkey Pond being the body; the stream that flows out of it being the neck, and Little Turkey Pond, into which it flows, being the head. Anyone looking at the map of Concord will see that it is as crooked a stream as can be found in this section of the state. Although Bow Mills is only about three or four miles due east, as the crow flies, from Truro Pond in Bow, its headwaters, yet this river takes a circuit of at least ten or a Wayside Jottings 11 dozen miles, going from this pond north as a brook, into Great Turkey Pond; thence nearly west into Little Turkey Pond ; thence in a southerly direction until it reaches Frye's Mills; then in an easterly direction, until it enters the Merrimack near Tur- key Palls, and thus boxing the compass. In going this distance there are on its course at least a half dozen good mill privileges, the best being at Turkey Falls and Bow Mills, the latter being now the only one in use. The writer has referred to Nathaniel H. Carter. He was one of Concord 's most talented citizens and lived on the banks of this river, on what is now known as Moor eland farm. He loved this, his "native stream," and showed his appreciation of it in the verses that he wrote during the last days that he passed in Concord prior to going to a foreign land, from which he never returned. His poem, "To My Native Stream," may perhaps take rank with Whittier's "Our Eiver," in which he sings the praises of the Merrimack; with Longfel- low's verses, "To the River Charles," or with Robert Burns 's tribute to "Bonnie Doon." We will quote two of the eleven verses of which it is composed : Along the Shannon, Doon and Tay, I've wandered many a happy day, And sought beside the Cam and Thames Memorials of immortal names; Or mingled in the polished train Of fashion, on the banks of Seine. 12 Wayside Jottings Yet not the less, my native stream, Art thou to me a grateful theme, Than when, in heedless boyhood's prime, I wove for thee the rustic rhyme, Ere other realms, beyond the sea, Had spread their fairest charms for me. Why should Turkey River have been so named merely because it flows out of Turkey Pond? There is an Indian came that, it seems to the writer, is a good deal more befitting. It is that of Tahanto, a sagamore of the tribe of the Penacooks, and who, as Prof. Amos Hadley intimates, in the new "History of Concord," was the original teetotaler in the plantation of Penacook. Fearful of its effect on the Indians, he hoped, if the settlers had brought with them liquor to sell, that they would pour it on the ground, "for it would make the Indians all one devil." And as Tahanto no doubt roamed along its banks and fished in its waters, what more appropriate name than his could be given to this river, flowing by the classic shades of St. Paul's, along with the other Indian names of the tributaries of the Merrimack. In this connection, it has always seemed to the writer that the names given to the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island are meaningless and far-fetched. How much more appropriate if these states had been named and known, respec- tively, as the State of Kennebec, the State of Merri- mack and the State of Narraganset; and the same might be said of some of the Middle and Southern Wayside Jottings 18 states, in receiving English names instead of Indian. And, going from the less to the greater, from the states to the country at large, how much more appropriate in every way if our great and universal Yankee nation should have been known as the United States of Columbia. III. It is but a short distance from Bow Mills to Bow Crossing, over which the trains of the Boston & Maine Railroad travel at full speed. Here we also strike the Merrimack at Turkey Falls, the second falls of that name, and so named from Turkey Eiver. A little farther along the bank of this river is Portsmouth bridge, so called, built in the early years of the Concord & Portsmouth Railroad, when it went straight down to Portsmouth instead of making a detour by way of Manchester. It is about the last of the old wooden bridges on the line of the railroad to Boston, and when its piers were built they were made wide enough to have a double track. But one line of track has, however, been as yet constructed, and has to do double duty for the passage of the steam and the electric cars. It is probable that before many years an iron or steel bridge will replace the wooden one, and then two tracks can be arranged, one for each road. The views in the bend of the Merrimack, just above this bridge, in the summer and fall months, are beautiful, and some summer residents, being of 14 Wayside Jottings that opinion, have built in a pine grove on the west bank of the river, a number of cottages. They could not be located in a place easier of access, as the electrics pass by the doors every half- hour in the summer time, and one has only to step from the car to his cottage. Mention was made in the last number of the "Wayside Jottings" of the love that Nathaniel H. Carter, the most famous of Concord's poets, had for the Turkey River, as was evinced in the verses that he wrote concerning it, two verses of which we quoted. John G. Whittier, all his life, was a dweller near the banks of the Merrimack, in his early home in Haverhill, Muss., and in his later one in Amesbury, a little farther down the river. It is doubtful if there are any fairer views along its course down the backbone of the Granite State to the sea than are to be seen on the ride by rail from Concord to Lowell. And it is the same Merrimack above Turkey Falls and Portsmouth bridge that it is at the "Laurels" near Amesbury, where Whit- tier read his poem, "Our River," at a summer fes- tival, some of the verses of which we quote: We know the world Is rich with streams Renowned In song and story, Whose music murmurs through our dreams Of human love and glory : We know that Arno's banks are fair. The Rhine has castled shadows, And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr Go singing down their meadows. Wayside Jottings 15 But while unpictured and unsung By painter or by poet, Our river waits the tuneful tongue And cunning hand to show it, We only know the fond skies lean Above it, warm with blessing, And the sweet soul of our Undine Awakes to our caressing. No fickle sun-god holds the flocks That graze its shdres in keeping; No icy kiss of Diane mocks The youth beside it sleeping: Our Christian river loveth most The beautiful and human; The heathen streams of Naiads boast, But ours of man and woman. The miner in his cabin hears The ripple we are hearing; It whispers soft to homesick ears Around the settler's clearing ; In Sacramento's vales of corn, Or Santee's bloom of cotton, Our river, by its valley-born, Was never yet forgotten. And thou, O mountain-born ! no more We ask the wise Allotter Than for the firmness of thy shore, The calmness of thy water, The cheerful lights that overlay Thy rugged slopes with beauty, To match our spirits to our day And make a joy of duty. In the opinion of the writer, and it is only his opinion, this is number one, Simon-pure, genuine, 16 Wayside Jottings yard-wide poetry ; one does not have to read it over a second time to find out what the rhymster is driving at. For instance, witness these highly poetic lines: And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr Go singing down their meadows. This is no doubt a veiled allusion to Robert Burns and Walter Scott, and the association of their names with two of Scotland's famous rivers. Whether it would be correct to affirm that the Merrimack goes "singing" down the wide inter- vales of Concord, the writer is not prepared to say. But there is no doubt that at Amoskeag Falls, especially in the springtime, it goes roaring and tumbling down over the big boulders, and which, if Southey could have seen, instead of writing a poem on ''How Does the Water Come Down at Lodore?" he would have written one on "How Does the Water Come Down at Amoskeag ? ' ' And he could also have thrown in a few more adjectives to describe the manner of its coming down. Hall Street, over which we pass after leaving Portsmouth bridge on our Vamble, is an intervale highway, and, as the Merrimack has been continu- ally changing its course, who knows but what this street may be where was once the bed of the river T Along this street are a number of farm houses and also dwellings, occupied by the workmen at the Boston & Maine Railroad shops. While the Merri- mack usually behaves itself and flows peacefully Wayside Jottings 17 between its banks, every few years, in the spring- time, it gets on a rampage and spreads itself out over the intervale, from " Sugar Ball" to Bow Crossing, and becomes a mighty river, a second Mississippi, in fact, and then these houses are com- pletely surrounded by water. One of these big freshets occurred some ten years ago, and another a few years previous, when the west section of the lower, or Concord bridge, was carried down stream. But this does not deter people from building along the line of the street, and in recent years a number of new and desirable homes have been erected, and there is room for more. Near the Junction of Hall and Water Streets, or situated on the triangular piece of land bounded by Hall, Water and Hammond Streets, stands the old Rolfe mansion, built by Col. Benjamin Rolfe nearly one hundred and fifty years ago, or in the year 1764. It is a good and well preserved speci- men of the old style houses of the colonial period, The good old Colony times When we lived under the king. A good picture of it, before it was enlarged for the use of the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum, is to be seen on page 108 of the new "History of Con- cord." Here Colonel Rolfe lived for a few years after his marriage to Sarah, the eldest daughter of Rev. Timothy Walker, the first minister of the town. After his decease, his widow married Benja- min Thompson, a schoolmaster, who came hither 18 Wayside Jottings from Woburn, Mass., to teach the young idea how to shoot, and who afterwards became famous as Count Rumford. His life is an interesting and eventful one and is well told in a volume of six hundred and eighty pages, written by Dr. George E. Ellis of Boston. There is no space in these "Jottings" to go into any particulars respecting him. Suffice it to say that his career in Concord, then known as Rumford, was an unpopular one, and coming here as he did about the time that our unpleasantness began with the Mother Country, with which he was suspected of being a sympa- thizer, he came to the conclusion that his room was more desired by the people of the town than his company. In November, 1774, he took French leave of the town, to avoid being mobbed, between two days, and never set foot on our soil again. There is no doubt that afterwards he would have liked to enter the Continental Army, and he would have made a splendid officer. As Doctor Ellis says: "There was one set of men whom he could never conciliate, who mistrusted his purposes and cast upon him lowering looks as they met him about the camp in Cambridge. They were the general and field officers from New Hampshire, who looked upon him as a dandy and an upstart, at least, if not also at heart a traitor. They would not associ- ate with him, still less confide in him. ... If the people of Concord (Rumford) and the jealous regimental officers of New Hampshire were respon- sible for depriving the patriot cause of an effective Wayside Jottings 19 military or executive servant, they may claim credit for furnishing Europe with a very eminent and practically useful philosopher." Count Rumford 's early life was made unpleasant on account of this unfounded jealousy, and his last days were made unhappy by an unfortunate second marriage to Madame Lavoisier, a French lady. Here, then, to this old home his daughter, the Countess of Rumford, came, after passing a few years with her father in Europe, in the month of July, 1844, and lived here till December 2, 1852, when she died, in the chamber where she was born, in her seventy-ninth year. It may be truthfully affirmed that if there had been no Count Rumford, who was blessed with wealth and also with a dis- position to use it for the benefit of others, there would have been no Rolfe and Rumford orphan asylum in Concord, on the banks of the Merrimack. IV. At the junction of South Main, Water and "West Streets, we pass, on the last leg of our ramble, an old landmark, one of the remaining old Concord taverns, the other one being the Washington House at the North End. It was generally known in its, palmy days as "Butters' Tavern," and is the oldest of these two, having been built in the year 1780, and was never painted, save by the weather brush of time. Henry McFarland, in his interesting chapter, in the new "History of Concord," on 20 Wayside Jottings "Canals, Stage Lines and Taverns," says: "Dur- ing the years of teaming, boating and staging, it held a desirable location and was a thriving inn. Its landlords were Samuel Butters, 1780-1811; Timothy Butters, 1811-1814; John Carr, 1814- 1822 ; Joshua Lynch, 1823-1829 ; George Saltmarsh, 1830 ; William Manley Carter, and Carter & Priest, 1831-1842; Leonard Bell, 1843; David N. Hoit, 1844-1845. In its later years it was known as the 'Concord Railroad House.' It was from 'Butters' Hill ' that the coming of President Monroe, on July 17, 1817, was announced by a salute by Capt. Richard Herbert's Concord artillery company, as he passed Concord bridge, and on through Main Street to the Washington House, kept then by Lemuel Barker, where he was entertained in a royal manner by the town authorities of Concord. But- ters' Tavern had an unbroken record of sixty-five years as a place of entertainment for man and beast." Public transportation in the olden times, as is well known, was carried on by the various stage lines that converged in Concord, and a multitude of teams was also required to transport all kinds of freight up and down the Merrimack Valley. The old taverns were the favorite stopping places for the teamsters over night; and Butters' Tavern seems to have been one of them. Some years ago, in conversation with William Carter, son of Manley Carter, a popular landlord in the thirties, he gave an account of the customs of the travelling public Wayside Jottings 21 in those days. Sometimes there would be as many as forty teams that stopped there over night. A good deal of accommodation was shown the teams- ters, as some of them would bring their "grub" along with them, and were privileged to eat it in the bar or dining room, paying for their lodging and the baiting of their teams. Those who pat- ronized the full "menu" paid fifty cents for supper, lodging and breakfast. This included a cigar and a glass of rum. During the open season these teams furnished a good share of the freight for the canal boats, that started from the boating house near the Concord bridge on their trip down the river, through the Middlesex canal, from Lowell to Boston; and getting freight from the boats on their return trip. In the winter, of course, this means of communication was suspended during the ice embargo, and then a long line of two-horse pung sleighs, painted red, loaded with produce from the north country and Vermont would pass down over the Londonderry turnpike to the "Hub," loaded down on their return with groceries and other sup- plies that were needed in the homes of the farmers. Country taverns in those days got their custom mainly from this source, and jolly times were wit- nessed within their walls when the teamsters tarried over night. We continue our ramble along the west side of South Main Street, and we come to a mechanical industry that has done more to build up the South End than any other in this section of the city, 22 Wayside Jottings which is now known as the Abbot-Downing Com- pany. The fame of this carriage manufactory is world-wide, and its products are A No. 1 in quality. The sign over the main entrance, on which is in- scribed the dates 1813-1873, indicates the year when Lewis Downing commenced operations in this line of business, and also the year that the Abbot- Downing Company was formed. Downing was a pioneer in the carriage and coach business in Con- cord; afterwards J. Stephens Abbot and sons suc- ceeded him at the old stand, Mr. Downing and his two sons carrying on the business farther up on Main Street, nearly opposite the Phenix Hotel. It would be interesting to know the number of vehicles of all kinds that have been made at this plant and distributed far and wide. If the pianofortes that the Chickerings of Boston have made in the eighty- three years since they commenced business (nearly 110,000), if placed end to end would reach from Boston to Portland, no doubt the vehicles made here in ninety-three years would reach from Con- cord to Portland and perhaps some miles beyond. On April 15, 1868, a train of thirty platform cars pulled out of Concord, on which were loaded thirty stage coaches, destined for the overland mail route to California. It was a sight that was never seen before or since in this city. A photograph was taken of this train, which adorns the walls of the office of the Abbot-Downing Company. Concord could ill afford to spare this company from its lines of industries, for it has been one of the old stand- Wayside Jottings 23 bys that has done its part to promote the prosperity of our city. South Main Street, years ago, more particularly the west side of it, was one of the principal resi- dential streets in Concord. The houses that line that side of the street are home-like, and are well set up and back from the street, with a wide side- walk and yard between them and the roadway that follows the ridge of land north to Fayette Street. To add to the attraction of this street, a row of noble elms, some of them all of a hundred years old, afford plenty of shade. Here have lived and died some of Concord's best citizens; and there is rather a mournful interest connected with the fact of the great changes that have taken place in these homes whole families having been removed, mainly by death, and there are but few of the old residents of fifty years ago that are left. Suppose we turn back the tide of time to the years of the fifties and bring to remembrance, if we can, those who were then dwelling in these homes. Just north of the Abbot-Downing Company's plant was the home of Lewis Downing, who came to Concord from Lexington, Mass., in 1813, and in the month of November of that year completed his first ' ' Con- cord wagon, ' ' every part of it having been made by hand labor. With him later lived J. C. A. Hill, his son-in-law. There was no Perley Street then laid out and on the site of the Catholic Church stood a cottage owned by Mrs. Merrill. Next was the large house occupied by James Goodridge and 24 Wayside Jottings Stephen Swett; and on the south corner of South Main and Thorndike Streets was the home of Wil- lard Williams, one of the foremen at the Abbot carriage manufactory. It was also distinguished as the abode of Gen. Franklin Pierce when he received the nomination of president of the United States in the summer of 1852. Of course, he was the most prominent resident on the line of the street, and regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in the state. New Hampshire ought to honor him with a statue in the state-house park, and perhaps some day he will be thus honored. On the north corner of Thorndike Street was the home of Charles Hutchins, and next north of that George Hutchins, brothers two of the old-time successful merchants of Concord. It was a peculiarly sad fate that befell George Hutchins and his wife, in being burned to death on a steamboat on the Ohio River in the fall of 1868, as they were journeying down the river to New Orleans to visit their son, Maj. B. T. Hutchins. The double brick dwelling house on the south side of Wentworth Avenue has been built since the years we are considering; the house that stands in the rear of this avenue was moved from the line of the street some years ago, and was the home of Abraham Prescott, the pioneer in this state in the manufacture of bass and double bass viols; and the double tenement to the south of it on this avenue was formerly the shop where these musical instruments were made and sent out into the world. The house next north, known as the Wayside Jottings . 25 Joseph Wentworth residence, has been built since the fifties ; it was built by Willard Williams, where he also lived, and with whom General Pierce re- sided, after becoming an ex-president, and where he died on October 8, 1869. Perhaps we should state that after Mr. Williams moved from the house on the corner of Thorndike Street to this house, Dr. J. H. Eames purchased it and lived there for a number of years; also for some years, Father Barry made his home in the rectory of the Catholic Church, till his tragic death in November, 1900. We are, however, considering mainly the dwellers along the line of the street in the fifties. North of the Wentworth house was the home of Samuel Fletcher, an old-time Concord lawyer; afterwards the house was remodelled and occupied by Judge Ira A. Eastman, and later by John M. Hill; on the south corner of Concord, formerly Cross Street, resided Mrs. Chase and Mrs. Kendall, sisters, Mrs. Chase afterwards marrying A. J. Pres- cott, he living there till his decease. Rev. Henry E. Parker, then pastor of the South Church, boarded in the family for a number of years. On the north corner of Concord Street, standing on the spacious grounds now owned by Hon. B. A. Kimball, was a long wooden block, which at first was occupied as the " Thompsonian Infirmary"; afterwards it was converted into tenements. Hon. J. H. Gallinger, in his interesting chapter, in the new History of Concord, on the "Medical Profes- sion," gives an account of the peculiar course of 26 Wayside Jottings treatment that was practiced at this "infirmary," to cure the ills that flesh is heir to. The methods mainly seemed to be to steam the disease out of the patient, and were successful, either in curing or killing him. It was one of the fads of that day ; a course of treatment, the antithesis of the "water cure," practiced in later years in the establish- ment of that name, located on the corner of North Main and Center Streets, now known as the Com- mercial House. Doctor Gallinger, in his article, re- lates the story of a good old orthodox minister, who resided in a neighboring town, and who made an exchange with one of his Concord brethren, arriving at the infirmary one Saturday night, suf- fering from a severe cold. He asked Doctor Thompson if he could get it out of him, so that he would be able to preach the next day, and was somewhat shocked when Doctor Thompson informed him that he "could steam hell and damnation out of him." Where Mr. Kimball lives in his beauti- ful and commodious home, which has been com- pletely remodelled, dwelt George B. Chandler, who. in the fifties was one of Concord's prominent bank- ers ; next was the home of Peter Sanborn, for some years state treasurer, filling that position, in the years of the Civil War, and at a time when large sums of money passed through his hands; and on the south corner of Thompson Street, probably named after Doctor Thompson, lived John F. Brown, who was the proprietor then of the Frank- lin book store. Wayside Jottings 27 On the north corner of Thompson Street dwelt Theodore French, at that time retired from busi- ness, who, in the earlier years of his life, was identified with the Merrimack Boating Company; and the double house, just north, was occupied by Rev. C. W. Flanders, pastor of the First Baptist Church, afterwards by Rev. B. P. Stone, the editor of the Congregational Journal. In the north part lived Gen. Joseph Low, the first mayor of Con- cord. Where St. Mary's School is pleasantly situ- ated was the home of Gov. Joseph A. GiLmore, afterwards of Judge Asa Fowler; it was built by Judge Hall Burgin. The Farrington brothers, who came from Hopkinton, lived in the double house on the north corner of Fayette Street. This and the General Low house style of architecture, in their day, were somewhat pretentious, being con- structed in a better style than the common run of houses, and have a substantial appearance. They were designed and built by John Leach, an old- time Concord architect and builder, who planned and built, if we mistake not, the first Unitarian Church which was destroyed by fire, and the First Baptist Church, which has survived all the other old churches. In the last years of his life, Mr. Leach built the brick house on the northeast corner of South State and Fayette Streets, where, we be- lieve, he died. The Doctor Smart house, that stood on the site of the Huntwood Terrace, and which was recently torn down and -removed to South Street, was moved 28 Wayside Jottings from North State Street, standing between the First Baptist and Universalist Churches. Its re- cent place was on the site of the shop of Timothy Chandler, the famous clockmaker, some of whose clocks are now probably ticking in the farm houses of New Hampshire. Next was the house where for some years Mr. Chandler lived, and at the time we allude, was occupied, we think, by the Neal family, one member of which is David L. Neal of the Statesman. This house was torn down, or re- moved, when J. Stephens Abbot erected his fine residence which took the place of his old home and was considered at the time the finest residence in Concord. On the adjoining lot on the north was the home of Franklin Evans, an old-time Concord merchant, and the last male survivor living on the west side of this street. Next was the home of James S. Norris, Concord's old-time baker and con- fectioner, successor to Ebenezer Symmes, who re- sided in the same house that Mr. Norris afterwards lived in, and which was moved to the lower end of South Spring Street, to make way for a better dwelling. The old bakery came next, which was burned at the time of the South Church fire, as was the old house occupied by Dr. W. H. Smart, which stood next to the church. We have now arrived at the Acquilla Block, the starting point of our six-mile ramble, situated on the site of the first South Church. It is probably the busiest, as well as the noisiest corner, on the line of Main Street, as it is the point of transfer Looking up I'leusant Street Looking up Main Street from Pleasant Wayside Jottings 29 and departure of the patrons of the electrics, that start on their trips every fifteen minutes, to and from North Main, South Main, West End and South End, beginning early in the morning and continuing till late at night. How the dwellers in the apartments near this corner manage to obtain a rest is not known to the writer; probably .they have got used to the noise, and would miss it if it should cease. Fifty years usually make a great change in the dwellers on the line of any of the streets of Con- cord, and the west side of South Main Street is no exception to this rule. The writer has compared notes with some of the lifelong residents on this street, and he finds of the residents of fifty years ago but few remain. Of those who have lived here, in the homes of their childhood, this length of time, we may name Mrs. J. C. A. Hill, daughter of Lewis Downing; Mrs. C. C. Lund, daughter of Theodore French; Miss Lizzie Evans, daughter of Franklin Evans; James H. Goodridge, son of James Good- ridge; Peter Sanborn, Jr., son of Peter Sanborn; James C. Norris, son of James S. Norris, who has recently occupied the home of his father. Some of the members of the families mentioned are living in town or elsewhere. These include George D. B. Prescott, son of Abraham Prescott, who lives on Pillsbury Street; Mrs. G. W. Crockett, daughter of James S. Norris, who lives on Pleasant Street; David L. Neal, and his sister, Mrs. H. L. Rand, children of Capt. David Neal, who live on North 30 Wayside Jottings State Street ; Edward A. Abbot, and his sister, Mrs. Gerald Wyman, children of J. Stephens Abbot, who live in Boston; Prof. J. H. Gilmore, living in Rochester, N. Y. ; Frank W. Gilmore, living in Hopkinton ; John L. Gilmore, living in Boston ; Addison Gilmore, living in Warner, sons of Gov. Joseph A. Gilmore; Rev. C. L. Hutchins, son of George Hutchins, living in Massachusetts. Possibly there are others. There were some good-sized families on the line of this street fifty years ago, notably the Hutchins, Prescott, Low and Gilmore families. V. On page 48, volume 1, of the new "History of Concord," there is a plan of Main Street as it ap- peared in the year 1827. As its name imports, it was the principal street in the village, serving both as a business and a residential street. In fact, there were no streets then laid out parallel to it, save South Street, which is not exactly parallel. Leading out of Main Street, on the west, were seven other streets, viz., Penacook, Franklin, Wash- ington, Center, School, Pleasant and West. This plan also shows that the territory lying between Pleasant and West Streets was mainly divided up into small farms, similar, probably, in extent to the "Eleven Lots" lying on Hall Street, between the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum and the Bow line. The names of the owners of these farms as given, were Chandler, Bullard, Harris, Thorndike, Down- Wayside Jottings 31 ing and Shute. These farms extended as far back as South Street, while the owners resided on the east line of the farms on what is now known as South Main Street; and thus whatever other busi- ness they may have had, it was carried on in con- nection with that of farming. Probably a good share of the residents on the line of Main Street, both North- and South, carried on farming in a small way with their other business, and were the owners of sections of intervale and forest land. Frances M. Abbott, in her interesting chapter in the new ' ' History of Concord, " on " Domestic Cus- toms and Social Life," says: "Main Street was slow in making, but there were early indications that it was to be the spinal column of the future town. It was formally laid out June 23, 1785. As originally planned, it would have been ten rods wide, but it was finally decided to contract it to its present dimensions, six rods, or about one hundred feet, which makes an ample thoroughfare. There is a tradition that the spacious Roby house, 207 North Main Street, built by Benjamin Kimball, and now occupied by his granddaughter, Mrs. Cyrus M. Murdock and Miss Lucy H. Kimball, and the Her- bert house, 224 North Main Street, both of which stand well back from the street, were intended to be set near the line of the proposed road. If Main Street had been built to these boundaries, few avenues or boulevards in the country would have surpassed its generous breadth." There were no sidewalks along Main Street for some years after it 32 Wayside Jottings was laid out, and pedestrians had to take to the road. Mr. Hadley, in the new "History of Concord," says that the Rev. Dr. McFarland, when pastor of the North Church, was wont at the coming of the first sleighing of each year to promulgate a rule from the pulpit in these words: ''Persons who drive in sleighs will please keep to the right, and let those who are afoot have the middle of the road." Pleasant Street, also known by the name of the "Hopkinton Road," was probably the most traveled highway leading out of Main Street. It was the main highway to Hopkinton, Dunbarton, North Bow, Weare and other towns beyond. It was laid out of a generous width, and for years has had the reputation of being the best street for a drive in town. In most directions, notably in that of West and East Concord, there are railroad crossings to be looked out for, and the cars for some distance are in close proximity to the line of these high- ways; but on Pleasant Street, save for the short distance from Main Street to Liberty Street, which has been invaded by an electric railway, there are none of these annoyances. Recent improvements in the macadamizing of the roadway, from Fruit Street to Millville, have made it a boulevard over which it is a pleasure to drive, especially in the early spring months, when other roads are nothing but mud. A good sidewalk, a section of which is of concrete, extends from the junction of Pleasant Street with Main Street to the iron bridge that Wayside Jottings 33 spans Turkey River at St. Paul's School, and this sidewalk is all of two miles in extent. Not only is Pleasant Street noted for its good roadway and sidewalk, but also for the various objects of interest that greet the eye as one passes along its way. Suppose we take this ramble out on the line of this old highway and if we find enough of interest to note down as we pass along, we may, before it is finished, wander over into the old town of Hopkinton, and finish our ramble at the Perkins Inn, the well known hostelry in Hop- kinton village, which still retains its old character for quiet and comfort, a village which has a Rip Van Winkle air, where Sundays and week-days are much alike; a characteristic which, in the opinion of the writer, will only be changed by the advent of Dr. Holmes' "broomstick train;" this of course to run out from the "Hub" of New Hampshire. We start, as we did on our first ramble, from the Acquilla building at the junction of Pleasant and Main Streets. There is one thing about Pleasant Street that makes it a different street from others in town, in that upon its line are situated most of the philanthropic institutions that have been built in our city. The New Hampshire Hospital for the Insane, starting in the forties from small begin- nings, having its origin, it is said, in the legal taking off of Prescott, a demented man, has in- creased from year to year, till its buildings cover a large space on one of the finest locations in town. In fact, when this institution was located here Con- 34 Wayside Jottings cord lost one of its best, if not the best section for residences. Opposite its grounds, on the north side of the street, is the Old Ladies' Home, opened in 1876, the centennial year of our nation's history. It is one of the best institutions of its kind in the state, and its usefulness will increase as the years go by. The additions recently made to this home have added much to its external appearance and to the comfort of its inmates. It stands on the site of the home of George Kent, one of Concord's old- time lawyers and bankers, where George Thompson, the English abolitionist, stopped on his first visit to Concord in the year 1835. Mr. Thompson came perilously near being mobbed, and only escaped by taking French leave of the town. On his second visit to Concord, in the year 1884, he met with a very different reception, and gave an eloquent address in Eagle Hall, before a large audience, com- posed of our best citizens. Visiting Concord in company with Mr. Thompson was John G. Whit- tier, the Quaker poet. He was the guest of Hon. William A. Kent, the father of George Kent, whose residence was on the site of the South Church, farther down on Pleasant Street. Mr. Whittier got off with a pelting from the mob of stones, dirt and eggs; of course they were rotten ones. It is said that in after years he found much fun in re- ferring to his Concord experience, and was fond of exhibiting the egg-stained coat that he wore on that eventful evening. It was probably Mr. Whit- tier's first and last visit to Concord. It was the Centennial Home for the Asred Odd Fellows' Home Wayside Jottings 35 most disgraceful event that ever occurred on this street. And, by the way, George Kent was a brother of Edward Kent of Bangor, Me., who in the "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign of 1840. was elected governor of the Pine Tree State, and whose election was announced in the famous and expressive couplet: Maine went hell bent For Governor Kent. Then there is the Odd Fellows' Home, another institution which has been the means of helping the old and needy members of that fraternity in their journey on the down hill of life. The Merri- mack County jail is not exactly on the line of this street, though nearly so. It is more of a penal than a philanthropic institution, and will probably be a necessity so long as human nature is what it is, or till the dawn of the millennium. It must have been an oak grove that William Cullen Bryant had in mind when he declared in one of his poems that ' ' The groves were God 's first temples." Though the oak grove on the line of Pleasant Street, standing on the grounds of the Odd Fellows' Home, has been thinned out some- what by the cutting down of the decayed trees, yet it is still a beautiful grove and we doubt if there is a finer one in Concord. Here, as is well known, is where Gen. Franklin Pierce planned to build a residence in which to spend the last years of his life. "Man proposes, and God disposes," is the old adage, and the tragic death of an only son in 36 Wayside Jottings a railway accident in Andover, Mass., in the fall of 1852, shortly before General Pierce was elected president of the United States, changed all of these plans. This grove fronts on the east end of the boulevard, which Concord would probably never had but for the public spirit evinced by Mary Baker G. Eddy, in bearing a good part of the ex- pense of its construction. One result of this im- provement was the re-laying out of the street, near this point, so that there are two reverse curves in it, which adds to its beauty. There is a line of fence in front of the grounds of Pleasant View, the home of Mrs. Eddy, part of it being of iron, and a part of substantial wooden rails and stone posts, that suggests durability as well as appropriateness. Such an expensive line of fence is seldom seen out- side the limits of the compact part of a town or city. The view from a point on the line of this street, to the east of Pleasant View, and which, by the way, is rightly named, is a fine one. There is an open stretch of country to the east, south and west, so that at least parts of eights towns in Merrimack and Hillsborough counties are to be seen. These include the hills of Chichester, Pembroke. Epsom and Allenstown to the east, and Bow and Dunbar- ton to the south and west; while elevations in Weare and Francestown are also visible. From "Rum Hill," an elevation in the rear of Prof. -John F. Kent's residence, a more extensive view is obtained and probably as many as a dozen towns are visible. State Library Hi.- Old State II..U- Wayside Jottings 37 VI. There were seven " standing" garrisons and three temporary ones erected for the protection of the inhabitants of the town of Rumford in the years 1733-1746, from the incursions of the Indians. One of these was located near the junction of the old Hopkinton Road, now known as Pleasant Street, and the highway leading to Dunbarton. The in- scription on the granite tablet, placed on or near the site of this garrison, is as follows : Site of RUMFORD GARRISON No. 4 Around House of JONA EASTMAN To Which Were Assigned May 15, 1746 Eight Settlers With Their Families. The sites of the other garrisons have similar tablets, and their locations were as follows: The Rev. Timothy Walker Garrison on the east side of North Main Street, near the residence of Joseph B. Walker; the Lieut. Jeremiah Stickney Garrison, on the east side of North Main Street, near the site of the new Stickney block, near Bridge Street ; the Timothy Walker, Jr., Garrison, on the west 88 Wayside Jottings side of South Main Street, near its junction with Thorndike Street; the Deacon Joseph Hall Gar- rison, near the junction of Hall and Water Streets; the Henry Lovejoy Garrison, at the West Parish, on the Levi Hutchins farm; the Capt. Ebenezer Eastman Garrison, near the site of the railroad station, East Concord. These were the "stand- ing" or permanent garrisons. The three others, or temporary garrisons, were the Edward Abbott Garrison, on the corner of North Main and Mont- gomery Streets, the house still standing ; the James Osgood Garrison, at the junction of North Main and Depot Streets, on the site of the First National Bank ; and the George Abbott Garrison, on Fayette Street, near its junction with South Main Street. It would seem that the different sections of the town were well protected from Indian attacks. When the noble red man of the forest was on the war path for scalps, the settlers and their families, belonging to these respective garrisons, left their own houses and repaired thither. Men labored in the field in parties, with guns at hand, and not unfrequently with a mounted guard. Three alarm guns from a fort announced approaching Indians, and put the settlement on its guard. These garrisons greatly contributed to the safety of the first residents of Rumford. and were a good illustration of the old adage that ' ' an ounce of pre- vention is worth a pound of cure." For without this protection they would, in all probability, have been wiped off the face of the earth in the in- Wayside Jottings 39 cursions of the St. Francis Indians, and the town would have been the scene of a wholesale massacre, before which the Bradley massacre would have paled into insignificance. The writer is not aware that these Canadian Indians ever made an attack on any of these garrisons. The Indian 's character- istics were cunning and deceit, treachery and re- venge, and acted on the old adage that "discretion was the better part of valor," consequently their usual method of attack was by ambush, and not on a garrison, where they would meet with a warm reception. Though there were exceptions, of course, yet in the times of the colonies, at least, General Sherman was not far from right when he affirmed that "the only good Indian was a dead one." In volume 1, page 171, of the new "History of Concord," there is a picture of the Rev. Timothy Walker Garrison at the North End, which is prob- ably a good illustration of the other garrisons in the settlement. It represents the people issuing forth from it on Sunday for the purpose of "goin' to meetin'." Rev. Timothy Walker is in the van, with his gun in one hand and the Bible in the other, the men armed, and acting as guard to the women of the company. When they arrived at the log meeting house, itself a fort, near the corner of North Main and Chapel Streets, the custom was to stack their muskets where they could readily get them, and they performed their worship with powderhorn and bullet pouch slung over their 40 Wayside Jottings shoulders, while Mr. Walker stood his gun, said to be the best in town, beside him in the pulpit, while he preached the old theology. Perhaps, like the Pilgrim Fathers: ' ' They shook the depths of the desert gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer. ' ' But these "depths" were not shaken by the sing- ing of a quartette choir, with an organ accompani- ment. And it is certain that they could not, in their prayers, express their thankfulness that they could worship God "with none to molest or make afraid." It is hard to realize that such a state of affairs existed here one hundred and sixty years ago. This picture is also a good representation of how the Walker house looked surrounded by a fort. It was built of hewn logs, laid flat on each other, with ends fitted for the purpose and inserted in grooves, set in large posts erected at each corner. The walls of the fort were built to the height of the roof of the dwelling around which it was reared, and was surmounted at two or more corners with sentinel boxes. Indian lore is quite interesting, though it is some- times rather grewsome reading, as those who have read Theodore Roosevelt's "Winning of the West" will readily admit. The government of the Indians, the writer understands, at least of those who in- habited New England, was of a patriarchal form; that is, some family commonly took a precedence over the others ; the oldest son having absolute gov- Wayside Jottings 41 eminent over the region inhabited by a tribe, he receiving the title of sachem or sagamore. Those "noble red men of the forest," Passaconaway, Wonolancet and Tahanto, were sachems of the Pennycooks. They "were true and tried friends of the English in prosperity and adversity," and no garrisons were ever needed for the protection of the early settlers in the plantation of Penny- cook and the town of Rumford from any attack from this tribe of Indians. VII. Suppose we retrace our steps for a half a mile or more, from the site of Rumford Garrison, No. 4, on our ramble towards Hopkinton village, till we reach the ' ' Bradley monument, ' ' so called, on which is briefly told the fate of five of the inhabitants of Rumford, the most tragic event that ever occurred in the old town nearly one hundred and sixty-one years ago. Though this event is probably as famil- iar as a twice-told tale to life-long residents of Con- cord, we are not writing for their enlightment ; but possibly to some of the younger generation of our readers, now coming on the stage of action, it may be of interest. As is well known, on the morning of August 11, 1746 (old style), eight of the inhabitants of Rum- ford started out for a visit to Rumford Garrison, No. 4, near which the father of one of the number, Seaborn Peters, lived. Their names were Samuel 42 Wayside Jottings Bradley, Jonathan Bradley, John Bean, John Luf- kin, Alexander Roberts, William Stickney, Daniel Oilman and Obadiah Peters. They started from the home of Samuel Bradley, where M. Hazen Bradley, a great-grandson of Samuel Bradley, now lives (since deceased), passed down to the highway now known as Franklin Street; thence along this road to the highway now known as High Street; thence along this road out to and on the "old Hop- kinton Road," until they reached the vicinity of the Bradley monument, when they fell into an ambush of the St. Francis tribe of Indians, whose numbers were estimated from sixty to one hundred. The first five of this little company 'were killed and scalped ; Stickney and Roberts were taken prisoners and carried to Canada, and only Oilman escaped to tell the tale. As Indians were seen prowling around a day or two previously, it has always seemed to the writer that these men were some- what careless in going out to the Eastman Garrison in so small a force and in such a happy-go-lucky manner. But those who still believe in the old doctrine of foreordination can readily come to the conclusion that it was so to be, and no human fore- sight availed to change the course of events. There is not space in these "Jottings" to give a detailed account of this sad affair, which the younger read- ers of the book will find on pages 175-178 of the "History of Concord." In "New Hampshire As It Is," written by Edwin A. Charlton and published in 1855, it is stated that Wayside Jottings 43 ' ' a granite monument was erected on the spot where Bradley and his associates fell, by Richard Bradley, a grandson of Samuel Bradley." This statement as to the exact location of the monument is prob- ably incorrect, for in the "History of Concord" it is stated that ' ' a granite shaft was, because of diffi- culty in obtaining the desired site, erected a few rods east of the scene of the massacre, and on the opposite side of the road." The exact "spot" is probably on what is now "Pleasant View" farm, owned by Mary Baker G. Eddy, near a brook that aforetime ran through this tract of land, but which is now a covered drain. That there was some desperate fighting on the fateful August morning is seen in the statement that Jonathan Bradley fought for dear life, and refused to give or take quarter, probably preferring to die than to be taken prisoner by any of the St. Francis tribe of Indians, whose tender mercies were cruel. The result of the fight was about even, so far as fatalities were concerned, as four Indians were killed and two mortally wounded. Upon the occasion of the dedication of this monu- ment, August 22, 1837 (new style), interesting exercises were held, in which the governor of the state and other prominent men participated. Asa McFarland, then editor of the Statesman, gave an address, and a hymn was sung, written by Rev. John Pierpont of Boston, grandfather of J. Pier- pont Morgan. Mr. Pierpont was a poet of no mean 44 Wayside Jottings repute, and could write poetry as well as his grand- son can make money. The hymn read as follows: Not now, O God, beneath the trees That shade this vale at night's cold noon Do Indian war-cries load the breeze, Or wolves sit howling at the moon. The foes, the fears our fathers felt Have with our fathers passed away; And where in death's dark shade they knelt We come to praise Thee and to pray. We praise Thee that Thou plantedst here And mad'st Thy heavens drop down their dew, We pray that shooting from their stem We long may flourish where they grew. And, Father, leave us not alone; Thou hast been, and art still, our trust. Be Thou our fortress till our own Shall mingle with our fathers' dust. Continuing our ramble by the tablet that marks the site of the Eastman Garrison, we pass within almost a stone's throw of St. Paul's School, on our left, most of the buildings being on the line of the old Dunbarton road. It is beautifully situated, and is one of the best institutions of its kind in the country. Fifty years have brought marked changes in this school, from the time when Dr. Henry A. Coit commenced his work here in 1858 with three scholars, in the summer home of Dr. George C. Shattuck of Boston, to the time when now three hundred or more boys are in attendance. We also pass by Millville Cemetery, where Doctor Coit is Wayside Jottings 45 quietly resting after his useful life, his works fol- lowing him in the lives of the St. Paul's scholars who are scattered all over our land. If there was ever a man who lived on this planet who followed the example of the Divine Master in "going about doing good," Doctor Coit was that man. Resi- dents of Hopkinton and Dunbarton, as well as in Concord, will bear testimony to his visits of mercy and good will in homes where sorrow and death had entered. VIII. North Main Street, between Pleasant and Bridge Streets, has been substantially rebuilt since the mid- way years of the last century. If an old resident here in those years should re-visit Concord and take a ramble along this street, he would hardly know where to place himself. Fire has been the prime agent in making this change, as but few buildings have been demolished to make way for better ones. The big fire of August, 1851, was the starter in this change ; it came pretty near being a conflagra- tion, and swept away all the blocks and other build- ings on the east side of the street between the Stickney block on the north and Low's block on the south, and from the line of the street to the railroad tracks on the east. It was a clean sweep, and North Main Street was a sorry sight to behold the next morning after the fire. Those were the days of the old "hand tubs," and the firemen worked at the brakes for dear life and earned every 46 Wayside Jottings penny that they received as pay. When, as was sometimes the case, the water in the reservoirs gave out, their occupation, for the time being, at least, was gone and they were forced to be unwilling spectators of the work of the fire fiend. The ad- vent of Lake Penacook water, along with the hydrant service and the steam fire engines, changed this condition of things and North Main Street has not greatly suffered from the ravages of fire since that time. Brick and mortar have supplanted the old wooden buildings, some of which, from the manner of their construction, were termed ''ten-footers," so that in the whole length of the business part of the street there are only three or four wooden buildings re- maining on the west side, and one on the east side. One of these is the building adjoining the Masonic Temple, which remains substantially the same in its outside appearance as it did in the fifties, when David G. Fuller kept there an assort- ment of liquors on sale. In the second story of this building was a small hall, where candidates were initiated into the mysteries of ' ' Knownothing- ism," a political movement in the fifties that helped to change the complexion of New Hampshire poli- tics, and the change has substantially continued till the present day. Then there is the structure, now known as the American House, opposite Bridge Street, which, in the first years of its existence was devoted to business purposes; while in the third story was a hall occupied by the Sons of Temper- Morrimaok County Court House U. S. Government Biiildinic Wayside Jottings 47 ance. Going along the street, we come to the locality known aforetime as "Smoky Hollow." The Lyster Brothers have changed for the better the appearance of that locality by tearing down the unsightly buildings and erecting the Lyster block. The Lyster market, which occupies a part of this block, is getting to be one of the institutions of Concord. A visit to this market, at almost any hour of the day, shows that the force of clerks are busy attending to the wants of the customers that throng thither. By far the best and most important improvement made in a public building on the line of North Main Street is seen in the recent remodeling and rebuilding of the Merrimack County court house. The old building was of a unique and somewhat unusual style of architecture, and was not con- sidered "a thing of beauty," which is said to be "a joy forever." Just what style of architecture it was, the writer is not informed. As it was de- signed by Joshua L. Foster, it might be termed the Fosterian style. The late Asa McFarland, formerly editor of the Statesman, lived on the opposite side of the street from the court house, and the writer remembers that his criticisms in that paper on the style and general appearance of the building were not very flattering. It was probably an eyesore to him, and as there are no flies on the present struc- ture, either in its outward appearance or in its internal arrangements, he ought to have lived to see it. The location is undoubtedly the best one 48 Wayside Jottings on the line of North Main Street for a public building, and the North-Enders, way back in the early years of the last century, earnestly desired to have the state house located there. If it had been, the business part of Main Street would no doubt have been in that vicinity, and the North End would have retained its original prestige as a business center. Continuing our ramble a few rods further, to the junction of North Main and Chapel Streets, we come to a spot that was made famous in the annals of the old town by the erection of the first meeting house. It was a log house, where the worshipers were liable to sudden attacks from hostile Indians, and so went to church armed with their guns and prepared to repel force with force. It was a good example of the "church militant." Like Crom- well's Ironsides, "they trusted in God and kept their powder dry." A great contrast between the past and the present is seen in the fine edifice in which the same church organization, the North Church, now worships, on the corner of North Main and Washington Streets. What a revelation it would be if some of the first settlers of Penacook could revisit the glimpses of the moon and note the changes that have taken place in church and state in the old town since they shuffled off this mortal coil! They could also contrast the old theology with the new. One of the old-time ministers of this church was the Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, who for forty-two years occupied its pulpit. He was with- Wayside Jottings 49 out doubt the ablest minister in Concord in his prime, and the writer used to like to hear him preach. His sermons were "meaty," and gave one something to think about. Mr. J. 0. Lyford, in his chapter in the new "History of Concord" on "Church History," says: "Dr. Bouton's min- istry was 'characterized by unity, stability and growth. He was not only a faithful minister, but a citizen of acknowledged influence during a period of growth and prosperity in Concord." And Wil- liam E. Chandler, on Old Home Day at Contoocook River Park, in August, 1904, pays this tribute to Doctor Bouton's memory: "Learned, laborious and eloquent, how faithful he was to all the duties of life! How well I recall his welcome presence; with kind and cordial manner and speech." Mr. W. E. Curtis' letters in the Chicago Record- Herald from Concord, republished in the Monitor, are interesting reading, as he is a past master as a newspaper correspondent. But he is somewhat off his base in his statement that the old North Church "was torn down many years ago," although he is correct in saying that "it was replaced by a large brick structure," namely the "Walker schoolhouse. It is the writer's recollection that this old church went up in flame and smoke on the night of Novem- ber 28, 1870; and it is also his recollection that it was a splendid sight, though a sad one. The frame of the church was of white oak timber, and after the boards that covered it had burned away, the frame-work, from the sills to the spire, stood out in 50 Wayside Jottings clear relief as any set piece at a Fourth of July celebration of fireworks. What an appropriate place this old churcli would have been for the cele- bration of Old Home Day ! And what a pity that such a structure could not have escaped the de- vouring flames! It stood in the same relation to Concord, in its historical associations, as the Old South Church does to Boston. Henry McFarland, in his "Sixty Years in Concord and Elsewhere," says: "There are remaining in New Hampshire some better examples of colonial architecture than the Old North Church, but it was more dignified than many modern religious edifices." IX. Just across State Street from the site of the Old North Church, now occupied by the Walker school- house, is the burial ground that has been known for years as the " Old North Cemetery. ' ' In the olden time it was generally the custom to have the church and the cemetery near each other, and probably the church was changed from its first location on North Main Street so as to be contiguous to this "God's Acre," as the ancient Germans termed such places. One of the first acts of the proprietors of the "Plantation of Penacook," along with the erection of a church, was the selection of a suitable place for the burial of the dead. It appears from the town records that as early as 1730 a committee, consisting of Henry Rolfe, John Pecker and John Wayside Jottings 51 Chandler, was appointed to select a plot of land on the west side of State Street. About the year 1850 an addition was made to this cemetery on the west, and a few years afterward another addition known as the "Minot Enclosure"; and up to the year 1860 it was the only cemetery open to Pro- testants in the compact part of the city. On November 29, 1859, the city council pur- chased the well-located and beautiful grounds for a new place of burial, which is known as the ' ' Blos- som Hill Cemetery." These grounds were placed in charge of a committee consisting of George B. Chandler, Enos Blake and Joseph B. Walker. Under the direction of this committee, aided by the taste and skill of John C. Briggs, civil engineer, the cemetery was laid out and made ready for its consecration, July 13, 1860, when appropriate exer- cises tok place in the presence of a large concourse of people. The assembly was called to order by Joseph B. Walker, who, in behalf of the cemetery committee, made some introductory remarks, in which he alluded to the efforts of the city authori- ties to secure a new and ample rural cemetery. Other locations had been examined and discussed, but this tract of land, comprising some thirty acres, was selected and purchased for the sum of $4,500. It has a pleasing variety of surface, of hill, plain and valley, and a beautiful stream of water flows through it. In its topography it was said to bear some resemblance to that of ancient Jerusalem. It was also made the duty of this committee to fix on 52 Wayside Jottings a name for the cemetery. A number had been sug- gested, among them that of Blossom Hill, and at the close of the consecration exercises, it was voted, on motion of Richard Bradley, that it should be known by that name. The consecration exercises were of an interesting character. Most of the Protestant clergymen in the city took part in them. The Rev. Elisha Adams, pastor of the First Methodist Church, read the Ninetieth Psalm ; the Rev. E. E. Cummings, D. D., pastor of the Pleasant Street Baptist Church, offered a prayer of invocation; the hymn, "Dear is the Spot Where Christians Lie," was read by the Rev. C. W. Flanders, pastor of the First Baptist Church, and sung by a select choir ; the Rev. H. E. Parker, pastor of the South Congregational Church, read some Scripture selections; the Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, D. D., pastor of the North Congregational Church, offered a prayer of consecration ; the hymn, "This is not My Place of Resting," was read by the Rev. J. H. Eames, rector of St. Paul's Epis- copal Church ; there was an address by William L. Foster, Esq. ; and the exercises closed with the singing of the doxology and a benediction by the Rev. C. W. Flanders. This service of consecration took place a little over forty-seven years ago, and it is quite probable that the most of those who took part in it have passed over the river, and are sleeping their last sleep in Blossom Hill Cemetery or elsewhere. The address of Mr. Foster, which was afterwards pub- Concord Hitch Scti >o| Wnnnla licet Club Wayside Jottings 53 lished, was able and eloquent. It was written and delivered in his best vein. He was accustomed to use the best of English in all his public efforts, and he reminded one somewhat of Franklin Pierce, another of Concord's able lawyers. Speaking of General Pierce reminds the writer that at the funeral of his wife, who died at Andover, Mass., in the year 1863, and was buried in the Minot En- closure, General Pierce walked at the head of the procession to the grave leaning on the arm of Nathaniel Hawthorne, his intimate friend and classmate at Bowdoin College. It will be remem- bered that not long afterwards Hawthorne died suddenly at Plymouth, while on a trip with General Pierce to the White Mountains. Mr. Foster's address was such a finely written production that perhaps some of the older readers of the "Jottings" would like to read a few extracts from it: "Today we found this City of the Dead. Be- hold, even now, its broad avenues, its narrower streets and paths stretching along these hillsides, winding through these valleys! Behold already the lines and boundaries of its sacred homesteads marked out upon the turf household sanctuaries, wherein one by one, day after day, the broken families of yonder living city shall be gathered to- gether. See, here and there, a humble dwelling already located a lowly dormitory, already own- ing its pale inhabitant! And swiftly indeed the months and years are rolling on which shall" present 54 Wayside Jottings to the traveler upon these ways, crowded streets and squares, gleaming with fronts of granite and marble. ' ' "But a rival city shall this be at last triumph- ant. Yonder flourishing and happy town shall send forth swift delegations from her midst to populate these abodes, until not one shall remain of those who have come thence to this day's con- secration. Soon shall the tottering limbs of age be here composed to rest ; that blessed rest which comes so gratefully when the long struggle of life is done. Here, too, shall be assembled the gentle and beloved ones of earth; the wives and mothers, daughters and sisters ; they who have adorned and sanctified these Christian homes with the presence and bless- ing of womanly charities and womanly patience, with lessons of faith, with labors of love, with beauty of holiness. And here shall the kindly lap of earth receive those little household plants, des- tined to blossom in celestial gardens, 'where angels walk and seraphs are the wardens.' . . . "Thus, my friends, we may come to love this hallowed spot, and, lingering among its beauties, feel that it is good for us ofttimes to be here. The loveliness of nature groweth not old nor pass- eth away. How gorgeous soever may be the royal chamber of catacomb or pyramid, adorned with marble work and frescoes, bright with golden lamps, fragrant with smoking censors, dreariest ruin, dust and darkness must fall upon it. But the Wayside Jottings 55 beauty and the grandeur of the rural cemetery are renewed year by year and day by day. Soft airs of the sweet springtime shall breathe freshness upon it, and autumn shall cover these graves with her mantle of friendly leaves. Even the all-en- veloping snows of winter shall shield and protect the turf 'from blighting frosts, and wintry winds shall murmur through the branches of the trees, sunlight shall gladden the scene by day, and the beautiful lamps of the sky shall go not out by night." The conclusion of Mr. Foster's address is as follows : "Come, then, oh, blessing of heaven! Descend and dwell upon this beautiful place of the dead! From lightning and tempest protect and defend it ! Drop, heavenly dews and sweet, refreshing showers, upon the grass, and keep it, like the memory of those who shall sleep beneath, fragrant and green forever! Bring flowers, fresh flowers, and cast them with tender hand upon these mounds, to speak in beautiful language of love enduring and of faith triumphant! Let pyramid and column and sculptured cross and graven cherubim point to God and testify of immortality ! ' ' X. A former resident on the east side of South Main Street wishes that the writer had made some men- tion in the Wayside Jottings of the residents on 56 Wayside Jottings that side of the street away back in the fifties. There was no intention to slight or to ignore that side of the street, but that communication was only intended to refer to the west side of it. There has been quite a change in the appearance of the east side, mainly in the section between Freight Street and the vicinity of Chandler Street. South of Lee's block there has been little change, but like the west side of the street, there has been an almost complete change in this time in the residents. Supposing we start on our ramble at the old store, just north of the old Butters' Tavern. This store for years has been known as an old-fashioned country store West India goods and groceries being a chief feature. Here, if the writer has been correctly informed, was where the late Charles Hutchins traded for some years, his residence being on the corner of South Main and Thorndike Streets, where his nephew, Charles Hutchins Thorndike, resides; afterwards it was occupied by George F. Whittridge, Henry C. Sturtevant, George B. Whitt- ridge, Lewis B. Hoit & Co. and others. Just north of this store is the brick store which has been occupied for some years by George B. Whittridge, son of G. F. Whittridge. Going up the street, we come a little further north to two tenement blocks, one on the line of the street, and one in the rear. If the writer is correctly informed, these blocks were constructed out of material that came from the Concord Acad- emy when it was torn down, and which stood on Wayside Jottings 67 ' ' Sand Hill, ' ' near what is now known as Academy Street. On an alley, leading from Main Street to the railroad, is an old house, which Joseph B. Walker, in the new "History of Concord," terms the "box-trap" style of architecture, it being two stories in front and one story in the rear. Prob- ably this old house dates back to the colony days of George III. The writer is not aware of any other house like it in Concord, though on the main road in Hopkinton there are two that remain as they were in former years. Going further north of this alley, we come to a spacious home built by Hon. Isaac Hill, a governor of the state away back in the thirties. At the time of its erection it was regarded as one of the best residences in Concord. In late years it has had rather a checkered experience and has been used as a "boarding and tenement house. Just north of the Hill house is the house where the late Franklin Low lived till the death of his first wife, who was Miss Mary Hutchins, daughter of George Hutchins, who lived on the opposite side of the street. North of the Low house was the home of George H. Hutchins, a flour and grain merchant and the father of Capt. Hamilton Hutchins, commander of the Kearsarge, now on its long trip to the Pacific. This was written when the battleships of the fleet were on their trip around the world. There are one or two old houses left, north of the Hutchins house, but from the Lee block to 68 Wayside Jottings Freight Street the appearance of the east side of the street is completely changed from what it was in the fifties, save the Pickering house, where in those days James L. Mason, for some years a fore- man at the Abbot-Downing Company, resided. The writer remembers Mr. Mason as a great reader, who could give information on matters pertaining to ancient history. The change in the appearance of this side of the street was made some years ago by the building of the carriage manufactory, then belonging to Harvey, Morgan & Co.; the Ford & Kimball foundry; the Concord machine shop; and, in the line of dwellings, by the erection of the residences of Josiah E. D wight, Leland A. Smith and Edson J. Hill. On the site of these residences was where William Gault lived, an old-time mer- chant of Concord. The house was moved on to the south side of Hill's Avenue and was torn down a few years ago, and on its site was erected the apart- ment block, owned by the "Hill Associates." Just north of the Hill residence was the home of Nathan Farley. Some of the older readers of the Jottings will remember it as a long, rambling, one- story red house in front and two stories in the rear, where Mr. Farley for some years had a marble shop, Nathan Farley was probably the pioneer in the grave stone and monument business in Concord, and no doubt specimens of his work can be found in the various cemeteries in Merrimack County and in other parts of the state. The site of this house and the buildings north of it would be a good Wayside Jottings 59 place to erect an auditorium, such as is needed in Concord. When we come to the square, bounded by South Main Street, Pleasant Street Extension, Railroad Square and Freight Street, we find that it is almost entirely changed in its appearance from what it was in the fifties. On the site of the Cummings block was the residence of Isaac Frye Williams, an old-time Concord merchant. On the site of the Colonial block was the home and office of Dr. Alpheus Morrill, father of Dr. Ezekiel Morrill and the late Dr. Shadrach C. Morrill. Dr. Alpheus Morrill, we believe, was the first homeopathic physician to locate in Concord. He had a large practice in all parts of the city. On the site of the Blanchard block was the home and office of Dr. Ebenezer G. Moore, who was a physician of the "old school" and who, like Doctor Morrill, had a large practice. The term "the beloved physician" might well be applied to each of these two men, and there are many of the older residents of our city who will remember them for their service in times of sickness. The rest of this square is covered by new build- ings, save the house on the corner of Pleasant Street Extension and Railroad Square. The other new buildings in this square are the Railroad Young Men's Christian Association building and the Mor- rill block. The writer has often thought what a fine place this square would have been for a small park or 60 Wayside Jottings common. As it is now, in the central part of the city, we are dependent on the state for a park. White Park and Rollins Park are beautiful spots and are all right, but they are at some distance from the business part of the city. The hindsight of the town fathers away back in the thirties was a good deal keener than their foresight. This was evident in the rejection of the offer by Hon. William A. Kent of a tract of land bounded by Pleasant, Rumford, School and North Spring Streets for a park, to be known as "Rumford Park." Any one, by walking through those streets, can see what a grand park, centrally located, it would have made. XI. It was a thoughtful act on the part of the Con- gregational Union of Concord in erecting a granite tablet to commemorate the first religious service in central New Hampshire, held under heaven's canopy before a dwelling had been reared in which to live. It stands near Sugar Ball bluff, on the east bank of the Merrimack, on land given by Dr. Alfred E. Emery, and which is known as "Memo- rial Park. ' ' The inscription on this tablet tells the whole story : "On the intervale below this spot, a committee of the Court of Massachusetts Bay, their surveyors and attendants, there present to locate and survey the Plantation of Penacook, conducted the first The Rmnford Press Building! Wayside Jottings 61 religious service ever held in the central part of New Hampshire on Sunday, May 15, 1726, Rev. Enoch Coffin, preacher. ' ' Erected by the Congregational Societies of Con- cord, October, 1899." It would be interesting if there had been a news- paper reporter present at that time to give an ac- count of this service. Those were days before the newspapers, and we shall have to let our fancy picture the scene. Perhaps like Mrs. Heman 's Pil- grims at Plymouth Rock: They shook the depths of the desert gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer. But it is an inspiring thought that the early pioneers in the settlement of the old town recog- nized their Creator, and devoted the first Sabbath passed within its borders to acts of worship on the banks of the Merrimack. This locality, which we suppose may be consid- ered a part of East Concord, is also famous from the fact that here was fought a fierce battle between the Mohawks and the Penacooks, between whom there was a deadly feud. As the writer under- stands it, the Penacooks were naturally peace- loving, and the Mohawks were generally spoiling for a fight. Whittier in his poem, "The Bridal of Penacook," has given us a description of their character. In their sheltered repose, looking out from the wood, The bark-builded wigwams of Penacook stood. 62 Wayside Jottings There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone, And against the red-plbst the hatchet was thrown. There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and the young To the pike and the perch their baited lines flung; There the boy shaped his arrows and there the shy maid Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid. It seems that the Penacooks, while peace-loving, also acted on the motto, ' ' In time of peace, prepare for war. ' ' And so they had erected three forts for their defence. One was near Sewall's Island; one on the bank of the Merrimack, near Fort Eddy Plain ; while the principal and strongest fort, occu- pying the best position of the three, near the crest of Sugar Ball bluff, was built for a special defence against the Mohawks ; and connected with this fort is the story of the battle, coming down to us through Indian tradition. As a precaution, the Penacooks had withdrawn their men, women and children within this fort, where baskets of newly- harvested corn were stored for their use in case of a siege. It was a time of mutual watchfulness, where one party was afraid and the other daresn't. The Penacooks did not dare to fight out in the open, while the Mohawks were afraid to attack the fort. At last the former were drawn out of the fort by strategy, and a fierce battle ensued. Tra- dition does not definitely tell us the result of it. It leaves, however, the inference that it was an indecisive battle, in which both sides suffered Wayside Jottings 63 severely, and the prowess of the Penacooks was greatly weakened, as they were less war-like. If this battle had occurred in later years it might have well been termed a "Concord Fight," though no "embattled farmers" were there, and no shots were "heard 'round the world," as the fighting was probably done with bows and arrows, and at close quarters with tomahawks. Turtle Pond is the largest pond in East Concord, covering an area of about one hundred and sixty acres, and Mill Brook furnishes an outlet for it into the Merrimack. This stream is a little over two miles in length, but in this distance there is a fall of about one hundred feet and on it are three mill privileges. The early settlers of Penacook were quick to see the advantages of this stream, and as far back as the year 1729 one of these privileges was utilized for the first sawmill and also for the first grist-mill erected within the plantation. This was a great boon to the early settlers, as the saw- mill furnished them material to build frame houses, instead of those made of logs ; and they could carry their "grist" to mill, instead of using the more primitive method with mortar and pestle. As the writer understands it, upon Mill Brook were located the first shingle and clapboard mills in Concord, and as Robert Eastman, the inventor of them, was a native of East Concord, they may have been the first in operation in the country. These mills revolutionized the method of preparing the lighter form of building for the outside of 64 Wayside Jottings houses, as the sawmill had previously done in pre- paring the timber for frames and the boarding. Prior to the invention of these machines, the shingles and clapboards were all handmade. They were first "rifted" or split out of the old growth pine that in former years grew so abundantly in the forests. After being rifted, they were shaved out by hand by men who, like the ' ' rif ters, ' ' became quite expert in working up in this way the raw material. The shingles would be split out so near the pattern that but little shaving was needed to finish them. This kind of shingle, on account of the excellent quality of the stock and the smooth- ness of the surface, lasted a good deal longer than those sawed by machines, so that the former kind have been known to have been on the roofs of houses for at least forty years before they needed renewing. There was considerable prejudice at first against these machines on the part of the rifters and shavers, as there has been against almost all new inventions; but one thing that favored their intro- duction and use was the fact that old growth pine of perhaps two centuries or more in age was fast disappearing and pine that would rift well was becoming scarce. Like the boatmen on the Merri- mack, in later days, when the iron horse made its appearance, their occupation was gone; and while there are no old-fashioned shingles now to be seen on the roofs of the farm-houses, the handmade clap- boards are sometimes seen in evidence on these Wayside Jottings 65 houses. The writer recently saw such a house, probably one hundred and fifty years old, stand- ing near Turkey Falls, oil the old Dunbarton Road. It was never painted, save by the weather-brush of time, and it reminds him of the home of Gen. John Stark that was situated near the Reform School in Manchester, and which he visited some years ago, before it went up in flame and smoke. The most prominent landmark that is visible as one passes down Pond Hill and along the highway leading around Horseshoe Pond, is the steeple of the East Congregational Church. This church was dedicated in the year 1842. The architect was Jacob A. Potter, an East Concord man. It is said that the frame of the bell tower, like that of the old North Church, is of white oak, and the timber was given by Gen. Isaac Eastman, who also fashioned the weather-vane. There are some homely church steeples or towers in Concord (the writer does not care to say where they are located), but the steeple on this church is not one of them. In fact, we rather like its style, and it is a reminder of former days. It is the only one in town that remains of those whose spires pointed heavenward, say sixty odd years ago. All the rest have either gone up in flame and smoke six churches having been burned or they have been remodelled and rebuilt. An old resident here in the forties, returning to Con- cord would not recognize one of them ; and the old eagle that stands watch and ward over the state house is about the only thing remaining to remind 66 Wayside Jottings one of the old cupola. Concord has been fruitful in the changes that have been made in the public buildings. There is an interesting fact in connection with the location of this East Concord Church. Its site on upper Penacook Street seems to be out of the more compact part of the hamlet. But there was a reason for the selection of this site, and it was that as it increased in population, it would be the most central part of the village. Along in the thirties, great expectations were entertained by people in regard to the development of Se wall's Falls and the canals leading from it, these falls being about two miles north of the village. In Henry McFarland 's interesting chapter in the new "History of Concord," on "Canals," he gives a very clear account of these projects, which gave rise to great expectations concerning the future of East Concord. He says: "The purpose of the Sewall's Falls Company, which controlled the water power at Sewall 's Falls, was to build a canal about two and a half miles long from a point on the river near Federal bridge, to an inlet above the falls. Besides this service to navigation, this canal was to provide power where it was estimated that the drop, at ordinary stages of the water, would be sixteen feet. It was intended to con- struct two water courses to lead off easterly from the main channel, and between these would be situated mills needing power. After performing this useful office, the water was to run out by a Wcvyside Jottings 67 raceway to the Mill Brook valley. It was esti- mated that there would be power enough to drive twenty-three mills of 5,000 spindles each." This plan, if carried out, would make East Concord almost a second Lowell. This was certainly a great project on paper, but, like other schemes of mice and men, it came to naught. The building of a railroad through the valley of the Merrimack was probably the death blow to canals and to other enterprises on paper. In this connection, we might refer to the great expectation in the early years of the last century of the permament location of the state capital in Hopkinton village, which was unexpectedly knocked in the head by its location in Concord. It would be interesting to know what would be the condition of things in the valley of the Merrimack if James Watt had never discovered the power of steam or George Stephenson had never invented the loco- motive. Probably the most ancient landmark that greets the eye as one passes over Federal bridge is the dwelling that bears on its gable the legend "Elm- Croft," and of which Col. J. Eastman Pecker is the owner. It was the home of his ancestors and was built in the year 1755 by Philip Eastman. The writer, on invitation of Colonel Pecker, visited this house a few years ago, and was well repaid for so doing. While the main house is, on account of its age and interior arrangements, an interesting structure, an addition has been made to the rear 68 Wayside Jottings of the house and contains in the second story one of the finest private libraries in this section of the state. Colonel Pecker is a noted collector of old and rare books and pamphlets, being something of a bibliomaniac, and this library is a monument of his labors in that direction. As before stated, this house was built in 1755 by Philip Eastman. It was the home of Jeremiah Pecker from 1779 to his death in 1843, at the age of seventy-one years, and was the home of his widow, Mary Eastman Pecker, from the time of her second marriage, in 1822, till her death in 1882, aged ninety-one years. Capt. Jeremiah Pecker, a minute man in the war of 1812, was a son of Maj. James Pecker, M. D., of Haverhill, Mass., a surgeon in the Continental Army, and who died at Valley Forge in 1778. Col. J. E. Pecker is a great, great grandson of Philip Eastman and a grandson of Jeremiah Pecker. XII. Oliver Goldsmith's tribute to "Sweet Auburn" as "the loveliest village of the plain" might per- haps apply equally as well to the suburban hamlet of East Concord. Goldsmith could probably have found as much happiness to the square foot in this locality if it had been his early home, as on his native heath, and of which he says : Where health and plenty cheered the lab'rlng swain, Where smiling Spring its earliest visit paid, And parting Summer's ling'ring blooms delayed. Wayside Jottings 69 The original name for this section was "The Fort," from the fact that in the early settlement of Penacook one was built there by some Scotch- Irish, as the record says, on the intervale, "within eighty rods of Sewall's farm. This farm was a part of the five hundred acre grant, known as the 'Endicott Grant,' and was surveyed and laid out in the year 1668. The title to this tract of land having been sold by Governor Endicott to John Hull, the wealthy mint master of Massachusetts, and he dying, his daughter Hannah, and her hus- band, Samuel Sewall, the famous judge in the Salem witchcraft days, petitioned the Great and General Court of Massachusetts Bay, in the year 1695, that this tract of land might be confirmed to them, and the prayer was granted. ' Sewall 's Farm' was the first grant of land that was made under the authority of Massachusetts in Pena- cook." The territory of Penacook early attracted atten- tion as a desirable place for a settlement, and as a result there was considerable of a tangle in regard to the grants of land that were made by different parties. Prof. Amos Hadley, in Chapter Two of the new "History of Concord," has unravelled this tangle in as plain a manner as it could be done, and it is well worth reading by anyone who desires to be informed in regard to the early history of our city and the conditions surrounding the first set- tlers. It also appears that the "Scotch-Irish," of whom mention has been made, was another dis- 70 Wayside Jottings turbing element that vexed the souls of the first settlers. They had a holy horror of the Irish, and did not discriminate very closely between those of Catholic affiliations and those of Protestant views who were stalwart Presbyterians. It is pretty safe to affirm that there was never any love lost between an Englishman and an Irishman, even if the latter did have an infusion of Scotch blood in his veins. And in former times more than in the present, the respective slogans of these combative races seemed to be: I can smell the blood of an Englishman, (Or an Irishman). I must and will have some. It was in 1719 that sixteen famib'es of Scotch- Irish Presbyterians made a settlement in Nutfield, afterwards known as Londonderry. Some of these new comers, who were of an adventurous turn of mind, began to look for more room, as their num- bers were increased by new immigration, and they cast longing eyes on the fertile intervales of Pena- cook. Then there occurred another tangle in re- gard to conflicting grants of land, and which Mr. Hadley has also unravelled. This "Fort," to which allusion is made, was built in the year 1724, the year before the Plantation of Penacook was granted to Benjamin Stevens and others. As the Scotch- Irish had obtained a foothold in Londonderry, the grantees of the settlement feared that they would also obtain one on the east side of the river, and it Wayside Jottings 71 would be difficult, as they expressed it, "to root them out." "There were, however," as Mr. Hadley says, "more words than blows on the Merrimack at that time," and the final upshot of the matter was "the Irish people" shook oil the dust from their feet and left for a more congenial location; possibly they were the ones who made the settlement on Dunbarton Hill. It was at this fort that Colonel Tyng and his scouting party, bound for Lake Winnipesaukee in pursuit of Indians, made their quarters, on April 5 and 6, 1725. That it was a late spring is evidenced by the fact that they could not travel without injuring their provisions, as the snow was deep. Probably the Merrimack from its source to its mouth was never shallow enough to be forded. As the early settlers of Penacook lived on both sides of the river, the primitive way of crossing it was first by a canoe, and later by ferry. There were at least three of these ferries in operation at various times, owned by private parties. There was a ferry at the South End, near Water Street, known as Merrill's ferry, owned by Deacon John Merrill; one owned by Benjamin Kimball, known as Kimball's ferry, which crossed the river from Hale's Point to Sugar Ball and reached by Ferry Road, now Ferry Street. Tucker's ferry, owned by Lemuel Tucker, crossed the river near the site of the old Federal bridge, and accommodated the dwellers of East Concord, known aforetime by the designation of "Over the 72 Wayside Jottings River, ' ' while a section of the intervale, a half mile above Federal bridge, embracing the farms of Samuel B. Locke, John Locke, Samuel B. Larkin and Henry S. Thatcher was known as "Christian Shore." Just why that name was given to this locality, the writer is not informed. For some sixty years after the settlement of the town the river was crossed upon the ice in the winter, and by the ferries at other seasons of the year. The first bridge built across the Merrimack in Concord was the Concord bridge at the South End, opened for travel on October 29, 1705. This superseded the Merrill ferry. Three years after this the Federal bridge at East Concord was com- pleted, and this bridge superseded the Tucker ferry. Since that time five bridges have been erected at this point to take the place of those that have from time to time been swept down stream or partially destroyed by the big freshets that aforetime visited the valley of the Merrimack and converted the river into a second Mississippi. The sixth and last bridge was constructed in the year 1872, during the administration of Mayor John Kimball. It was built with special reference to endurance, like all the structures of a public char- acter that were constructed during Mr. Kimball's term of service. Unlike the ferries which were owned by indi- viduals, the Concord and Federal bridges were each constructed, owned and managed by a com- pany, and were known as "toll bridges." Th- Wayside Jottings 73 members of the Federal Bridge Company were Timothy Walker, Benjamin Emery, William Part- ridge, Jonathan Eastman and Joshua Thompson. It continued as a toll bridge for a series of years, or until some time in the forties, when it became, by purchase of the town, a free bridge, like its neighbor down the river, which was first con- structed in the thirties and took the place of the Kimball ferry. The charter for this bridge provided that "for purpose of reimbursing said proprietors, the money expended by them in building and supporting said bridge, a toll be, and hereby is granted and estab- lished for the benefit of the proprietors, according to the rates, following, namely, for each foot pas- senger, one cent; for each horse and rider, three cents; for each horse and chaise, sulky or other riding carriage drawn by one horse only, ten cents ; for each riding sleigh drawn by one horse, four cents ; for each riding sleigh drawn by more than one horse, six cents; for each coach, chariot, phaeton or other four-wheeled carriage for passen- gers drawn by more than one horse, twenty cents; for each curricle, twelve cents; for each cart or other carriage or burthen drawn by two horses, ten cents; and three cents for every additional beast; for each horse or neat creature, exclusive of those rode or in carriages, two cents; for sheep and swine, one-half cent each ; and to each team one person and no more shall be allowed as a driver to pass free of toll. ' ' 74 Wayside Jottings XIII. No doubt the ideal as well as the scriptural way of conducting and maintaining public worship on the Sabbath, especially in a rural community, is for all the people to meet in one place, on a com- mon level "the rich and the .poor together "- and realizing in its full significance the truth that "the Lord is the Maker of them all." This was the method in vogue in New Testament times; it was the way in the early Puritan days of New England, and it has always been the Catholic way. It is the only way to realize the full force of the old adage, "In union there is strength." For about ninety years after the settlement of Concord, or until the formation of the Baptist and Unitarian churches, in the year 1818, followed by the formation of the Methodist Church, in 1825, it was the way that was in vogue in the town of Concord. After this time all the people of the Congregational faith and persuasion continued to worship in the "Old North," till the year 1832, when the West Concord Church was formed. It is said that there were two main reasons for its formation ; one was that the Old North parish had become so large that no one man could rightly per- form the pastoral duties; another reason was that the average distance traveled by those who came from the direction of West Concord to the Sunday service was about five miles, and so, for their accommodation, there was a general desire in that Wayside Jottings 75 section to have a house of worship nearer their homes. Accordingly, as we have said, in the year 1832, one hundred and two members were dismissed from the North Church, to form what is now known as the West Church; and for seventy-seven years it has been the only .church in that section of the town the only one, in fact, that was ever needed and thus setting a good example for other hamlets in the state to follow, where there are too many churches struggling for existence. And thus, on the formation of this church, the name of "West Parish" was given to that part of the city now known more familiarly as West Concord. The first minister of the West Church was the Rev. Asa P. Tenney, who served in that capacity for thirty-four years a pastorate that was only exceeded in length by those of Rev. Timothy Walker and Rev. Nathaniel Bouton, who served, respectively, fifty-two and forty-two years. Prior to his becoming pastor, Mr. Tenney, like the Rev. Robert Collyer of New York City, learned and for a while followed the trade of blacksmith in the town of Haverhill. Having a desire to preach the gospel, he fitted himself for the ministry. It is said that "he was an intensely practical man," and in following the trade of blacksmith he prob- ably gained a knowledge of horses that served him in good stead when in need of it. Being a good judge of horseflesh, no one was ever known to get the better of him in a trade. It is doubtful if even 76 Wayside Jottings a David Harum could have done it. It does not in any way disqualify a man for the ministry to be the lover of a good horse and to be a judge of his good points, or how to meet the wiles of some (not all) horse jockeys. He probably kept in mind, in dealing with them, the scriptural injunction to be "wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove." To an outsider who passes through West Con- cord village on the electrics, it seems to be the abode of a thrifty class of people, dwelling in com- fortable homes, to whom poverty is an unknown visitor. It strikes one in its appearance as being more picturesque than beautiful; and well it may be so, as it is situated almost under the shadow of "rock-ribbed" Rattlesnake arid naturally partakes somewhat of the roughness of a hill whose supply of building granite is probably inexhaustible. And it was very appropriate that the second West Church, which took the place of a former one destroyed by fire, should be constructed of West Concord granite, and it also furnished an object lesson, close at hand, in the line of this kind of building material. XIV. West Concord has furnished two men in their first terms of service as mayors who were faithful to the best interests of the people: John Abbott, in the years 1856, 1857, 1858, and Moses Hum- phrey, in the years 1861, 1862. They were emi- nently practical men, and all who knew them Wayside Jottings 77 respected them for their honesty and their enter- prise. Perhaps the latter trait of character was more plainly seen in the case of Mayor Humphrey, for his term of service came in the first two years of the Civil War,, when extra duties devolved upon him in the care of the soldiers who went to the front; and in his second term of service, in the year 1865, when they came back in greatly reduced numbers. At the age of seventy-three years, when most men feel like retiring from active life, he began operations, in the face of some opposition, first in the construction of a horse railroad through West Concord to Penacook, and afterwards in the in- stallation of the electrics. There is probably no other seven-mile trolley ride in the state that is more interesting, in the variety of its views, than from South Main Street, Concord, to Penacook, and on to Contoocook Park. An old timer going over this route might contrast the great comfort and improvement in this method of traveling, especially in the summer time, with the old lumber- ing stage coach, that used to go over this route, before the era of railroads, from the north country to the "Hub of the Universe." Away back in the thirties, before a railroad in- vaded central New Hampshire, when transporta- tion by canal boats for a good share of the year seemed to be the most feasible way of getting from one part of the country to another, a project for a canal was set on foot to connect the Merrimack 78 Wayside Jottings with the Connecticut. Another canal was to run through West Concord and was to have the name of the Contoocook Canal." "It was to leave the Contoocook River, either near Horse Hill bridge or at the Borough, and coming down through West Concord village, past Blossom Hill Cemetery, by the old prison, and through the section west of State Street, was to enter the Merrimack either at Turkey River or at a point about half a mile above Concord bridge. Surveys for the canal were made by James Hayward and Benjamin Parker and estimates were made as to its cost. It was to be eighteen feet wide at its bottom and to have a fall from the Contoocook to the terminus of Turkey River of about one hundred and twenty-five feet. "This project," it was said, "was opposed natur- ally by those owning mill privileges on the Con- toocook on the point whence the canal would de- part, and by others interested at Sewall's Falls; so that it came to naught, and as not a spadeful of earth was turned in its behalf, it has been well- nigh forgotten." If West Concord has been famed for nothing else, it would have been honor enough to have the city's water supply situated within its limits. In one sense, Lake Penacook is of more importance to Concord than old Rattlesnake, for while we might possibly get along without quarrying the granite out of its "rock-ribbed" sides, we could not get along without the pure water that flows under our streets from this lake. Concord would not be a Penacook Lake City's Water Supply The Country Club Wayside Jottings 79 very desirable place for a residence in a sanitary point of view if some convulsion of nature should cut off the supply of water. Down in Haverhill, Mass., there is a sheet of water which bears some resemblance to Lake Pena- cook in its situation and history. It is situated in the valley of the Merrimack, is the source, we be- lieve, of Haverhill 's water supply, and some years ago its name was changed to Lake Kenoza. On the occasion of this change of name there was a celebra- tion at which John G. Whittier read a poem. As the Indian name of Penacook was substituted some years since for "Long Pond;" as Lake Kenoza was changed from "Great Pond," the writer thought that it would be very appropriate, with merely a change in the name, to apply the lines of this poem to our own lake. If Whittier were alive, we are sure that he would not object to this application of it; and if he did not object, no one else need to. It is rather long, but it is a gem in its way, and we give it in full : LAKE PENACOOK. As Adam did in Paradise, Today the primal right we claim, Fair mirror of the woods and skies, To give to thee a name. Lake of the pickerel, let no more The echoes answer back "Long Pond," But sweeter Penacook from thy shore And watching hills beyond. 80 Wayside Jottings Let Indian ghosts, if such there be. Who ply unseen their shadowy lines, Call back the ancient name to thee, As with the voice of pines. The shores we trod as barefoot boys. The nutted woods we wandered through. To Friendship, Love and Social Joys We consecrate anew. Here shall the tender song be sung, And Memory's dirges, soft and low; And wit shall sparkle on the tongue, And mirth shall overflow. Harmless as summer lightning plays From a low, hidden cloud by night, A light to set the hills ablaze, But not a bolt to smite. In sunny South and prairied West Are exiled hearts remembering still, As bees their hive, as birds their nest, The homes of Concordville. They join us in our rites today; And, listening, we may hear ere long From inland lake and ocean bay The echoes of our song. Penacook! O'er no sweeter lake Shall morning break or noon cloud sail ; No fairer face than thine shall take The sunset's golden veil. Long be it ere the tide of trade Shall break with harsh-resounding din The quiet of thy banks of shade, And hills that fold thee in. Wayside Jottings 81 Thy peace rebuke our feverish stir, Thy beauty our deforming strife; Thy woods and waters minister The healing of thy life. And sinless mirth, from care released, Behold, unawed, thy mirrored sky, Smiling as smiled on Cana's feast The Master's loving eye. And when the summer day grows dim, And light mists walk thy mimic sea, Revive in us the thought of Him Who walked on Galilee! XV. In looking at the bird's-eye view of Penacook as given in D. Arthur Brown's history of that village, one is impressed with the thought that years ago it might have been the nucleus or center of another town, instead of being known as "Ward One," Concord. This ward, with portions of Boscawen, Canterbury and perhaps Webster, would have made one of the most enterprising towns in the county. As we characterized West Concord as more picturesque than beautiful, so the same might be said of Penacook, and the term romantic might be added to that part of the village through which the Contoocook rushes headlong and seemingly anxious to join the waters of the Merrimack, having a fall of about one hundred feet within the limits of one and a half miles. One of the original proprietors was Henry Rolfe, 6 82 Wayside Jottings who acquired a stretch of land on the south side of the Contoocook extending from the Merrimack to the Borough. The early records state that one of Henry Rolfe's descendants, Benjamin Rolfe, settled here in 1758. The first settlers who settled on the ^north side of the Contoocook in Boscawen came from Newbury, Mass., in 1734. One of these was Stephen Gerrish, who settled on the intervale and established the first ferry between Boscawen and Canterbury, having the same location as the present bridge between these two towns. Over at the Borough the first settler was Joseph Walker, who built himself a log house for his habitation about the year 1750. The Indians not being desirable neighbors, he remained there but a short time. Richard Elliot was the next settler, who came about the year 1760. Two brothers, Jonathan and Benjamin Elliot, also settled there, the former in 1768, the latter in 1778. The Borough was the residence of a centenarian, Mrs. Lydia Elliot, who died June 24, 1856, aged one hundred and three years. The first sawmill was built at the Borough by Richard Elliot about the year 1760. The first grist-mill was built by Abel Baker in 1789, on the outlet; and to it people came from all directions, bringing their grists in bags on their shoulders and on horse- back, as there were no roads and wagons were unknown. The first mill which marked the beginning of the woolen manufacturing industry, was built by Wayside Jottings 83 Richard Kimball and Jeremiah Abbott about the year 1800. It was the custom in those days for the farmers to carry their wool to this mill, where it was carded into rolls; the rolls were then taken to the farm houses, where the women spun the rolls into yarn and wove the yarn into cloth on hand looms, and thus clothed their families. Thus the manufacture of woolens dates back more than one hundred years. Another sawmill was built at the lower falls by Nathaniel Rolfe. It was constructed by Benjamin Kimball, a noted millwright in those days, the father of John and Benjamin A. Kimball, and no doubt they inherited their skill in mechani- cal construction from their father. The elder Kim- ball did a good work in building dams and thus developing the water power that was used in run- ning the saw and grist mills. In the early days of the village it was a place where large quantities of lumber was drawn and the land now in the vicinity of the railroad station was used for depositing logs and sawed lumber. The lumber was made into rafts, floated down the river to Lowell, and through the Middlesex canal to the Boston market. In fact, this for some years was the leading industry of the village, the busi- ness being carried on mainly by the Rolfe and Gage families at the lower falls, and by the Elliot and Morrill families at the upper falls. The sur- rounding towns contributed of their forests, mainly of the old growth pines of large dimensions and for which the valley of the Contoocook was justly noted. 84 Wayside Jottings It is sometimes the case that some one family has the most to do in building up a manufacturing village. This is seen in the history of the Ames family at Easton, and the Draper family at Hope- dale, Mass. In the case of the village of Penacook (known aforetime as Fisherville, so named for the Fisher brothers, who built the first cotton mill), the Brown family were the pioneers in the manu- facture of cotton goods, and the firm name for a series of years was H. H. & J. S. Brown. They came from Attleboro, Mass., in 1841, and began making cotton goods in 1843. The machinery for their mill was brought up on canal boats from Lowell as far as Concord, and then hauled on wagons to the mill. This firm of brothers con- tinued in a partnership business until 1863, when it was dissolved and the property divided, H. H. Brown taking the mill known as the Contoocook mill, on the west side of the river, and J. S. Brown the mill on the east side, known as the Penacook mill. The former took his sons, Henry F. Brown and D. Arthur Brown, into the business with him, while the latter continued in the cotton manu- facturing business until 1885, when he sold out his mill to the Contoocook Manufacturing & Ma- chine Co. Henry H. Brown died in September, 1873 ; John S. Brown died some years later. It is not intended in these Jottings to give a complete history of the manufacturing industries of Pena- cook, but only the earliest ones to which it is in- debted for its growth and prosperity. Wayside Jottings 85 When the writer was attending school at Colby Academy in the fifties, Henry F. and D. Arthur Brown, brothers, and sons of H. H. Brown, and William I. Brown, a cousin, son of J. S. Brown, were in attendance there as scholars. They were all good scholars, and all of them served in the Civil War. William I. Brown was attending Brown University when the war broke out, and joined a military company composed of college students known as the University Cadets, being the first to sign the roll. He afterwards began re- cruiting for the Ninth New Hampshire Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers. He filled various positions from second lieutenant to major, was in the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, Fred- ericksburg, Spottsylvania, and was killed at Fort Stedman in March, 1865, a short time before the close of the war. XVI. Just how many men Concord sent to the front during the years of the Civil War will probably never be known, as no exact records were kept prior to the mustering in of the Eighth Regiment. It is quite certain, however, that the number was not less than sixteen hundred, and Adjutant-Gen- eral Ayling has set it as about eighteen hundred. It seems hardly possible that nearly two regiments of soldiers should have been sent from Concord; but whatever the number was from the whole city, two hundred and twenty men enlisted from Pena- 86 Wayside Jottings cook, serving either in the army or navy. Fifty- four of these men or about one-fourth of this number never came back, being killed in action, or dying of wounds or disease; and a good pro- portion of these men met their death from shot or shell on the battlefield. We referred in the last number of these Jottings to the death of Maj. William I. Brown at Fort Stedman in Virginia, on March 29, 1865, but a few days before the surrender of General Lee at Ap- pomattox court house, a minie rifle ball piercing his forehead. If ever there was an instance of the irony of fate, it was seen in his untimely taking off, when after going through four long years of conflict and participating in a number of hard- fought battles, he should forfeit his life when so near the close of it all. Some of the best well-to-do people in the village were among the first to enlist ; and this statement will also hold true of those who went to the front in the last as well as the first regiments. The people of Penacook may well be proud of the boys of '61- '65. And after peace was restored to our divided country, they then fully realized the sacrifices that were made by their fellow-citizens during the years of the civil and the needless war. Towering upwards of one hundred and fifty feet, the graceful spire that crowns the Baptist Church, on the corner of Merrimack and Center Streets, would be one of the first objects to attract the attention of a stranger. The exterior of this Wayside Jottings 87 church has not been materially changed since its erection in 1858. At the time of its dedication, on September 8 of that year, the New Hampshire Statesman remarked editorially: "For all the appointments necessary for a religious society, there is no edifice in the central part of New Hampshire, if in the state, that equals this. It is a beautiful memorial of the Christian enterprise and enlarged benevolence of those who conceived the plan and carried it to completion." This tribute of Mr. McFarland will in a measure hold good after the lapse of fifty-one years. The cost of the church, exclusive of the land, was $18,500. the land being the gift of the Contoocook Manu- facturing Company, while the cost of the church was mostly contributed by H. H. and J. S. Brown ; and this evidence of liberality on their part shows that these two Christian brothers were helpful not only to the manufacturing interests of the village, but also to its moral and religious interests. The writer attended the dedication of this church, hence his liking for it. One of the few old-time taverns remaining in the valley of the Merrimack is the Penacook House on the Boscawen side of the Contoocook. It was built in 1787, and has always been in readiness ever since to furnish entertainment for man and beast. Where is there another tavern in the state that can match this continuous record of one hun- dred and twenty-two years? It beats the record of the Ashville schoolhouse in the Dimond Hill 88 Wayside Jottings district of one hundred and six years. When kept by Hannibal Bonney it was known for a while as Bonney 's Hotel. Mr. Bonney had a twin brother, named Horace Bonney, who was the landlord of the Ayer House in Hooksett village and which was burned a year or two ago. There is a rather inter- esting history of these brothers worth noting. They were, as we have said, twins ; they had classi- cal names, Hannibal and Horace; both served in the war with Mexico and were pensioners; they knew how to keep a hotel, their hostelries being famous for their good cheer; the villages where they lived had Indian names; and living to a good old age, in the valley of the Merrimack, and in death they were not long divided. The palmy days of these and kindred taverns were in the years before the iron horse found its way into this sec- tion of the state, when teams and coaches were the principal means for the transportation of mer- chandise and passengers. Of course, the most noted historic spot within the boundaries is Dustin's Island, on which was erected, June 17, 1874, a granite statue of Hannah Dustin, to commemorate the heroic deed of this modern Jael. The occasion of its dedication was an interesting one. Addresses were given by Dr. Nathaniel Bouton, Col. John H. George of Con- cord, George W. Nesmith of Franklin, and others. Robert B. Caverly of Lowell, Mass., delivered an historical oration and also gave the deed of the land to Gov. J. A. Weston, who accepted it in Wayside Jottings 89 trust in behalf of the state. Everything about this monument of a mechanical or architectural char- acter is well designed and finely executed. But the less said about the inscriptions on its four dies the better. As D. Arthur Brown says in his "His- tory of Penacook" (to which we are indebted for many of the facts in relation to this village) : "The inscriptions are hardly adequate, and it is doubtful if any one could learn from them what the monu- ment was intended to commemorate." And he further suggests that, ' ' as the State of New Hamp- shire is the owner in trust, bronze tablets should be placed in the dies on which should be inscribed the main points of the tragic story, the date of the massacre and the date of the dedication of the monument." And President Eliot of Harvard University is just the man to do it. The writer notices that Prof. Amos Hadley, the editor of the "History of Concord," while he has a picture in it of the Dustin monument, does not print the inscription on it. Mr. Hadley used the best of English and wanted others to do so, as some who attended his private school on Dunbarton Hill in the fifties will well remember. As is the case with the statue of the "Minute Man" at Concord, Mass., Dustin 's Island is visited by numbers of people who claim to be descendants of Hannah Dustin, and who wish to see the spot where ten of the redskins found out to their sorrow ' ' what was the matter with Hannah, ' ' and her two companions in captivity. A resident in this part 90 Wayside Jottings of Penacook for some years says it is wonderful what a large number of visitors to this island claimed to be descendants of Hannah Dustin. The woods seemed to be full of them. There is no doubt that Mrs. Dustin was a strong-minded woman in her make-up; and as "the proof of the pudding is in the eating," so the proof of her courage and nerve was seen in the dispatching of ten good Indians on that fateful night of March 30, 1697, to the happy hunting grounds. To the writer the chief charm of Penacook is the Contoocook, that runs in its mad career through the village, we might say Lodore fashion, before it joins the Merrimack, and seemingly glad to do so. While it is one of the most important of our New Hampshire rivers, on account of the manufacturing villages lying along its crooked course, that its water power has created, it is also one of the most picturesque in its scenery. While Burns has sung of Bonnie Doon ; Longfellow of the river Charles, and Whittier of the Merrimack, because they lived near the banks of these rivers, we have a poetess who was born in the town of Henniker and who has also sung the praises of the Contoocook Edna Dean Proctor. THE CONTOOCOOK. Of all the streams that seek the sea By mountain pass or sunny lea Nowhere is one that dares to vie With clear Contoocook, swift and shy, Monadnock's child of snow drifts born, Wayside Jottings 91 The snows of many a winter's morn And many a midnight, dark and still, Heaped higher, whiter, day by day, To melt at last with suns of May And steal, in tiny fall and rill, Down the long slopes of granite gray; Or filter slow through seam and cleft, Where frost and storm the rock have reft, To bubble cool in sheltered springs, Where the lone red-bird dips his wings, And the tired fox that gains their brink Stops safe from hound and horn to drink; And rills and springs, grown broad and deep, Unite through gorge and glen to sweep In waving brooks that turn and take The over-floods of pool and lake, Till, till to the fields the hills deliver Contoocook's bright and brimming river. O have you seen, from Hillsborough town, How fast its tide goes hurrying down, With rapids now, and then a leap Past giant boulders, black and steep, Plunged in mid-water, fain to keep Its current from the meadows green? But, flecked with foam, it speeds along; And not the birch trees' silvery sheen, Nor the soft lull of murmuring pines, Not hermit thrushes fluting low, Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow Where clematis, the fairy, twines, Nor bowery islands where the breeze Forever whispers to the trees, Can stay its course or still its song. Ceaseless it flows till round its bed The vales of Henniker are spread. Their banks all set with golden grain, Or stately trees whose vistas gleam 92 Wayside Jottings A double forest in the stream; And, winding 'neath the pine-crowned hill That overhangs the village plain, By sunny reaches, broad and still, It nears the bridge that spans its tide The bridge whose arches low and wide It ripples through. And should you lean A moment there no lovelier scene On England's Wye or Scotland's Tay Would charm your gaze a summer's day. O what of beauty 'tis the giver Contoocook's bright and brimming river! And on it glides, by grove and glen, Dark woodlands and the homes of men, With grove and meadow, fall and mill, Till, deep and clear, its waters fill The channels round that gem of isles Sacred to captives' woes and wiles, And eager half, half edging back, Blend with the lordly Merrimack; And Merriroack, whose tide is strong, Rolls gently with its waves along Monadnock's stream that, coy and fair, Has come its larger life to share, And to the sea doth safe deliver Contoocook's bright and shining river. XVII. The first settlers of New Hampshire had a pro- pensity for building the highways up and over the hills, and in some cases, over the steepest part. Those who have toiled up Wood Hill, in the town of Bow. or Mills' Hill, in the town of Dunbarton, will readily see in those hill towns this fact illus- Wayside Jottings 93 trated. Mills' Hill is said to be two miles up and one mile down. On the line of the old Hopkinton Road, we have Dimond Hill, probably the highest eminence in Ward Seven, Concord, and so named from Ezekiel Dimond, one of the first settlers in that locality. It seems like going up the roof of a house to climb it, but for years it was the only direct road to Hopkinton village, and private vehicles, stages and loaded teams, alike, went up and down its sides, until way back in the forties, in compliance of the demand of the traveling public, a new highway was constructed around the north side of the hill, though the old road being somewhat more direct route between Concord and Hopkinton village, is probably as much used for light travel as ever. Before we reach Dimond Hill, we pass the Ash- ville schoolhouse, a small, unpretending structure that is a reminder of the olden time. It is a type of the old-fashioned schoolhouse. It was built in the year 1803 and is the oldest schoolhouse now standing in the city. It is a four-square, one-story structure with hip roof. A tall white oak, prob- ably as old as the house itself, stands guard over it. This schoolhouse is probably the oldest now in use in the state. Here was "graduated" a professor in Dartmouth College, Prof. Ezekial Dimond. On gaining the summit of this hill, a fine view is obtained of Merrimack valley and the region beyond. Here Isaac N. Abbott, a native to the manor born, and a life-long resident, has erected 94 Wayside Jottings as fine a set of buildings as can be found in Merri- mack County, and the farm speaks for itself as to its condition and cultivation. The political light- ning has never struck any of the farmers of Con- cord, with the exception of John Abbott, in his first term. The three central wards, especially Ward Five, seem to have a mortgage of the mayor- ship Ward Five having had a baker's dozen that have held the office but if it had ever struck a farmer of "Ward Seven, Mr. Abbott would have made a good mark, being a practical man of affairs, as witness his fifty years' service as clerk of the town school district. This old highway, for two miles or more, is noted for the number of old-style houses that line the road, and that were built in the colonial period. We have here an illustration of two styles, the "box-trap" style and the "square" style. In Mr. Walker 's article in the new ' ' History of Concord, ' ' he alludes to these styles, and which are still seen in some parts of the city. Pictures are also given of them. The "box-trap" style was built two stories in front, running down to one story in the rear. A good example on this highway of the "square" style is seen in the summer home of William F. Thayer of Concord. When erected it was regarded as one of the best houses in Hills- borough County, of which Hopkinton was then a part. Before the era of railroads, when lines of stages and farmers' teams traveled to and from the "up country," it was a hostelry where the Wayside Jottings 95 wants of man and beast were provided for. Wil- son Flagg, in his "Woods and By- Ways of New England," says: "In my mind the elm is inti- mately allied with the old dwelling houses. Not many of these venerable houses are still extant; but wherever we see one, it is almost invariably accompanied by its elm, standing in the open space that slopes from the front." In the case of Mr. Thayer's house, there are four stately elms, that stand in line like four brothers, all of similar size and height, though planted rather near together. They are quite a curiosity. Along this old road is the home of the Baldwin apple, and in bearing years, the trees are loaded with fruit. Probably the farm of Frank H. Colby, opposite Mr. Thayer 's, is the best fruit farm in this section of the town, as the trees are comparatively young and thrifty, and the orchard is worth seeing in harvest time. Further along the road, Harry H. Dudley of Concord has a summer home, fronting the old Hooksett turnpike, on what he has named the "Garrison," so named from the fact that here was located one of the three garrisons that were built for the protection of the inhabitants of the town from the Indians. This was named the "Kim- ball" garrison; one was also located on Putney Hill; the other, near the village of Contoocook. Within a stone-throw of the site of the Kimball garrison is the old Fletcher house, the home of Rev. Elijah Fletcher, the second pastor of the village Congregational Church (1778-1786), and 96 Wayside Jottings the father of Grace Fletcher, who became the wife of Daniel Webster. XVIII. Those who have visited the towns in Merrimack County will agree that there is no pleasanter place within its borders than Hopkinton village. It is a village that would have delighted the soul of Oliver Goldsmith, and where Rip Van Winkle could have enjoyed his long nap without molesta- tion. It has not changed very much in its appear- ance with the passing of the years; some of the old landmarks have disappeared, notably the structure that at first served the dual purpose of a court house and the home of the Hopkinton Academy, and in later years as a town house, and the famous hostelry that in stage coach days was known as the Perkins Tavern both of these some years ago went up in flame and smoke. With these exceptions, the village main street, embow- ered in the shade of the handsome maples and elms among the latter the famous Lafayette elm remains substantially the same as it did way back in the forties, when the writer first knew it. It is one of the few remaining rural villages that James Bryce speaks about in the "American Common- wealth." But the older residents of those years have mostly passed to "the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns." Suppose we turn back the tide of time to those years and recall, if we can, the names of those that o. *; Wayside Jottings 97 lived in the spacious and comfortable homes that line this street. The ministers of the three churches would perhaps come first in order. They were the Rev. Moses Kimball, pastor of the Con- gregational Church; the Rev. Samuel Cook', pastor of the Baptist Church, and the Rev. Moses B. Chase, rector of the St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. There were a number of judges and lawyers resident here, as Hopkinton in its palmy days was one of the two shire towns of Hills- borough County, prior to the formation of Merri- mack County, and came pretty near being the capital of the state. In fact, the Great and Gen- eral Court met here four times, prior to the year 1819, when the new state house at Concord was first occupied. One of these judges was Matthew Harvey, a gentleman of the old school, and the very embodi- ment of kindliness. Then there were John Harris, Baruch Chase and Horace Chase, who for some years was judge of probate of Merrimack County. The physicians were Dr. Ebenezer Lernerd, Dr. Stephen Currier, Dr. James A. Gregg and Dr. Cyril C. Tyler. The old Perkins Tavern, kept at first by Capt. Bimsley Perkins, and afterwards, in the forties, by Joseph Stanwood, was then in all its glory. As there were a number of stage lines that ran through the village from the north coun- try, and in the direction of Hillsborough and Keene, there was quite a lively time on the coming and departure. 9% Wayside Jottings Other prominent residents in the forties were Capt. Herman H. Greene, Josiah H. Knowlton, Daniel Flanders, Ariel P. Knowlton, Theophilus Stanley, Thomas Wells, Isaac Long, Thomas Bailey, Reuben French, I. Webber Fellows, Horace Ed- munds, William Little and Samuel Smith. Others there were, of course, whose names the writer does not recall. Hopkinton village in the first years of the last century had a fair future before it, as the sessions of the court were held there in connection with the town of Amherst. And it had a fair prospect of being the capital of the state, but it was changed, however, by one vote in the proceedings of the governor and council, which turned the scale in favor of Concord. The formation of Merrimack County also changed its shiretown and brought the courts to Concord. The principal cause of Hopkinton 's decline has been stated by C. C. Lord in "Life and Times in Hopkinton." He says: "Some sixty years ago the tide of local emigration began. The commercial and manufacturing cen- ters began to attract the young of both sexes. The store, the shop and the mill got their share of recruits from this town. Then the newer states of the West began to draw their quota of adven- turers." Of late years, the village and Putney Hill are getting to be summer resorts, and many of the houses in the village are occupied by sojourners during the pleasanter part of the year, Wayside Jottings 99 while in the winter months it has the appearance of a deserted village. One of the notable institutions of Hopkinton village is the New Hampshire Antiquarian Society. It is an outgrowth of the Philomatic Club, organ- ized in the year 1859. Three young men, George E. Crowell, Darwin C. Blanchard and Silas Ketchun, were its organizers; at first its member- ship was limited to seven. Its constitution was formed on the model of the Kit Cat Club as described in Addison's "Spectator." The mem- bers were to meet once a week, when practicable, otherwise as often as they could. The original design of this club was social, intellectual and lit- erary culture; a private collection of relics, min- erals and natural curiosities was formed, and in the sixties was placed in a room in Mr. Cro well's house on Beach Hill. Here the club continued to meet until the year 1868, when the house passed into other hands, and the collection of curiosities was afterwards removed to Contoocook, where it remained till the year 1890, when, on its com- pletion, the Long Memorial building became the permanent home of what is now known as the New Hampshire Antiquarian Society. This three-story structure of brick and stone was erected by Mrs. William H. Long, in memory of her husband, a native of Hopkinton village and for some years a master in the Boston public schools. A half a day could be profitably spent in looking over the fine collection of relics and antiquities that are to be 100 Wayside Jottings found arranged in glass cases in the spacious hall devoted to the uses of the society. There is probably no finer view of the valley of the Contoocook, with old Kearsarge in the back- ground, than that obtained from the summit of Putney Hill. It is the oldest part of the town and one of the landmarks remaining is the old parsonage. There are some good farms in this section of the town, and it is the home of the Baldwin apple. Now that the Perkins Inn at the village has gone up in flame and smoke, the two remaining summer hotels, the Mt. Lookout House and the Grand View House, are left to cater to the wants of the city visitors. XIX. One of the old landmarks in Hopkinton village is St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. In fact, it is the oldest church edifice in town, having been built in the years 1827- '28, and dedicated on June 25, 1828, nearly seventy-eight years ago. While the older churches generally throughout the state have undergone a renovation or reconstruction, either in their exterior or their interior, this church is substantially the same in its appearance today as it was the year it was dedicated. It is of solid construction, its walls being of granite and having a square tower of the style that was in vogue in those years. Its interior remains about the same and is pleasing and attractive. A pipe organ, a Wayside Jottings 101 reredos, and a reading desk are the only new fea- tures. The pews have never been changed and are of the kind that were formerly to be found in our churches, being provided with doors and but- tons to fasten them when closed. In olden times a man 's pew was regarded as his castle on Sundays, and strangers were not very cordially welcomed. But this fashion has all been changed, and ushers are always glad to show one to a seat. A relic of former days stands unused in the old singers' gallery over the vestibule that is quite a curiosity and ought to have been in the famous collection of old musical instruments that were exhibited by Chickering & Sons a few years since ; it is a pipe organ, made by Lemuel Hodges of Windsor, Vt. It has been displaced by a more modern organ, which stands at the right of the reredos. What adds much to the beauty of the interior of the church are the stained glass memo- rial windows giving "a dim religious light" to the interior. One of these windows, near which the organ is appropriately placed, and at which she presided for a number of years, has this inscrip- tion: "To the Memory of Catherine Crosby Per- kins Lernerd, Who For Twenty Years Was in Charge of the Music of This Church. Died Dec. 26, 1892." What particularly interested the writer, and brought back some old-time recollec- tions, was the fact that this lady taught a private school in Hopkinton village some years ago, and when a youngster he was one of her scholars and 102 Wayside Jottings has some rewards of merit in his possession that she gave him. His recollection of her is that she was a good teacher. Within a stone's throw of St. Andrew's Church is another landmark in the shape of a big elm that is historic. A bronze tablet on its trunk records the fact that under its branches Rev. Jacob Scales, the first minister of the town, was ordained, in February, 1789. Also, that General Lafayette held a reception there, when he passed through the village on his way to Vermont, June 22, 1825. It was probably the most notable event in the his- tory of the town. And this is a reminder that there is another Lafayette elm, in the state house park, for the tradition is that when the state of New Hampshire gave the famous dinner in that place in honor of General Lafayette, when he visited Concord, and at which as guests were some two hundred Revolutionary soldiers under com- mand of Gov. Benjamin Pierce, the general sat at the head of one of the tables under this elm. It is said to be the first tree to the north of the Web- ster statue, and nearly in line with it. If the town of Hopkinton could commemmorate Lafayette's visit by placing a tablet on the elm, stating that fact, it seems to be a pertinent inquiry why the state of New Hampshire should not also do the same thing by the elm in the park. Five roads branch off like spokes from a wheel from the village square that fronts the Perkins Inn and the Congregational Church. If we take the Wayside Jottings 103 road leading to Beech Hill and Tyler's bridge over the Contoocook, we will soon come to the place where the first and last public execution took place in Merrimack County. It was here that Abraham Prescott was hanged on January 6, 1836, for the murder of Mrs. Sally Cochran of Pembroke. While other places or sites in or near the village have been appropriately marked with bronze tab- lets, nothing of the kind has been attempted at this place, probably on account of the tragic character of the scene there enacted, and the doubt about the mental responsibility of the principal actor therein. It is near the highway in what formerly was a pasture, now used by the Beech Hill Golf Club as golf links, and on which a neat club house has been erected. Nearby is a fine oak grove, one of ' ' God 's first temples," where in years past the Fourth of July Sunday School celebrations took place, and where in recent years Hopkinton's Old Home Day has been observed with appropriate exercises. Abraham Prescott was probably a demented man when he committed the crime for which he was executed, and if the old saying is true, that "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church," then his legal taking off was the seed corn, or starting point, of the movement that culminated in the location and building of an asylum for the insane in Concord. And one looking at this asy- lum, or hospital, and noting the many buildings that have been erected from year to year, can see 104 Wayside Jottings what a great and beneficent institution it has come to be. Prof. Amos Hadley, in an interesting address that he delivered in June, 1896, before the New Hampshire Historical Society on "New Hampshire in the Fourth Decade of the Passing (Nineteenth) Century," refers to this grewsome event as follows: "In 1833 occurred in Pembroke the startling murder of Mrs. Sally Cochran at the hands of the youth, Abraham Prescott. The case is a celebrated one in our criminal annals. Prescott was twice tried, twice convicted, and twice sentenced to be hanged. Upon the unanimous recommendation of the three judges of the highest court Richardson, Parker and Upham who had sat at his trial, and upon the petition of others, Governor Badger ordered the execution postponed from the 23d of December, 1835, to the 6th of January, 1836. A great crowd of spectators had gathered at the jail in Ilopkinton on the former day and. disappointed at the reprieve, had resorted to such threats of mob violence as caused the death, by fright, of Jailer Leach's invalid daughter. The members of the court, who had doubts as to Prescott 's soundness of mind at the time of committing the deed, recom- mended to the governor a continuance of the re- prieve. if the council should consent, till legis- lative relief might be obtained. The council would not consent, and so the condemned youth, a fitter subject for a lunatic asylum than the gallows, was executed on the cold January day, dangling in Wayside Jottings 105 the sight of thousands who had gathered from all the region around. But Charles H. Peaslee and Ichabod Bartlett, fully convinced of the moral irresponsibility of the victim whom they had strenuously defended at the trial, found in this result new incentive and argument in their emi- nently effective efforts to establish an asylum for the insane the question of doing which soon en- gaged the earnest attention of the people and the legislature." And then Mr. Hadley gives an ac- count of the efforts that were made by the different administrations and Legislatures for the establish- ment of an asylum, until six years after the execu- tion of Prescott, or in the year 1842, it was opened for the reception of patients. About a mile east of Hopkinton village, near the junction of the main road to Concord and the old Hooksett turnpike, is an old dwelling house, prob- ably one of the oldest in town, and which has always been unpainted save by the weather brush of time. It is somewhat historic, and a bronze tablet by the side of the highway states that it is the birthplace of Grace Fletcher, daughter of Rev. Elijah Fletcher, and the first wife of Daniel Web- ster. Grace Fletcher, it seems, did not live long at this place, for on the death of her father she went to reside with her sister, Mrs. Thompson, in Boscawen, where Daniel Webster made her ac- quaintance. According to Henry McFarland, who took some pains to investigate the matter, and of which he gives an account in his interesting volume 106 Wayside Jottings entitled "Sixty Years in Concord," it is not defi- nitely known who was the officiating clergyman at the marriage of Daniel Webster and Grace Fletcher. This took place in Salisbury on Sunday evening, May 29, 1808, and in the notices of the event in the state papers the name of the clergyman is not given. It was formerly supposed that Rev. Thomas Worcester, pastor of the Congregational Church of Salisbury, officiated; another statement was that Rev. Asa McFarland, pastor at that time of the Old North Church in Concord, was probably the minister; but Henry McFarland, after making some investigations as to the truth of this report, came to the conclusion that "there was no proof that Doctor McFarland officiated at the espousals. ' ' XX. It is an old saying that "a short horse is soon curried," and so it may be said that a town with a short name is soon spoken. Bow and Rye can both claim the distinction of having the shortest names of towns in the Granite State, with Hill, Bath, Troy and Lyme as close seconds. The name of Bow is said to be derived from a bow or bend in the* Merrimack. Rye is said to take its name from a town in England from which its early settlers came. Bow is rather unique in other respects. There is nothing that can be called a village within its limits. At the Center there is a neighborhood, which we usually find at four corners of the high- Wayside Jottings 107 way. There we also find a church and the town house. That, along with Dunbarton, it is one of the hill towns of Merrimack County, goes without saying, as those who have climbed ' ' Meeting House Hill" and, above all; "Wood Hill," can attest. The former takes its name from the fact that in the early days of the town the meeting house was located on its summit. It was a Baptist Church and the structure is still standing on its original site, though it has been converted into a barn. It was built at a time when the custom largely prevailed of erecting the church on the highest hill in town. Its walls, that aforetime echoed to the preaching of the old theology, now resound to the sounds of dumb animals. And if we should moralize a little, who knows that, after all, the old theology may not be as near or nearer right than that which is now in fashion, and which in fifty years from now will, in turn, be considered old and out of date. There is a woful lack of posi- tive knowledge on the part of our theologians in regard to what is in store for us when we shuffle off our mortal coil. Whittier seems to have this same thought in his mind when he writes : I turn from nature unto men. I ask the stylus and the pen: What sang the bards of old? What meant The prophets of the Orient? The rolls of buried Egypt, hid In painted tomb and pyramid? What mean Idumea's arrow lines? 108 Wayside Jottings Or dusk Elora's monstrous signs? How speaks the primal thought of man From the grim carvings of Copan? Where rest the secret? where the keys Of the old death-bolted mysteries? Alas! the dead retain their trust; Dust hath no answer from the dust. That the lumbermen, along with the portable sawmills, have visited Bow and have carried on their destructive work is plainly evidenced by the big piles of sawdust and the limbs of the trees, scattered over the ground, which are to be seen as one passes over the Hooksett turnpike. These men and the mills are the deadly foes of the forests of New Hampshire, and there seems to be no way to stay their course. But there is one tract of pine forest land, consisting of a pine grove, on the farm of David Hammond, on the summit of Wood Hill, that has not as yet been invaded, per- haps for the reason that the trees are not large enough to cut down. This grove is an ideal place for picnics and other gatherings, and for the last four or five years Old Home Day has here been observed. The celebration this year was held on August 23 and was carried out in a successful man- ner under the direction of Gen. H. M. Baker, as president of the town association. From the summit of Wood Hill we get a splendid view of the valley of the Merrimack, some think it the best view, and also a far-away look in the direction of the White Mountains. Our Merri- Wayside Jottings 109 mack County mountain, old Kearsarge, looms up in all its dignity, reminding one of a couchant lion, gazing in the direction of his brothers in the White Hills. From this elevation we also get a good view of the territory claimed by Bow in the original grant of land, but which was also claimed by Con- cord, then known as Rumford, and Pembroke, then known as Suncook. What these towns finally got was evidently the best part of the land, leaving the roughest and most hilly part to Bow. Bow would seem to be a good town to try the experiment of a church federation. There are two churches in town, the Baptist at the Center, and the Methodist in the eastern part of the town. The former used to be quite a strong church, but death and removals to other parts of the country have depleted its numbers till hardly more than a baker's dozen are left. General Baker, in his ad- dress on Old Home Day, spoke of the desirability of pooling the denominational issues, uniting and having but one church. It would be an object lesson for other towns to follow, besides carrying out the Scripture idea of "one Lord, one faith and one baptism." One of the ministers who spoke afterwards, in commenting on General Baker's suggestion, said that if the plan was carried out one of Bow's ministers would lose his job. And that is possibly the principal reason why the fed- eration of the churches does not succeed, and prob- ably never will succeed, though perhaps the remark was made half in jest. 110 Wayside Jottings Some years ago, if the writer remembers cor- rectly, Wood Hill had another name. It was called Flag Staff Hill, from the fact that a flag staff was planted on the highest part of it, from which Old Glory was wont to float. At the annual Old Home Day gathering it was voted, and a com- mittee appointed 4o procure another staff, from which the star-spangled banner in triumph once more can wave. No better time could be fixed upon to fling it to the breeze than on an Old Home Day. and General Baker is just the man to deliver an oration and cause the old eagle to scream lustily. Old Kearsarge and Mount Washington would be interested, though distant spectators. XXI. Two-thirds of the way up Wood Hill, where Bow's last Old Home Day was celebrated, we come to the road that branches off in the direction of Dunbarton Center. It leads into the Bailey dis- trict, where the three Oliver Baileys, father, son and grandson, have lived in succession and tilled one of the largest farms in that locality. The barn on the original Bailey farm is probably the biggest in town, being all of two hundred feet in length, and is a witness of the former days of New Hamp- shire farming, when it was filled with hay and grain harvested on the uplands and in the meadows and where a large stock of cattle was kept. In this locality is the humble cottage where Henry M. Wayside Jottings 111 Putney of the Manchester Mirror (now deceased) first saw the light of day. As an expert New Hampshire politician, he had few equals in a state where politicians, like poets, are born, not made. We are also in the vicinity of the " Great Mead- ows," where Joseph Putney and James Rogers, who were among the first settlers of the town, came about the year 1748. They had hardly commenced a settlement when they were compelled to flee to Concord, then known as Rumford, for safety from Indian attack. From the Bailey district to Dunbarton Center is about a couple of miles, and when we arrive there we find that it is like "a city set on a hill that cannot be hid." We look down on the west side into the valley of the Piscataquog, where is situated the village of East Weare, with the hills of Weare Center and the mountains of Francestown in the background. To the south is seen the grand Mon- adnock; to the west we see Ascutney, over in the Green Mountain State; while to the east, in the neighboring town of Goffstown, are the twin Un- canoonucs. Here we find a small village, typical of former New England times, with the village square and the old meeting-house (since burned) standing in the center of it. Dunbarton has a longer name than Bow, a name that fills the mouth in pronouncing it. The first settlers of the town were Scotch-Irish, and along with their household goods they brought the name of their town with them, although in crossing the big pond the "m" 112 Wayside Jottings in the first syllable was changed to an "n." In this connection, it is worthy of note that most of the early settled towns of the state have foreign, mainly English, names. There is no town in Merrimack County that has an Indian name, and only four in the whole state, that the writer is aware of, Merrimack, Nashua, Sunapee and Ossi- pee, though Concord was originally known as Penacook, and Pembroke as Suncook. Probably the main reason for this naming of the old towns and change of names was that the first settlers had a somewhat unpleasant experience with the Indians the Bradley monument out on Pleasant Street is a mute witness to that fact. At Dunbarton, as we have intimated, there is still standing on the village common the first meet- ing house (since burned), which was built about the year 1785. Its outside appearance remains as aforetime, but its interior has undergone a com- plete change. The high pulpit, with its quaint sounding-board, and the high-backed, square pews, have disappeared; a floor divides the interior in two halls, the lower one being used for a town hall and the upper one for the use of the Grange and other social organizations. On the west side of the street, nearly opposite, stands the Congrega- tional vestry, a two-story building, the upper part containing a room which in former days, or along in the fifties, was used for a private school, filling the place of a high school or academy. Here Prof. Amos Hadley, of Concord, and afterwards Prof. Wayside Jottings 113 Mark Bailey, for years an instructor in Yale Col- lege, taught the scholars who came from all parts of the town. It goes without saying that they were first-class teachers, as all who enjoyed their in- structions will readily testify. Some of the teach- ers in the Center School district along in the fifties were Paltiah Brown, afterwards register of deeds for Merrimack County ; Henry L. Burnham, father of Senator Henry E. Burnham; and John C. Ray, afterwards superintendent of the State Reform School at Manchester. Some of the scholars of the private school under Prof. Mark Bailey were E. O. Jameson, T. H. Jameson, George H. Twiss, Howard Cook, George Putnam, Chase Stinson and James Bailey. This allusion to the schools reminds the writer that about the time to which reference is made Revs. J. M. Putnam and H. D. Hodge compiled a grammar, which they claimed was a decided im- provement on those in use in the schools at that time. Henry McFarland, in his "Sixty Years in Concord," alludes to this grammar. John F. Brown, in whose bookstore Mr. McFarland was then clerk, was the publisher, and these gram- marians were wont to call at the store and express their wonderment why there was not more of a demand for the grammar. He states that it was somewhat "revolutionary" in its rules and there- fore did not go off very well. The writer well re- members that grammar, and no doubt Mr. Mc- Farland has hit upon the right reason why it did 8 114 Wayside Jottings not sell better. As the authors were at that time the superintending school committee of Dunbarton, there was one town where the scholars were obliged to get a copy of Putnam and Hodge's Grammar and study it. William E. Curtis, in his interesting letters from this state, first published in the Chicago Record- Herald, and afterwards republished in the Monitor, says: "Everybody almost in Rye is either a Jen- ness, a Locke, or a Philbrick; that is, all the per- manent residents. ' ' In former years, perhaps more than now, it might be said that the leading families in Dunbarton were either Burnhams, Baileys, Stin- sons or Starks; North Dunbarton being the abode of the Pages, the Whipples and the Tenneys; but with the lapse of years marked changes have taken place. Some of the prominent old-time residents of Dunbarton Center, as the writer recalls them, were Rev. J. M. Putnam, pastor of the Congrega- tional Church; Rev. Samuel Cook, pastor of the Baptist Church ; Benjamin Whipple, John Stinson, Samuel Kimball, Warren Perley, Samuel Burnham and John Page. These have probably all gone over the river, after living to a good old age. If breathing pure air is conducive to longevity, the dwellers on Dunbarton Hill get it in full measure. It has never been a very favorable location for a physician. The old meeting-house in the village square was where Rev. Walter Harris, the first minister of the town, preached the old theology without any Wayside Jottings 115 dilution in its strength. For years the Congrega- tional Church was the only church in town. In the course of time the Baptists erected a house of worship, though regarded somewhat in the light of intruders; and the two churches have continued on their way under varying conditions. Like Bow, it would seem to be a good place to try church fed- eration. The writer was in attendance at the first Old Home Day celebration in Dunbarton and among the speakers was Rev. Samuel Woodbury, then pastor of the Baptist Church in Bow, and previously pastor of the Baptist Church in Dun- barton. Those who know him will remember his humorous way of speaking. There was one winter when the Congregational Church was without a pastor, and this church and the Baptist Church held a union service in the Congregational Church, Mr. Woodbury conducting the services. He al- luded to this circumstance in his remarks and said that one winter he was pastor of the Congrega- tional Church, and no doubt he made an accept- able one. If such a unity in religious matters could be carried out for a few months, there would seem to be no valid reason why it might not be- come permanent. It is hard to get out of sectarian ruts, and probably we shall have church federa- tion about the time when "the sword is beaten into a plowshare and the spear into a pruning hook, and when nations shall learn war no more." In any direction that one leaves Dunbarton Center, he has to go down a hill, some steeper than 116 Wayside Jottings others, though any of them will fill the bill. The road to North Dunbarton leads down Mills Hill, which, like Wood Hill in Bow, is said to be two miles up and one mile down. A splendid view is afforded in its descent of the northern part of Merrimack County, with old Kearsarge looming up before you, and the White Hills in the distance. It would seem worth while for one to throw down the muck rake and take a ride out on the hills of Bow and Dunbarton and see the beautiful views that are presented of central New Hampshire. XXII. Bryant in "Thanatopsis" tells of The hills Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun This is no doubt a good description of many of the hills in the valley of the Merrimack, and especially of old "Rattlesnake" up in the West Concord district. That its sides are "rock-ribbed" is evidenced by the many thousands of tons of granite that have been blasted from them and have been fashioned by skilled artisans into the numer- ous stately structures, both public and private, throughout our country. While the supply of iron, copper, coal and other minerals may in time be exhausted, there is no danger but what Con- cord's famous hill can be depended upon for a supply of granite till the crack of doom. Wayside Jottings 117 Away back in the thirties this ' ' ancient ' ' hill was considered of enough importance to have its pic- ture inserted in Hay ward's "New England Gazet- teer. ' ' In fact, this picture and that of the ' ' Land- ing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth" were the only two in the book. In the description of Concord this picture is given over the name of "The New Hampshire Granite Ledge." The writer has an idea that this representation is part fact and part fancy; or, in other words, it portrayed what then existed, and what was projected and hoped for in the future. In the foreground is the Merrimack with a flat-bottom canal or river boat, with sail set, loaded with blocks of granite, starting on its trip down the river. Standing on the bank of the river, and partly projecting over the water, is the freight house of the Merrimack Boating Company, where the boats loaded. In the rear of the house are the stone sheds where the stone men are dress- ing the granite, while a train of cars, similar to the gravel cars in use on our steam railroads, drawn by a tandem team of horses, are carrying the blocks of granite to the river. In the back- ground old Rattlesnake rears its rugged sides and quarrymen are busily engaged in getting out the granite. The description of "The New Hampshire Gran- ite Ledge ' ' as given in this Gazetteer is as follows : "Large masses of granite, suitable for building purposes, exist here, the most important of which is the New Hampshire Granite Ledge, a name in 118 Wayside Jottings which in an act of incorporation an immense mass of granite in the northwest part of the town has been designated. This ledge is situated about two miles northwest of the state house, and is about two hundred rods distant from the Merrimack, which is navigable to this place with boats. This ledge presents a surface of massive primitive gran- ite of more than 4,500 square rods. The rift of this stone is very perfect, smooth and regular; splits are easily made to the depth of twelve to twenty feet, and of almost any required length. And unlike much of the granite now in the market, it has been ascertained by an examination made by chemists and geologists that the stone is perfectly free from oxides, or other mineral substances, which on exposure to the atmosphere mar the beauty of much of the New England granite. . . . From the base of the ledge to the bank of the Merrimack, a railway is contemplated, the pro- prietors of the ledge having obtained a charter for that purpose. As the facility of transportation by way of the Merrimack to the markets becomes known, together with the fact that the upward freight would, during a great portion of the year, go far toward remunerating the cost of transporta- tion of this stone to the seaboard, the situation, extent, and value of this quarry will be seen and appreciated." The erection of the old state prison in 1812 and the State House in 1816-1819 brought Concord granite into notice and created a demand for it. Wayside Jottings 119 It was then dressed by the convicts in the prison and shipped to Boston, through the Middlesex canal, by the Boating Company, and then on to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans. It was an easy method of transportation and a comparatively cheap method. Of course, it ceased in the forties on the completion of the Concord Railroad through the Merrimack valley. It is an instance where the building of a railroad entirely changed the rates for freight. If the Merrimack was navigable to Concord it is probable that the output -of granite would be greatly in- creased. It is said that the proximity of the gran- ite quarries along the coast of Maine and Massa- chusetts to the shipping is what gives the con- tractors of these localities the advantage in bidding on proposals for the erection of public buildings. From the interesting chapter in the new "His- tory of Concord" on "Material Development," we quote the following information in regard to the granite business : ' ' Granite has had much to do with the prosperity of the people, both in its quarrying and in its working, and yet its history is not a long one. In a small and irregular way it has been used by builders and monument makers for a considerable period, but its larger and more extensive use has only come about within the memory of many of Concord's middleaged citizens. " In a money point of view no industry has con- tributed more largely and more constantly to the 120 Wayside Jottings material advancement of Concord than the granite business, and none can show more conspicuous evi- dences of aggressiveness and growth. From the Rattlesnake ledges have come many of the most costly and stately edifices now adorning cities stretching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, while in the production of lesser but more en- during works, such as public shafts and private monuments, the number would be impossible to estimate. And yet the hidden wealth of the shapely hill was touched into life only a few de- cades ago. Simeon Abbott used to tell how his father bought thirty-six acres of Rattlesnake Hill for fifty cents an acre, and how he sold a single rock for one hundred and ten dollars to Goss & Johnson, who in turn sold it on a contract at the state prison for fifteen hundred and forty dollars, where it was hammered and sent to New Orleans for the United States custom house, and brought the sum of six thousand dollars. "One of the quarries on Rattlesnake is known as the New England quarry. This quarry will go down in history as the birthplace of the magnificent Congressional Library at Washington, for from here came the material and in the sheds of the New England Granite Company were cut and formed the graceful and beautiful features of that im- posing structure. The contract involved was one of the largest ever known in the building world, calling for three hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of granite and one million three hundred Wayside Jottings 121 thousand dollars in money. To complete the whole contract required six years. The work kept more than three hundred men busily employed, and the money paid in wages was not far from one million dollars." XXIII. Dwellers in Concord will doubtless agree with the writer that Lake Penacook, known more famil- iarly as Long Pond, is one of the fairest gems, per- haps the fairest, in the crown of the Capital City. It is not merely a beautiful sheet of water, with picturesque surroundings, but it is also of great practical benefit, in that it furnishes, in an abund- ant measure, to the inhabitants of the old town one of the greatest boons that mortals can have con- ferred on them. Lake Penacook is good illustra- tion of the union of the beautiful and the practical. Sometimes one is inclined to be old-fashioned enough to indulge in the conceit that this lake did not come into existence through evolution, but as "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," so it was set amongst the hills of West Concord, by a divine hand, for the great and ex- press purpose of furnishing a water supply when other sources had proved inadequate, to a rural city that was to arise in the valley of the Merri- mack, ages after the fiat was pronounced: "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." It is an inspiring thought that there was a benevolent 122 Wayside Jottings i design in the mind of the Creator in the formation of these natural objects of lake, river, valley and mountain in the old Granite State. Was it not, in a large degree, for the benefit of the people who come hither in increasing numbers from the cities in the summer time, for a renewal of their health and strength? This may be a conceit, but it is a harmless one, and would seem to be in accordance with the teachings of the Scripture that God created all these wondrous objects of nature, and then "created man in His own image," with powers of mind that were capable of their enjoyment. There has been, however, an evolution that is patent to all, and that is rather interesting to con- sider, in the methods that have been in vogue for supplying water here in Concord during the one hundred and eighty-two years of its history. It shows the advance that has been made here, as well as elsewhere, in the invention and in the use of means by which household drudgery has been shorn of a share of burdens. The early settlers of "the Plantation of Pena- cook" depended, of course, on springs or brooks for a supply of water for their dwellings, and it was carried as it was wanted to. the house. Next came the well, dug as near the house as was prac- ticable, and a pail, attached to a pole, was let down into it and the water was drawn up by main strength. Then came the well-sweep, weighted at one end, which was regarded as a great improve- ment and a saving of strength. These well-sweeps Wayside Jottings 123 in the olden time were about as familiar objects in the country's landscape as windmills are in Hol- land. There is, at least, one remaining on the farm of John Lane, the veteran milkman, here in Con- cord, out on the line of the Pleasant Street boule- vard. Mr. Lane is quite enthusiastic over this well, and perhaps some of the older readers of the Jottings, by bringing to mind recollections of the earlier years of their lives will agree with him in it. He says that he can get a cooler and more re- freshing drink of water from the northwest corner, or part, of this well, drawn up with the aid of the well-sweep, than when pumped up through a lead pipe in the house. Samuel Woodworth was in this frame of mind when he wrote that famous and popular poem of rural life, "The Old Oaken Bucket." That old oaken bucket I hailed as a treasure, When often, at noon, I returned from the field. I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest and sweetest that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it arose from the well. How sweet from the oaken rim to receive it, As poised on the curb it inclined to my lips! Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from that loved habitation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, As fancy reverts to my father's plantation, And sighs for the bucket that hung in the well. 124 Wayside Jottings There is an old well-sweep on the farm in Haver- hill, Mass., where Whittier was born. He refers to it in "Snow Bound," and to its appearance after a big snow storm had passed over the old town : The well-curb had a Chinese roof; And even the long sweep, high aloof. In its slant splendor seemed to tell Of Pisa's leaning miracle. Next the windlass was installed in place of the "long sweep," over which a rope or a chain wound, when operated by a crank in drawing up the water. Then the pump came into use, either a wooden one placed over the well-curb in the door-yard, or an iron or copper one set handy to the sink in the kitchen, and connected with the well by a lead pipe. Then the aqueduct system came into vogue, with its wooden logs, a hole being bored through the center of them for the water to flow through, until the lead pipe superseded the logs, the water flowing through the logs and pipes from an eleva- tion on some hillside into a cistern set in the house. At last, in this process of evolution, the waters of Lake Penacook were brought into the compact part of the city, by a system of water works, so that in every dwelling, in the water precinct, a supply of water as is needed, is easily procured by the turn- ing of a faucet. And thus it would seem that this lake for the last thirty-six years, or since January 14, 1873, when the water was first let into the pipes, has been fulfilling the great purpose of its creation. Wayside Jottings 125 The history of the inception and the carrying out of the project of a water supply from Lake Pena- cook is quite interesting, but it would be too lengthy to be repeated in these ' ' Jottings. ' ' Suffice to say, that the question of providing an adequate water supply for the compact part of the city waited some years for a satisfactory answer. In the year 1829, the springs near the base of ''Sand Hill" were considered a source of supply, and the "Con- cord Aqueduct Association," with a capital of $2,000, was incorporated and empowered to take water from this source and ' ' deliver it to customers at such a price as they deemed expedient. ' ' In the year 1849, Nathan Call obtained a charter for "The Torrent Aqueduct Association," with a capi- tal of $20,000. The management of this associa- tion, after the death of Mr. Call, came into the hands of James R. Hill, and finally of Nathaniel White, who made strong efforts by the utilizing of other sources of water to meet the increasing de- mands. On December 16, 1859, a committee consisting of Joseph B. "Walker, John Abbott and Benjamin Grover, was appointed by the city council to in- quire into the feasibility and cost of supplying the compact part of the city with water. This com- mittee made a report, giving their preference to Lake Penacook for a supply, and also gave an esti- mate of $172,475 as the cost of the introduction and distribution of the water therefrom. This project was held in abeyance for nearly eleven 126 Wayside Jottings years, when on July 30, 1870, "the city council appointed a committee of seventeen, consisting of Lyman D. Stevens, David A. Warde, Benjamin S. Warren, Jesse P. Bancroft, Abraham G. Jones, Asa McFarland, James S. Norris, Josiah Minot, Nathan- iel White, Daniel Holden, James N. Lauder, Ed- ward A. Abbot, John Kimball, John M. Hill, Ben- jamin A. Kimball, Moses Humphrey and Benning W. Sanborn to report the best course to be taken to secure the early introduction of pure fresh water from Lake Penacook." This committee reported on the feasibility of the enterprise, and after vari- ous delays in obtaining the necessary legislation in reference to the water rights of the owners of the West Concord mills, an ordinance placing the man- agement of the city water works in a board of water commissioners, consisting of six citizens, with the mayor as ex-fficio, was passed by the city coun- cil on December 30, 1871. The first board of water commissioners consisted of Mayor Abraham G. Jones, ex-officio; John M. Hill, Benjamin A. Kim- ball, Josiah Minot, David A. Warde, Benjamin S. Warren and Edward L. Knowlton. James A. Weston of Manchester was appointed chief en- gineer, and Charles C. Lund of Concord as assist- ant engineer, and operations immediately com- menced. The American Gas and Water Pipe Com- pany of New Jersey took the contract to construct and lay the main line of pipe from the lake, and put in the distributing pipes, gates, hydrants, and other appendages, for the sum of $143,882. Within Wayside Jottings 127 eight months after the contractors commenced oper- ations the water was admitted, as before stated, on January 14, 1873, into the pipes, "and thus it was," as Mr. Hadley remarks, "that the quiet waters of Lake Penacook began to be utilized in multiform benefits to the Capital City. ' ' Reference was made to the fact that in the early history of aqueducts in Concord the water was brought through pine logs which were bored through lengthwise with a long pod auger. It was a crude way of bringing the water from the spring on the hillside, but lead pipe had not then come into use. This was the case in the con- struction of the first aqueduct in Boston in the year 1795, the water being brought from Jamaica Pond, four miles distant. It is said that it took about eighteen miles of these logs to conduct the water through the streets of the Hub. The same method was used in Hopkinton, way back in the forties, and the writer remembers seeing this boring process carried on, when a boy living in the village ; and it was a wonder to him how the hole could be so bored as invariably to go through the center of the log. That Concord is a fairly well-watered locality is evidenced by the fact that out of a total area of about 40,000 acres, about 2,000 acres are cov- ered with water in the form of the various ponds, streams and rivers. Whether the fact of a fairly good water supply influenced the first settlers to locate here the writer is not informed. That this 128 Wayside Jottings was one of the reasons for the settlement of other places is evident in the case of Boston, then known by the name of Shawmut, where Gov. John Win- throp and his associates settled, "because of the excellence of the water." In this connection it might be pertinent to inquire if it was any im- provement to substitue the English name of Boston for the euphonious Indian name of Shawmut, which means ''springs of living waters." Portsmouth is another instance where "springs of excellent qual- ity were found by those who settled there." In later years these "excellent springs" have been used in the brewing of ale and beer, and for which Old Strawberry Bank is known the world over. The question might arise, if in the distant future the present water supply from Lake Penacook should prove inadequate for Concord's needs, where could an additional supply be obtained? The answer would be that underlying the city proper, at least, at a depth of something over a thousand feet, an inexhaustible supply of the purest water could be obtained. This is proven by the sinking, in the years 1897-1898. by John H. Toof, of an artesian well, midway between Main and State Streets, and about one hundred and fifty feet south of School Street. This well was bored to a depth of 1,325 feet, has a diameter of six inches, and yields each day between five and six thousand gallons of pure water. In confirmation of this statement, Joseph B. Walker, who is a good author- ity on local matters, in the chapter in the ' ' History Wayside Jottings 129 of Concord" on "Physical Features," says: "The sinking of this well has demonstrated the fact that if, at some future time, the water from Lake Pena- cook should fail from pollution, insufficiency, or other causes, Concord's citizens have in reserve an inexhaustible supply of pure water, to which they may freely resort. ' ' If it is not out of place to moralize, the question would seem to be a pertinent one, What would all this system of water pipes and hydrants laid through, or set up alongside our streets, amount to in the way of labor saving, and especially in the subduing of fires, if it were not for a law, that is as universal and immutable as the law of gravita- tion, that water seeks and finds its level under all circumstances? Whatever the height of the water may be at Lake Penacook, it will rise to the same height in any part of the city where the water pipes are laid. In other words, if the high water mark there is one hundred and eighty feet, or thereabouts, above a base line at low water in the Merrimack at Concord bridge, then the writer understands that in obedience to this law the water will rise to that height in a stand-pipe erected at the bridge. Who, or what made that law so uni- versal in its operation? Evolution, or a wise and beneficent Creator of the universe ? 130 Wayside Jottings XXIV. It does not take a stranger long, when visiting Concord for the first time, to find out that the trees are very much in evidence in all sections of the city. With the exception of White Park and Rollins Park, they have been mostly planted at various periods of its history. On some of the streets there seems to be a superabundance of them, and set so near together that they seem, as it were, to lack elbow room ; and, under such conditions, the best results in beauty and symmetry cannot be obtained. Perhaps the best view that one can get of Con- cord as a rural city is obtained from the cupola of the state house on any fair midsummer day. This point of vantage carries us up above the tops of the tallest elms and maples that line the streets ; the comfortable homes of the inhabitants seem to be embowered beneath them; while the towers of the churches peer through their branches, and add to the picturesqueness of the view. Concord would be a dreary place to live in if denuded of her trees. Those who, in the early years of her history, were far-sighted enough to begin the planting of shade trees along the streets, builded, or rather planted, better than they knew ; and to them these lines are especially applicable : Who plants n tree for future years. Stays not with his own doubts and fears. But reaches out with thoughtful care. Wayside Jottings 131 With ardent hope and earnest prayer, To make more bright and glad the morn Of generations yet unborn. The pioneer in this tree planting in Concord was the Rev. Timothy Walker, the first minister of the town, who on May 22, 1764, set out the elms at the Walker home, which was then the parsonage. There were originally eight of them, but three have succumbed to old age, and those remaining will in time follow suit. In his diary, Mr. Walker, against the date above given, makes this brief entry : ' ' Set out eight elm trees about my house." That was something over one hundred and forty-four years ago; the elm saplings were probably a dozen years old, so that the remaining five of these patriarchal elms are something over one hundred and fifty- six years old. A few years ago, the largest of these trees, three feet from the ground, had a cir- cumference of eighteen feet and five inches. Some years ago the entire length of Main Street was planted with shade trees. Now, between Cen- ter and Pleasant Streets, which mainly comprises the business center of the city, no trees remain. Mr. Walker states in his chapter on "Trees," in the "History of Concord," that "there were then two hundred and eighty-nine trees, mainly elms and maples, on this street. The history of the Walker elms suggests some one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred years as the allotted age in Concord of the American elm. The plant- ing of shade trees along the streets doubtless origin- 132 Wayside Jottings ated in the towns in Massachusetts, from whence Concord's earliest settlers came, and this custom was brought over from England." Of course, the Webster elm at the North End, planted in 1782, bears off the palm for symmetry and beauty. But there is an elm at the South End, standing near the junction of South and Clinton Streets, on land belonging to Charles H. Noyes, that is a close second. In fact, some of the South- Enders think it the equal of its North End brother. Perhaps it would not be an apt illustration to say that it was "a brand plucked from the burning," but its early history, as told the writer by the late Jeremiah S. Noyes, is as follows : Mr. Noyes, when a boy, lived in the one-story red house near which this elm is standing ; in fact, we think he was born there. A clump of sapling elms was standing near the house, and his mother told young Jeremiah to cut all of them down but one. This noble elm is the sapling of one hundred years ago, and an ap- propriate name for it would be the Noyes elm. Further along on Clinton Street, at its junction with Fruit Street, there is another elm that is a close second to the Noyes elm. The writer is not informed as to its history, whether it was planted or came up of its own accord. As it stands on the opposite side of Fruit Street from the house where the late Isaac Clement lived, it could appropriately be named the Clement elm. When we come to rock maples, there are a num- ber of fine specimens on the streets and in the Concord Y. M. C. A. Building Unitarian Church Wayside Jottings 133 parks, and especially on the New Hampshire State Hospital grounds. These are trees that have had a chance to spread themselves in all directions like the traditional "green bay tree." The writer thinks the largest rock maple is standing before the cottage near the corner of Pleasant and Fruit Streets. Its branches cover an area of at least fifty feet, and furnish all the shade that is needed for that domicile. Another rock maple is on the line of West "Washington Street, just east of its junction with Warren; and two others are out at Millville, one in John H. Mercer's front yard, the other stand- ing in front of the farm house, belonging to the St. Paul's School, just beyond the Orphans' Home. There are but few shapely maples on the line of Concord 's streets ; and on some of the streets about every other tree ought to be removed. This opinion is supported by William Solotaroff, of the "shade tree commission" of New Jersey. In an article in the Ladies' Home Journal he says: "There can be no greater mistake in street tree planting than in setting trees too close together. After a few years they interfere with each other's growth, cut off the necessary light and air. Thirty-five feet, at least, is the average distance apart that shade trees should be set to allow them room for perfect de- velopment." The writer lately noticed two large trees on the line of Pleasant Street, one an elm, and the other a maple, standing within six feet of each other. The writer has been interested in the splendid 134 Wayside Jottings grove of white oaks standing on the New Hamp- shire State Hospital grounds. There must be all of a hundred of them, and from their gnarled appearance, they have attained to a good old age. Probably there was once an oak forest that covered a good part of these grounds, these being the sur- vivors. They remind one of George W. Bungay's lines in his "Ode to Labor": The monarch oak, the woodland's pride. Whose trunk is seamed with lightning scars, Toil launches on the restless tide, And there unfurls the flag of stars. But there is no more "launching on the restless tide, ' ' or the unfurling ' ' the flag of stars, ' ' on the seventy-four-gun man-of-war, for its place is taken by the armored battleship. The monarch oak, however, in Concord, was planted by the hand of Nature in a back pasture on the summit of Stickney Hill in Ward Seven. In the Monitor of April 11, 1902, the writer gave an account of this tree, its size and probable age. It stood on the farm of Isaac P. Clifford, now owned by W. "W. Farwell. It measured at that time twenty-two feet and three inches in circum- ference, three feet above its base. Mr. Clifford measured it in 1888, and in the fourteen interven- ing years there was a gain of seven inches. If that was the rate of increase, year after year, it was a sturdy sapling when Washington was born in the year 1732, something over one hundred and seventy- eight years ago, and the writer took the liberty of Wayside Jottings 135 naming it the Washington oak. The account of this oak in the Monitor came to the notice of the editor of the Youth's Companion, and in an edito- rial he remarked that, "although Doctor Holmes cherished a fondness for fine elms, it is safe to say that he would have appreciated the splendid white oak which a correspondent of the Concord Monitor located on the Clifford farm, near the town line between Concord and Hopkinton, N. H. The sub- stance of poetry is in a tree like this which meas- ures twenty-two feet and three inches in circum- ference. . . . This tree must have appeared in the world years before the United States did. But the republic, once it took root, grew faster. ' ' The palm for majesty and beauty has generally been awarded to the white oak, and the red oak has never been very popular either for shade or for fuel, especially for fuel, as it is hard to season. But in an interesting volume of nearly three hundred pages, entitled, "Our Trees and How to Know Them," Mr. Clarence M. Weed says: "The red oak is one of the most desirable trees for shade and ornament. When successfully transplanted, it grows rapidly, and is an admirable tree for street purposes. This species grows more rapidly than other oaks, and thrives best in a well-drained, sandy clay soil where there is a fair amount of moisture. ' ' From this volume we also learn that there are one hundred and thirty-eight varieties of trees, aside from fruit trees, in the United States. Of 136 Wayside Jottings these, there are twenty-one varieties of pines, thir- teen of oak, eleven of birch, eleven of willow and poplar, eight of maples, seven of walnut, eight of elm, and five of ash. The most famous oak in all New England was the Charter Oak of Hartford, Ct. It was a white oak, and the older readers of the "Jottings" espe- cially will remember the story of this tree, as told in the history of New England that they studied in the "little red school house." The story goes that when James, Duke of York, ascended the throne of England and sent Andros to take away all colonial charters, Connecticut alone refused to surrender hers. Andros was furious over this defiance, and October 31, 1687, he returned to the assembly hall of Hartford with a body of soldiers and demanded instant surrender of the charter, which lay in a box on the table. A hot discussion followed. Finally Andros stretched out his hand to seize the disputed paper. Then the candles were suddenly extinguished, and the people who had gathered on the street outside rushed in a disorderly crowd into the hall. There was a period of wild confusion in the dark, and when the candles were finally re-lighted no charter was to be found. It had been removed by Captain Wadsworth and concealed in the oak, which ever afterward bore its name. The oak was even then old. When the first settlers were clearing their land the Indians begged that it might be spared. "It has been a guide of Kirst National Bank Hmldiiitc Wayside Jottings 137 our ancestors for centuries," they said, "as to the time of planting our corn. When the leaves are the size of a mouse's ears, then is the time to put seed into the ground." The Indians' request was granted, and the tree, afterward becoming the custodian of the lost charter, became famous for all time. It fell in a windstorm August 21, 1856, and so deeply was it venerated that at sunset on the day of its fall the bells of the city were tolled and a band of music played funeral dirges over its ruins. XXV. If some of the old-time storekeepers of Concord could re-visit the glimpses of the moon, or at least that part included in the east side of North Main Street, they would get a genuine surprise in look- ing at the store windows of Harry G. Emmons and David E. Murphy, which may be considered as up- to-date in all respects. One of those old-time mer- chants or storekeepers, as they were generally called, was Col. Perkins Gale, whose store was in Sanborn's old block. He was rather peculiar in his make-up, and was accustomed to express his feelings of surprise by the expression "My life!" No doubt he would use this expression a number of times over if he could take a look at the at- tractive windows in these stores. And if Gen. Joseph Low, the first mayor of Concord, and for whom Low's block was named, could see it, he would hardly recognize it after the extensive re- 138 Wayside Jottings modelling and enlarging to which it has been sub- jected. How different is the display of goods as seen in these stores, from what was the custom in former times! The store windows then contained only a few samples of goods, and these were not changed very often, and were liable to become shopworn. Cotton cloth, calico, ginghams, yarns, etc., was about the sum total of the window display on the dry goods side of the store; and a miscellaneous display in the window of the side of the store given over to West India goods, hardware, boots and shoes. This was a country store of the olden time and a department store on a small scale. It served a good purpose, however, in the distribution of the necessities of life, and a trader who conducted one of them honestly, built up a good trade, was trust- ed by his customers for fair dealings, retired when along in years with a competence. A good illus- tration of this kind of a merchant, and who has not passed out of the remembrance of the present generation, was the late Franklin Evans. About the year 1850, or on the completion of Ex- change block and Low's block, a new and improved style of store window was introduced into Concord. In place of a small window that generally jutted out on the sidewalk, a sort of bay window, which always had shutters, barred and bolted at night to keep out thieves, a large window ' with four squares of glass in front and two on the side, with a door in a recess, was the style that came into Wayside Jottings 139 vogue. This allowed a better display of goods, gave a better light and made the interior of the store in every way more attractive. William W. Easterbrook was probably the first merchant in Concord to open a store devoted ex- clusively to dry goods. His store was situated in the old Stickney block, which went up in flames and smoke in the great fire of 1851. It was on the site of the store next south of the drug store in the new Stickney block, now a part of the J. M. Stewart Sons' Company store. This store was known far and near as the " Great Eight," prob- ably that being the number of the block in which it was situated. It was advertised quite extensively, and for a time did a thriving business, but fail- ure overtook the proprietor, and in the early fifties he migrated, as so many others did, to the newly discovered El Dorado of California, and died there. If any one will take the trouble to examine the files of the Concord papers way back in the forties, they will find the "Great Eight" advertisements, with pictures illustrating the exterior and interior of the store. Henry A. Newhall was another dry goods merchant. When Low's block was built he occupied the south store, _and where in later years David E. Murphy commenced his successful career. Though there have been a number of changes in the firms doing business in this store, it has always been known as a dry goods stand, and from one store it has been enlarged so as to include three stores. 140 Wayside Jottings It is doubtful if there are any descendants of the old-time merchants that are doing business as mer- chants in Concord today. Prominent among these were the Hutchins, Charles, George, Abel and George H. There were the Evans, Samuel, Na- thaniel, Nathaniel, Jr., and Franklin. There were the Gaults, William and John A. Then in addi- tion to these were Benjamin Grover, James Pev- erly, J. C. A. Hill, Charles W. Sargent, B. P. Whipple and C. C. Webster, in the grocery or dry goods line; David Winkley, W. G. Shaw, John G. Lincoln and F. C. and A. J. Edmunds in the cloth- ing or tailoring line ; while Allison & Gault, E. H. Rollins, H. B. Foster and Brown & Morgan dis- pensed drugs and medicines. Of all the old firms once in business on North Main Street, only one, T. W. & J. H. Stewart, remains. Of course, such stores as Emmons', Robinson's and Murphy 's contain a much larger stock of goods and a greater variety than can be found in smaller stores. The result is that the latter are crowded out of business. And there are only three strictly dry goods stores on North Main Street, where not many years ago there were at least seven or eight. Whether this consolidation will extend in time to other branches of trade, so that there will be only three clothing stores, in place of five, or two shoe stores in place of the same number, is, of course, not known. There was an elimination of two of these stores in 1906, when the Emmons store was enlarged by the taking in of the Adams & Hutch- X. II. Saving* Hank K. ('. KaHtiiniii't Bookstore Wayside Jottings 141 inson clothing store, and the Murphy store was en- larged by the taking in of the store occupied by C. W. Clark & Son. XXVI. The writer not long ago had a conversation with Calvin C. Webster, the veteran grocer, who is still in business on South Main Street (since deceased). He enjoys the distinction of being the oldest gro- ceryman now in the trade in Concord, and dates his commencement in this business way back in the forties, when he entered the employ of the late George Hutchins as clerk, and who kept an old-time country store on the east side of North Main Street, just north of the old Phenix Hotel. Mr. Webster served as an apprentice in the business for four years, receiving a stipulated sum of money for his services, with an increase of $25 a year during this time. It was at an interesting period in the history of Concord, at a time when the town was the terminus of the railroad to Boston, and passengers to and from the towns to the north and west were conveyed by stage, and freight by teams, so that the place was an important center for travel and trade, and the taverns and stores on Main Street greatly profited thereby. George Hutchins will be remembered by old resi- dents of Concord as an energetic business man, and anyone in his employ got a practical training that was valuable to him in after years. In those days, 142 Wayside Jottings all of the stores kept a variety of goods for sale, such as dry goods, groceries, hardware, crockery, boots and shoes, and as "General Putnam," the old-time crier of Concord, used to say, when closing an announcement of an auction, "other articles too numerous to mention." Although there were quite a number of country stores on Main Street in those times, those that did the most business were the stores at the North End, kept by Pecker & Lang, which stood on the site of the residence of Henry McFarland, the store of Mr. Hutchins, and one at the south end of Main Street. Afterwards the stores became more specialized, so that stores de- voted mainly to dry goods, boots and shoes, hard- ware and other kinds of goods have nearly super- seded the variety stores. The department stores in our large cities are patterned after the country store of sixty years ago, though of course a larger assortment of goods is kept for sale. Mr. Webster having finished his four years' ser- vice with Mr. Hutchins, as clerk, about the year 1850, much to Mr. Hutchins' regret, decided to go into the grocery business for himself. He formed a partnership with Mr. Tuttle, under the firm name of Webster & Tuttle, They bought out the stock of goods and good will of Samuel Evans, who was doing business in a store that was situated in the three-story wooden building that stood on the site of the Smith block. This firm was the first to make an innovation in the matter of delivering goods to their customers, which has continued to the present Wayside Jottings 143 time, in that a delivery wagon was employed for carrying out groceries. Prior to this time, cus- tomers either carried home their purchases in their arms, or if too heavy to carry in that way, a wheel- barrow was called into service.. Henry McFarland, in his ' ' Sixty Years in Concord, ' ' says : ' ' No grocer of that day delivered by wagon the goods sold to his customers. He surrendered the commodities at his store, and the purchaser got them home as best he could. In such a case a wheelbarrow was used, and my father would despatch me to the grocery store of Deacon Nathaniel Evans, which stood on the site of the Chase block." A picture of Main Street taken in the forties, or in the early years of the fifties, if compared with one taken now, would show an almost complete change in its appearance. The buildings that have survived this lapse of time are the wooden build- ings on the west side of the street, one occupied by H. P. Bowers, just north of the Masonic Temple, and the New American House, opposite Bridge Street. All on the east side of the street have been substantially rebuilt, the wooden buildings that were mostly destroyed by fire have been replaced by brick blocks more or less ornate in their style of architecture. But as great a change has taken place in the individuals and firms that carried on business in the stores on the line of the street. Only two firms that were doing business in the years of which we speak are in trade today, and these are not doing business at the old stands. The 144 Wayside Jottings firm of T. W. & J. H. Stewart, tailors, and Calvin C. Webster, grocer, are the only ones. James Hazelton, who retired a few years ago, was in the millinery business, and Henry B. Foster, recently deceased, was the last of the old apothecaries. Suppose we could turn back the tide of time and walk up Main Street and note the firms and stores as they were in the early fifties. Starting at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets, and going up the west side we should find the following stores and firms: On the corner of Pleasant Street was the store of "W. P. Hardy, grocer ; in the next build- ing the liquor store of D. G. Fuller; following along we find Currier & Knox, stoves and tinware; Nathaniel Evans, grocer ; Morrill & Silsby, printers and bookbinders; Olds & Edmunds, tailors. In the Odd Fellows' building were C. S. Rogers, grocer, and H. B. Foster, drugs and medicines. From Warren Street to School Street were the fol- lowing: On the corner at Warren and Main Streets were three "ten footers" in which were York's auction store; James Hazelton, millinery; J. D. Cooper, brass founder. Further along the street were Col. William Kent's insurance office; C. W. Allen, barber; Chase Hill, boots and shoes; H. Fessenden, harnesses; Currier & Hall, book- binders; ending with Deacon B. Damon's home, on the south corner of School and Main Streets. On the north corner of School Street, where is now the Board of Trade building, was the home of William Low, then next the Morse telegraph office, Eaple Hotel Wayside Jottings 145 Columbian Hotel, Thomas Stuart, landlord; while in the Ayer block, at the southeast corner of the state house yard were the stores of Franklin Evans, Benjamin Grover, variety stores; and the Franklin book store, kept by John F. Brown. The Ameri- can House, John Gass, landlord, stood on the corner of Main and Park Streets ; then B. Palmer, apothe- cary; J. P. Kimball, grocer; James Jones, gun- smith; M. M. Kelsey, millinery; and J. E. Lang, insurance, these last two occupying the lower story of what is now the New American House. On the east side of Main Street, commencing at the corner of Pleasant Street Extension, we would find the Elm House, Carter & Priest, landlords; the home of H. Fessenden; the old Rogers house on the site of the First National Bank. On the north corner of Main and Depot Streets was the three-story wooden block, occupied by tenements in both ends and in the center by stores of S. Evans and B. P. Whipple, grocers. An old wooden build- ing stood on the site of Phenix block, occupied by the Wymans as a meat market. Next was the old Phenix Hotel, A. C. Pierce, landlord; north of it the store of Hutchins & Co., dry goods, the eating house of Sinclair & Leighton; the shoe store of L. A. Hazelton ; and the restaurant of Samuel Clark; these last two places of business being in the Athenian building, which stood on the site of the Cyrus Hill block. Next we come to the Low block, one of the first brick blocks erected in Con- cord, occupied by T. W. & J. H. Stewart, tailors; 10 146 Wayside Jottings Cyrus Hill, hatter; H. A. Newhall, dry goods; J. G. Lincoln, tailor; then we come to the "ten footers," occupied respectively by L. D. Evans, boots and shoes ; S. G. Sylvester, picture frames and matches; B. Gage, boots and shoes; G. Bullock, grocer; J. B. Stanley, jeweler; B. W. Sanborn, book store; and Tripp & Osgood, printers and sta- tioners. In the Exchange block were James Pev- erly, boots and shoes; Dustin & Shaw, clothing; Allison & Gault, druggists; Porter & Rolfe, hard- ware. Then next was the Eagle Coffee House, Wil- liam Walker, landlord; the two stores in each end of it being occupied respectively by J. Carter, jeweler; J. & C. Munroe, confectioners. Next we come to the Stickney new block, the south store oc- cupied by E. H. Rollins, druggist; N. Evans, Jr., tailor; W. H. Page, carpetings and crockery; J. P. Johnson, dry goods; Moore & Cilley, hardware. From this point to Bridge Street were the two old Stickney blocks, the stores of which were occupied by M. M. Chick, jeweler; D. M. Dearborn, music store; J. Grover, hatter; A. Webster, grocer; C. Thorn, boots and shoes; J. D. Johnson, harness maker. This, we believe, is a complete list, or at least a nearly complete one, of those who were in business on Main Street at the time we have men- tioned. Most of the buildings and blocks in which they were located went up in flame and smoke, and to this fact we are mainly indebted for this change in the appearance of the street. Those who were in business have nearly all gone to "that bourne Wayside Jottings 147 from which no traveller returns." And it is a pertinent question to ask, who of those doing busi- ness on Main Street today will be doing so fifty years from now, or in the year 1957. XXVII. Concord has not usually been regarded as a manufacturing city, nevertheless there are a num- ber of manufacturing plants in this old town, which, if brought in proximity to one another, together with the homes of the employees, would make a good-sized village. Take, for instance, the plants at the South End, in Wards Six, Seven and Eight, which comprise the Boston & Maine Rail- road shops, the Holt Brothers Manufacturing Com- pany, the Hutchinson Building Company, the Ab- bot-Downing Company, and the Ford & Kimball Foundry plant. In all these, we should find that a large amount of work is being done year in and year out, by probably a thousand or more skilled mechanics and machinists, who find employment in these various avocations. If the Creator of the universe had so ordered it, or, perhaps, to be more strictly up-to-date, if evolution had evoluted in such a way that Sewall's Falls had been located further down stream, say near the Loudon bridge, then Concord would have stood a good chance to be classed as one of the manufacturing cities on the banks of the Merrimack. While Concord has also the reputation of being 148 Wayside Jottings one of the pleasantest rural cities in New England, at least, do any of its dwellers ever think of the amount of mental, not to say of physical, suffering that is here experienced, probably exceeding that of any other city in the state? The New Hamp- shire Hospital for the Insane is pleasantly located, we might say ideally located. In this institution, which covers more ground than any other in the city or state, there is a vast amount of mental suffering among its six hundred or more inmates. Then there are the state prison, the Margaret Pills- bury and the Memorial Hospitals, and we have in all these institutions as inmates those who are ex- periencing the shady side of human existence and to whom life seems to be hardly worth the living. How few of our citizens who are in the full enjoy- ment of their reason and their health, who have nice homes and are pleasantly situated in life, with a good bank account, ever bestow a thought, or per- haps care for the conditions that through various causes overtake their more unfortunate brothers and sisters of the human family! It is some over twenty-six years since the horse cars commenced running through Main Street to West Concord, and twenty-three years since they commenced running to Penacook, to be, in turn, succeeded by the electrics about seventeen years ago. How many, as they take the pleasant trip from the South End terminus to West Concord or Penacook, ever think of Moses Humphrey, to whom, perhaps, more than to anyone else, we are indebted for this Wayside Jottings 149 cheap and convenient mode of transit? He began agitating the subject of a street railroad when he had attained the age of seventy-three years. He became its building agent and afterwards its super- intendent, and this at an age when most men feel like retiring from active life. In the face of some opposition, he kept "everlastingly at it" until the line to West Concord was completed and the first "bob-tail car" ran from the Abbot-Downing shops, where it was built, to Fosterville, on April 21, 1881. Horses, at first, it will be remembered, were used in drawing the cars all their weary way to Penacook ; afterwards a ' ' dummy ' ' engine was em- ployed in drawing them to and from Fosterville and Penacook. At that time, as the writer remem- bers it, the running of this engine south of Foster- ville was not allowed because it was not considered safe to have it go through the center of Main Street. That was a few years before the "auto- mobile craze" struck the country. How much more dangerous would it be for this engine to pass at regular intervals along Main Street at a mod- erate rate of speed, and on a track, than it is now for a large touring car to speed along as it is a mind to and taking any part of the street for its course? The automobile, it is said, "has come to stay. ' ' If so, and it is not practicable or too ex- pensive to have separate roads for the auto out in the country, then turn outs ought to be made, especially on the narrow highways, similar to those 150 Wayside Jottings that are made in the winter time when the snow is deep and passing is difficult. Some idea of what the railways, both steam and electric, have done for Concord, can be formed from a reading of Henry McFarland's interesting chapter on "Concord as a Railroad Center," in the new ' ' History of Concord. ' ' He says : ' ' There are now within the city limits twenty-nine and twor tenths miles of main tracks and thirty-six and eight-tenths miles of sidetracks, almost enough to build a single track road on an air line to Boston. The steam and electric car tracks within the city limits aggregate over eighty-three miles. Existing station buildings cover ten and one-half acres of ground, and, including the right of way, are valued at $719,312.34; not much less than half the taxable valuation of the whole town as published in the journal of the Legislature of 1840. The chief of these buildings is the passenger station and train shed, covering 100,000 square feet of area. It was built in 1885, at a cost of $250,000, from designs made by Bradford L. Gilbert of New York, and its excellences have been so apparent to railroad men that the same architect was afterward em- ployed to plan the reconstruction of the Grand Central Station in New York. The railway shops at the South End, constructed in 1897, occupy six and fifteen one-hundredths acres of a seventy-acre tract. The great freight yard east of the passenger station occupies an area of fifty acres and cost about $150,000. It requires twelve switching Wayside Jottings 151 crews (one hundred and sixteen men), and has been regarded as the best similar yard in the coun- try. Counting each arrival and departure, there are about one hundred tfaily passenger and freight trains in the summer season, and the remark of an editorial wag years ago that our railway facilities were such that a man could start from here to go anywhere is abundantly justified. The average number of railway employees at Concord is now 1,346, and the yearly payrolls aggregate $801,170." But how about the new method of transportation through the upper air? Are we to have a balloon craze, the same as we have had an automobile craze? Will the balloon put the other modes of transit out of commission? C. J. Glidden, who will be remembered as the originator of the flying automobile trip through this state a few years since, says: "The next thing we shall have is cross-Atlantic trips by balloon. An elevation of three miles would bring you to a wind moving say fifty miles an hour and with the aid of that you would make the trip to Europe in about sixty hours. I think the time is near at hand when we shall order a balloon as we order a carriage. Com- panies are already formed for that purpose, and with balloons, you know, there is positively no danger." Perhaps not, Mr. Glidden, but the most of us feel safer on terra firma. 152 Wayside Jottings XXVIII. Dwellers in the valley of the Merrimack should be proud of the river thaj meanders in its some- what devious course through the fertile intervales. Whittier's birthplace was in this valley, and in his poem, "Our River," he says that it is "mountain born," and he adds: The heathen streams of nninds boast, But ours of man nnd woman. That it is "mountain born" is evidenced by the fact that it mainly takes its rise in the "White Hills," where its headwaters as far as the City of Franklin are known as the Pemigewasset ; while, on its course to the sea, it receives the waters of the Winipesaukee, the Contoocook, the Soucook, the Suncook, the Piscataquog, the Souhegan, and the Nashua, all Indian names; until at its mouth, in the old town of Newburyport, it resolves itself into "old ocean's gray and melancholy waste." Probably there is no valley in the world that has a more intelligent, industrious and law-abiding population than the Merrimack. Its water-power is said to turn more spindles than any other river in the world ; and Manchester, Nashua. Lowell and Lawrence are a great quartette of manufacturing cities in which New Hampshire and Massachusetts may well take pride. While the Merrimack is now mainly employed in turning the turbines in the cotton mills along its course, in the former days, before the era of rail- Wayside Jottings 153 roads, for a portion of the year it served as a waterway for the transportation of merchandise up and down stream in canal-boats or barges. It com- prised the period between the year 1814, when the first boat of the Merrimack Boating Company made its upward trip to Concord, and the year 1842, when the Concord Railroad was completed to that place and the boating days on the Merrimack were numbered. A reminder of this method of transportation is seen in "Hayward's Gazetteer of New England," published in 1839, in which an engraving of the storehouse of this boating company at Concord, which stood mainly over the water on the west bank of the river, so as to permit the boats to pass under it to load and unload their freight. In the foreground is seen a canal-boat under sail com- mencing its voyage down the river. It was here that President Monroe, on his visit to New Hamp- shire in the year 1817, embarked on a boat named the President, to view the beautiful scenery along the river banks and to pass through the canal locks at Garvin 's Falls, some four miles below. Those who have ridden on the Southern Division of the Boston & Maine Railroad in the summertime, from Concord to Lowell, or vice versa, do not need to be told that as the route, for the most of the way, lies along the river 's banks, the views are beautiful. So in these old boating days, as a writer in the new ''History of Concord" has expressed himself: "There must have been a charm to the Merri- 154 Wayside Jottings mack in the days of this inland navigation. There was nowhere more delightful water, no greener shores, no more fragrant air, no sweeter bird-songs. Here was the leap and splash of the salmon, there a cloud of pigeons that ought never to have been called wild and are now almost extinct. The sound of the boatman's horn floated along the valley. Sails could be seen across points of land, and con- jecture busied itself as to whose might be the coming boat. To a careless observer this might seem the land of the lotus; but Toil stood beside the boatman." That "Toil stood beside the boatman" is seen in the way that the boat was pushed along its course by main strength in the fifty miles of upward trip from the junction of the Merrimack with the Mid- dlesex canal two miles above the City of Lowell. The main means of propulsion against the current were the "setting-poles" in the hands of two hardy boatmen. These poles, commonly called "pike- poles," were about fifteen feet in length, two inches in diameter, made round and smooth out of white ash, with the lower end armed with an iron point. To propel the boat by "poling," a boat- man stood on either side of the bow and thrust the pike end of his pole down beside the boat in a slanting direction toward the stern, until it reached the bottom of the river, he placed his shoulder against the end of the pole; with his feet braced against the cross timbers in the bottom of the boat, and exerted his whole strength to push Wayside Jottings 155 the boat forward. As the boat moved onward, he stepped along the bottom of the boat, still bracing his shoulders firmly against the pole. When he had reached the stern, he walked forward to the bow, trailing the pike-pole, where he thrust it in again to the river bottom, and thus repeated the pushing process for the whole distance from Lowell to Concord. The passage down stream was, of course, easier and quicker, the boatmen relying principally on "scull" oars for the means of propulsion, along with the current. These oars were about the same length as the pike-poles, having six-inch blades on the lower part of the oars. The quickest trip was made in 1833 by Samuel Hall, John Ray and Joseph M. Rowell, who started with a boat-load from the mouth of the Piscata- quog at eight o'clock a. m. on June 30, went to Boston, got a boat-load of goods and reached their starting point on the evening of July 3, having been only four days on the trip. The last trip of a boat through the Middlesex canal was made in the year 1851. As a rule, travel was suspended at sunset, the boatmen planning to be near a convenient stopping place along the route at nightfall, where the boat was tied up for the night. The passage through the Middlesex canal from Boston to Lowell con- sumed one day ; another day enabled them to reach Cromwell's Falls, fifteen miles further up the stream ; the third day took them through the Amos- 156 Wayside Jottings keag locks, and the fourth, everything proving favorable, found them at their destination. "There is no doubt that the adventurous lives led by these boatmen tended to bring out the rougher element of their natures; but they were always faithful to duty, kind-hearted to a fellow- being in distress, and many of them carried be- neath their coarse jackets more than an ordinary allowance of real manhood. They belonged to a necessary class of citizens in their day, which in the evolution of the swiftly following years has been supplanted by another, and only a memory of their usefulness remains. The shriek of the locomotive whistle ended the boatman's song, while his inspiring watchword, as he toiled laboriously toward the upper waters of old Amoskeag, 'One more stroke for old Derryfield,' found a death- knell in the heartless snort of the iron horse, which threw at once these hardy boatmen out of the only employment they knew." XXIX. Not only has the Merrimack in former days been the means for the transportation of merchandise, as was stated in the last number of these "Jot- tings," but in the midway years of the last century, timber, cut in the north country, in the shape of pine and spruce logs, was floated down the river to the sawmills in Lowell and there made ready for market. Just when this method of getting this Wayside Jottings 157 kind of raw material down the river commenced, or when it ceased, the writer is not informed. But while the Merrimack was thus utilized employ- ment was given to a class of hardy red-shirted river men, called the "Norcross men," who were em- ployed by the firm of Norcross & Co., having its headquarters at Lowell. These men were also practical lumbermen, and went into the woods in the winter, felled the pines or spruces, hauled them with their ox teams out on the ice in the river, and when it broke up in the spring and was bank- full the logs were carried down stream in large numbers ; and these river men followed along after them to their destination. Their work was mainly to break up the "jams" of logs that formed against the piers of bridges and to draw with their teams those that got stranded on the shores of the river. They pitched their camp at intervals near the bank of the river, where they ate and slept. The oxen drew their outfit from place to place. They were a rough class of men ; it was rough work and some- what dangerous withal, and they incurred a good deal of risk. Probably there was hardly a year that some of these men did not meet their death by drowning. The piers of the bridges and vari- ous falls on the river were the most dangerous places. Of the latter, there were in this section of the state Sewall's Falls in Concord, Turkey and Garvin's Falls in Bow, Hookett Falls in Hooksett, Amoskeag and Goff's Falls in Manchester. The "jams" that were formed at the piers of the 158 Wayside Jottings bridges were broken up, one might say, in a scien- tific manner. There was usually one or more logs next to the pier that held the others back and it was the work of these men to get at these logs and free them from the rest. When they had suc- ceeded the whole jam would swing around into the current and float down stream again. When the jam started on its way the men had a lively time in getting to the shore. This operation had to be repeated, usually at every bridge on the river. It is related of Rev. Augustus Woodbury, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Concord in the fifties, of the last century, that he went out on a jam of logs at the Concord lower bridge, presumably to see the men work, and accidentally fell into the water. The current carried him down stream for a short distance under the logs, when he came up to the surface in a place that happened to be open in the jam. As the river men helped him ashore one of them was told that he was a Unitarian min- ister. He replied that "if he was a Unitarian, the parson was now a good Baptist. ' ' As before stated, the various falls were the other places where a good deal of hard work had to be done to liberate the logs that had got stranded. This was especially the case at Amoskeag Falls. One in looking at these falls from the vantage point of the bridge, which nearly spans them, and noting the boulders, large and small in the channel, won- Wayside Jottings 159 ders how the river men ever succeeded in getting the logs down over them. Amoskeag Falls is easily the most interesting natural curiosity on the line of the Merrimack. It was a famous Indian resort for the purpose of fish- ing and feasting. Amoskeag means "the fishing place." Here it is said the famous sagamore of the Penacooks, Passaconaway, and his son, Wono- lancet, had one of their homes. The Mohawks were their deadly enemies and, in time of war between these hostile tribes, the Penacooks con- cealed their provisions in the cavities of the rocks on the large island below the falls. They believed that the Great Spirit had cut them out for that purpose. The water pours down over the falls today with the same impetuosity as when Rev. James McGregor, the first white man, discovered them, or when in later years Gen. John Stark worked in his sawmill that stood near them, and where, it is said, he received the news of the fight at Lexington and Concord. Though General Stark did not, like some other men of the Revolution, "leave the plowshare in the mould, or the flocks and herds without a fold," yet he probably left a log on the sawmill carriage in an unfinished state, and mounting his horse started for the scene of the conflict, and rendered good service at Bunker Hill, as he did later at Bennington. As before stated, just when the method of float- ing the raw material, in the form of pine or spruce logs, down the Merrimack ceased, the writer is not 160 Wayside Jottings informed ; probably somewhere in the sixties. The use of the portable steam mill, that deadly foe of the forests and the extension of the railroad into the domain of the White Hills, changed the way of transportation of lumber, so that now the sawing is done in the forests and the finished product, in the shape of all kinds of building material, is shipped on the platform freight cars, and this method will probably be continued until there will be no more lumber in the north country to ship to market. A rhymester has forecasted this condition of things in the following lines : "Woodman, spare that tree" We sang it long ago ; But just the same the woodman came And laid the giants low. We turned them into tables, We chopped them into pegs, And things unique and styles antique, With queer, unsteady legs. ***** Across a sterile plain The winter wind blows free; On summer days the sun's hot rays Beat fierce as fierce can be. Ah, "Spare that tree" the echo Falls on the desert air, But such is fate, 'tis all too late, There are no trees to spare. The " Welwter Kim " Resilience of M. I). (.'um Wayside Jottings 161 XXX. Wilson Flagg, in his " Woods and Byways of New England," says: "To my mind the elm is intimately associated with the old dwelling houses. Not very many of them are still extant; but wher- ever we see one it is almost invariably accompanied by an elm, standing in the open space that slopes from the front of the house." The finest and most symmetrical elm that the writer remembers of seeing is "standing in the open space" near the pleasant home of Milon D. Cummings, on the line of Fiske Street, at the north end of the city. The house is not an "old" one, for it took the place of one of the old bquare houses that Mr. Flagg mentions. This elm was called the "Webster Elm," or the "Coffin Elm," for it was set out in 1782 by the Coffin brothers the year that Daniel Webster was born. Daniel Web- ster has been dead nearly fifty-six years, but this elm to all appearances is in its prime, though it has attained a good old age. Not long since, the writer, on going by this place in quest of information in regard to building opera- tions in Concord during the past season, seemed to hear a voice coming down from the branches of this elm, and, stopping his horse, he listened. "Hello, there,, you man with a white horse! Are you the H. C. that writes the 'Wayside Jot- tings' for the Monitor f If you are I want to have a talk with you. I won't detain you long." 11 162 Wayside Jottings H. C. "Well, I suppose I can't deny the soft impeachment. But are you going to criticise or commend the 'Jottings'? You know that Concord has its share of critics and some hypercritics. It is a good deal easier to criticise than it is to com- mend." Webster Elm. "No, I do not intend to criticise, for I think the 'Jottings' are quite interesting. A while ago I understand you interviewed the rock maple and a white ash out on the line of the Pleas- ant Street boulevard, near 'Pleasant View,' and I wondered why you didn 't come up here and inter- view me. I am older than any of those trees out there, and my memory goes back further. I felt somewhat slighted." H. C. "Well, I did not intend to slight you, but I do not get up to the North End very often. But, going along the street today, I could not help thinking what a splendid elm you have grown to be, one reason being, I suppose, that you have had plenty of room in which to spread yourself, like a green bay tree, in all directions." Webster Elm. "Yes, they all say that I am the best-looking elm in town. I think Doctor Bouton had my picture in his 'History of Concord.' No doubt Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was an admirer of elms, would have liked to have seen me; perhaps he did when he came to town to lec- ture before the Penacook Lyceum, 'way back in the fifties of the last century." H. C. "You are getting along in years, though Wayside Jottings 163 you seem to wear your age well. You must have an interesting history to tell of your life at the North End, and you must have seen a good deal from your standpoint on the line of the street." Webster Elm. "Yes, I am along in years, but I do not feel very old, but if the age of an elm is usually one hundred and thirty years I am about that age> if I have not passed it. I was set out in the year 1782 by Col. John Coffin and Capt. Enoch Coffin, brothers. That was one hundred and twenty-six years ago, and I was a sturdy sapling when they brought me from the intervale. I was named after Daniel Webster, from the fact that he was born that year ; and, after facing the storms of one hundred and twenty-six winters, I feel as though I could face as many more." H. C. "It was a great honor to be named after Daniel Webster, as he was the greatest man that New Hampshire ever produced. I presume that you used to see him ride by when going to and from Concord, when he was a young man, as well as in the later years of his life, before the era of railroads?" Webster Elm. "Yes, I used to see him pass by, as well as his brother, Ezekiel, both of whom lived in Boscawen or Salisbury. Ezekiel Webster dropped dead in the old court house while making a plea, I think, 'way back in the twenties. ' ' H. C. "You say that you was set out in 1782. That, I think, was thirty-one years after the .Old North Church, that stood nearly opposite, was built 164 Wayside Jottings and which went up in flame and smoke on the night of November 28, 1870. You must have witnessed a good many interesting occurrences in those eighty-eight years?" Webster Elm. ' ' Yes, I did witness a good many scenes that occured around the old church, and I ofttimes wished that I could have seen what occurred on the inside. You know that for some years it was the only place of worship in Concord, and in later years the principal place. A big con- gregation convened there on Sundays." H. C. "It must have been quite a sight to see them come in on Sundays from all parts of the town, as 'going to meeting,' as they termed it, was a more universal custom than in these later days." Webster Elm. "Yes, you should have seen them come in from East and West Concord, the Long Pond Road and from the South End. They came in all kinds of conveyances. Ofttimes the hus- band and wife came together on horseback, the wife seated on a pillion behind him. They dis- mounted at the 'horse-block,' a flat, circular stone placed near the church. It is now over in Joseph B. Walker's door-yard. Then came the first 'Con- cord wagons, ' made by Lewis Downing at the South End, and the 'One Hoss Shay.' The boys and girls who came from the Long Pond district usually walked in the summertime, carrying their shoes and stockings in hand and putting them on before they came to the church. Those were times when Wayside Jottings 165 shoe-leather was dear, money scarce and economy was the watchword in the home of the farmer. It was also quite a sight when the services were through to see them depart in all directions for their homes, as they were anxious, after listening to two long sermons, to get home to their dinners." H. C. "This was on Sunday. Do you remem- ber any occurrences that took place on week days ? ' ' Webster Elm. "Yes, a good many of them. They had a celebration every June, when the great and General Court met here, called ' Election Day. ' An 'election sermon' was delivered by a minister before the governor and council and the members of the Legislature in the Old North. A procession was formed and they came up Main Street in great style. The day before this took place they had what was termed a 'nigger election,' when the col- ored brother was out in full force. Then, away back in the forties, there was a notable political meeting, when John P. Hale and Franklin Pierce had a debate on the political questions of the day. There was a large crowd in attendance. It was a case of 'nip and tuck' as to the arguments, and each side claimed the victory." H. C. "Of course you remember the ministers that preached in the Old North?" Webster Elm. "Yes, I remember the most of them. Timothy Walker, the first minister, died the year that I came here. But I remember Israel Evans, Asa McFarland and Nathaniel Bouton. They were all good men and true. Then after the 166 Wayside Jottings Old North ceased to be used for worship and was the headquarters of the Methodist Biblical Insti- tute, for a number of years there were a lot of young men here who might be called ministers in embryo. ' ' H. C. "You must have seen a good many funeral processions that have wended their way to the different cemeteries during these one hun- dred and twenty -six years?" Webster Elm. "I have seen every procession that has passed into the Old North Cemetery during these years, and also those that have gone by to the Blossom Hill and Calvary Cemeteries since they were consecrated. Every day, almost, a funeral procession goes by. One generation goes to 'the place appointed for all the living,' and another generation takes its place. As Thomas Gray says in his immortal 'Elegy': 'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of And nil that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' " H. C. "There is nothing in the world truer than those lines. But you speak of the Old North 'going up in flame and smoke' on the night of November 28, 1870. That must have been a sad sight to you ? ',' Webster Elm. "It was a sad sight. We had been friends and near neighbors for eighty-eight years and it was hard to lose its company. But it was a splendid sight. The frame of the church Wayside Jottings 167 was white oak, and after the pine boarding had burned off, the frame, from the foundation to spire, stood out in bold relief as any Fourth of July fireworks. The cockerel on the top of the spire loomed up grand. No doubt the fire was set, as some fellows were skulking around before the fire broke out. Those were the days of the hand engines, and though the firemen worked with a will, they could not save the Old North." H. C. "I suppose you see a good many new things and inventions, especially in the methods of transportation?" "Webster Elm. "I guess I have. I have told of the way people came to meeting in the old times. But for public travel, there was first the lines of Concord stages that passed over this street on their way to and from the north country. In the winter there was a frequent procession of red- colored two-horse pungs that wended their way to and from the down country market. Then way back in the forties, I first saw the trains of cars whizzing along over the intervale. Then a few years ago came the horse cars and later the trolley car that passes almost under my branches, every fifteen minutes, from early morn till late at night. And within a few years a new-fangled vehicle has been invented, called an automobile. What will come next I do not pretend to know. Probably the balloons will be sailing through the air, like the ships at sea, and I expect one may get tangled up in my branches. It is a wonderful age, and 168 Wayside Jottings there is no knowing what is a-going to happen in the next fifty years. ' ' H. C. "Yes, even the theology has been changed from what it used to be when the people met in the Old North for worship. If the old ministers who preached there should revisit the glimpses of the moon, to use a slang expression, they would find the stuffing knocked out of their theology and the Protestant world is all at sea as to what to believe and what not to believe. Evolution and the higher criticism have done the business pretty effectually. "But I think that I have interviewed you suf- ficiently to-day and I must be moving along. Hope that you will live to see a thousand years, and remain as handsome as you are to-day. So Good-bye." Webster Elm. "Thank you for your wish and compliment. 'Handsome is that handsome does, you know.' So good day." The writer saw the Old North Church go up in flame and smoke on the night of November 28, 1870, and although it was the finest display in the way of fireworks that was ever seen in Concord, yet it was also a sad sight to the old residents, for the structure that was intimately connected with the history of the old town in one short hour vanished from sight. If the hand of the incendiary had let it alone, the church might have remained as the most interesting historical structure in Concord, bearing the same relation to this city that the Old Residence of Kx-Cov. Frank W. Kollins of Dr. Cennce M. Kinilmll Wayside Jottings South Church does to Boston, which has thus far been spared from fire and destruction. What an appropriate place it would have been to hold the Old Home gatherings, especially the tenth anni- versary of Old Home Week, which occurs next summer! It stood within almost a stone's throw of the pleasant home of Gov. Frank W. Rollins, the originator of Old Home Week. It would be also interesting to know how many persons re- main in the land of the living who attended ser- vices in this church. Those who are living have passed into the sere and yellow leaf of old age, and one of the old square pews built in that form probably to accommodate the large families of that time would contain all of them. XXXI. It is a pleasant hour and a half ride, in the sum- mer time, from Concord to Manchester on the elec- trics, and the three miles of the road that is passed over in going through Pembroke Street is not the least interesting part of the trip. In fact, there is no other section on the line of this road that exceeds it in interest. This street has always seemed to the writer as an ideal place for a farmer to live; we should judge that farmers mainly in- habit it. The homes that line both sides of the street indicate that those who occupy them are well-to-do in life ; the soil of the farms is generally of a good quality, and for more than a century and 170 Wayside Jottings a half it has rewarded the labor of the husband- man. Although Pembroke is bounded on three of its sides by the Soucook, Merrimack and Suncook Rivers, respectively, on the north, west and south, it has no pond within its borders. In this re- spect it is somewhat unique. How many towns are there in the state that can not number one or more ponds within its limits! One is incb'ned to wonder what the successive generations of small boys have done for places where they could fish and skate. Of course they could bathe in these rivers. While there are probably a hundred houses be- sides out-buildings on the line of Pembroke Street, they do not make so great a showing as though they were arranged in the more compact form of a village. The building of the electric road has changed somewhat the future of the town, and made it in one sense a suburb of Concord. At present, perhaps, this is more especially the case in the summer season, though as the old residents pass away and the farms go into other hands, they will possibly be divided up and thus furnish de- sirable homes, not only for summer residents, but for those to dwell here the year round. Pembroke was incorporated by the authorities of the province of New Hampshire. November 1, 1759. Its name took the place of what was known as Suncook, or the Lovewell township, it being a section of the Merrimack valley that was granted to the survivors, heirs and descendants of Capt. Wayside Jottings 171 John Lovewell and his company of brave men who went from Dunstable now Nashua into the Pig- wacket Country to clean out the Indians, who were making themselves a nuisance to the early settlers. What time the noble Lovewell came With forty men from Dunstable The cruel Pequot tribes to tame, With arms and bloodshed terrible. But instead of taming the Pequots, they came pretty near being tamed themselves, Captain Love- well and fourteen of his men being killed in their encounter with the redskins near the shore of the pond at Pigwacket. In spite, however, of this dis- aster, the Indians, who suffered severely in this fight, were checked in their course of pillage and murder in the province; no more serious trouble was experienced at their hands, and it was alto- gether fitting that the survivors and the heirs and descendants should receive a testimonial, and Pem- broke is a fitting monument of it. We have been hearing a good deal in recent' years about "deserted farms" in our state, and a good many of them deserved to be deserted, and more ought to follow suit and let the forest growth take possession. But before we pass over the Sou- cook into Pembroke we go through a section of Concord that was once quite a farming section. The farms were situated mainly, as we understand, near the Soucook River, which here beats the ivierrimack on the score of crookedness. Accord- ing to Giles Wheeler, in former days, there were 172 Wayside Jottings quite a number of farm houses, some fifteen, in this section of Concord, but now they have all dis- appeared. This change, asjve understand it, is not due to any exhaustion of the soil, but mainly to the fact that the Amoskeag Manuf acturing Com- pany having gotten possession of the water power at Garvin's Falls, bought up the land adjacent to these falls. These farmers disposed of their real estate and left for other localities. We see in the history of Garvin's Falls an illus- tration of the old adage that "there is many a slip between the cup and the lip." As the writer understands it, this section of Concord came pretty near being the site of the city which was finally located at Lawrence as only one vote decided, as we are told, the matter of location. We can see in imagination what a thriving manufacturing city Concord would have been, and a rival to Man- chester. As there is nothing in the new "History of Concord" bearing on this particular, that the writer can discover, we have relied on the memory of others as to the accuracy of this statement. As it was the turning point in Concord's history as to whether it should remain a rural city, or blossom out into a manufacturing center, perhaps it was thought the less said about it the better. The only buildings of a public character on the line of Pembroke Street are the Congregational Church, the Pembroke Academy, the town house and "the little red school house," though perhaps it has a more modern color, being of brick. While Wayside Jottings 173 three of these structures might be called old, the academy building is new, having been built but a few years ago, and replacing the old academy that was burned. Away back in the forties, Pembroke enjoyed the privilege and perhaps the notoriety of having two rival schools on its street, the old school, or what was sometimes known as the Blanchard Academy, built in 1829, and what was known as the "Gymnasium." This latter school occupied a building that was erected for its par- ticular use, but which is now known as the town hall. It is said the town in those years was rent into factions over these schools, one faction being partisans of the academy, and the other faction being champions of the gymnasium. This ruction, as we understand it, was over a principal of the academy whom the trustees had either fired or given opportunity to resign. For a few years the school had a large attendance, and we should judge from the statement of a Concord boy who attended the academy in those years that this partisan spirit was more or less manifested in the conduct of the scholars of these rival schools toward each other. "On the way to and from the academy," he says, "from my boarding place, I was often the target for the gibes, and sometimes for the missiles, of the students, or the enterprising friends of the younger seminary. I could then throw a stone with some force and accuracy on suitable occasions, and those of us who lived north of the gymnasium, 174 Wayside Jottings and had to pass it four times a day, finally obtained peace by being always ready to fight for it." At one time considerable attention was paid to military tactics, introduced by Captain Partridge, well known from his connection with the military school at Norwich, Vt, and of which this school was made a branch. After continuing about seven- teen years, mainly on account of having no perma- nent fund, it gave up the ghost, and its interests were united with those of Pembroke Academy. XXXII. One of the old-time ministers of Pembroke was Rev. Dr. Abraham Burnham, who for forty-three years was pastor of the Congregational Church in that town. He was born in Dunbarton, March 8, 1775, and died September 21, 1852. He was the contemporary of other old-time ministers who lived in the Merrimack valley, notably the Rev. Dr. Asa McFarland, the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bouton, and the Rev. Asa P. Tenney, who served the churches over which they were pastors respectively twenty- seven, forty-two, and thirty-four years. He was ordained as pastor March 2, 1807, and dismissed November 20, 1850. In the earlier years of his ministry he officiated in two meeting houses in town, one known as the "North Meeting House," situated at the upper end of Pembroke Street, and at the "South Meeting House," the present church, one-half of the time in one and one-half of the Wayside Jottings 175 time in the other. Afterwards these churches united their forces, and during the remainder of his pastorate he officiated in the church which is still standing. It was the custom in his days to have long pastorates, instead of a minister having to pull up stakes every few years and seek pastures new; and it seems as though it would have been just as well if this custom had been continued. During Doctor Burnham's pastorate of forty-three years there was considerable marrying and giving in marriage, for in the "History of Pembroke" there is a record of three hundred and eleven mar- riages performed by him from 1807 to 1851. As Senator Henry E. Burnham was born in Dunbar- ton, it is probable that he is a relative of this divine. We believe Mrs. Joseph B. Walker of this city is a granddaughter. And among the last of the mar- riages at which he officiated there is this record: "1850, May 1, Joseph B. Walker to Elizabeth L. Upham, both of Concord." In the last number of the Jottings reference was made to a Concord boy that attended school at Pembroke Academy way back in the forties. He boarded in Doctor Burnham's family and in a volume of ' ' Recollections ' ' he describes some of the traits of this clergyman. He says : ' ' Doctor Burn- ham had a serious face, thoughtful expression, and was rather abrupt in manner, so that his real char- acter did not manifest itself to everybody. He kept a good horse, and was fond of having us drive with him to 'Buck Street,' or North Pembroke. 176 Wayside Jottings There was an abundance of wholesome food on his table, at which we were never seated until, all assembled and standing, the divine blessing had been solicited. He liked cheerful conversation, and a lively joke. I remember an occasion at family prayers when he read a chapter in the Old Testament, in which mention is made of the Heb- ronites. Closing the Bible with a smart bang, he remarked: 'We have some Hebronites in New Hampshire.' 'Why, where?' said Mrs. Burnham, with some surprise. 'Up in Hebron,' he replied, gaily, and then arose and began a fervent prayer. To those who deemed him a severe man this would have seemed a queer thing to do; but, in truth, he was not a severe man. He was a brisk, hearty, New England clergyman, sound and mellow, not too theological to be human." The good doctor might have also remarked that we have some Canaanites up in Canaan, and some Goshenites up in Goshen. The writer does not know of a more beautiful view along the Merrimack valley than is seen from the car window as we descend from the heights of Allenstown, near the home of the late Gen. Natt Head, and coast down the hill in the direction of Hooksett. It would make a splendid scene for an artist to transfer to his canvas, or for a poet to transmute into verse. Among the most prominent elevations seen in the background are Wood Hill, west, across the Merrimack in the town of Bow, and old Kearsarge, further in the distance to the Wayside Jottings 177 northward, where for ages he has seemed to be looking in the direction of his brothers in the White Hills. It is the grandest mountain in central New Hampshire, and is not half appreci- ated. The writer never catches a view of it but what he thinks of the time, way back in the fifties,- when in company with a party of Colby Academy students he made the ascent up its rock-ribbed side on the evening of a Fourth of July. There was some risk in performing this feat, in the night time, but the glorious sunrise the next morning amply repaid for all the toil and danger of the ascent. Probably it will never be known just what the name of Hooksett means. It dates back to an early period in the history of our country. I. W. Hammond, in his compilation of state papers, says : The name Isle au Hooksett and Isle au Hook- sett Falls was given to this locality many years before the incorporation of the town, but it is im- possible to ascertain its derivation." We will, however, give a guess, that the name probably has reference to the fishing customs of the Indians, and to whom it must have been one of their favor- ite resorts in the fishing season. No doubt the salmon, in the olden days, had the time of their lives in getting up over the falls, when there was no dam to obstruct their course. Hooksett village is an odd looking place and comports well with its name. In his lifetime, Bon- ney's Tavern, kept by Horace Bonney, was a 12 178 Wayside Jottings famous hostelry and a favorite resort of travelers and parties. We well remember, some years ago, of going to this tavern with a sleighing party from Concord and of the good cheer that Mr. Bonney gave his guests. The supper table almost groaned with its burden of good things to eat. Here Presi- dent Andrew Jackson tarried for a few hours, with other distinguished men, in June, 1833, when he passed through the village on his way to Con- cord. The reception that he got, it is said, was entirely unconventional. He slipped into the kitchen of the tavern, where the cook was frying doughnuts, and asked the privilege of sampling them. The cook also offered him some cheese to go with the doughnuts, and then "Old Hickory" stepped outside the house to take a view of Hook- sett Falls. There is nothing very attractive in the view from the car window as we speed along the route between Hooksett and Manchester. We strike the Londonderry turnpike, on which, years ago, the lines of stages passed along on their trips between Concord and Boston. One going in comfort, and at fairly good speed on the electrics, alongside of this highway, cannot help contrasting the new with the old the trolley ear with the stage coach. In the summer time, one would fare fairly well riding by stage, though it was a tedious way of traveling. But in the winter time, in zero weather, it must have been not only tedious, but rough. Journeying in this way, however, was only in Wayside Jottings 179 keeping with the manner of life in those days. It is doubtful if any of the later generation of boys and girls ever rode inside or outside of a stage coach. An auto is none too good for their blood, and a balloon will probably come next. The first street that we cross when we near the Queen City is Webster Street, named, of course, for the great Daniel, New Hampshire's greatest son. If we take this street west to Elm Street, it leads us through a section of the city that might be called the new Manchester. It is the finest residential part of the town and is in marked con- trast with some of the older sections, especially the "Barbary Coast." Here we have a chance to ob- serve the various styles of modern house architec- ture in the dwellings that the business and pro- fessional men of Manchester have reared for them- selves. They are beautiful homes, and with ample grounds around them. A few years ago this whole section of the city was a pasture, or waste land, on which mainly grew pitch pine and the scrub oak. For a few years the old New Hampshire State Fair held its exhibitions here, as some of the older readers of the "Jottings" will remember. XXXIII. A while ago a life-long resident of Concord ex- pressed his opinion to the writer that "The Old North End" would be an interesting subject to write up for one chapter of these Jottings. The 180 Wayside Jottings writer agreed with that opinion, and remembering that Gov. Frank W. Rollins had contributed to the Granite Monthly, a few years since, an interesting article on the same subject, the writer obtained Governor Rollins' permission to use in one or more issues of the Monitor what he had written on this subject. It was written in Governor Rollins' best vein, and matches well with Henry McFarland's "Recollections." They were both "North-End- ers," were both good wielders of the pen, and the results of their efforts were interesting to peruse. On account of the length of the article the writer is forced to abridge it somewhat. " 'The Old North End!' There is music in its very name, a conservatism, a sound of strength, a restfulness, a peacefulness, at least, to me. Is it my imagination ? "There it is unchanged, and yet so changed. The same broad streets, the same old trees (a few miss- ing), the same old houses. Other parts of the city have grown, have expanded ; new streets have shot out, like young twigs on a hardy willow; ornate modern houses, with towers, cupolas, fancy piazzas, and all that the latter-day architect can devise to hide the lines of grace and beauty, have sprung up; brick blocks line the business streets; public buildings both costly and architecturally good, adorn the central portion of the town ; but the old North End goes peacefully on, undisturbed by the march of time, and regardless of the pushings and elbowings of the ambitious present. Wayside Jottings 181 ' ' I wish to speak of the North End as I remember it when a boy not so very long ago, yet a quarter of a century is quite a period, and while few changes have taken place in its outward appear- ance, in its personnel, how changed ! ' ' At the time of which I speak, the arch of great elms extended south as far as Chapel Street, and there was a row of magnificent trees on the east even as far south as Pitman Street. In front of the old Morrill house, now gone, a row of Lom- bardy poplars stood, like a file of prim and erect sentinels, against the sky. No one knows exactly the reason of the death of all the trees on this side of the street, but they went one by one, and people generally laid the blame at the door of the gas company. " 'The Old North End' is bounded on the east by Fort Eddy, on the north by Horse Shoe Pond, and on the west by a range of wooded hills all points of interest to me as a boy. A large part of my childhood was spent in and on (more in than on) the waters of Horse Shoe Pond. I always kept a boat or canoe at what was called the 'swimming hole,' at the lower end near the ice house, and early morning usually found me cruising after pond lilies, or wading for cat-o '-nine-tails among the intricate passages which intersected the north- ern end of the pond. On a bit of firm ground in the midst of this waste of water and bushes we had a wigwam, fully equipped with all the imple- ments of wild life and the chase. Those were 182 Wayside Jottings halcyon days! One of the favorite amusements was to take a flat-bottomed boat and turn it upside down, then raise it and drop it gently and evenly on the water so as to retain the air under it, when it would float upon its edges, leaving a large space full of air underneath. Then we would dive and come up under the boat, push it all about the pond, in a manner most mysterious to those not in the secret. The great test of swimming ability was to swim up to a point opposite Fosterville and back. I remember John B. Abbott was the champion in my time. "I don't know whether 'Fort Eddy' is the mine of delight to the boys of today that it was to us, but certainly some of the happiest of my boyhood days were passed there. To begin with, we looked upon it with awe, as there was a tradition among us that it had been the scene of a great Indian battle, between the Penacooks and Mohawks, and we thought we discovered the partly-effaced lines of earth works and were always digging in hopes of finding relics of the battle. Every peculiarly shaped stone we came across was a battle-axe head, an arrow-head, or something of the kind. Then, too, the peculiar shape of the peninsula rendered it particularly well fitted for defence, and it was the scene of many a pitched battle between 'our crowd' and 'the others.' There was good fish- ing in 'the Eddy,' and occasionally game along the river, and it was remote enough from the city Wayside Jottings 183 so that we were not disturbed, no matter what we did." XXXIV. This number of the Jottings is made up mainly of Governor Rollins' reminiscences of those who resided in the "Old North End" when he was a boy. As nearly twelve years have passed away since these reminiscences were written, many of the old residents herein named have deceased, and he could well declare that "while a few changes have taken place in the outward appearance of this section of the city, in its personnel how changed ! ' ' It is the saddest thing in human experience that when one is pleasantly situated in life, and can say with one of old that ' ' our lines are cast in pleas- ant places ; yea we have a goodly heritage ' ' ; when his time comes he has to submit to the inevitable and ' ' depart for that bourne whence no traveler re- turns." It is an illustration of the irony of fate that is world-wide. ' ' Let us begin at the north end of Main Street, ' ' says Governor Rollins, "and note some of the changes. Hon. Joseph B. Walker looks much as he did, except that time has added a little more silver to his hair, but he is the same unobtrusive, courteous gentleman as of yore, and his ancestral home and the noble elms around it still stand, a landmark in Concord. My mother used to tell me she remembered when there was a flight of steps 184 Wayside Jottings leading up to a row of seats in one of the great elms in front of the house. "Col. Enoch Gerrish, whose house was always open to me as a boy and whose bluff kindness was appreciated, remains [since deceased] , though seen about the city perhaps less than years ago. He has spent much of his time of late in travel, and talks very interestingly about the countries he has visited. "Mr. Francis A. Fiske passed away some years since, a man whose kindly smile and loving neigh- borliness endeared him to all the community. His son, Mr. William P. Fiske, retains the old home and his father's sterling traits of character. The old F. A. Fiske store, one of the few reminders of the days when the North End was the business part of Concord, still stands, though the business has passed into other hands. "I can just remember the old Kimball house, which is now replaced by the substantial and per- fectly appointed home of Mr. Samuel S. Kimball [since deceased], a man with whom modesty is a mania, and whose kindly and good deeds were always done with diligent secrecy. Dr. G. M. Kimball now resides in the paternal home. "Who cannot remember Col. John H. George? I can see him now, hurrying down the street with quick, short steps, always ready with a hearty handshake and some quip or story; warm-hearted, quick to anger and as ready to forgive and forget, large of frame, large of heart, his home was always Wayside Jottings 185 open and his hospitality boundless. His son and daughter keep up the traditions of the family, and I believe their front door is never locked, at least I never knew any one to ring the bell. "Mrs. Robert E. Pecker lived in the house now occupied by Dr. W. G. Carter [since deceased], and many a good dinner have I eaten at her hos- pitable board. She passed away some years since, respected and beloved by all who knew her. This house was built in 1791 by Philip Carrigan, and on account of its size and expense was called ' Carri- gan 's Folly.' It was a garrison house, where sol- diers were quartered in the War of 1812. "Dr. F. D. Ayer has endeared himself to all our people during his long and faithful ministry. He is now frequently seen upon his bicycle this was in 1897. Shades of Nathaniel Bouton: What would the people of the old North End have said fifty years ago to have seen one of their pastors astride a wheel? But times have changed. (And Governor Rollins might have also said are still changing, for the auto has displaced the bicycle.) ' ' ' Honest John Abbott ' was tenderly laid to rest several years ago. Never was there a more hon- orable, a more kindly man. His heart was as large and tender as his frame was massive and towering. A devoted husband and father. I remember him with especially tender feelings, for I spent so many happy hours at his home and knew him intimately. "Judge Asa Fowler has gone to his reward and his family are no longer numbered among the resi- 186 Wayside Jottings dents of Concord. They, however, have not for- gotten the place of their nativity and have made the distinguished name of their father familiar to the younger generations by the 'Fowler Memorial Library. ' "Dr. Ezra Carter; does not that name call up memories to all North End people? I can see his smiling, benignant face now, entering the sick room and bringing cheer, hope, relief, by his very presence. He was the most perfect representative of the old family physician the gentleman of the old school I have ever known. None knew him but to love him, and whose death would have been an irreparable loss if his noble traits of character had not been transmitted to his son, Dr. W. G. Carter [since deceased] whom I venture to state never had an enemy in his life. "Hon. Asa McFarland was then a prominent figure on our streets, but he has passed away full of years and leaving behind him a blessed memory of good deeds and an open record of a well-spent life. "Maj. Henry McFarland, who for many years lived juet south of the Rollins place, has come back to us after a long absence, and no man could be more welcome. He is the best type of a good citizen. "The Rev. Nathaniel Bouton's name will always be a prominent one in the history of Concord, not only for his long ministry of forty years, but be- cause of his love for and association with the Wayside Jottings 187 records of the city. His clear-cut features, his erect figure, stand out before me as a silhouette upon the background of the past. "Bishop Niles had just arrived among us, and while we knew him by reputation, he did not then occupy that large and prominent place in our affec- tions and respect that he now holds. I doubt if New Hampshire ever had a man within her borders of broader learning, of greater grasp of facts and with nobler ideals and aspirations. "Dr. G. P. Conn is still in active practice among us, in the prime of life, a man of broad experience, inexhaustible good humor and widely known. "Evil-doers no longer have to face Judge Dana, but his name has been prominently connected with our police court ever since I can remember, and I am happy to say he seems well and active yet. "Oliver Pillsbury was deeply regretted when he was taken away. A man of ripe judgment, honor- able, honored, tried and true. "Who did not love Maj. A. B. Thompson? A tried soldier, a true Christian gentleman, an up- right citizen. In him 'the Old North End' lost one of its beacon lights. "Hon. E. H. Rollins died in 1889, and I think I may justly say that his life was not without its uses. He served his state and his constituents faithfully, and was always true to himself and his friends. Part of the family still live in Concord, but the old West house becoming too old for a habitation, has been torn down." 188 Wayside Jottings XXXV. Concord has been rather unfortunate in the loss of church edifices by fire. Six of them have been consumed within the last sixty years, and the writer saw five of them burn, viz., the first Unita- rian, November 2, 1854; South Church, summer of 1859 ; Old North, November 28, 1870 ; New North, June 29, 1873; New Unitarian, April 25, 1888. The West Church was burned September 4, 1869. Governor Rollins, in his "Old North End" sketch, gives a graphic account of the destruction of the second North Church edifice. It is a fine pen picture of the event and is true to life, as the writer, who saw it burn, can readily attest. To our finite vision it seems, at first thought, that a church edifice, dedicated to the worship of Al- mighty God, ought to have a special protection from flood and flame in fact, ought to be as im- mune as were the three ancient worthies who were cast into Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace. But, under the universal law, the fire fiend is no re- specter of persons or property and gets in his destructive work, and always will. "The burning of the North Church,*' he says, "was a personal loss to me; I loved the old build- ing, with its high tower, its long box-pews and tall pulpit. It had ample grounds and a high iron fence around it, and not the least loss by the fire was the row of beautiful maples which encircled it. Many of my ancestors were Congregationalists The Old North Church First Frame Meeting House Wayside Jottings 189 and attended this church, and I always felt as much at home in it as in my own. "In this great conflagration the massive timbers of the spire resisted till the last. The covering, or boarding, was all burned off, leaving the timbers with the great bell hanging between, which had rung so many times on Sabbath mornings to call its people to devotion, which had tolled for so many of the departed, which had awakened me so many times with its wild clamor of alarm, and which I had, surreptitiously, helped so many times peal out its glad welcome to the morn on May day and on Fourth of July. "The bell went first, and many a man felt sad as it crashed into the fiery furnace below, there to be turned into the molten mass from which it was cast. The spire did not long survive. For min- utes we watched it sway and totter, while the flames and sparks poured up its sides and into the blackness of the heavens above in one great, riotous, jubilant roar. You could almost hear the fire fiends laugh with delight. Then it swayed dizzily towards the south, then tottered towards the east, as though bowing a final adieu, and at last took one grand plunge into he ruins of the church itself. A mass of sparks and flame swept upwards, then blackness settled down, and a chill fell on every heart, for we realized that the Old North Church was no more. "In my boyhood, the old hand tub played an important part in our fire department, and played 190 Wayside Jottings it well. The best company was the 'No. 2,' whose house was on the top of Chapel Street, just in the rear of the Methodist Church. The company was a large one and comprised a good part of the young, active men of the North End. When the alarm bells rang and the populace shouted 'Fire!' which everyone did as soon as he could get his head outside the door, there was a race for the No. 2 house. The first to arrive threw open the doors, grabbed the steering handles and, without waiting for any help, started the machine out of the house and down the hill. The old tub would rattle down to Main Street like a locomotive and then the enterprising steersman would mount the machine and ring the bell on top till enough men arrived to man the drag-ropes and pull it to the fire. This No. 2 Company was a very enterprising one, and there was great rivalry between it and the other engines. The one to get on the first streapi was very proud of the fact. It used to be darkly hinted that sometimes the members of this company got advance news of fires to come, but of this I cannot speak. There was one member of this company who was my particular admiration. His name was Ben Ouillette, a, Frenchman, and in five minutes after he arrived at a fire he always appeared on the roof and chopped a hole in it. It didn't matter where the fire was, in the cellar or first story, there must be a hole in the roof. To me no fire would be complete without Ben Ouillette and his hole in the roof. Wayside Jottings 191 ' ' The real Old North Church antedated the one I have described by a great many years. It stood where the "Walker School now stands, was built of wood, painted white and was of rather an am- bitious style of architecture. In my boyhood it was used as a Methodist Seminary, and one of the yearly duties incumbent on us boys was the horn- ing of the students on May Day morning. Those students were muscular Christians and we were assailed by every kind of a missile, in a most un- Christian-like manner, much to our delight. They didn't turn the other cheek; they turned the hose on us, or anything they could lay their hands on. This old building also went up in flames one night and the North End boys were deprived of a great source of amusement." XXXVI. There is nothing more unlike in the way of natural scenery in the Merrimack valley than what pertains to Rattlesnake Hill, up in the West Con- cord district, and what for years has been known as the "Plains," over the river. The former, rough, rugged and rocky ("rock-ribbed" is Bry- ant's characterization), and typical of the Granite State; the other devoid of picturesqueness and more prairie-like, barring its pitch pines. Rattle- snake was a product of the period in the world's geological history when it shot up from the bowels of the earth along with the rest of New Hamp- 192 Wayside Jottings shire hills and mountains. The Plains is a product of the glacial or drift period in that history, when there was a mighty rush of waters from the north- ern regions bearing along all kinds of debris from the land of ice and snow and materially changing the face of Dame Nature. The Plains soil formation includes probably an area of three or more square miles and extends from the vicinity of Turtletown on the north, to the Pembroke line on the south, and from the bluffs on the east side of the intervale, on the west, to the Suncook river on the east. It was known aforetime as the "Dark Plains." We say "afore- time," for quite a change has taken place in the physical apearance of this section of the city during the last fifty or sixty years. Then it could be so rightly named on account of the dense growth of pines, mainly pitch pines, that covered the land. The highway leading from the top of the Gully Hill Road to the "Break of Day," a distance of perhaps three miles, was through these woods, and the ride in a da^rk night was rather lonesome ; any- one inclined to be timid felt like "whistling to keep his courage up," the same as when passing by the traditional grave yard, his brain, however, not conjuring up visions of ghosts, but of highway robbers. In the spring or early summer it was a great section of the city for forest fires; the light from them loomed up grandly in the night time, and it is quite probable that every acre of the Plains at Wayside Jottings 193 one time or another has been burned over either once or more than once. These fires did not seem to damage the pines very much, as the flames swept through them quickly; they were a hardy kind of a tree, of an older growth and somewhat larger than we see standing now, and could stand quite a scorching. Now a good share of the Plains is cleared land, a portion laid out into streets on which have been erected comfortable homes; also a fine schoolhouse and a neat chapel for Sunday worship. If an electric line should ever be built through the eastern part of the state, it would become an important suburb of Concord. In fact, it is getting to be so now if one may judge from the amount of suburban news that is furnished the Evening Monitor from week to week by its enter- prising correspondent, "Pilgrim." It was, as we understand, some time in the fifties that Thomas B. Tamblyn erected the first dwelling house on the left side of the road at the top of Gully Hill, and which is still standing. Afterwards, in the same decade, the Merrimack County Agricultural Society cleared a small tract of land and erected some buildings and cattle pens and there held the annual fairs for a few years. When the Civil War broke out, these buildings and the fair ground were taken by the state for a camp. More buildings were erected, and a majority of the regiments that went to the front from our state were mustered into the service and drilled here, and thousands of soldiers marched out of \he camp 13 194 Wayside Jottings ground and down Main Street and took the trains for the seat of war, and many of them never came back. When the writer rides through the ' ' Gully ' ' which Nature laid out for a highway he misses the fine growth of pines that lined both sides of the picturesque road. The woodman's axe and the steam sawmill got in their deadly work and the result is seen in the denuded hillsides. Per- haps in times there may be a new growth of pines. Geologists tell us that the soils found in the Merrimack valley come under the class known as "transported soils" and are of glacial origin. During the period termed the "Glacial Epoch," all of New Hampshire was covered by a moving ice sheet of great thickness. This moving mass, by crushing and grinding the rock material, rounded off the tops of the hills and ridges, and filled in the valleys with this transported material. As the ice melted it left on this surface an unstratified mass of fine and coarse material and this formed the soil. At the close of the "Glacial Epoch," the land is believed to have subsided, a change to a warmer climate also taking place. During this epoch the Merrimack valley was filled up as high as the highest terraces by materials carried by streams issuing from the glacial ice front. Geologists also tell us that the most extensive area of sand plains occurs along the Merrimack and some of the rivers flowing into it. The largest area is the sand plain across the river in Concord. Other areas occur along the lower course of the Wayside Jottings 195 Contoocook and also along the Warner and Black- water Rivers. Along the Merrimack it occupies high, broad, flat terraces, which are one hundred feet or more above the river, while along the Con- toocook and the other streams it occupies tracts but a few feet above the stream. Its area is generally marked by the predominance of pitch pine, which is not, as a rule, very large, and sometimes by scrub oak. When such land is burned over, blue- berries readily grow. From the nature of the soil it can only support a scant vegetation, although by the application of fertilizers, truck farming can be carried on with fair success. Scattered all over the farms in the Merrimack valley are also natural curiosities in the shape of boulders, large and small, that, as we understand, are the product of this glacial or drift period to which we have referred. There is a famous one on the Garrison farm in Hopkinton, the pleasant summer home of Gen. Harry H. Dudley of this city. It is a huge rock, measuring probably at least fifteen feet in height, seventy-five feet in cir- cumference, and weighing many hundred tons. A summer house has been erected on its top, and a flight of stairs built to get to it. A mammoth grape vine almost encircles it. Probably this boulder was embedded in a glacier in the Arctic regions and drifted down to the spot where it stranded. There must have been a mighty Titanic force that carried it along, and it is a striking 196 Wayside Jottings object lesson of the epoch in which our world was being formed. Perhaps this sketch of the Plains would be in- complete without some reference to the state camp ground that forms an important feature of this section of Concord's suburbs. Nature must have formed this ground for the express purpose of the annual encampment of the soldier boys. As "the field of Mars" it could not be excelled. All that is needed is a trolley line to it, the same as to the state fair ground out on Clinton Street. Whether it would pay to build it is another question. XXXVII. Two prominent thoughts have come to the mind of the writer, in concluding these local sketches that have appeared at intervals of time for the past two and a half years in the Monitor and Patriot. One is, that if Concord, like Washington, is not a. city of "magnificent distances" it might be said of it that it is a city of respectable distances. At least, the writer thought so when a few years ago, in company with the city engineer, he perambu- lated the boundary line on the north between the towns of Webster, Boscawen and Canterbury, and on the east and south, between the towns of Loudon and Pembroke. Its length, north and south, is about nine miles, and its breadth, east and west, is about eight miles, while its area, according to Mr. Walker's figures, as given in the "History of Wayside Jottings 197 Concord," is 39,050 acres, of which 2,000 acres are covered with water. Of the soil composing the area of dry land, he says that "something more than one-half is suitable for tillage, while the re- mainder, being too rough for the plough, is well adapted to grazing and the production of wood and timber. ' ' And we might remark, let the ' ' pro- duction of wood and timber" go on, without any hindrance; the coming generations will need them badly. "Here and there," he says, "undeveloped rock protrudes above the surface, and supplies the material for one of Concord's chief industries. Millions on millions of cubic yards of the choicest granite have been taken from old Rattlesnake, and millions on millions more await the quarryman's drill." While New Hampshire has been appropri- ately named the "Granite State," Concord might well be named the "Granite City." Fifty feet below the surface in the compact part of the town the artesian drill struck a rocky foundation, which reaches to a depth of something over twelve hun- dred feet; how much further it extends in the direction of the earth's center, no one is supposed to know. The other thought, and perhaps the more im- portant one, is that while the description of ancient Zion as "beautiful for situation and the joy of the whole earth," might seem rather extravagant to apply to a rural city whose inhabitants for nearly five months in the year have to encounter the rigors of our New Hampshire winters and springs, yet 198 Wayside Jottings it might be claimed by them that on the whole ' ' our lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, yea we have a goodly heritage." And the question is a pertinent one: If we have "a goodly heritage," what is it that has made it so, or, in other words, what are the forces that have been at work in the something more than one hundred and eighty years of its history, to build up a community that is worth living in ? The seal of the city bears upon its face the legend, "Law, Education, Religion." The founda- tion of any civilized community rests primarily upon the respect and the observance of law. If all communities were perfectly law abiding, there would be no need of houses of correction, jails, prisons, or even a police force. But there come times of excitement when the lawless element for the time being prevails and manifests itself in deeds of violence, which all good citizens regret and condemn. This was seen on two occasions in Concord's history: First, in the year 1837, when George Thompson and John G. Whittier were mobbed and forced to leave town by stealth; it was seen again in the year 1861, when the Demo- cratic Standard office was raided and its contents destroyed. No reputable citizen, it is safe to affirm, was engaged in the first riot; but only "certain lewd fellows of the baser sort"; and in the latter case, a party of returned soldiers of the First Regiment of Volunteers, none of whom were citizens of Concord, under great provocation, were Wayside Jottings 199 the chief offenders. No lives were sacrificed in either case, and the city, in the case of the Stand- ard riot, eventually paid the damage. This affair took place in the third story of Low's block, now the Woodward block, which stands on the east side of North Main Street. Nothing to commemorate the event that we are aware of has ever been erect- ed, but if a tablet should be placed on the front of this block, it might appropriately bear tfiis in- scription : Here the embattled Palmers stood And fired the shot heard 'round the town. With these exceptions, which only prove the rule, the writer is warranted in affirming that in the years of its history, Concord has been a law- abiding community, where one "could sit under his own vine and fig tree, with none to molest or make afraid." "Education" is the next legend on the seal of the city. During the first years of the settlement of the town, when it was known as the "Planta- tion of Penacook, ' ' one of the first acts of the pro- prietors was to make an appropriation for the sup- port of a school. To be sure, it was a small sum, about fifteen dollars, but all that was needed at that time, for it was "a day of small things" in the settlement. It was held in a log house, with James Scales as teacher, and the curriculum con- sisted of the three R's, "Reading, 'Kiting and 'Rithmetic. " From that time, the school system 200 Wayside Jottings of the town has been in a process of evolution till now the school houses and teachers have greatly increased in numbers, and appropriations for schools in the year 1908 amounted to the sum of $112,687.92. The third legend on the seal is ' ' Religion. ' ' The first settlers were religious men and women. This was seen in the first Sabbath service that was held, under the canopy of Heaven, on the intervale near Sugar Ball, in charge of Rev. Enoch Coffin, after their arrival. It was afterwards seen when the log church was erected, to which both minister and people went armed to repel an attack from the Indians. It was seen in the erection of the Old North Church, where for a series of years all the people of the town united in worship on the Sab- bath. It was also manifested in after years, in the diversity of religious belief, which found ex- pression in the erection, in various parts of the town, of churches, of the Protestant and Catholic forms of belief, where all who desired to do so could meet and worship their Creator according to the dictates of their consciences. At the same time, there has been a succession of faithful min- isters and priests, who have labored earnestly for the promotion of a religious sentiment that should go hand in hand with law and education, in order to attain the best results in good citizenship. Sometimes one would like to forecast-the future, and learn what of good or ill is in store for our rural city, standing on the banks of the Merri- Wayside Jottings 201 mack. Its material growth has been gradual, but steady. Those who have been residents here for even fifty years can go back in memory and con- trast the appearance of the place, especially the business part of it, with what it was in the fifties. In the census of 1850, the population was 8,576; in the census of 1900 it was 19,632, a gain of 11,056. Will the census of 1950 show a population of 40,000? If so, its expansion in population and in other ways will probably be in the direction of the South End or on the Plains, where there is much land to be possessed and occupied. But whatever may be its progress, it will no doubt sus- tain its reputation for comfortable homes, in which law-abiding citizens will be found. And with this number of the "Wayside Jottings," thanking the men and women of our city who have given the writer their words of appreciation and encourage- ment, he concludes these local sketches of Concord and its suburbs. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-50m-9,'60(B3610s4)444 44 Cook - C7C77 Wayside Jottirga F 44 C7C77 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY " III! Mill Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllll A 001337484 8