USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Newport > Newport, New Hampshire, 1761-1961 : bicentennial celebration, Aug. 14-20, 1961 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12
د
Gc 974.202 N56ne 1987395
M. L.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00056 0802
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/newportnewhampsh
NEWPORT
New Hampshire 1761 1961
WEST VIEW OF NEWPORT VILLAGE, NEW -HAMPSHIRE. Prieted and Published by buon Brown, Newport, \. JE., 1-31.
BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
Aug. 14-20, 1961
$100 Sponsors
A & P Food Stores
Citizens' National Bank and Sugar River Savings Bank
Corbett Oil Co., Inc.
Dorr Woolen Company
First National Bank and Newport Savings Bank
Newport Shoe Manufacturing Corporation
L. L. Ransom & Son
Your program of events for the week, will include Dancing-Fireworks-Hayrides Dramas-Parades-Sports- Fireman's Musters-Barbecues Band Concerts-Auctions Library Festival- Boy Scout Camp-o-rama Industrial-Arts & Crafts Exhibits
FOREWORD-
This a very brief resume of two hundred years of Newport, compiled by a large number of citizens in- terested in preserving the record for posterity.
As with all booklets of this type, errors of fact will be found to occur. Readers noting such errors would best serve the community by writing the Bi- centennial Booklet Editor, so that such letters may become a part of the permanent bound volume to be placed on file at the Richards Free Library at. a date following the Bicentennial Celebration.
Page 1
THE LAST FIRE-HAUNTED SPARK
By RAYMOND HOLDEN*
For the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Town of Newport, New Hampshire
1761 1961
There was a field. full of the dry pods Of silver-silk weeds; a few open rods Between river and pine. The grass tops waved
When a mink went warterward or a woodchuck braved
The summer dusk. A quick, brown man. Crossing a tree-trunk with his bare tan. Stood leaning here, watching the deer browse In the thicket and now and then rouse To listen. with straight ears. to a squirrel strike
The still woods air with a sound like a driven spike.
That passed. The trees by the water were cut
And elbowed into the roof-shape of a hut.
There was a piling of splotched, half-peeled logs.
There was a water-tub. There were ducks and hogs.
Beyond in the woods the deer were alert And the skunk nuzzled for grubs in the grassy dirt
And in the pine tree bole the beetles knocked
And the siskin clung to singing boughs and rocked.
The brown man seldom walked alone. At his thigh thumped arrows tipped with bone.
There was mud and smoke. The brown man came,
Smelling of leaves and sweat, grown tame
And tired and troubled, to trade for beads A backload of furs and smoked weeds. He did not speak. but eyed the place And went away without a smile on his face.
When the gate was shut against him at night and the geese Cried in the lanes and the hill breeze Knotted the smoke to the light that drew away
The clothed men of the log huts lay Beside their weary women upon boards.
1987395
The world turned, away from them, not towards. Braced in the dark they slept. Their dogs Howled and their fire ate through its logs.
The brown man, the savage, the child, Kept to the woods and was wild And the overthrust of change. of board, of brick,
Sweeping over forest and rock, grew thick And wide above a dust made up of bones Of animals dead in their time and stones
Breaking to sand as they lost firmness and let Into their veins alternate frost and wet. Where there was only an interval in a wood Marked with small paths that led mice to their food Houses of smooth plank bunched their cells and roads For larger feet were trodden by dragged loads. On his brown mound the woodchuck stood And saw the walls draw nearer to the wood; Saw the cut stones set smoothly where shapes trod To crowd the grass back under the sod. And the woodchuck scurried down to his room To squeak in the beetle-glittered gloom And press his loins against his doe Who lay there, round and cool and slow. The creak of wheels with men between their hubs Rolled through the forest. Bears and their cubs Lumbered away through the bracken; the deer in flight Lifted their tails and showed a flash of white. And the brown man, driven north, stalked many a house As once, in a lonelier wood. he had stalked the grouse. Then he was seen no more. The tide of stone Lapped northward over the hills from which he had gone. Then there were days when fruit and leaf and blood Were not the one thing live men understood. Barrels and bales and counted things appeared And the hills were walled for sheep and even their summits cleared.
And all the wanton weeds were crowned with staves And shards and the withered things which no one saves. And then, because of title to these things, The shadow of a crow's coarse wings Fell over bodies lying on the ground Between a tufted smoke and a great sound -
And then that passed and there was nothing loud But voices telling how the blood had flowed Because of orators and distances
And stubborn pride in the wit's theories. Then morning suns. aslant across the place.
Lit many a crowd. face upon human face Strung down the streets like hounds
Coursing a quarry that fled by leaps and bounds.
Watchmen and clerks. draymen and men of case.
Mechanics. masons. in a tide like the sea's,
Flooded the stone. now frozen firm
Over old ground once softened by the worm.
Now neither deer nor savages, keen For simple enmities, was heard or seen.
Ladies and merchants dallied among shrubs
That had sheltered she-bears cuffing at their cubs.
Then rode in glittering carriages and bowed
As if there were something in them that was proud,
Something that came of their economy,
Their civil stature, their urbanity Men sat with pipes and rum and saw the town Spin out a fabric that, once fastened down, Would make their passage safe. They rose and went
Along the cobbled streets. haughty and anxious yet content.
This was a town now, and its men were suave, Western and wise. They thought the earth a slave.
Long streets of dwellings with sharp. shining roofs,
Roadmetal, burnished by the clap of hoofs Upon the face of the earth now shone as bright As spectacles on faces with dimmed sight. The counting house, the shop, wool, wood and tin,
Men in long coats, with brocade vests, gone in
To thin-pilastered rooms with shelves of glass, Green in the light, coal fires and carpets thick as grass, Gone up white-balustered stairs with candles at their heads
To women, white as seed-sprouts, in tall beds. Echoes of war, dying against the sound
Of traffic, presses. mill wheels, water; the ground That once the woodchuck dug parcelled in little plots Scattered with rock. littered with rags and pots.
And now mill towers, like savagely wielded rods. In the hands of ruthless and improbable gods, Driving men downward, shortening their lives. Yet the curious, urgent spark survives. Two hundred years are on this upland rock
That is now man's. 'They make a weighty block -
Two hundred years. And yet the blood works through.
Feeling its flood, man doubts the things men do
To trap the great cold rat that gnaws his heart. Hearing the dead wind in the great walls start The sound of too much chill, he wonders If all is well with man and his made thunders. For everything is stony now. The streets Are frozen under a curved glitter that beats With turns of iron wheels. Rank upon rank. Ivory and granite, towering into the dank Mist of a river-throated night, the heights Cluster and swing - dead crenellations like a satellite's.
The sheep are gone. The unruly forest is back. And the wolf, with eyes like stars in the black, Watches us and, not understanding, howls; And the one-two and three-four hoot of owls
Greets the night-shift of the clicking mills And life brims in the dark cup and is shaken and spills.
This is the place where we stand With a thin darkness crumpled in the hand,
Wit in our skulls, warmth of blood in our girth.
Shall we be masters merely of the earth Or of those unknowns. ourselves: or of the dark
Hearth of time on which man is the last fire-haunted spark ?
4.5J
*Raymond Holden, although he has written fiction, mysteries. biography and non-fiction for young people, is first of all a poet.
** This Bi-centennial poem is available in a special edition limited to 600 copies, numbered and signed by the author and illustrated with six wood engravings by John Melanson. It is being sold for the benefit of the Friends of the Richards Free Library at $1.25 per copy, and may be purchased at the Library, at the Shop of Books and Prints, or at Kelly's Drug Store.
Page 2
$50 Sponsors
Gauthier & Woodard, Inc.
John R. Kelly Pharmacy, Inc.
Martin Hardware
Newport Inn & Latchis
Newport Theatre
John W. McCrillis
Priscilla Sweet Shop
Public Service Company of N. H.
Shop-Rite Super Market
Silsby & Johnson, Inc.
I
Courtesy of John and Irene Cain
LOOKING SOUTH ON MAIN STREET
No one thought, fifty years ago, that the date so prominently displayed on the circus poster leaning on the bandstand would be advance billing for the opening of Newport's 200th. Anniversary Celebration.
Page 3
Welcome TO
NEWPORT
Don Eggleston Photo
NEWPORT BOARD OF SELECTMEN Left to right: Philip G. Hackwell, Chairman Maurice H. Cummings, John C. Fairbanks
It is with a great deal of pride and satisfaction that we welcome our friends and neighbors to the Town of Newport, New Hampshire, in celebrating our 200th Anniversary.
We have planned an outstanding program which we hope will be educational and interesting and which is in keeping with the proud heritage of our Town.
We sincerely hope to renew acquaintance with many of our former residents and are looking forward to the privilege of meeting many new friends.
MAURICE H. CUMMINGS, Chrm. for the Board of Selectmen
Don Eggleston Photo
Mr. Alvin A. Heidner Town Manager
IN APPRECIATION
Any town that wishes to conduct an appropriate celebration of 200 years of its own history, that wishes to arrange programs that will symbolize the achievements of 200 years of living together in freedom and peace and at the same time look ahead to a bright, new century, needs the enthusiastic cooperation of a broad cross-section of its citizens.
In planning this 1961 Bicentennial of Newport, the Commission charged by the Board of Selectmen with this task has had just that.
The celebration of which this booklet is intended as a souvenir has come about because many individuals were willing to work hard at it.
So, as Chairman of the Bicentennial Commission, I hereby offer my thanks to all those who have labored through the months arranging the details of this celebration, especially to Sam Edes for his cooperation and his invaluable knowledge of the past and also for the free use of his office during the past months.
Their reward, and mine, will be in seeing a celebration that will bring both enjoyment and inspiration to all who participate in it.
Gratefully yours, ARTHUR O. BERGERON
Page 4
A Salute to
Major Samuel H. Edes
Honorary Chairman
of
NEWPORT'S BICENTENNIAL
L. R. Whitney Photo
Newport is deeply honored to have as its Honorary Chairman of this Bicentennial Celebration, Ma- jor Samuel H. Edes, Newport native and the only surviving member of the Central Committee for New -- port's Sesqui-Centennial Celebra- tion of 1911.
Major Edes was born in Newport, Nov. 9, 1881. He attended Newport schools and graduated from New- port High School in the Class of 1900. Following graduation, he traveled in the State of California for one year, and then attended schools in Florida, Georgia and Virginia.
Returning to Newport, he pur- chased the New Hampshire Argus & Spectator, weekly newspaper with a commercial printing department,
and operated it for eighteen years before selling to Harry B. Metcalf in 1925.
Major Edes has an outstanding military record of which he is just- ly proud. On three occasions - the Mexican Border Service, 1915; World War I, 1917; and World War II, 1940 - he has led the troops as they left Newport. He was first commissioned in the National Guard in 1907 and was retired, for age, as a Major in 1943. He had served in the infantry and the Coast Artillery (AA).
He was elected to the State Sen- ate for the session of 1913, and fol- lowing World War I became a prominent member of the Ameri- can Legion, serving as Department Commander for New Hampshire
the first year the Legion voted to hold its conventions away from the Weirs.
He has been in the real estate and insurance business for many years and served the community as secretary of the Chamber of Com- merce for fourteen years. He has always been vitally interested in the welfare of Newport and has a wealth of knowledge concerning its history.
He is married to the former Nellie E. Presby of Bradford and Goldendale, Washington. They have two children, Francis P. Edes, a successful lawyer in Woodsville, N. H., and Mrs. Julia Trefethen of Washington, D. C.
SOON TO COME OFF THE PRESSES TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT, NEW HAMPSHIRE By SAM H. EDES
Short Stories about Newport's Most Interesting Events From
$9.00
It's Earliest Beginnings
Send order form and check to: NEWPORT BICENTENNIAL HEADQUARTERS NEWPORT, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Please send copies of
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT to
Name
Street
City
State
My check for
enclosed.
Page 5
NEWPORT'S FIRST 200 YEARS
1761-1961
THE GENERAL PICTURE, LOOKING BACK
A Chronology
by KENNETH ANDLER
NOTE
We wish to note here that, in this brief account, restrictions of space have prohibited the naming of persons who founded our industries and the naming of industries which have risen and disappeared; and while it has been a temptation to name those who have unselfishly contributed so much of their time, strength and funds to such things as the Hospital, the Library, the Airport. the Home for Aged Women and other charitable and public enterprises, and to name those who have brought new in- dustry into town; to mention Se- lectmen who may have devoted a large share of their lives to the Town and received precious little credit for it - still, we feel that to name these persons who come readily to mind would only be do- ing an injustice to many omitted due to our faulty memory or knowledge. That is why. along this line, we have confined ourselves to Col. William Cheney. Dexter Rich- ards and George B. Wheeler. The names of all these persons regret - fully omitted should however, go into a full scale history of the town.
Newport was chartered October 6, 1761. Two hundred years seems a long time to us mortals but, keeping things in perspective. let us remember that after the first settlement in New Hampshire in 1623 near Portsmouth. 138 years elapsed before Newport was born!
During those 138 years this wilder- ness back from the English beachhead on the coast was dominated by the In- dians, making settlement impracticable until the end of the French and Indian War in 1760. Then in 1761 the Coloni- al Governor. Benning Wentworth, granted sixty townships on the western side of the Connecticut river and eighteen townships on this side, in- cluding Newport.
After a hunter and trapper named Eastman came here from Killingworth, Connecticut, other venturous men from that town hiked up here to see the
place that Eastman was enthusiastic about. In the summer of 1765 six young men arrived from Killingworth, cleared six acres of land each, but re- turned to Connecticut to spend the winter. In June 1766 these men and two more, five of them with families, treked in and made the first perman- ent settlement.
Except for some small river-flood- ing meadows along the Sugar River the great primeval trees smothered the hills beneath a verdant blanket, somewhat like a tropical rain forest. All early accounts use the word "gloomy" to describe the forest, for a perpetual twilight reigned beneath the tall trees. Dank and depressing, these woods did not impress the early settlers as a thing of primitive beauty but rath- er as a tremendous obstacle to be cut and burned (making valuable potash), so that sun and air could get in for the crops that would keep the settlers alive.
By 1769 fifteen families had settled in town. They built their first log cabins and later substantial houses on the table land near our present Golf Course and along Pine Street. While the early settlers were about as inde- pendent and self reliant as any people have ever been. nevertheless even they needed a source of general supplies and a grist mill to grind their flour. Such a source was Old Fort No. 4, now Charlestown, where a fort had been built as early as 1743. For a number of years, Newport, as well as all other towns in this area were distant "sub- urbs" of Charlestown. A corn mill and saw mill. however, were built at the old dam at Guild as early as 1768.
Settlers kept coming in so that by the time of the Revolution, the Com- mittee of Safety was able to certify that there were thirty-six able-bodied men available for service. These were all willing to stand up and be counted on the side of the Colonies, at considerable risk to their necks, as it was by no means certain that they were "betting on the right horse." Fourteen of our men were at the Battle of Ticonderoga on June 29, 1777.
The British Government gave up
fighting in 1783 and acknowledged the independence of the United States. Seventy-eight years lay ahead before the next really troublesome war, the Civil War. (The War of 1812 to which we contributed 17 men, and the Mexi- can War, to which none went, did not bother much.)
What happened in those 78 years? In the space at our disposal we can only make a suggestion of the times. Things burgeoned out all over - fine houses were built, mills were started, roads were laid out, schools established.
The Baptist Church founded in 1779. first built a church at North Newport, then the present one on the Common in 1821. which then faced North Main Street but was turned to face the Common in 1870.
The Congregational Society, organiz- ed prior to 1775, built the present brick church, probably the most beautiful building in town, in 1822. Methodists first appeared here about 1830. They dedicated their new church building on Christmas Day, 1851. The Univer- salist-Unitarian church, built in 1837, was sold in 1895 and made into the present Johnson's store. (For all churches established after the Civil War, see separate section in this book- let.)
Things were a-building - people were not afraid to work long hard hours. Men sweated roads out of the woods: the one from the Croydon line to Goshen line in 1779, which later for a time became part of the Croydon Turnpike. in fact the old toll house on Wilmarth Flat is still standing. now the residence of Mrs. Herman Sanborn. just north of the Junior High School; the Unity road in 1776: the road from Claremont Hill to Guild in 1779: the road to Claremont lying North of the Sugar River in 1793. the one along the River in 1834.
The professions appeared: James Corbin. the first physician and surgeon about 1790; Caleb Ellis. the first lawyer about 1800. Cyrus Barton founded the Argus and Spectator in 1823. The first post office was etablished in 1810.
The State divided Sullivan County from Cheshire County in 1827, and
Page 6
Courtesy of Samuel H. Edes
Newport's Common in winter with the band-stand. The Baptist Church, built in 1821, and turned to face the common in 1870, is shown at the North end of the Common. The Methodist parsonage is shown beside the Methodist church, right foreground, before it was removed to make room for the present post office.
Newport became the County Seat largely through the efforts of Col. Wil- liam Cheney. The fine old Court House in Court Square (now known as the Grange Hall and in sad disre- pair) was built in 1826, and the County Safe Building (now used for Town Of- fices) in 1843. The Newport House was built in 1814, the Eagle Block in 1826. Industry and initiative, labor and ambition were real things bringing concrete results.
The present beautiful Common, at that time a swamp, was bought by the Town in 1821, The trend of build- ing moved from the original settle- ments on the Unity Road to the pres- ent center.
Although in later years our town was visited by Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. our most famous visitor in the early days was the Marquis de Lafayette, on his way from Concord to Montpelier. On June 27, 1825, the General was royally entertained at the then beau- tiful brick home of Col. William Cheney, now the Cheney Block, and also at the home of James Breck, now "the Lafayette" across from the tele- phone building.
Newport's most famous native, Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey's Ladies Book for fifty years in an era when woman's place was in the home, was writing novels, doing innumerable things of lasting public service to the nation and finding time to dash off the best known poem in the English lan- guage - Mary Had A Little Lamb.
The town was growing and prosper- ing when suddenly the smouldering argument between North and South burst into flame at Fort Sumter, April 11. 1861. lra McL. Barton, a promis- ing young lawyer here, recruited the first company of volunteers, later be- coming Lieutenant Colonel and serving more than four years, as did many of
the men in those days of enlistment periods as short as three months.
Two hundred and forty men enlisted and about thirty men were lost. Volun- teers stepped forward; no draft was necessary to fill any of the quotas.
After the Civil War, expansion and building resumed, notably the town hall and court house. Built in 1872, it
GUARANTY SAVINGS BANK,
Citizens Mariend Bank
From Collection of C. D. Johnson
The Citizens National Bank began business in the building which is now the Town Office Building. The building looks the same today, but the street sign "Court Square" is missing.
Page 7
COL. WILLIAM CHENEY'S HOUSE
The present Cheney Block, now owned by Harry Woodard and Albert J. Gauthier, was the residence of Colonel William Cheney, who did splendid work for this community being largely respon- sible for making Newport the County Seat. He built both his home and the Newport House across the street, and was instrumental in getting the Com- munity to build the County Courthouse, now known as Grange Hall, even before it was voted that Newport would be the County seat. He died at the age of 54 years. The building was built in 1816. Later it was made into a three story block and in 1930, reduced again to a two-story structure.
MAIN STREET
The "Book of Old Newport", published in 1909 by Marcia J. and Samuel H. Edes, contains this cut of Main Street and describes it as follows: "Except for the addition of poles and wires, twenty- five years has not made very great changes in the lower end of Main Street. The building in the foreground forms a part of Dudley Bloek. Carlton Hurd's store, next to the river, has been altered and the Milliken Block built."
Today the "addition of poles and wires" is again missing, but instead of being without them, they are now un- derground. The "A" roofs have dis- appeared and the Phoenix Hotel has given way to an abandoned movie thea- tre.
From "The Book of Old Newport"
THE KEITH-WILCOX HOUSE
Today we would know it as the "Economu Block" or as the "Williams Washerette" but originally it was the home of Ruel Keith, a blacksmith. It stood for many years on the site of the present Primary School and passed from the original owners to that of Calvin Wil- eox, who with his family, lived there on that site until the schoolhouse was built. It was then moved to its present site at the corner of Sunapee and, Central Streets.
For many years it housed a grocery store at the front and on the Sunapee Street side a shoe store, both operated by John Economu, who, on the side, operated a fruit and grocery wagon around parts of Lake Sunapee. He still lives in the apartment on the second floor and visits through the day and night with customers of the Washerette.
was destroyed by fire in June 1885, but was immediately rebuilt on the same site. In 1873, Dexter Richards built the town's largest business building. the Richards Block.
The railroad had worked its way up to Bradford but got no further for a number of years, apparently awed by the shoulder of Sunapee Mountain. When the Town subscribed $75,000 and Newbury Cut opened a pass through the high ridge, the railroad made it to here in 1871. Is it too late
to ask for our money back?
The Town built a municipal water and sewer system in 1894. Tapping the water supply of Gilman Pond in Unity provided the sort of clear soft water that native sons who have strayed from here often dream about. Our excellent volunteer Fire Department got started in 1874.
Apparently all this industrious ef- fort was bringing money into town, for banks began to appear. The First National Bank (originally a State
bank incorporated in 1853) became a National Bank in 1865. The Newport Savings Bank was incorporated in 1868. The Citizens National Bank, estab- lished in 1885 and the Sugar River Savings Bank in 1895, for a time occu- pied the present Town Offices Build- ing, until they built their present bank and office building in 1912.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.