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HANOVER a bicentennial book 1761-1961
Gc 974.202 H24ch 1408274
M. L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01187 9258
Hanover, New Hampshire a bicentennial book
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/hanovernewhampshi
Hanover, New Hampshire C a bicentennial book
Essays in Celebration of the Town's 200th Anniversary
EDITED BY FRANCIS LANE CHILDS
HANOVER 1961
The Hanover Bicentennial Committee HAROLD LEWIS BOND MILDRED DERBY HOYT FLETCHER LOW CHARLOTTE LABOMBARD MINNICH CHARLOTTE FORD MORRISON PHOEBE STORRS STEBBINS
EDWARD CONNERY LATHEM Chairman
Subcommittee for the Bicentennial Book MARGARET BECK MCCALLUM CHARLOTTE FORD MORRISON STEARNS MORSE CHARLES EDWARD WIDMAYER
FRANCIS LANE CHILDS Chairman
Design and production RAY NASH
@ Copyright, 1961, by the Town of Hanover Printed in the United States of America by The Vermont Printing Company. Illustrations by The Meriden Gravure Company.
Foreword 1408274
T HE Hanover Bicentennial Committee early in its plan- ning for the celebration of the town's two hundredth an- niversary conceived the idea of putting the town in possession, when the tumult and the shouting should be over, of some substantial and permanent memorial, and quickly decided that such a memorial should take the form of a book dealing with the town's history. This volume, which is the joint product of many minds, many hands and long months of labor, is the result of that decision.
The book is not in any way a formal or connected history of Hanover's two hundred years of existence. Frederick Chase's His- tory of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, N. H. (1891) and John K. Lord's History of the Town of Hanover (1928) cover more than the first century and a half in that way, and neither time nor money was available for doing that sort of task again. Instead, this is a volume of twenty-two independent chapters, each by a different author treating a separate topic of local historical interest. The variety of topics is of such spread as to cover in one way or another events and people from all sections of the town and from many periods of time.
Every town has its individual character. Hanover differs from all others in New Hampshire in having its special quality derive from the fact that from its earliest days a town and a college grew up here together. Seldom does anything happen in or to either of them without affecting the other. In these essays, however, while there are frequent references to college persons and college events, the emphasis has been preserved throughout on town per- sons and town events. Dartmouth College will observe its own bicentennial anniversary in 1969 and at or before that time will issue its own historical publications.
The editor and the able committee which assisted him are re- sponsible for the general planning of the book, the selection of the topics to be dealt with, and the choice of writers to treat them, but the chapters follow no set pattern, for each writer was given
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Hanover Bicentennial Book
freedom to develop his topic in whatever way seemed best to him. All have worked enthusiastically and diligently and have in their research investigated a vast amount of pertinent material, both documentary and orally transmitted. The resources of the Dart- mouth College Library, including books and pamphlets, files of local newspapers, manuscript letters, diaries and the like pre- served in the College Archives, have been graciously placed by the staff at the disposal of the various writers for this volume. All factual statements have been carefully checked; the absence of footnotes is due solely to the necessity of conserving space. In spite of great vigilance, however, it is probable that among so many names, dates and events some minor errors will have slipped by. For any such that may be found, we offer the readers our apolo- gies and beg their forgiveness.
It is not possible here to thank by name all the great number of citizens who have so willingly assisted the writers in their task of bringing back to life the dead days of the past. This book is truly a community product. Not only has its publication been made possible by a generous grant of the town, voted in town meeting, but everyone who has been asked has responded readily in furnish- ing needed information. The making of this book has indeed touched the whole town from the River to Moose Mountain.
F.L.C.
vi
Contents
CHAPTER
PAGE
Foreword V
1
Of Colonial-Revolutionary Adventure by EDWARD CONNERY LATHAM
1
2 The Town's Prehistory 18
by JOHN B. LYONS
3 The River 28
by WILLIAM RANDALL WATERMAN
4 From Oxcart to Airplane by ARMSTRONG SPERRY 40
5 Roads and Runnels, Hills and Hollows by CHARLOTTE FORD MORRISON
54
6 Folks, Farms, and Fun in East Hanover 68
by LILLIAN KENISON BAILEY
7 Hanover Goes to War 82
by JOHN B. STEARNS
8 Early Houses: Outside the Village by MARJORY LORD PACKARD
91
9 Early Houses: In the Village on the Plain 100
by JEANNETTE MATHER LORD
10 Main Street by PHOEBE STORRS STEBBINS
112
CHAPTER
11 Victualing and Lodging by JOHN HURD
PAGE 126
12 Personages and Eccentrics 138
by FRANCIS LANE CHILDS
13 Laura Bridgman 150
by STEARNS MORSE
14 The Christie Warden Murder 161
by ROBERT P. RICHMOND
15 Flood, Fire, and Wind 179
by BANCROFT H. BROWN
16 Hanover Out of Doors 182
by FREDERICK S. PAGE
17 Doctors and Hospitals 192
by ALICE H. POLLARD
18 The Churches of Hanover 206
by REBECCA GALLAGHER WILLIAMS
19 Schools in Town and Village 222
by ELISABETH and DAVID BRADLEY
20 Printer's Ink 234
by CHARLES E. WIDMAYER
21 The Chain of Libraries by MARGARET BECK MCCALLUM
249
22 Town and Gown 263
by FRANCIS LANE CHILDS
Afterword 274
I Of Colonial-Revolutionary Adventure by Edward Connery Lathem
T HE year 1760 marked the close of hostilities in the French and Indian War. With the surrender of Montreal to Gen- eral Amherst on September eighth the British victory was complete, a victory that brought decisively to its conclusion the bitter series of struggles in which England, France and Spain had for so long contended with one another for supremacy in America.
It was a natural circumstance that from the war's end should spring new beginnings within the colonies, and not the least sig- nificant of these in New Hampshire was to be the opening up for settlement of previously ungranted land along and beyond fron- tiers which had until the coming of peace been so constantly "dis- tressed by the enemy."
"During the war, the continual passing of troops through those lands," wrote the historian Jeremy Belknap, "caused the value of them to be more generally known; and when by the conquest of Canada, tranquillity was restored, they were eagerly sought. .. . " That New Hampshire's royal governor, Benning Wentworth, should also have favored an expansion of his domain is not to be wondered at when one recognizes that in terms of customary fees and presents, as well as through the liberal reservation of certain tracts for himself, the granting of new territory constituted, poten- tially, a very "lucrative branch" of his office.
In addition, there was still another factor which argued per- suasively for promptness in disposing of these frontier areas: the presence there of squatters and wasters. The minutes of the provin- cial council in June of 1760, for example, reveal the following:
His Excellency [Governor Wentworth] also informed the Board that he had received advice that sundry ill disposed persons had entred upon the Kings lands on Connecticut river in this Province and had cut and made waist on the Kings timbers and was making settlements on his Majtles unappropriated lands in that quarter without lycence for so doing. . . .
Formal proclamations might well be sent forth "forbidding such
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Hanover Bicentennial Book
practices &c upon sever penalties," but with the seat of authority so far distant as Portsmouth and with the likelihood of active legal enforcement equally remote, their effectiveness could hardly be great. The answer was not proclamations, but grantees-individu- als with chartered rights and personal interests to protect; and clearly the first step toward the attainment of that goal was the laying out of the lands in question. Accordingly, as was recorded in a manuscript left behind by an early surveyor of the North Country,
. the Governor of New Hampshire, in the winter of 1760, con- cluded to extend his survey of Connecticut river above No. 4, as Charlestown, N. H. was then called, and commissioned Joseph Blan- chard of Dunstable [now Nashua], to make the survey from the North- western corner of said No. 4 to the upper end of the Great Meadows, then known by the Indian name of the Co-os,-the lower Coos. Blan- chard made his survey, mainly on the ice, in the month of March, of that year. Proceeding up the Connecticut, at the end of every 6 miles on a straight line, he marked a tree, on each side of the river, and num- bered it for the corner of a township thereafter to be granted; and thus continued till he came to the extreme limit assigned him, which was at, or opposite to, the mouth of the Great, or as it is now called the Lower Ammonoosuck.
It was during December of this same year, 1760, that two gentle- men from Connecticut laid before the governor at Portsmouth one of the many petitions which he appears to have received with respect to the territory about to be granted. Acting as agents "for about Two hundred and forty others, Inhabitants of Windham County, in the Colony of Connecticut," Joseph Storrs and Ed- mund Freeman Jr. rehearsed to his Excellency, as Chase quotes:
That there is a tract of Land within his Majesty's said Province of New Hampe, at a Place called Cho-os, situate on both sides of Connecticut river, so called, commencing at Welles river where it emptys itself into Connecticut river aforesd, and from thence running northerly up said river about six miles, and southerly down said Connecticut about six miles, and carrying that Breadth Back Westerly about same distance; and also, one other Tract lying on the East side of the sª river, opposite to the Tract above, and to carry the same Breadth Back Easterly the same distance from the said Connecticut river. Which two Tracts are capable of making Four Townships, and, as your Memorialists are in- formed, are as yet ungranted.
Wherefore your Petitioners and their associates Humbly Pray that they may be Indulged with a grant of the said Two Tracts of Land
2
Of Colonial-Revolutionary Adventure
above Described, upon the usual conditions and reservations that his Majesty's Lands are commonly granted upon in this his Province; Your Petitioners now standing ready to enter upon and cultivate the same Immediately, and as early as Possible fullfill and Perform every article of their sª Grant; and as in Duty Bound, they will ever Pray.
By summer Benning Wentworth was ready to act, and on July 4, 1761, he issued the first of the flood of charters that now began to pour forth from the provincial capital. (A total of seventy-eight, covering lands on both sides of the Connecticut, were sealed and dispatched during a period of but six months.) Four of the five July-fourth grants (including Hanover, Lebanon, Norwich, and Hartford; the fifth being Enfield) were made, substantially, to per- sons represented in the Storrs-Freeman petition, although the land awarded was much south of that for which they had particularly asked.
While the names assigned to the other of these towns seem ob- viously to have been drawn from communities in Connecticut wherein certain of the grantees resided, there has been some ques- tion regarding the origin of the designation "Hannover," as it was spelled in the charter. One local authority has declared that prob- ably the derivation is
satisfactorily explained by the suggestion that there was at that time, in the Connecticut town of Norwich, a parish styled "Hannover," where the name indeed still persists, though the territory of the old parish has been divided among the towns of Lisbon, Windham, and Canterbury.
Others, however, have speculated that the governor may have given the name with direct reference to the reigning line of Eng- lish kings, the House of Hannover, called after the German princi- pality from which these monarchs had originated. Such action would, perhaps, have been particularly fitting as a mark of homage during that first year following the accession of George III.
The Hanover charter, still preserved among the town's papers, is a large printed form of the sort in general use at that period and differing from others only in the content of the manuscript entries made to fill out the various blank portions of the printed text:
PROVINCE of NEW -HAMPSHIRE. GEORGE the Third,
By the Grace of GOD, of Great-Britain, France and Ireland, KING, Defender of the Faith, &c.
To all Persons to whom these Presents shall come,
Greeting.
3
Hanover Bicentennial Book
KNOW ye, that We of Our special Grace, certain Knowledge, and meer Motion, for the due Encouragement of settling a New Planta- tion within our said Province, by and with the Advice of our Trusty and Well-beloved BENNING WENTWORTH, Esq; Our Governor and Commander in Chief of Our said Province of NEW-HAMPSHIRE in New-England, and of our COUNCIL of the said Province; HAVE upon the Conditions and Reservations herein after made, given and granted, and by these Presents, for us, our Heirs, and Successors, do give and grant in equal Shares, unto Our loving Subjects, Inhabitants of Our said Province of New-Hampshire, and Our other Governments, and to their Heirs and Assigns for ever, whose Names are entred on this Grant, to be divided to and amongst them into Sixty Eight equal Shares, all that Tract or Parcel of Land situate, lying and being within our said Province of New-Hampshire, containing by Admeasurement, Twenty Two Thousand 400 Acres, which Tract is to contain five & five Sixths of Six Miles square, and no more; out of which an Allow- ance is to be made for High Ways and unimprovable Lands by Rocks, Ponds, Mountains and Rivers, One Thousand and Forty Acres free, according to a Plan and Survey thereof, made by Our said Governor's Order, and returned into the Secretary's Office and hereunto annexed, butted and bounded as follows, Viz. Begining at a Hemlock Tree marked which is the North West Corner of Lebanon from thence South Sixty four degrees East Seven Miles by the North Line of Leb- anon to the Corner thereof from thence North forty five degrees East Six Miles from thence North Sixty four degrees West Six Miles & three- Quarters to a White Pine Tree marked Standing on the Bank of the river Connecticut thence down the river to the first Bounds mentioned
And that the same be, and hereby is Incorporated into a Township by the Name of Hannover And the Inhabitants that do or shall hereafter inhabit the said Township, are hereby declared to be Enfranchized with and Intitled to all and every the Priviledges and Immunities that other Towns within Our Province by Law Exercise and Enjoy. . ..
The grant, carrying provision for "the Liberty of holding Two Fairs" each year and a weekly Market, and establishing the time for the annual town meeting, was conveyed under the following conditions, also specified in the name of the king: that every grantee or his successors in interest must within five years "plant and cultivate" five out of every fifty acres of land held and, thereafter, "continue to improve and settle the same by additional Cultiva- tions"; that "all white and other Pine Trees . . . , fit for Masting Our Royal Navy, be carefully preserved for that Use"; that before any of the township was otherwise allocated to the grantees "a Tract of Land as near the Centre of the said Township as the
4
Of Colonial-Revolutionary Adventure
Land will admit of, shall be reserved and marked out for Town Lots, one of which shall be allotted to each Grantee of the Con- tents of one Acre"; that each year for ten years on the twenty-fifth of December "the Rent of one Ear of Indian Corn only" should be paid to the Crown; and, finally, that after the passage of ten years "Every Proprietor, Settler or Inhabitant, shall yield and pay unto Us, our Heirs and Successors yearly, and every Year forever, .. . on the twenty-fifth Day of December, ... One shilling Proclamation Money for every Hundred Acres he so owns, settles or possesses, and so in Proportion for a greater or lesser Tract of the said Land ... ; and this to be in Lieu of all other Rents and Services whatsoever."
On the reverse of the charter are found the names of the town's grantees or proprietors. Of the total of sixty-eight shares into which the proprietorship was divided, some fifty-odd were assigned to individuals included in the original Connecticut petition; others went to persons designated by the governor (a notorious form of patronage employed by Wentworth in providing for his family and friends, and a device that was ultimately to play a con- tributing part in his removal from the governorship); one share each was reserved for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, for a glebe for the Church of England, for the first settled minister, and for the benefit of a town school; and, last, equated as two shares was a tract of five hundred acres re- served for Governor Wentworth himself, whose canny practice it was to select a choice lot of such dimensions in each town he chartered.
The face of the land throughout the new town was, as Frederick Chase observed in his History, of a greatly diversified character:
Along the river were generally narrow intervales, some of which have been since washed away, and immediately back of them high, rugged hills, through which in deep, narrow gorges numerous brooks rushed violently down to the river, affording at certain periods abun- dance of water-power. The hills, rising in what are substantially three or four successive ridges, culminate in Moose Mountain, which extends the whole length of the town near its eastern boundary, and reaches at one point the height of 2,350 feet above the sea.
Upon the western slope of the mountain Mink Brook, the principal stream of the town after the river, takes its rise, and flowing southward and westward, skirts the border just within the limits for upwards of three miles before it reaches the river. It was in early days a large and
5
Hanover Bicentennial Book
handsome stream, well stocked with trout and with mink, as its name implies. ... The valley of this brook is, in places, of considerable width, and affords some fine intervales,-superior indeed to those upon the lower levels of the river. Through the last four miles of its course, to within a mile of its mouth, the brook falls nearly four hundred feet, and offered in early days unsurpassed facilities for mills, more avail- able to the settlers than the greater, but less manageable, power of the river. . . .
Except the intervales, the whole town to the very top of the moun- tain was covered with heavy forest. ... The wooded lowlands were wet, and settlements began invariably on the hills. There the soil, though often very productive, was (besides being covered with a heavy hard wood forest) generally stony, and sometimes barren, so that the town at first was not in high repute for fertility, but was accounted on the whole poor and unpromising. We learn from tradition that some years after the College had been placed here, a man who tried farming among the pines, on a river lot about a mile north of the college, be- coming discouraged, offered to give his land to a neighbor if the latter would pay for the deed; and the offer was refused. . .. After a time the reputation of the town improved. Farmer and Moore, in their Gazetteer of 1820, describe it as having less waste land than any other town in Grafton County, one half being then under improvement. . . .
Although the charter was granted in 1761, it was to be four years before the first permanent settler arrived in Hanover. The intervening time was not, however, without activity with respect to the town. The first meeting of the proprietors (whose records from the outset carry the town's name as "Hanover," not adopting the Germanic spelling of the charter) was held at Mansfield, Con- necticut, in late August, 1761. The organizational business con- sisted not only of electing officers and committees but included, also, a basic resolution
to proceed forthwith, and Mark out the Town lotts in the Town of Hanover, According to the Charter, And also to lott out the Meadow land in sd Town into equa[l] shares among the Grantees and likewise to lay out an[o]ther Division in sd Township to the Grantees at the Discretion of the Committee to be chosen for sª purpose
At their second official gathering, held in January, 1762, the proprietors were able "to Receive and Confirm the doings of the Committee who were appointed to lay out some divisions in Han- over." That committee, acting under its instructions of the pre- vious summer, had during October made a trip to the wilderness site and devoted its attention, first, to the "Town lotts," which the charter specified were to be situated as near as possible the
6
Of Colonial-Revolutionary Adventure
geographic center of the town. The prescribed location proved to fall on a hillside area about a mile southeast of the present Han- over Center common. This established, a diagram of the tract was made by the committee, mapping it out in acre lots, each measur- ing ten by twenty rods, with "the space in the Middle of the plan and the spaces between the lotts . .. reserved for a Meeting house[,] Burying Yard[,] Training field[,] and Streets or high- ways." This plot, comprising "1213/4 Acres," although intended as the place where population would be concentrated and wherein the life of the town would have its center, was, in point of fact, destined never to exist as Hanover's metropolis, save in the form of this "paper city" delineated in 1761.
Also charted by the five-man committee during its autumn visit were the river lots, which they described as "all abutting upon Connecticutt River and lying parrallal with the N . E: line of said Town; Each lot contains 21 Acres and extending from sd River 160 rods. . . . And are 21 rods in Wedth upon square Measure." These long, narrow strips, which had been bounded along the river bank by the conventional practice of marking trees at appro- priate distances, were sixty-six in number-one allowed for each proprietary share, except for the two shares held by Governor Wentworth, who had already made his shrewd reservation of five hundred acres in the town's southwest corner, and who was not, beyond the supplementary assignment of a town lot, to receive additional lands.
With these reports in hand, the proprietors proceeded to draw for both town and river lots "by putting the Number of Each lot on separate equal pieces of paper, into a Covered Hatt and then drawn out separately by two disinterested persons."
So began the apportioning of the town's land to its proprietors. In due course there would be made two different hundred-acre "divisions" (the first authorized in 1764 and finally assigned in 1767, the second voted in 1767 and laid out the following year), a complement of pine lots near the saw mill (in 1769), and another of sixty-acre lots (voted in 1773 and assigned in 1774). These divi- sions, together with a group of fifty-acre tracts "pitched" by many of the proprietors, and the mill lots, common land, and sizable gifts and grants (including the governor's lot) made to the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock and his college, are indicated on a map drawn in 1926 by Prof. J. W. Goldthwait, in which the inclusion of modern roads provides orientation for present-day reference.
7
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