Manchester on the Merrimack, the story of a city, Part 1

Author: Blood, Grace Everlina Holbrook, 1885-
Publication date: 1948
Publisher: Manchester, N.H., L.A. Cummings Co
Number of Pages: 384


USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Manchester > Manchester on the Merrimack, the story of a city > Part 1


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Blood r on the M. of a city


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Manchester on the Merrimack


MANCHESTER ON THE MERRIMACK THE STORY OF A CITY


BY GRACE HOLBROOK BLOOD


ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN O'HARA COSGRAVE, II


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LEW A. CUMMINGS CO. Manchester, New Hampshire


Copyright, 1948, By Mary Carpenter Manning


Sant tay Spie i say, 7,0 Distributed by Goodman's Bookstore Manchester, N. H.


1243837


CONTENTS


1. Nature and the Past. . 1


2. War-Whoops and Wigwams 13


3. Surveys and Settlements . 23


4. Cross-Currents 39


5. The Revolution Reaches Derryfield 47


6.


Derryfield's Man of Destiny. 59


7. Derryfield's Pioneer of Progress . . .. 81


8. The Genesis of Manchester's Mills . . 94


Preface to a City. 106 Emergence of a City 137


9. 10. 11. Expansion of a City . 163 12. Manchester and the Civil War. 191


13. Mid-Victorian Manchester 219


14. Manchester's Mauve Decade . 260


15. Manchester and the New Century. . 292


16. The City That Would Not Die. . .. 314


17. Today 346


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Gratefully dedicated to the memory of Fred W. Lamb whose careful researches in Man- chester history furnished the foundations and the framework for this story of a city. Long director of the Manchester Historical Associa- tion he was for many years the vital link be- tween the community's past and present, open- ing the dusty doors of yesterday that the light of today might touch to living the events and people of by-gone years. His devoted service to the city he loved lives within these pages.


"It is a cheated life that cannot discover unexpected things in the past. It is a poor house that has room only for the present."


John Mason Brown


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The task of acknowledging my indebtedness to others would be a joyful one but for the fact that the list becomes too long for inclusion within reasonable limits. To all those friends whose oft-repeated "How's the book coming?" has given me courage at critical moments I wish to voice my sincerest gratitude. Their interest was a form of cooperation more ef- fective, perhaps, than they realized.


To Mary Carpenter Manning, above all others, goes the deepest gratitude of my heart for help and inspiration not to be compassed within words. She is the origin of this book and she has been its sustaining power. From foreword to finis these pages are for her.


I am deeply aware of my debt to the illus- trator, John O'Hara Cosgrave, II, whose per- ceptive mind and skillful hand have illumi- nated so satisfyingly the meanings I groped for power to convey in words.


I wish to thank Dr. Horace B. Williams, editorial writer of the New Hampshire Morn- ing Union, for his careful and painstaking edit- ing of my manuscript, for his ready under- standing of my purpose and for his helpful suggestions concerning arrangement of mate- rial.


I shall always remember with gratitude the helpfulness of Fred M. Caswell who has made


important and valuable contributions to the chapter on The City That Would Not Die. I would thank him also for making available to me the results of his lifelong study of General John Stark. In connection with this chapter on Derryfield's Man Of Destiny I gratefully acknowledge, moreover, the interest and the helpful suggestions of Howard P. Moore of New York City whose biography of General Stark is about to be published.


I would thank Frank O. Spinney, Director of the Manchester Historical Association, for the interest he has shown and for his valuable assistance in selecting old prints and other material as a basis for the illustrations.


My gratitude goes out to Caroline B. Clement, Librarian of the Carpenter Memorial Library, and to her willing and efficient staff. Especially am I grateful to Mrs. George M. Kibbee, of the historical department, whose enthusiastic cooperation has never flagged in the long months when I haunted her domain with questions and queries for which she al- ways supplied the answer.


I am most appreciative of the interest and kindness shown by the publisher, Lew A. Cummings, whose craftsmanship in the making of the book has been a source of confidence. And I would thank William P. Goodman, of


the Goodman Bookstore and Carolyn Heath Wellman, of the Book Nook, for their coopera- tive helpfulness.


Finally, I wish to express the sincerest thanks to Elsie Daniels Fairbanks, former chairman of the department of history in Manchester Central High School, who many years ago handed me the key to history and taught me how to unlock the door of its glowing visions.


Grace Hacerook Blood.


MANCHESTER ON THE MERRIMACK


Foreword


What is history but a record of the flow of time?


After the important work of assembling events and dates, what is the fundamental func- tion of the historian but to strive to catch the meaning of the swiftly-moving current of the years-not merely to note what was borne along the surface, but to take careful soundings of the undercurrents and to consider the question, Whither? In other words, dates and names and happenings are important chiefly because of their lasting significance, whether in the case of an individual, a city, or the world. The biography


UP STATE ON THE PEMIGEWASSET


Foreword


of any man is a sterile, husk-like thing if all that it accomplishes is the presentation of a series of word-pictures of that man walking through the years of his living, without interpreting the spirit that gave that living purpose and meaning. For after all interpretation is the key that unlocks doors. And the essential significance of every thing in every age has been a fleeting thought about that thing caught and held briefly in the heart of the beholder.


So, in assembling the remembered and recorded events comprising the history of Man- chester, the author has tried first for accuracy, and then for a sustained awareness of the spirit that is Manchester, moving always beneath the outer seeming. Sometimes that spirit has spoken with power and confidence; sometimes it has subsided to a whisper; sometimes it has been almost submerged under the chaos and confusion of the world about it. But never has it been lost. Surviving everything, it has lived on, conditioned by the minds and hearts of men and women who have contributed time and toil, wealth and wisdom, ideas and ideals, to the development of the city. It has lived on, sym- bolized by the river flowing through its deep channel from north to south-seeking, quest- ing, as a river always does.


Thus "Manchester On The Merrimack" be- comes an explanatory, indeed an inevitable title for the tracing of our city's history. For


Foreword


without this "silver river", "river of broken waters", "stream of the mountains", as it was called by the Indians, the Manchester that we know never could have existed. From the period when the red men proclaimed "Namos- keag" the high place for fish down to the realization of Samuel Blodget's dream, and on into this era of Amoskeag's diversified indus- tries, the city and the river have been one.


"And away flows the river, But whither, who knows?"


And whither our city? Never were the im- plications of that question more portentous than today, when the miracle of the split atom has placed in the hands of men such limitless power. In common with the rest of the world, we share the terrifying sense of insecurity which the knowledge of that unleashed power has wrought in the human heart; we share too the responsibility for checking and directing its course. It would seem that the times demanded a further miracle, one in the realm of the spirit. Around the turn of the century, Dr. Burton W. Lockhart, long-beloved pastor of the Franklin Street Church, warned his congrega- tion in one of his sermons that the mind of man was dangerously outstripping his soul. It may well be that only by heeding those words spoken by a man of vision can we find any hopeful answer to the interrogation, Whither our city?


SOURCES OF THE MERRIMACK-THE SMITH RIVER


Nature and the Past


It was the New England philosopher, Emer- son, who wrote these words: "The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind of the scholar is that of nature. The next great influence is the past."


Here in the Merrimack Valley, here within the thirty-four square miles of the humming, industrial city of Manchester grown so miracu- lously from a straggling hamlet, we have nature and the past merging, blending, coming to- gether in an integrated whole that is our heri-


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Manchester on the Merrimack


tage. It is unquestionably true that distance both in time and space does lend enchantment. Strange places far away and times shadowy in the mist of long ago possess a peculiarly po- tent charm. But we do not need to go far afield to be aware of Emerson's two great in- fluences. Here in our midst nature offers lavish gifts to those who will take them, and the past speaks plainly and significantly to those who have ears to hear.


To begin with, Manchester's position geo- graphically is unique. She is the only city on the continent set squarely and exactly on the forty-third degree of latitude. The line runs between Harrison and Brook Streets, and its effects are very real. Butterflies and insects at home around Dorr's Pond never get as far be- yond that invisible line as South Manchester, and both animal and vegetable life native to the vicinity just south of the city are not found northward.


Then there is the river. The consideration of rivers, a river, any river, is always a re- warding experience, because rivers have in- numerable facets for reflecting life. Mate- rially, they are inextricably bound up with the destiny of mankind. It would seem that they attract human beings like lodestones, to so great degree have they determined the


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Nature and the Past


history and development of the race. Some tale or legend of a distant river has always lured the explorer on to tempt his fate farther and farther in the wilderness. Primitive settle- ments and sprawling cities alike have played their dramatic parts on river banks. Commerce has plied up and down, with and against their currents, and their mighty power has been harnessed to machinery and made to furnish the driving force for progress. So, in follow- ing the course of a river we are very often following the history of a cross-section of the race. Emphatically is this the case with the Merrimack in its relationship to our city and its people.


Captain John Smith may be honored as the discoverer of New Hampshire, but to a French explorer by the name of Samuel de Champlain belongs the credit for having discovered the Merrimack during the summer of 1605. Along with the credit for discovery should go a few words of genuine appreciation of the merits of a man so richly endowed with the qualities that make a really great explorer. In him courage, persistence of purpose, passion for adventure, were all happily combined with a high degree of physical endurance. Surely here was a man well fitted to play a major role in the drama of opening up a new continent.


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Manchester on the Merrimack


The story goes that under the direction of his patron, Pierre du Gast, Sieur de Monts, he was exploring the coast of New England that summer, and that when he entered the harbor at the mouth of the Piscataqua and he was about opposite the Isles of Shoals, he caught sight of natives on the nearby mainland. Ap- proaching them with gifts, he inquired about the territory bordering on his course. They told him of a bay into which flowed "a great and beautiful river", and thus he sailed on and discovered the mouth of the Merrimack River and Plum Island.


Some time before this, however, the existence of the Merrimack was known even to Euro- peans and was identified by its present name. The historian, Potter, tells us that Merrimack means "a place of strong current", from mer- roh-strong and awke-place. But back in those shadowy days of dawning American his- tory, it had many picturesque designations. The Indians described it variously in their in- imitably lovely and brief phrases, as "bright, rapid water", "the water that comes from the high place", "the beautiful river with the pebbly bottom." Savages they were, these simple children of the forests, but in these musical names they used for mountains and streams, they left behind them enduring proof


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Nature and the Past


that the bright thread of poetry ran through the dark texture of their spirits.


That descriptive phrase, "the water that comes from the high place", suggests the questions, where and how? Where does the river rise, and how does it find its way to the sea? A lad up in Franklin, in response to a question posed in a geography class, is said to have answered promptly, "The Merrimack River rises behind Mr. Daniel's barn." Very likely he may have been right. At any rate, it is at Franklin that two streams-the Winni- pesaukee and the Pemigewasset-meet to form the Merrimack. And thus joined and renamed they flow on as one unit southward and finally sharply eastward to lose themselves in the Atlantic. The Winnipesaukee branch has its source in the lake of that name and is much the shorter of the two tributaries. By far the longer and more important contributing stream is the Pemigewasset, whose name signifies "the crooked mountain-pine place", and this river having its source far north in the famous Willey Mountain, six thousand feet above sea-level, flows southward through some of the most austerely beautiful regions to be found any- where in the United States.


"Nature and the past": here where the Merrimack has its origin surely they are beauti-


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Manchester on the Merrimack


fully and significantly blended. Geologists tell us that Mount Washington is very likely the oldest bit of land on the continent. Hence the sparkling water flowing "from the high place" may be the very earliest to find its way down through rocks and forests, blazing a trail as it were for a river destined eons later to be har- nessed by civilization and to furnish the driving force for modern progress. It is well for us children of this mad and feverish twentieth century to pause a moment in the presence of these probabilities and consider the methods of time, so wise and so old, which works with such unhurried patience and accomplishes its pur- poses with such unerring precision. These far- off beginnings of things-familiar may well "in- fluence the mind", as Emerson put it, but how many of us have stopped really to see or to ponder on the sublimity and the grandeur of this up-state country from whence our river flows? Have we ever nourished our spirits on the lessons and the underlying meanings to be found there, or given ourselves even briefly to the sense of wonder and mystery they evoke? Sometimes it would seem that this capacity for wonder, so patent in the faces of children, is of all qualities the most worthy of preservation in adults. Because without wonder there can


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Nature and the Past


be no worship, and without worship the spirit of man is lost.


While giving first place to the consideration of the river, we must not fail in due attention to other familiar features that are part of the warp and woof of Manchester's history. There is the Piscataquog, a large tributary to the Merrimack, flowing through the western por- tion of the city, with its two branches rising in Weare and Henniker and in Francestown respectively. And there is Massabesic Lake, lying four miles east of the City Hall, which since 1874 has furnished the water supply for the city. It is a picturesque and lovely sheet of water, divided into two parts by a slender stream called Deer Neck, and having as its out- let the clear trickle of Cohas Brook. Then there are the Uncanoonuc Mountains over to the west, not actually within city limits, but seeming nevertheless to stand as guardians of its welfare. They too are part of us.


As the river symbolizes the questing spirit, so the mountains in their changelessness draw our attention to the unalterable and eternal verities without which as a foundation no civilization can survive. A river stimulates; mountains rest and restore. It is interesting to speculate as to what these mountains, so readily visible from our busy main street, may have


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Manchester on the Merrimack


meant in the way of courage and confidence to generations of Manchester folk. Another fa- miliar and important landmark is Rock Rim- mon, a ledge rising from the high plateau west of the Merrimack, and of interest alike to the student of Indian lore and of geology. Without doubt, it indicates the original height of the whole Merrimack valley. Through uncounted centuries, the softer portions of the surround- ing territory have worn down to their present elevations, leaving this ancient rock and its sister, Hooksett Pinnacle, still withstanding the erosive effects of time. It is rather interesting to note that the author of a geological work published in Germany many years ago referred to these two phenomena. Thus does the famil- iar and the often-ignored gain distinction by foreign recognition.


It is indisputable that of all the natural fea- tures around Manchester, except of course the river as a whole, Amoskeag Falls is of foremost importance. From the standpoint of both "nature and the past" they are distinctive, and they weave in and out of our local history con- tinuously, always a source of story and legend and also of material power.


Amoskeag originally was written Namos- keag, and there are varying explanations con- cerning its derivation, the most plausible being


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Nature and the Past


that it is compounded of Namaos, "small fish" and "kiig", to take. Hence it may be trans- lated loosely as "one takes small fish". The name so aptly applied by the Indians emphasizes a phase in the history of the Merrimack that we moderns are inclined to slight. In the days of the red man and even much later, this river and its tributaries and neighboring brooks fairly swarmed with fish: salmon, shad, ale- wives, eels. They were so abundant that they were used not only for food but as fertilizer for corn. It is good exercise for the imagina- tion to try reconstructing the periodic scenes of activity around the falls during the fishing seasons down through the years: the watch- fires by night; the pushing, jostling, milling crowds; the excited shouting as the inevitable disagreements occurred-"pandemonium let loose". It is easy to paint the picture in our minds, first of the Indians, and later of the white men, both lured to the spot by the prac- tical consideration that has called humanity al- ways: the never-ending need for food. But neither race ignored the breathtaking beauty and magnificence of the falls. The Indian in his own simple, primitive fashion payed tribute to it, and the transplanted European was so awed as to refer to the "terror" of this wildly- rushing water, pouring with such reckless and


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Manchester on the Merrimack


relentless power over its rocky ledges. Cotton Mather himself even went a step farther, de- scribing the turbulent phenomenon as "the hideous falls of Merrimack River".


But Cotton Mather was interested also in another of the curiosities of this primitive re- gion: the famous pot-holes. In a magazine article published by the Philosophical Trans- actions of London, he wrote: "At a place called Ammuskeag, a little above the hideous Falls of Merrimack River, there is a high rock in the midst of the stream, on the top of which are a great number of pits made exactly round like barrels or hogsheads of different capacities, some so large as to hold several tons. The na- tives knew nothing of the time they were made, but the neighboring Indians have been wont to hide their provisions in them in wars with the Maquas."


Of course "the natives knew nothing of the time they were made." Not yet had they learned the ways of patient time. Countless ages ago, in a period of high water, smaller rocks were swept down the river by the flood currents and lodged in small, uneven places on top of larger boulders. Whirled around year after year by the endless rush of water, they cut their way gradually into their resting places, until finally these cavities worn smooth by


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Nature and the Past


friction appeared and took the obviously ap- propriate name of pot-holes. It is regrettable that in the process of building the present dam, these interesting relics of past ages were either blasted away or submerged under the rushing water.


There are other tangible reminders of the days when the Indian found happy hunting grounds in the vicinity, relics such as spear heads, arrow points, gouges, and until recent years when the collector has combed the land so thoroughly, rude pottery dishes. Especially is this true of the two small islands immediately to the south of the Falls, known as Grand and Fishing Islands. Mr. Harlan Marshall of Man- chester has a most interesting collection of these long-buried relics and is an authority on the traditions and customs of this race, the pattern of whose living is all but lost in oblivion. The whole region is also rich in lore and legend, and in spite of the emergence of the allegedly ruth- less industrial age, it still retains its scenic loveliness and its power to stir the imagina- tion. Truly "nature and the past" around the famous old Falls are yet vivid realities.


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Manchester on the Merrimack


Three souls shall meet in our gracious river, The soul of the mountains, stanch and free, The soul of the Indian "Lake of the Spirit", And the infinite soul of the shining sea. One hath its birth by the granite mountain, Where a mighty face looks out alone, Across the world and adown the ages, Like the face of the Christ in the living stone. One flows from the water of Winnipesaukee, Bearing ever where it may glide, As the Indians named that beautiful water, "The smile of the Spirit" upon its tide. And the soul of the sea is at Little Harbor Or Strawberry Bank of the olden time, Where first DeMonts and his dreaming voyageurs Sailed in quest of a golden clime.


Unchanged and changeless flows the river, But blended now with its ceaseless chime Is the rhythmic beating of mighty hammers, And a hum like the bees in summer time.


But the hum of the looms and the clank of the hammers Will hush to the chime of the Sabbath bells,


While the soul of the stream from the Lake of the Spirit The story of Eliot's Master tells.


The years flow on like the flowing river, With peaceful eddies and daring falls, But if ever the life of the state is perilled, If duty summons or country calls,


The soul of the hills and the stream will waken As it woke in the ancient minute-men, And the hearts of the sons like the hearts of the fathers Will bleed for their country's life again.


From "At the Falls of Namoskeag" by Allen Eastman Cross.


INDIAN VILLAGE ON THE BLUFF OVER AMOSKEAG FALLS


War-Whoops and Wigwams


For the sake of convenience, it is well to divide the history of Manchester into three dis- tinct periods: first, that of Indian occupancy, sometimes referred to as the Stone Age; second, that of the early white settlements-the pi- oneering period; and third, that of industrial expansion and development into a modern city. There can be only approximate and over- lapping dates as fences around these divisions, for history never lends itself readily to confine- ment in neat little garden-plots, with tags on


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Manchester on the Merrimack


every shrub and flower. Broadly speaking, however, we may say that the first period in- cludes all between the dawn of recognizable New England history and around 1725, when the greater portion of the Merrimack Valley Indians, reduced by smallpox and by war, had abandoned their homes along the river bank and fled to Canada, where they joined the St. Francis tribe. The years from 1725 to 1807, when Judge Blodget completed his famous canal, may be defined as the pioneer period. And the time from 1807 to the present fairly deserves the descriptive title of years of in- dustrial expansion.


In attempting to record the annals of the red man, quite inevitably we run into romance, fascinating and colorful tales about these sim- ple, childlike, but paradoxically savage tribes of a vanished race. It is wise to accept these stories as a feature of our heritage, and to con- cede to the Indian his part in our early history. Whatever else he may or may not have done, he painted a picturesque backdrop for the somewhat austere scenes of the period that was to follow. He touched our landscape with the loveliness of memorable names, and he ex- hibited again and again in his character patterns of conduct worthy of paleface emulation-gen-


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War-Whoops and Wigwams


erosity, hospitality, simple gratitude and heroic courage.


Through the mists of lore and legend some bits of data do emerge as authoritative. We know that at the beginning of the white man's exploration, our Merrimack Valley and nearby portions of New Hampshire, Massa- chusetts and southern Maine were occupied by members of the strong Pennacook confed- eracy, a sub-division of the Algonquin tribe, and that the two most important seats of this branch were at Pennacook and Amoskeag Falls. The Pennacooks were constantly exposed to the hostility of enemy tribes, and many and violent were the battles fought all along the river, battles where valor and courage and en- durance were as glorious as the bearing of the heroes of the ancient world. Indeed one author called this region "the Thessaly of olden New England". Equipped with a vigorous imagina- tion, even today one may fancy faint echoes of the blood-curdling war-whoops, heard above the roar of a plane overhead or the hoarse notes of a Diesel-engined streamliner gliding up the valley.




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