A history of Walpole, New Hampshire, Volume I, Part 5

Author: Frizzell, Martha McDanolds, 1902-
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Walpole, Walpole Historical Society
Number of Pages: 786

USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Walpole > A history of Walpole, New Hampshire, Volume I > Part 5

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"In 1812 war was declared by this Government against England, which lasted about two years, ... A company went from this town to Portsmouth in the fall of 1814, consisting of the following persons, viz: Josiah Bellows, 3d, Captain; Nathaniel Chapin, Clerk; Stephen Tiffany, Corporal; and James Elisha Angier, Ephraim Holland, Ziba Lovell, Israel Brown, John Griggs, David Perkins, Samuel Ruggles, Abel Page, Ransom Lawrence, Willard Johnson, Nathan Conant, Benj. Miller, Gordon Beck- with, Thomas Nichols Jr., William Wellington, Ebenezer Watkins, Frederick Scoville, Alfred Priest, James Sturtevant, John Bundy, John Marshall, Edmund P. Davis, Samuel A. Wightman and John Graves, servant. Those belonging to Capt. Warner's Company were Aaron Baker, Sergt .; Wm. Lyman, 2d Lieut. The privates were Elijah Cooper, Prentiss Foster, Samuel Grant, Charles Kingsbury, Levi Leonard, Samuel Nichols, Luther Ripley, Charles Titus, George Way, and Amasa Wheeler. This company was in service but a short time, and the trophies brought home and the laurels won were very few.

"About this time, or a short time before, Josiah Bellows, David Stone and Josiah Bellows 3d purchased the Boggy Meadows-a thousand acres -on speculation, and employed Thomas Cunningham and others to cut off the timber, which found a market in Hartford, and sowed a large part of the land to winter rye, in the fall of 1815, which probably was the largest field of grain ever seen in town, and the sowing that year proved a fortunate circumstance, as the next year, 1816, was the coldest season ever experienced in this vicinity, and, in consequence, the corn crop was a perfect failure. 1816 is well remembered by the old citizens as the cold season or 'poverty year'. The mean mercurial temperature was about 43°. Snow fell in June, and August was the only month exempt from frosts. The early frosts of September cut off the unripe corn, which some persons vainly tried to save by early husking and spreading. There was a heavy crop of English grain, otherwise the inhabitants would have suffered a partial famine." (AH)

Thomas Collins Drew in 1810 bought the greater part of what is now Drewsville and erected the brick hotel which stood for many years on

the northwest side of the Common. "The volume of water then in Cold River was three times what it was in later years, and was soon utilized in driving machinery in cotton and woolen factories and for many other needful purposes. Artisans flocked into the place and stores sprang into being, which altogether, till 1835, made Drewsville a lively place. This was the heyday of Drewsville and it is said the place did more business at that time than was done in Walpole Village. ... " (History of Cheshire County, p. 436-7)

The following was taken from the Vermont Intelligencer and Bellows Falls Advertiser: Jan. 12, 1818: Southworth and Tiffany have store lately occupied by Stone and Bellows; Elegant Sable Muffs and Tippets, Ladies London Beaver Bonnets with plumes and trim'd in the latest fashion, together with good assortment of English and West India Goods. N.B. Cash and highest price paid for all kinds of Shipping Furs.

Mar. 9: Ad: Amasa Allen Shop in Walpole Village, good stand for wheel- wright or any other mechanic who works in wood. Now occupied by David Bliss who makes large and small Waggons, Sleighs, and repairs Carriages, etc. Possession will be given April 5.

Mar. 16: Mansion House Hotel now occupied by Mr. Thaddeus Nichols at Bellows Falls in Walpole, for lease after April 1. Fred W. Geyer, Boston.

-For sale or lease in Drewsville by John T. Wilcox. Large well finished store and two story dwelling house, barn, sheds, etc., 5 acres land, on Cheshire Turnpike.

-Putnam and Marvin have erected a new carding machine in the Wal- pole Cotton Factory (Drewsville), custom work for cash and produce. Nov. 9: Lincoln, Tailor, from Boston commencing Tailoring business in Walpole Village in shop formerly occupied by Mr. Williston in cham- ber over Walpole Book Store. Seventeen years experience. Josiah Willis- ton to give his full attention to his shop in Saxtons River Village.

-Wanted A faithful hand to carry Mail from Walpole through Alstead, Acworth, Lempster, Unity to Newport once a week-Where may be dis- tributed probably about 200 Newspapers.

In 1815 Eliphalet Fox left two sums of $1,000 each to the Town of Walpole: "To be appropriated for benefit of schools in said town . .. to be kept under care and direction of Selectmen of Town and to be secured by real estate, the interest only of which to be paid annually for benefit

of schools, viz., for teaching only English Grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic."

DECADE 1820-1830

The 1820 census showed a population of 2,020, the largest number up to that time. The soil produced abundantly and everybody found enough to do, but the prices paid for labor were comparatively low. Most busi- ness was a barter trade. Everybody had enough to eat and drink, but to get cash was a difficult matter.

By 1801 there was a stage coach weekly up and down the river and to and from Boston. In 1803 Dearborn and Emerson established a line of stages Boston to Walpole using 3rd N. H. Turnpike; fare had been $6.00, now Emerson's $4.50. By 1807 three per week stage coaches were estab- lished between Boston and Hanover. By 1814 there was a regular four- horse stage Boston to Burlington with overnight stops in Keene Monday, Wednesday and Friday. From Boston to Rutland took three days. By 1826 there were competing lines, as many as 60-100 passengers each night at Keene. Many of these were six-horse stages. There was one line from Keene via Westmoreland through Walpole, another via Surry on the Cheshire Turnpike and the Forest Route, through Drewsville. The latter route from Boston to Vermont points was supposed to be shorter by 30 miles (crossed river at South Charlestown to Rockingham, bypassing Bellows Falls). The earlier stages did not cross the bridge to Bellows Falls because of the toll. The driver approaching would blow his horn, the passengers would alight and walk across the bridge for 3¢ each. Later coaches crossed the river.

Walpole was an important stage center. Otis Bardwell, George Hunt- ington and Peletiah Armstrong controlled all the stage routes through the place, and thus were able to secure the transporting of the mails nominally at their own figures.

Mr. Huntington had bought the Holland House (Crafts Tavern). The business was very good, since many of the stage passengers either supped, stopped overnight or at least had a drink while the post master took the mail out of the bag, sorted it, and added his outgoing. The charge for a meal at the house was 33¢, considered an extortionary price.

By 1838 competition was keen, fares from Boston to Keene were re- duced from $4 to $2.50. Noted Walpole stage drivers were Lovell Farr, Otis Bardwell, Thomas Bardwell, George Weymouth, Wm. Huntington, Ira Hodskins. Others, some of whom were from Walpole, were Jerome Armstrong, Deacon Green, John F. Sparhawk, Moses Downer, Gardner

Hall, Oren Hall, Henry O. Clark, John F. Perry, James Moody, John McCormick, Dean Butterfield, Thomas Miner, Oliver Huntington, Hiram Hodgkins. Some of these men later were railroad conductors.

Newman Weeks of Clarendon remembered: "On one of my return trips from Boston Otis Bardwell was keeping stage tavern in Walpole. Horses and drivers changed there. A four-horse coach was driven to the door and 'Little Dan Arms' took the reins, waited. A large, dignified, gray-haired man paced back and forth on the piazza, waiting. When Bardwell informed him that the coach was waiting he asked 'Where is the driver?' On being informed that the driver was in his place he ex- claimed 'What, that boy to drive us over the Vermont mountains to Rutland?' "

"Comparatively, there was a large number of stores in town, where goods were sold in exchange for farmers' products, such as butter, cheese, pork, lard, beef, and, also, productions of the household, such as mittens, socks, frocking, tow cloth, etc. Large quantities of such commodities would accumulate in the store of the merchant during the season, which the farmer considered his special privilege with the merchant with whom he traded, to transport to market in winter, one or two loads of such products, and load back with such articles as the merchant needed to replenish his store, for which the farmer received in payment a few dollars in money and the rest from the store. Many farmers who could procure a horse and pung were sure to make one or more trips to Boston during the winter, for the purpose of exchanging their own and neighbors' products for such articles as were needed for family use. They generally carried their own food, such as baked beans, doughnuts, cooked spare-rib, and brown bread, and also, the oats for baiting their teams. So great was the number of such teams at times, that the more popular innkeepers found it difficult to accommodate them. After caring for their teams they resorted to the bar-room of the inn, where they always found an inviting fire in an open fireplace, when they would, after taking a little flip, draw forth from their buckets their home cooked viands and make their suppers, after which a little more flip, and sometimes with story telling it would be flip, flip, till the dying embers admonished them of the midnight hour. Generally the most the landlord got out of it was the profit on the flip and their lodging." (AH)

"Most of the heavy goods of the merchants were purchased in Hartford, Conn., and brought up the river in scows; every trader, who sold groceries, and most of them did, kept all kinds of liquors for sale. They, together with the tavern keepers, sold im- mense quantities of spirituous liquors. New England rum appears to have been a favorite beverage. A barrel was always 'on tap' to be drunk by customers, free, when they bought a small bill of goods, at the store. A large codfish in many cases was sus- pended near the rum barrel, on which hung a label requesting the pilferers to con- fine their depredations to that ONE until the bones were bare. It is supposed the codfish was eaten to create a thirst and relish for a little more blackstrap. In all the advertisements for the sale of goods in country stores at that time New England rum was printed with the largest type.

"Following are a few of the prices that various commodities were sold at, not vary-

ing much for a number of years: corn, 50 cents per bushel; oats, 25 cents, do; young beef, 21/2 cents per pound; butter, 121/2 do; cheese 6 to 7 do; pork, 41/2 to 5 do., in Boston. Board, among farmers, was $1.00 to $1.25 per week; at hotels, in the country, $1.50 to $2.00 do; and rock maple wood was $2.00 per cord. Farm labor was from $10 to $15 per month for six or eight months in the best of the season. School teach- ers received from $1.00 to $1.50 per week of 51/2 days, for females, in summer; male teachers, in winter, were paid, on an average, about $13 per month and board. Some of them had to 'board around' at that. Plenty of good female help could be procured from $1.00 to $1.50 per week." (AH)

In 1826 a new newspaper, the Cheshire Gazette, was started in town, living but one year. In size and general appearance it was quite respect- able and would compare favorably with papers of a later date. "The Farmers' Museum was published here in 1823 and 4 by Hale and Moore and then suspended till about 1827, when it was revived by Nahum Stone and continued to be published in town till Nov. 14, 1828, when it was removed to Keene." (AH)

People were not happy about the Third N. H. Turnpike. In 1813 there was a petition to lay a county road, finally granted 1817. The new road began as the County Road does now, turning out of Prospect Street, opposite #154, continuing as the road does now past Stuart and Thomas Graves (#317 and #320) to a point west of the old Wellington fields (now Bunker #324) where the road turned southerly and continued to the Rapids and on easterly and southeasterly to the Westmoreland line near Priests (#352). Apparently this road was not entirely satisfactory either, for in 1822 Ebenezer Morse and others petitioned for a new road, claim- ing that the present road was mountainous, difficult for teams of any con- siderable burthen, subject in many places to being blocked by snow- drifts and frequently impassable. The court ordered the road to be built at the expense of the town (1822), the course of the present County Road. Voted April 15, 1823 "that the Town appropriate $2700 ... towards paying damages and making the road through this Town, also such. por- tion of the Highway money as the Selectmen shall think proper ... also . .. authorized to let out the making of said road in lots to individuals by auction to be made to their acceptance by the first day of September 1824." In 1824 voted to authorize the selectmen to keep the Third N. H. Turnpike in repair through Walpole and where it shall be abandoned by the proprietors to lay it out as a town road. The toll gates had already been removed from Keene to Walpole. From the Westmoreland line to Tucker Bridge was surveyed in 1824, 10 miles 26 rods, 4 rods wide, and the town took over. Charter was surrendered 1824, incorporation re- pealed July 4, 1837.

DECADE 1830-1840

"The financial crash of 1837 paralyzed all kinds of business in this town, as it did elsewhere. Many young men were idle, and those who ob- tained work worked for very small wages. Good field laborers were glad to work for from fifty to seventy-five cents per day. Business men strug- gled on between hope and despair till 1842, when they sought relief in bankruptcy. No less than thirty men in this town paid their honest dues by that means.

"The same year, Mar. 14th ('town-meeting day'), three stages with mail and passengers started on their accustomed trips north, in the morning, and on arriving at Cold River it was found so much swollen by the back- ing of water from the Connecticut, that the bridge was almost afloat. One of the drivers Wm. Simonds, hazarded the experiment of crossing the bridge. Just as his leaders reached the north bank, the bridge floated away, taking the coach and all on board with it, and at the same time dragging the horses from the bank into the water. There were four pas- sengers in the coach, three of whom were females and they, together with the driver, were precipitated into the river, which, at that time was filled with cakes of ice. The name of the man who was in the coach, was Swain -a messenger, conveying money to the bank at Bellows Falls. He had $5,000 in a small trunk to which he clung, and also to one of the females till she was crushed by the ice, when he made for the west bank of the Connecticut as best he could on floating cakes of ice. All three of the females were lost, a Mrs. Dunham, Mrs. Chesley and her sister. The next driver, a Mr. Putnam, on seeing the catastrophe immediately returned to the village with his coach for help, while the third driver passed round, and over the upper bridge (there were two bridges then), and went on his way. Help was immediately obtained, half the men in town repairing to the scene. Simonds, the driver, was still in the water when help arrived, clinging to an overhanging bough. Slabs were procured and thrown upon the ice forming a perilous foothold, when Mr. F. A. Wier and others pulled him ashore in an insensible condition, but he soon revived. The body of one of the women was taken from the water at the time; but the other two were not found till the following summer. The coach and three of the horses were lost, and the town, in consequence of the disaster, suffered heavy damages." (AH)

DECADE 1840-1850

"When I, Josiah G. Bellows, first knew the town, it differed as greatly from the present Walpole as modern Boston does from the old days of

the Brighton Artillery. The business life of the village, although modern- ized, is not very much increased, but the ways of its people, and their habits of thought are radically different. Of course, there has been some- thing of so-called improvement. The streets and houses are far better kept, the cows no longer run at large, and one does not see now as great contrast in the outside ways of life, of its people, as we did then.

"The physical changes of the village are well worth noting. Evidently the first comers were composed of two classes, the well-to-do and their poorer retainers. The first built on our streets large and commodious houses, and the second tucked away on the by-roads and under the wings of their neighbors' mansions. There were no sidewalks then, and the roads ran on the surface without draining or ballasting. In the spring, the main street of the village, which evidently was built over what was once a bog hole, was a veritable slough of despond. No lights brightened our streets at night; no sewers conducted the offal away. We had not learned the use of water, and a very small amount was sufficient for the household, and the Saturday evening baths. ... Those were the good old days when every well-to-do household kept one hired girl. ... Such a one was Mary Tuttle, who came to me in infancy, and remained, the sole monarch of the kitchen for some seven or eight years, to be succeeded by her sister, Susan. . .. What women those old Yankee hired help were. . The house was about the same then as now. The meals were not . elaborate, but fully as good, and the rooms as well kept. . . .

"The village store was a feature of that early life. There, every night, the wise men of the village gathered and discussed the affairs of the town, state, and nation. . . . The store filled a want for the men, at least (women were not recognized then), as nothing since has done. . . . Politics ran high those days. There was the Democrats' store and the Whig store. The habitués of each represented their party, and woe betide the man who went from one shop into the other in the evening. . . .

"The Square has changed less than the rest of the town, and yet . . . when I come to think of it, only three buildings remain that then existed. On the site of the present hotel stood the old Stage Tavern, coming out ten or fifteen feet further east than the present structure.

"Temperance did not obtain in those early days, but the matter began to be agitated in my childhood and we attempted to legislate morality into the peoples' minds. Way back somewhere in the forties, our legisla- ture passed some kind of a restrictive law, the five or the gallon law, I think it was called. The storekeepers stopped their sale of rum and almost a riot ensued. . .

"At that time, about 1845, the snuff taking habit was very common. All the older people, ladies as well as men, carried snuff boxes, and gave wholesome sneezes in friendly unison.

". . . As I said, but few of the original buildings remain in our Square. Namely, Slade's Meat Market, and Holden's tenements in which is Mrs. Cota's bakery. I think some parts of Weber's store were built from the little barber's shop in which the late William Mitchell used to minister to his patrons and which then stood about where the bank now stands. This Mr. Mitchell was a great character in his day. A man of no incon- siderable wit, but wholly uneducated, and with a love for good liquor, which lasted to the end of his long days. In his little shop he carried on the congenial trades of a saddler and a barber. ..

"Somewhere about 1845, one Major J. Britton came to town to keep store in the Slade Butcher Shop. He was the possessor of very luxuriant and rapidly growing whiskers, and one Saturday evening after he shut up store, he went to Mitchell's to be shaved. After he was comfortably seated in the barber's chair, lathered, and his face half scraped, he discovered to his horror that old Mitchell was extremely drunk, and his life was in imminent danger from the uncertain hand that held the razor. He strove to rise, saying that the shaving should be finished Monday morning, but Mitchell literally held him by the nose, as has been the custom of barbers from time immemorial, and when he started to get up, with a great tweak of the nasal protuberance, forced him back in his chair, saying, 'Mr. Britton, you came in to be shaved, and you must be shaved. Sit down.'

"As my next door neighbors, the Holland family merit attention. I have a confused memory of the joys of that house in my earliest child- hood, of good motherly Mrs. Holland. A notable New England housewife who dipped her own tallow candles in the good old way by plunging a lot of cotton wicks, strung on a pine stick, into a great kettle of hot fat, melted sheep tallow was preferred, then hanging the stick up to cool and dipping another. The stick held some fifteen or twenty wicks, and so in that way, in a day, Mrs. Holland would make some two or three hundred tallow dips, as they were called. Whale oil and candles were the only means of light and the lamps gave but a faint gleam, and if the oil was, as it was apt to be, a little old and thick, required the constant application of the pick-wick to keep the flame alive.

"All the many great days of this house were carefully observed. The spring house-cleaning was done with a thoroughness commendable to the

housekeeper's eye. Then came the soap-making. In the early spring the soap fat, a heterogeneous collection of all the bones, grease and fragments of fat meat that had accumulated during the past year, were brought from the cellar. A leach was then set up, an empty cask without top or bottom, set in a grooved board, the bottom filled up a few inches with some pieces of plank and straw. On top of that came wood ashes, dampened just a bit, and thoroughly packed down until the cask was quite full. Cold water was then poured in at the top of the barrel, slowly percolated through the ashes and ran down upon the boards directed by its grooves, as good strong lye. The strong smelling soap-fat was heaped into a big iron kettle covered with lye and boiled. Everything was dissolved but the large bones, and even they were honey-combed. How the brew smelt to heaven. . . . When the barrel was about half full of the mixture, it was filled with spring water, thoroughly stirred and allowed to stand two or three days, and became the soft soap then used entirely for laundry purposes. . . .

"The Hollands kept bees, a half dozen or more hives or swarms. . At the height of the summer the bees would swarm. . .. A mass of bees in a thick cloud three or four feet in diameter would fly from the hives to some adjoining tree, bush, or fence, where they would light in a thick mass; and then the problem was how to tow them into a new hive, which would be placed as near as possible to the swarming throng, surrounded by saucers of honey and water and a tintinnabulation would begin, pounding on tin milk pans with a house key. . . .

"The pig killing time in the early winter was another great occasion of immense importance and a happy day for the boys. ... On the ap- pointed day the village pig-killer, who was a little, short, crooked-backed, lively old gentleman by the name of Jesse Graves, would come bringing his scalding tub with him, half an old fashioned sugar cask. The house- wife would heat immense quantities of water. Jesse would catch each pig, put a slip noose around his upper jaw, and an assistant would hold the end of the rope taut over his shoulder standing with his back to the pig while Jesse would use the sacrificial knife. No sooner was poor piggie's life ended than he was lifted into the tub, soused with scalding water in which was mingled just the proper amount of tar, and swashed around therein until that crucial moment when the bristles would begin to start. The carcass was then laid on a raised platform, usually made out of one of the barn doors, which had been removed from its hinges, and the scraping off of the bristles would begin; and when the pig was apparently

well cleaned, the pig-cleaner would carefully go over the whole carcass with his sharpest knife to remove any of those small wiry hairs which had escaped the coarser scraper. Poor piggy was then swung up by the hindlegs on a hook and disembowled and the carcass allowed to cool. . . .

"In 1840 every man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, except the very few exempted by the state, was required, at least once a year, to perform military duty, and compelled by law to provide, at his own ex- pense, one good fire-lock carrying a bullet, not less than twelve to the pound, a cartridge box holding twenty-four rounds, three flints, etc., etc.

"About this time, the proud and self-reliant military spirit that had made our nation . .. began to fade, and though men still gave outward respect to the military form they lost faith in its substance. And the militia degenerated into two classes, the one still believing in it because of the fine clothes and gorgeous plumes it affected, and the other and greater class, made up of malcontents whose grotesque appearance on the muster fields showed the contempt they felt for all which brought them the feudal bondage from which they had once escaped. . . .

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A history of Walpole, New Hampshire, Volume I, Part 5

Author: Frizzell, Martha McDanolds, 1902- Publication date: 1963 Publisher: Walpole, Walpole Historical Society Number of Pages: 786

Author: Frizzell, Martha McDanolds, 1902-
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Walpole, Walpole Historical Society
Number of Pages: 786