USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Haverhill > Official pictorial magazine of the Haverhill tercentenary celebration 1640-1940 > Part 7
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Haverhill's tremendous growth through the years has been described in the history of the city. The investment it now represents is the assessed value of $51,235,150. Of this the value of all city property is $4,578,000.
GEOGRAPHICAL
Haverhill today has an area of 22,005.5 or 34- .35 square miles. The length is nine miles; the width is 51/2 miles. There are five beautiful lakes with a total water area of 1500 acres. The maxi- mum height is 340 feet above sea level at Ayer's
or Great Hill. The city is situated on the Merri- mack River, which unknown to many people, has a tidal rise of 4.62 feet.
There are 27 park areas totalling 28 5 acres with an assessed value of $270,700. Playgrounds num- ber seven with an area of thirty-one acres and a value of $30,125.
POPULATIONS
The state census of 1935 gives the population of our city as 49,516 inhabitants. Many interesting figures can be presented to show the composition of this population.
According to the census of 1930 (population 48,710), it was analyzed to show 23,396 males and 25,314 females. We have 37,754 native-born cit- izens and 10,664 foreign-born. Of native parent- age there are 19,496; of foreign parentage 12,233; of mixed parentage 6,035. To show the percent- age of foreign born from the various countries should be of great interest to the reader. Canada leads with 1,907 of French extraction and 1,730 of other background. Italy has 1,489, Ireland 1, 116, Greece 893, Russia 741 and other countries a total of 2,788.
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OF JUHASVAH
Haverhill's Leading Beauty Salons
Modern Hairdressing Parlors 100 Merrimack Street Telephone 473
Luxor Barber Shop-Beauty Parlor 114 Washington Street Telephone 4790
Margaret Kelley Beauty Shop ,191 Merrimack Street Telephone 3829-W
Rose Marie Beauty Shop 91 White Street Telephone 4644
Mrs. Chandonnet Beauty Shop 46 Lafayette Square Telephone 3940
Gladys' Beauty Shoppe
21 Merrimack Street Telephone [123
Sunlight Beauty Parlor
Mary P. Sullivan
91 Merrimack Street
Telephone 1524
104 Merrimack Street
Telephone 3440
Compliments of
Samuel Winer UNITY SHOEMAKERS CORP.
POPE MACHINERY CORPORATION
Designers and Manufacturers of SPECIAL AND WOOD-HEEL MACHINERY 261 River Street, Haverhill, Mass.
Compliments of Finberg Supply Co. HAVERHILL AND LAWRENCE
Liggetts THE REXALL DRUG STORES
143 Merrimack Street
OURS is a daily policy of Accuracy, Fairness, and Service which has gained for us not only customers but friends . . . friends whose loyalty has meant much to us in the past and will mean equally as much during the coming years.
J. J. MOYNIHAN, Reg. Ph., Manager
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Kay's Beauty Salon 37 So. Main Street Telephone 238 1
Irene Porter -Lillian Cook 191 Merrimack Street Telephone 733
Daisy's Beauty Shoppe 50 Merrimack Street Telephone 641
Sally and Lee Beauty Shop 81 Merrimack Street Telephone 651
Doris M. Champagne 95 Main Street Telephone 3889
Harper Method Beauty Shop
95 Main Street
· Telephone 3887
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ghedini?
CHURCHLES
A picture of the religious sectarian representa- tion may be visualized from the number of church- es and denominations. There are forty-four churches including six Baptist, one Adventist, one Latter Day Saints, three Methodist, one Nazarene, seven Roman Catholic, one Salvation Army, one Union Mission, one Universalist, one Seventh Day Adventist, one Presbyterian, one Christian, one Disciples of Christ, nine Congregational, three Episcopal, two Jewish Synagogues, one Christian Scientist, and three other churches.
PROFESSIONAL. MEN
In Haverhill there are practicing forty-five lawyers, thirteen optometrists, sixty physicians, twenty-nine dentists, three osteopaths, and three podiatrists. In all there is a total of 500 profes- sional or semi-professional offices.
UTILITIES
An interesting way of describing complexities and expansion of a modern city is to present facts and figures of public utilities. Many of these fig- ures are presented only for their general interest.
The New England Telephone and Telegraph Company serves this locality. There are 9700 telephones in Haverhill. Local calls number 65,- 000 per day. Long distance calls number 2500 per day. Information calls average 2400 per day.
The Haverhill Gas Company has laid and now maintains 588,295 feet of gas mains in the city limits. This company also supplies Merrimack, Groveland, Salisbury and Amesbury. It whole- sales to the North Shore Gas Company covering Ipswich, Rowley, Hamilton, Georgetown and Magnolia. It also wholesales to the Exeter Gas Company which covers Hampton and Hampton Beach. Newburyport is the last company to be supplied. This shows Haverhill's importance in the entire section. The three gas storage tanks in this city have capacities of 3,000,000, 2,000,000 and 1,000,000 cubic feet.
The Haverhill Electric Company was organized in 1888. From extremely modest beginnings it has grown to serve 23,178 customers residing or having places of business within seventy-nine square miles of territory served by the company. Thirty-five miles of wire were used in the old days to take care of the distribution requirements of the system while today the company has 1,641 miles for its overhead system and about fifty miles of ca- ble in its underground system.
The Haverhill Water Works, while not strictly a utility, is an organization the magnitude of which is not realized by many citizens. The 1937 figures give a very clear idea of Haverhill's re- quirements. The total consumption for the year was 1,388,116,000 gallons with an average daily consumption of 3,803,059 gallons. The pumping
754,045 K.W.H1. of electric current. The valua- tion of the water works in 1937 was $2,879,375.04. It has 1 43.23 miles of water mains in the city.
MANUFACTURING
The manufacturing activity is of interest to show Haverhill's great importance as an industrial cen- ter. In 1937 there were 197 plants, 7,784 wage earners, and $6,979,239 paid in' wages, and the value of products manufactured was $30,804,079. The principal types of manufacturing include bak- ery products, ice cream, soft drinks, boots, shoes, counters, cut stock, findings, lasts, patterns, wood- en heels, box and wall boards, boxes, cement, elec- tric refrigerators, fibre, foundry and machine shop products, hats, leather products, paper, shoe ma- chinery, woolens and worsteds, and vending ma- chines.
Haverhill's leading representatives of their re- spective industries deserve mention for their great contributions to the building of our city.
The L. H. Hamel Leather Company is the largest industrial plant in Haverhill and one of the largest tanneries in the world. It has developed from extremely modest beginnings in 1922 to the substantial company it represents today under the leadership of its general manager, Louis H. Hamel.
The Haverhill Boxboard Company, a branch of the Robert Gair Company of New York, pro- duces 225 tons of boxboard and wallboard a day and 5,000,000 paper cigar boxes a year. The com- pany has 300 employees with a payroll of three quarters of a million dollars per year.
The Pentucket mills, founded by E. J. M. Hale and carried on by him until 1854, when it was sold to Nathaniel Stevens and his sons, was incorporated in 1901 and is the largest textile mill in the city.
The Kent Shoe Company is the largest shoe factory in Haverhill and is conceded to be the most thoroughly modernized in the country. The plant is one of the newest in the city and is a credit to Haverhill's growth and facilities. The company has four hundred and fifty employees and a pay- roll of over half a million dollars per year. The production capacity is 100 cases of women's shoes per day.
The United Shoe Machinery Corporation leads in the distribution of this product in the city. The Haverhill office has been located here for approxi- mately 30 years. It employs 83 salesmen and roadmen. It has under its jurisdiction sub-offices in Manchester, N. H., Rochester, N. H., Nashua, N. H., Lowell and Newburyport.
The Wagner Hat Corporation leads in this field locally.
The William F. Bixby Company is one of the leading factories for shoe cutting and trimmings.
(Continued on Page 77 )
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Upon this spot
FOR hundreds of years, the Pennacook Indians' village of Pentucket nestled on the shore of Little River where it joins the Merrimack. But on November 15, 1642, Chiefs Passaquo and Saggahew sold their lands for only three pounds and ten shillings to John Ward and five associates who be- came the earliest permanent
L SAVINGS BA
STABILITY
OF MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL SAVINGS CENTRAL FUND INC
settlers of what was to be Haverhill. When this bank was established in 1891, the founders decided to perpetuate the ancient Indian name of Pentucket. For nearly half a century, this institu- tion has faithfully served the people of Haverhill and has never failed to pay regular divi- AN dends to its depositors.
PENTUCKET SAVINGS BANK
JERSEY ICE CREAM CO.
Manufacturers of
Jersey and Frojoy Scaltest Approved Ice Creams
Compliments of
Blake-Curtis Co., Inc.
C. F. Jameson & Co., Inc. 218 RIVER STREET, HAVERHILL.
Shoe Goods
Compliments of Everett E. Riley Co.
58 ESSEX STREET, HAVERHILL, MASS.
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OD MAARO ZOI YABRIL
J gelif d lersva
boundary line, and thus cast away a good deal of the original King's grant. The northern corner of oldest Haverhill is said to have been near Chester Village and to have been marked in the Seven- teenth Century by a large pile of rocks.
Wherever men congregate, the active spirits among them devote themselves, partly from in- stinct, partly from a conscious hope for wealth and its power, to the extending of their enterprises and to the undertaking of new ventures. As soon as the Indians left Haverhill to its peace, this leading class of men began to bustle about-as bustling was understood in the Eighteenth Century. Today their methods might seem rather slow. Tanning grew from being a sort of auxiliary to farming into a definite industry. Now if Haverhill had tim- ber and skins and other products of its farms to sell to the world, why not have Haverhill men fashion Haverhill timber into vessels to transport Haverhill goods to the outside markets? So for over a century sea-going ships were built in the yards along the river-during the decades after the Revolution a great many were built-, and Haverhill was actually a seaport, sending in its own ships goods to England and to the West In- dies and receiving imports from these lands on the return voyages. In the course of time this industry dwindled and finally died out. Yet there may still be a few people who as children have seen schoon-
Cis constructed m me dockyard of John C. hilton along River Street.
The manufacture of hats begun here long before the Revolution, grew to such important propor- tions during the Nineteenth Century that Haver- hill became the greatest producer of hats in Massa- chusetts; and hat-making is still maintained here as a substantial industry. Several other manufac- turing enterprises were attempted during the eighteenth century; and their lack of permanency is only an appearance of failure. The fact is, Haver- hill had attracted to its hills a hardy race of men whose spirits were indomitable and to whose exer- tions, often seemingly frustrated, the real growth of the city is due.
Few of these men left names individually im- portant. John Ward, Colonel Saltonstall, Thomas Duston and his wife, and Nathaniel Peaslee Sar- gent (who having practised law in Haverhill with dignity and learning finally became Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts) are perhaps the only outstanding personages. But the average ability here was distinctly high, and therefore it was by a logical progress that the town became so admirably busy and important after the Revolution. The span of years between 1640 and 1795 is to be regarded as a long growing season. The world as a whole did not change materially during the period. In Haverhill, a little frontier settlement, likewise there were few changes.
SAARKONE' SH
1814 COLORED AQUATINT viete of Haverhill from Bradford. The Banister Block, which still stands, is at the left of the Bridge at White's Corner. The First Baptist Church, then located on Merrimack Street, may be seen at the left.
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ATHERTON'S ... "On the Cement Bridge" HAVERHILL
EE
El
ATHERTON FURNITURE COMPANY
A New England Organization for Over 42 Years ...
Forty-two years of service to New England . during which time Atherton's has built a reputation for honest and fair dealings with the public. We heartily join Haverhill in this great celebration . and extend to the city our best wishes for even greater success.
ATHERTON'S On the Cement Bridge, Haverhill
HANNAHSONS' SHOE CO. HARTMAN SHOE CO.
Eva M. Emerson Embroidery und Yarns Infants' and Children's Togs to 16 Tel. 2206
75 Merrimack Street
Haverhill, Mass.
Downyflake Donut Shop JAMES F. SULLIVAN, Proprietor A quiet place to relax while enjoying Tasty Light Lunches-Attractive Delicious Salads-Home Made Pies-Cake-Ice Cream and Cold Drinks-Fresh Silex Coffee And always the FAMOUS DOWNEYFLAKE DONIIT'S
PICKETT'S, Inc. "The Golden Rule Store" Men's Clothing and Furnishings
TIM HIGGINS - ERVING HURD
85 Merrimack Street, Haverhill
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0-DOY ENOTRINTA
L EMOTSJHTA
05 TOR8 WLANCITAR
THE MODERN SPIRIT
Washington found Haverhill a "small village" standing "m a beautiful part of the country" when he visited here in the autumn of 1789. Most of its houses were still along the north side of Water Street and along lower Main Street. Some of them, to be sure, built or enlarged by men who had prospered as merchants or as traders were man- sions. Water Street in spring with the water-side laid out in bright gardens opposite the stately white dwellings must have been a highway of exception- al beauty. David How, Leonard White, men of relatively large affairs, and Bailey Bartlett, high sheriff of the county, were the most influential cit- izens then.
But the second and modern phase of Haverhill's existence was just forming. The settlement, no longer a farming district lying outside a little trad- ing-centre, was changing swiftly into a manufac- turing town round which as a nucleus farming be- came incidental. The transformation was due to two main causes. First, the energetic leaders had accumulated enough capital for the organizing of factories and for the collecting in them of numbers of workmen able to produce goods for export and sale in large quantities. Then too there was going forward a world-wide stimulation of the ingenuity
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SHOEMAKER'S SHOP on South Cross Road, Bradford. One of the fece remaining early homestead shops. Reputed to be about 100 years old.
and the creative faculties of men, which was to cul- minate a hundred years later in the present amaz- ing age of applied science and inventions and which
even then was quickening an eagerness for labour- saving devices and for methods of improved eco- nomics. Franklin and his like, filled with intellec- tual curiosity, shifted the world to a new way of living.
Mark how abruptly the change became a fact in
HAVERHILL'S SHOE DISTRIC'T on Essex Street. Headquarters for shoe machinery, hides, ccood heels, shoes, and shoe patterns.
Haverhill. In 1794 there were two shoemakers in town. The next year Moses Gale publicly of- fered, not only to exchange several thousand hides for shoes to be made from them, but also to extend credit to the purchasers of the hides until the shoes were finished. His is a significant name in the town's history, for he was the pioneer in the great industry by which Haverhill was to grow unpre- dictably large and wealthy through several gener- ations. Historically more dramatic than the hero- ism of Thomas Duston and his wife, Hannah, more arresting than the visit of George Washing- ton, was the quietly published advertisement by Gale that in effect he wanted to hire the people of the community to make shoes for him. Almost over night Haverhill was turned over from a pleasant, average village of no particular future into an electric and intensively productive machine.
Other village capitalists soon followed Gale in the business. By 1817 there were two hundred shoe-makers in the township and a new purpose in its life was fixed. Little "shoe-shops" were set up on many farmsteads; and very likely more cash came to the farmers from the shoes which they and their families made at home than from the tilling of the soil. At the same time factories were built and equipped in the village and steadily increased in numbers and in capacity. Merrimack Street re- mained the centre of manufacturing until about the
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TTRICE MEROOM JHT
.
Arthur H. DuGrenier, Inc.
Designers and Manufacturers of Mechanical Merchandising Machines
FRANCIS C. DUGRENIER, President
BLANCHE E. BOUCHARD, Treasurer
15 Hale Street Haverhill, Mass.
.
The Citizens' Co-operative Bank
A Systematic Savings and Mortgage Institution Since July 6, 1887 HERMAN E. LEwis, President --- DANIEL C. HUNT, Treasurer 81 MERRIMACK STREET, HAVERHILL, MASS. - TEL. 1708
Savings accounts for any number of dollars, between $1.00 and $40.00 per month, may be opened by any individual, and $1.00 to $80.00 per month jointly by two persons.
Money may be borrowed on the amount paid in at any time, or a part or full amount withdrawn. Deposits are insured in full, and interest compounded each six months. Telephone or personal calls will receive courteous attention.
SYSTEMATIC SAVINGS
KEY TO WEALTH
Compliments of CITY OIL TRANSPORTATION HAVERHILL, MASS.
THE ALPS
Washington Square, Haverhill, Mass. Restaurant and Bar
MARIO BATTISTINI Welcomes you to see a full line of FRIGIDAIRES - MAYTAG WASHING MACHINES PHILCO, R. C. A., ZENITH, G. E., and EMERSON RADIOS Haverhill Cycle & Radio Co.
43 WASHINGTON STREET
HAVERHILL, MASS.
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time of the Civil War, when the industry shifted westward to Washington Square and Washington Street.
And now Haverhill, having thus proclaimed that henceforth she must be regarded as one of the
DLAP
HAVERHILL
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K
A. B. JAQUES MAP of Haverhill in 1851.
world's principal shoemakers, started forthwith to grow in all sorts of ways. Cordwainers from every- where were led to settle here and to earn their living in our factories. The wages and the profits put money into everybody's pock- ets; and naturally everybody acquired new ways of spending the money. Manufac- turers and traders became investors and applied their wealth in part to building new homes for the new population. Peo- ple began to think of libraries and lyceums and higher education, and to join temper- ance societies and anti-slavery groups, and charitable organizations, and fire compa- nies. They soon found a need for banks. In 1814 the Merrimack Bank was insti- tuted, in 1828 the Haverhill Savings Bank. By the time of the Civil War there were five banks. Bricks, made from the start out of the abundant deposits of clay in the vi- cinity, took the place of wood in the con- struction of factories and mercantile build- ings. Consciousness of class-distinctions, well nigh impossible in small villages, be- came so marked here that at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century Haverhill pos- sessed a group of "quality" folk who dress-
cu themselves in silks and bought much mahogany furniture and had their solemn portraits painted and in general fancied themselves a good deal. John Quincy Adams who lived some of his stu- dent days here found a genteel and intellectual so- ciety.
Yet oddly enough for a city now so widely spread, the territorial expansion was for years slow. The map published by James Gale in 1832 shows that nearly all the compact settlement still lay beside the river. The long riverside highway extending from Mill Street to the foot of Mt. Washington was pretty well built up on both sides. Main Street as far as White Street, Pecker Street, Pleasant Street, and the lower end of How Street, and the locality about Lafayette Square, were res- idential areas. Primrose Lane and White Street were laid out, but no houses had been built along them. A pound for strayed animals was main- tained at Monument Square, and from that point to Walnut Square was no building at all; there was no house on Washington Street between the County Bridge and Ayer Street. And yet on the Derry Road, the Corliss Hill Road and the River Road were about as many farm-houses as at pres- ent. At this time the population of the whole township was about four thousand.
The next map, published in 1851 by A. B. Jaques, shows the hilly streets between Water Street and Summer Street to have been laid out 'and to be bordered by a good many houses. Emer- son Street and Locust Street had been surveyed by Henry Thoreau but were little built on. There were no buildings along Portland Street, nor on Granite Street and Wingate Street. Cedar Street had started to go northward, Arlington Street
HAVERHILL, FROM MT. WASHINGTON about 1873. The bridge in the distance was raised in 1873 to allow for the erection of an iron struc- ture. The railroad bridge, in the foreground, was at street level.
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Compliments of
KENT SHOE CORPORATION
HAVERHILL, MASS.
OLDEST ESTABLISHED 1881 RELIABLE
MOXCEY & JOHNSON
Jobbers and Retailers of KYANIZE FINISHES and VARNISHES MONARCH 100% PURE PAINTS CABOT'S SHINGLE STAINS and COLLOPAKES UNITIZED WALL PAPERS Painting
Decorating
32 MAIN STREET
Telephone 1506
HAVERHILL, MASS.
Bennett & Co., Inc.
Established 1845 GOOD SHOES FOR 95 YEARS
Faber N. Roche Druggist 284 MAIN STREET, HAVERIIL
1896 Sawyer's Milk and Cream 1940
Ice Cream at Our Stands
69
Restaurant at 41 Main Street Tel. Robert H. Sawyer
Opposite City Hall
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MORNHOL & YROXOM
PIATA T
( then Dow's Lane ) ran through open felds. The environs of the village appear indeed to have been mostly meadows and pastures. Thoreau, who did considerable land-surveying in Haverhill, quaint- ly noted in his Journal for April, 1853: "Haver- hill is remarkably bare of trees and woods. The young ladies cannot tell where are the nearest woods."
No march of human events moves long in a straight line. The War of 1812 checked ship- building and hampered commerce on the high seas, though in general Haverhill like the rest of New England carried on pretty well during that con- flict. The grave financial depression of 1837 how- ever dealt our indus- tries a shrewd blow, and many manufac- turers and traders were ruined by the utter stagnation in business. But in a revival as sharp as the depression Ha- verhill quickly re- gained its prosper- ity. The Civil War in its turn brought disaster to those shoemakers who having delivered heavy orders to cus- tomers in the South never received any pay for them. On the other hand, as soon as manufac- turers of a new generation learned how to make proper boots for the Government they began to lay the foundations for comfortable fortunes, some of which again melted quite away in the industrial depression of 1873. The great fire of 1882, the violent labour troubles in 1890, the hard times in 1893: each brought a pause to the powerful for- ward surge of shoe-making and its allied industries.
The age of immigration into America at once expanded the market for our products and furnish- ed hands for the preparation of those products. For two hundred years our inhabitants were mostly Britons and their descendants, and they were not very cordial to a company from northern Ireland who crossed the river here in 1718 and finally set- tled in Londonderry, where they proved to be fine sturdy citizens. Before the middle of the Nine- teenth Century many emigrants out of southern Ireland came to America and formed communities in our eastern cities where they sought jobs in the mills and factories. A few years later groups of descendants from the French settlers in Canada came down here also looking for employment. Ha- verhill received and absorbed many individuals of both these races. The newcomers helped to make more shoes, helped to usé more shoes, made neces- sary more dwellings, and in general were impor-
.
WASHINGTON STREET DISTRICT after the Great Fire of 1882 from the site of the present Federal Building.
lant agenues in the growth of the community. Somewhat later Italians, seeing in this part of the New World a land of promise, came as the fourth race in the formation of our present cosmopoli- tan population. Soon Jewish peoples from Ger- many and Russia began to arrive, and then other emigrants from eastern Europe, particularly the Greeks, the Poles and the Lithuanians; and the inflowing remained pretty steady until practically ended by Congress in 1924. Most of these peo- ples, including the earliest settlers, left their native lands because of oppression or lack of opportunity there; and here the various races, having found, as they had hoped, a chance to develop and having lived side by side in harmony, conform to one standard of citizenship, to which each group contrib- utes its part and which is essentially American.
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