USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Nahant > Some annals of Nahant, Massachusetts > Part 23
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A week later, on April 16, came the second town meeting, at which appropriations were made, totalling $5,600. The school appropriation was $700 and the highway and bridges was $600. The treasurer was authorized to borrow not over $1,500. A committee was chosen, to bring in by-laws, con- sisting of John Q. Hammond, Jesse Rice and Joseph Johnson.
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The selectmen were authorized to take all legal measures to protect Long and Short Beaches. The library was placed in control of the school committee. This meeting was also at the schoolhouse. The sum of $200 was appropriated to "finish the Town Hall." This meant equipment for this lower room in the school building, which evidently was somewhat unsuitable, for the session adjourned to meet April 23 in the vestry of the Village Church. At this adjourned meeting by-laws were adopted, one of which fixed the annual town meet- ing at the second Saturday in March. Another, under police regulations, reads that "no disorderly children shall misspend their time in the streets or fields during school hours." This third meeting, or adjourned second meeting, closed with a vote that the selectmen insert an article in the next warrant to "see about a burial place."
The third warrant was for a town meeting on May 4, at which fire wardens and field driver were chosen. The most important business appears to have been the choice of a com- mittee on cemetery, consisting of David Johnson, Dexter Stetson and Walter Johnson.
On June 24, 1853, the assessors returned a list of available militiamen as enrolled by them. There are forty-three names, of which seventeen are Johnsons. Except for these Johnsons only three names have representatives now on Nahant, or owning property here, - Albert Whitney, Alonzo Colby and Charles H. Palmer. Palmer is the father of Nellie M. Palmer, elsewhere mentioned, and of Mrs. Frank G. Phillips, long-time Nahanter. A few others have lived here within the easy recollection of many Nahanters. Henry T. Dunham, Dexter Stetson and Samuel Covell are three - perhaps the latest three.
The fourth warrant was for a town meeting on August 20. The important business was to appropriate money for a cellar under the schoolhouse, and a suitable heating apparatus for the building. A letter from Frederic Tudor was read by which he offered money from the sale of garden products to establish a fund, of which the income should be used to care for trees and to plant new trees. He enclosed a certificate for two
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SOME ANNALS OF NAHANT
shares of Eastern Railroad stock as a beginning of the fund. A vote of thanks was given to Tudor for his "exertions in improving and embellishing the town, and especially for his gift to the town." It was voted that the town accept the Tudor fund and that the selectmen act as trustees of it. Here is the origin of those two shares of railroad stock which have appeared upon the town's published list of assets for so many years that perhaps no one knew how the town happened to have them. The income has not been rigorously applied to the specific purpose, but in most years the town has voted money, in excess of income from any such source, for its foresters and tree warden's department.
On November 14, 1853, came the fifth warrant, for the State election, at which forty-one votes were cast for Governor. On November 28 came the sixth warrant to choose Representatives to the General Court. This was in connection with a part of Lynn, much as is done now, and apparently no Nahant man was a nominee. On February 27, 1854, the committee on a settlement with Lynn rendered a report for record, which was signed by Daniel C. Baker for Lynn and Artemus Murdock for Nahant. The town paid about $2,000 as a balancing of accounts, including a proportion of the city debt and a pro- rating of respective ownerships in public buildings and lands.
Thus the first year of the town saw four town meetings, not including the two State elections, and one of these meetings had an adjourned session. Walter Johnson was moderator at the first two and William F. Johnson at the last two. The latter moved out of town about this time and does not appear later as a town officer. At the second annual meeting, on March 11, 1854, Washington H. Johnson was chosen select- man, with two previous members of the Board, Murdock and Stetson. Artemus Murdock built the house of the present "Edgehill" group which is nearest Nahant Road. This was about 1850. He was related to the Nahant Johnsons through marriage with Clara, daughter of Caleb Johnson. His daughter Mary married the Rev. George S. Noyes, and the Noyes family will be remembered by many people as the owners of the
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"Edgehill" property until its sale to the Robinsons in the early 90's, after which it saw frequent extensions until it reached its present size. It was sold again in 1927 to a group of Nahant people who wished to insure its ownership and operation to the benefit of the community. Murdock died in 1882 in his seventy-fifth year. Noyes died in 1875, and his widow and family moved from Nahant in 1891, shortly after selling the property. Mrs. Annie E. Robinson was the chief figure in the upbuilding of the "Edgehill." She was familiar with Nahant before her purchase of this property. At one time she was lessee of the Tudor homestead, before it was taken over by the Nahant Club. After her death in 1918 her family ran it for several seasons, but had other interests and inclinations and so finally sold it.
Washington H. Johnson, who began twenty-three years of service as selectman with his election in 1854, was a son of Joseph Johnson. He was born in 1811 and died in 1892. About 1845 he built the houses on Nahant Road, across from the "Edgehill," now owned by James C. Shaughnessy. He went out of office fifty years ago, so that few remember him as a selectman. As a dignified old man, with white hair and beard, pottering about his front yard garden on a pleasant afternoon, he is a pleasant recollection to a larger number.
Alonzo Colby, Nahant's first highway surveyor, was suc- ceeded in this office by Albert Whitney in 1856. Colby died in 1858 at the age of forty-three. About 1850 he built the house at the corner of Pond and Prospect Streets, later owned by Charles McBurney. McBurney was born near Belfast in Ireland and came to this country as a boy. One of his daughters married Barthold Schlesinger, who built on Prospect Street in 1870, owning about ten acres of land there. Another daughter married Charles Howard, and their children, or most of them, were familiar figures on Nahant. Rose Howard, a daughter, painted several of the old Nahant Houses, which are thereby preserved, and are now in the Nahant Public Library. Two sons, Charles Howard and Philip B. Howard, will be remembered. Schlesinger was born in Hamburg,
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SOME ANNALS OF NAHANT
Germany, in 1828, and died in 1900. A brother, Sebastian Schlesinger, was a large owner of land near Prides Crossing, farther down the North Shore.
Washington Johnson, the first town clerk, was succeeded in this office by Alfred D. Johnson who served for so long, as related elsewhere. Welcome W. Johnson was town treasurer until 1880, a period of twenty-seven years. The first school committee was Walter Johnson, Welcome W. Johnson and John Q. Hammond. The first two have been mentioned else- where. Hammond needs more comment, for he appears to have been one of the far-sighted ones of the time, with a mind able to analyze and develop a situation, and therefore a val- uable citizen to the early days of the town. His keenness and ability are shown in his school committee reports, of which he wrote several, and in the special report on beaches and public lands. He was a member of the Legislature in 1853, when Nahant was set up as a separate town. He was born in Maine, in 1821, a descendant of a line of Hammonds reaching back to the beginnings of Kittery. One ancestor, son of the first of the name in this country, was long-time town clerk of Kittery, and his fine handwriting delights researchers into Kittery town records. Hammond came to Boston in 1836, a boy, and had just about money enough left to pay his fare by steamboat to Nahant. He was something of a carpenter and had a mechani- cal bent, and went to work for Dexter Stetson, later entering into a partnership with him. He had seven children, all born on Nahant but one. The eldest is Charles A. Hammond, born in 1846 and still going strong, with many interesting recollections of old Nahant, where he lived until his father's removal to Lynn in 1866. The partnership with Stetson was dissolved about 1850, when Hammond became owner of the house on Pond Street, known to later days as the Putnam House, taken down a few years ago by Winthrop T. Hodges and replaced by a garage moved there from a few yards southerly on Valley Road. The Putnam house was well known for its peculiar ornamentation of sawed birds and beasts, which seems bad, but which was developed into an artistic
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and consistent result by John Pickering Putnam, an architect, son of the family. The story is told that Charlie Gove, looking out his window early one murky morning to scan the weather, espied a strange bird on the peak of the Putnam House roof. He grabbed his gun, stalked the bird until within firing distance, and brought down a rare specimen - sawed out of a board. "If it isn't true it ought to be." In Hammond's day the house was a simpler structure in appear- ance, standing on a range road. Tudor later extended this road, building it in his masterful way, against opposition, to be the present Spring Road. It was once the chief road into town, winding around the hill; but the street up the hill, as now, had been built over to good condition, and Spring Road, until Tudor's work on it, had relapsed to a cart path.
Hammond was a member of the Legislature when Sumner was elected United States Senator, and his was one of the votes which made Sumner a winner by a small majority. In 1861, in the Legislature, he was chairman of the committee on education, and successfully advocated the grant of State land in the new Boston Back Bay reclamation to the newly chartered Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stephen Oliver, long- time moderator of Lynn town meetings, used to tell that Hammond made a strong speech advocating the purchase of a fire engine for Nahant - long wanted, but not granted to this small wing of the larger town. The result was the pur- chase of the old "Eagle," with Hammond, so tradition says, made chief engineer with a brass trumpet and fireman's hat.
Hammond was also interested in surveying, and found that the Lewis map of Nahant needed amendment and correction. This led to the new map mentioned elsewhere, a copy of which is in the Nahant Public Library. Hammond did a great deal of building work for Tudor, as well as other house construction on Nahant. During the Civil War he was assistant assessor of internal revenue, located in Lynn, engaged with the heavy sales tax imposed to meet war expenses. He built up a surveying and engineering business and was super- intendent of construction on the Lynn City Hall. In 1872
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his son, Charles A. Hammond, was taken into the partnership of Hammond & Son, who laid out the Marblehead branch of the Eastern Railroad. Hammond died late in the year 1872, a member of the Lynn City Council and a comparatively young man who might have gone yet farther up the scale of achievement had he been spared; for he started with a struggle for a place in the sun, and no better start is known, if the original metal is of the right temper. And the secret of success is a secretion of the sweat glands.
During the first years of the town several roads were laid out. The first was Pleasant Street from Nahant Road north- east to the beach. Tudor petitioned for this and offered to build it, in the annual meeting for March, 1854. In 1855, at the annual meeting, a road was laid out and accepted by "the Samuel Hammond" place, which is now a part of Nahant Road, while a Samuel Hammond still owns and occupies the same premises. A map drawn by Alonzo Lewis in 1856 shows this road including all land to the waterside. In 1861 Willow Road was laid out from Summer Street to Cliff Street and Wharf Street from the foregoing out to Crystal Beach and Nipper Stage. Note that the old names were used at this time. Coolidge Road is mentioned and appears to be the name of a private way from Cliff Street down the hill, often called Snake Hill, which was made a town way by this new layout of Willow Road. In 1862 a road was laid out cover- ing the present streets of Pond Street from Nahant Road to Prospect Street, along Prospect Street, and back to Nahant Road on High Street. In this same year a dispute between the town and George W. Simmons over land at Little Nahant was settled out of court. Simmons relinquished all claim to the town for land westerly from the main road to Lynn, and to the two triangular pieces near the main road adjacent to the beaches, provided they never should be built upon. In 1863 the Willow Road section between Cliff Street and Summer Street came up again, as a discussion had arisen on its location. Mrs. Jessie B. Fremont offered to build the road from Cliff Street to Summer Street and out to Crystal Beach and Nipper
RELAY HOUSE
The "Relay House"
In days when automobiles were mostly open and ladies mostly clothed
Trimountain House, near Bailey's Hill
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THE NEW TOWN
Stage, where she wished it, and without expense to the town. The town accepted the offer and the road was built as it now runs.
In 1864 the town voted to prevent people from taking sand from the farther end of Long Beach. Apparently there was trouble over the old-time privileges people had, or exercised, of taking sand and seaweed from the beaches. It led to litigation, but the town seems to have established its rights to regulate such matters. In 1853, the first year of the town, it was voted to authorize the selectmen to take all legal measures to protect Long and Short Beaches. Later in the year it was voted that the selectmen have power to prohibit and prosecute all out-of-town persons taking seaweed from the beaches. Then in 1859 came the carefully worded reso- lution quoted elsewhere. In 1860 it was voted that the selectmen "be instructed to tear down any fence, remove any building, fill up any well, etc., which may be built or dug on Long Beach."
In 1865 came an attempt to anticipate modern garden clubs. The sum of $100 for trees was appropriated, condi- tional upon the formation of a tree society. The money was spent, according to the auditor's report for 1866, but the tree society seems to have been short-lived. One might hazard a guess that this action was a feeling that something should be done to replace the loss of Tudor, who had given so much attention to this sort of thing. This same year saw Willow Road laid out from Summer Street to Valley Road and Valley Road from Willow Road to Spring Road. This was all called Fremont Street up to 1870 and later. Also came the road on the Lodge estate property, around East Point, as mentioned elsewhere. In 1866 a committee on a new Town Hall building reported recommending a postponement. John Q. Hammond rendered a minority report advocating building at once, but the majority report was accepted. At an adjourned town meeting in April, 1868, the Town Hall committee reported in favor of building, and a building committee of five included the selectmen, Washington H. Johnson, Edward J. Johnson
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SOME ANNALS OF NAHANT
and Thomas P. Whitney, together with Artemus Murdock and Walter Johnson. They were authorized to select a loca- tion. The building was begun in 1868 and finished in 1869 at a total expense of $8,400 for the structure and about $600 for furnishings.
Thus passed the first fifteen years of Nahant. Doubtless it was a trying time for those in control, full of criticism and full of blame, for of course mistakes were made. But the leaders of the time seem to have been wise and faithful, and should be remembered as worthy citizens outfitting a new municipality and deserving praise for the results they achieved. There are never enough sensible people in the world, but Nahant seems to have had a large share.
A very interesting paper recently presented to the Public Library by Miss Hattie Lee Johnson, a descendant of the old Nahant Johnsons, was saved by her when the old store was torn down to make room for the new Town Hall. It is a list of the inhabitants of the town in 1847, and was made out by Welcome W. Johnson, as follows:
LIST OF INHABITANTS OF NAHANT IN 1847
NAMES
Inhabitants
Voters
John Q. Hammond .
5
3
Henry Bulfinch
7
1
Washington Johnson
3
1
D. A. Johnson
4
1
Francis Johnson
10
1
Nelson Tarbox
6
1
J. Johnson, Jr. .
9
1
Wm. R. Johnson
3
1
Jno. Johnson
6
2
Walter Johnson
4
1
D. W. Johnson
7
1
J. E. Lodge
9
1
Benj. W. Appleton
5
1
Alonzo Colby
6
1
Benj. Hood
6
W. W. Johnson
9
2
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THE NEW TOWN
LIST OF INHABITANTS OF NAHANT IN 1847 - Concluded
NAMES
Inhabitants
Voters
Caleb Johnson .
5
2
A. Murdock
4
1
E. A. Johnson
6
1
P. Drew
16
4
Nichaolas Hilbert
4
2
D. Johnson
5
1
J. Rice
4
2
Joseph Johnson
11
6
Mrs. Donham .
3
1
Wm. Johnson
5
1
John H. Gray .
8
1
Ed. B. Phillips
3
2
Mr. Clifford
5
1
Samuel Hudson
5
1
A. Whitney
8
3
197
54
.
Dexter Stetson
4
3
3
1
Eben. Hood
The footing of the first column appears to be 198 and not 197 as this paper gives it. It is interesting to note that in this year there were thirty-three families in town, with a population of one hundred and ninety-eight and with fifty- four voters. There were other families without voters, mostly summer residents. This list would seem to be a summation for use in the application for a new township. Thirteen are Johnsons of the old Johnson family, with a membership of eighty, although this would include hired help, clerks or boarders. David Johnson, the fourteenth Johnson in the list, was not one of this Johnson family. Murdock and Bulfinch married Johnsons, adding two to the list of family affiliations, and making about twenty-three voters in this one family. Nearly all of these people are mentioned elsewhere. Henry Bulfinch built the house, long known as the Bulfinch House, at the corner of Nahant Road and Ocean Streets, later re- modelled for William A. Hayes and again more recently for
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SOME ANNALS OF NAHANT
its present owner, Philip Young. Caleb Johnson owned nearly all of the land along the main road from his old home- stead, now the Sigourney place, up to Pond Street, and gave each of his children land on which to build their own homes. Without attempting to trace these accurately it is interesting to note the William F. Johnson house, later Oxnard or Archi- bald, now Williams, at the corner of Summer Street. Across the street is the George L. Johnson house next the Village Church, first given to C. Warren Johnson who died in the Civil War. Then comes Murdock, now Edgehill, and further up is Bulfinch.
In these early days the highway department was small. One man remembers it as Albert Whitney, one man and one horse. Whitney held the office for several years around 1860. This is the Whitney of "Whitney's Hotel." A daughter, Mrs. Alice C. McIntosh, is mentioned elsewhere. A son, William R. Whitney, saw long service on the School Committee and Board of Selectmen. He died in 1922, aged sixty-nine. Another son, Benjamin C. Whitney, was well known to old-timers.
The police department in these early days consisted of small payments to several men for a few days' service each, all included in the selectmen's department of the town report until 1869, when the annual auditor's report set up a police department with an expenditure of $295. This was un- expectedly large, and the money was taken from unap- propriated funds, - that convenient way of expressing an overrun. The next year saw an appropriation of $300 for the police department, which had arrived as a separate unit of the town's activities. Even the first year of the new town, however, saw an expenditure for badges and handcuffs.
The fire department, now an important element of town business, seems to have jumped from a trifling expenditure, and less attention, to the position of a town department in 1870. The town report for 1871 records an expenditure of over $3,200 and this is said to be the result of an awakening. The large item is for the purchase of "Dexter No. 1," appar-
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THE NEW TOWN
ently, though it is hard to see how this could have cost over $1,800. For several years after 1853 the list of the town's assets included fire engine and engine house at around $450, which was later scaled down to $350. This engine house was a shed to hold the old machine, and was located above the old Town Hall in what was later the schoolhouse yard. The old controversies are hard to unravel at this later date, and no town officers made reports in these early days except the school committee. But at a town meeting in 1870 it was voted to sell the old engine house within four days. This curiosity of a vote must have resulted from some discussion now lost, though some old Nahanters may come forward later remembering all about it. After the upbuilding of the fire department by the appropriations of 1870 the apparatus was kept in the basement of the Town Hall, now the old Town Hall.
CHAPTER XIX NAHANT OF THE FIFTIES
IT is difficult to present a word picture of Nahant as she looked as a new town. On Little Nahant Dr. William R. Lawrence, about 1850, built two cottages. One is still stand- ing, often called the red Simmons cottage, pointed out in much later years as the place occupied by William Dean Howells for one summer. The other stood where now is the Thomas Howe house, and was moved, when the latter was built, in 1880, to the corner of Nahant and Spring Roads. Here it bore a sign "Hotel Tremont," but never met success as a hotel and lay idle for most of the time. Once it was a home for a boys' club, instituted through the interest of George Abbot James, but this also passed. Finally, in rack and ruin, it was torn down, about twenty years ago. Little Nahant perhaps saw pasturage from Lynn later than any other part of the town. Lynn farmers maintained a pen near the foot of Nahant Street, and their cows were driven to it, while one of them furnished a man or a boy to drive the cattle across the beach to Little Nahant. Coming back each farmer got his own cows from the pen. Some Lynn people now tell of this, and how their fathers drove the cattle over the beach, - a service furnished by the farmers in proportion to the number of cows each had in the herd. An old organization of the 1800's was the Proprietors of Nahant Pastures, evidently made up of men still using pasturage there derived from rights under the old division of the town. The sales of land, of course, gradually eliminated this use of the acreage.
Dr. William R. Lawrence was succeeded in his ownership at Little Nahant by George W. Simmons, father of George W. Simmons whom Nahanters mostly remember, and brother of
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NAHANT OF THE FIFTIES
William A. Simmons who founded Simmons College in Boston. Both men were in the clothing business. Thornton Simmons, another son of George, Sr., will be remembered. The senior Simmons, who died about 1885, built the larger Simmons house, westerly from the little red house, and occupied it. He farmed the land, getting considerable crops, mostly for his own use. He also owned several acres in Great Nahant adjacent to Nahant Road between Pond and High Streets. A small gardener's cottage, in the lower corner of what is now the Howe estate, was moved over to Nahant Road, northerly, on a part of this land, where it now stands in dilapidated condition. These four houses, one later replaced by the Howe house, comprised Little Nahant, even as late as the 90's. In 1896, soon after the death of George W. Simmons, Jr., all the Nahant property was sold at auction. Joseph T. Wilson bought most of the land on Great. Nahant, while a group represented by Edward E. Strout took over a majority of Little Nahant, and formed the Little Nahant Land Com- pany to develop it. A considerable section was bought by Carahar Brothers, whose use of it is described elsewhere.
Bass Point, in these early days, was likewise vacant land. The "Old Castle" was still used as a private house, and two others were built by sons of John Phillips. None of these is now standing. There was a stable and stone shack, now gone, on the Relay House property, and the Tudors built a house on the Bass Point House property, about where the office of this resort now stands. The older part was burned in 1893, so that now no part of this outfit is old, unless the removal of the buildings from the Maolis Gardens makes it so. The Trimountain House was originally a small house owned by Tudor. But not so long ago the Old Castle was the only house on Bass Point, and this district was also used for pasturage for cattle from Lynn. Certainly in the 1820's and probably in all the 30's, there was no house on all of Nahant westerly from Summer Street except the Old Castle and the Tudor homestead. Tudor began building cottages, sheds and barns, those mentioned at Bass Point
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