USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 13
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We the subscribers and our associates have formed ourselves into a Society, to be known by the name of the First Methodist Episcopal Society in Hanover, N. H., County of Grafton, claiming all privileges belonging to corporate bodies according to the Act passed July 3, 1827.
Salmon Dow, Secretary, Nathaniel Dudley.
Hanover, N. H., Sept. 19, 1840
The movement was a vigorous one. At the conference in that year Hanover appears once more as a station in the Claremont District, with sixty-six members, and in the spring of 1841 a neat meeting house was built on the College Plain at the north- east corner of Lebanon and College Streets, at an expense of about $2,000.2 The construction of the edifice was encouraged and aided by the citizens of other denominations and by the gentle- men connected with the College, but it was only partly paid for. For a few years the society flourished and was very useful, but being burdened with debt it soon began to decline and finally ceased in 1851, when the church building passed into the hands of the Episcopalians, and the Methodists in Hanover connected them- selves with the Lebanon station, excepting those in the extreme eastern section, who remained with the Canaan Circuit. We hear of a "class" in Mill Village, connected with Lebanon, in 1856- 1858, of which Nathaniel Dudley was a leader.
Hanover was in the Claremont District from 1840 to 1845, and thereafter in the Haverhill District. Lyme was joined to Hanover
1 Zerah Colburn, born in Cabot, Vermont, in 1804, was brought to Hanover by his father at the age of six, in November, 1810. Professors Adams and Shurtleff examined him in private and in public. He did not know written figures and could not count above fifty, but he could multiply mentally with quickness and accuracy quite large sums.
"He was of ordinary size, had a large head, red hair, blue eyes, a florid, healthy complexion, somewhat freckled, and had' five fingers (besides thumb) on each hand." The faculty of the College offered to take the boy and educate him free of charge, but the father wished to get money by exhibiting him. He lost his extraordinary powers as he grew up .- Autobiography of Amos Kendall, p. 58.
" The trustees were Caleb F. Ward, Nathaniel Dudley, Abner T. Dudley, Salmon Dow, William Pardee, Asa Brown, William Burnham, Walker S. Pingree and William Hills.
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in 1843, and from 1845 the incumbent was styled a "missionary." The numbers reported as connected with the church in 1841 were sixty-six; with the addition of Lyme they increased to one hun- dred and three in 1844, and for several years stood at about ninety ; they were reported as sixty-five in 1849, and as fifty-four in 1850.
The following ministers were stationed here during this period :
1840-41 Rev. A. O. Brigham; died here Sept. 27, 1843, aet. 35
1841-43 Rev. Amasa G. Britton
1843-44 Rev. E. Smith and Rev. A. R. Tibbetts (Hanover and Lyme)
1844-46 Rev. Newell Culver
1846-47 Rev. Francis G. Hoyt
1847-48 Rev. George S. Dearborn
1848-49 Rev. A. M. Osgood
1849-50 Rev. Orlando H. Jasper
1851-52 Rev. Elihu Scott (Hanover and Lebanon)
Apparently the separate organization of the Methodist Church in Hanover ceased when it joined with the Lebanon church.
CHAPTER XI
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
PREVIOUS to the establishment of a parish in Hanover in 1907, the Catholics of this town were under the spiritual juris- diction of the pastor of the church at Lebanon.
As early as 1840, we find evidences of the presence of Catholics in Hanover, but their number was too small to warrant the build- ing of a church of their own.
In the early days of Catholicity in New Hampshire, various pastors from Lancaster, Laconia and Lebanon visited Hanover and administered to the Catholics there. As far as can be dis- covered, mass was first said in Hanover in 1845 by Rev. John B. Daley of Rutland, Vermont, who was missionary at large in Vermont and western New Hampshire. The building which witnessed this solemn act of religion is now torn down, but stood on the lot now occupied by the home of Richard Foley on the corner of Lebanon Street and Sanborn Road, just across the street from the present site of the new St. Denis Church. Mass was for a long while said in the O'Leary home at 21 Lebanon Street, also in the Precinct Hall.
Rev. Louis M. LaPlante, pastor of the Sacred Heart Church in Lebanon from 1881 to 1886, purchased land for the building of a church in Hanover in July, 1887. His successor, Rev. Cyril J. Parodis, began the building of the first church, a wooden build- ing, 52 South Street, which was completed in December, 1887.
First Mass was celebrated there on Sunday, January 1, 1888, by Rev. Fr. Roy of the seminary at Sherbrooke, P. Q., who also preached the sermon on that occasion.
The church was formally blest and dedicated on July 8, 1888, by Rt. Rev. Denis M. Bradley, D. D., first bishop of Manchester, on the occasion of a pastoral visit, when confirmation for the first time was administered in Hanover.
In 1893, Rev. Martin H. Egan succeeded Fr. Parodis, and under his administration various improvements were inaugurated.
In May, 1907, Hanover was made a separate parish with resi- dent pastor and Rev. James E. McCooey, D. D., Ph. D., was named its first pastor.
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The Catholic Church
Rev. Fr. McCooey was born in Dover, New Hampshire, Octo- ber 28, 1875. He received his early training in the public and parochial schools of his native city and after a period of further preparation in Mungret College, Limerick, Ireland, and in the Grand Seminary at Montreal, P. Q., he was ordained to the priesthood by the Rt. Rev. Denis M. Bradley, December 17, 1898. He was assistant pastor at St. Mary's in Claremont, New Hamp- shire, at St. Joseph's Cathedral in Manchester, New Hampshire, and at the Immaculate Conception Church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, until October, 1904, when he went to Rome for two years of further study. Upon his return in 1906 he was named administrator of the parish of St. Mary's in Newmarket until May, 1907, when he was sent to Hanover. Under Fr. McCooey's administration much progress was made.
In December, 1918, Fr. McCooey was named pastor of St. Mary's, Newmarket, and Rev. John W. Sliney, D. C. L., sent to Hanover.
Rev. Fr. Sliney was born in Franklin, New Hampshire, May 12, 1885. He attended public and parochial schools of Franklin, was graduated from Franklin High School in 1902, and after further preparation at St. Anselm's College, Manchester, New Hampshire, entered the Grand Seminary, Montreal, P. Q., in September, 1903. He was ordained to the priesthood December 19, 1908, at St. James Cathedral, Montreal, P. Q. After serving four years as assistant pastor at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Penacook, New Hampshire, he went to Rome for further study. On his return in August, 1914, he assisted at Hinsdale, Dover, and North Stratford. In June, 1915, he was sent to St. Anne's, Man- chester, New Hampshire, where he remained until his appointment to Hanover.
The steady growth of the parish required a larger place of worship, and in September, 1922, the site for a new church was bought from the Currier estate on the corner of Lebanon Street and Sanborn Road. Ground was broken in the spring of 1923 for a new stone edifice. Mass was celebrated for the first time in the new church November 1, 1924. The formal blessing and dedi- cation was held May 23, 1925, Rt. Rev. George A. Guertin, D. D., officiating. The solemn High Mass was celebrated by Rev. Fr. McCooey, former pastor, and the sermon for the occasion was preached by Rev. P. J. Scott, pastor of St. Bernard's Church, Keene, New Hampshire.
The former building was deconsecrated and sold to Joseph
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Burgess. The beautiful stone church is 108 feet in length and 53 feet wide, with a square tower. The architects were Larson and Wells.
The congregation of the parish of St. Denis is made up of about sixty families in Hanover and of the varying number of students and employees of Dartmouth College.
Note : For this account of the Catholic Church in Hanover the editor is indebted to the Rev. Father Sliney.
CHAPTER XII
PHYSICIANS
T HE earliest physician in Hanover was Doctor John Crane. He accompanied Dr. Wheelock on his tour of exploration in May and June, 1770, and on Wheelock's removal to Hanover in August, or very soon after, took up his abode in the town. To him as approved physician, Dr. Wheelock, by authority of the Trus- tees of the College, gave an acre of land for a house lot immediately south of the Green, and there he built, probably in 1771 or 1772, certainly prior to 1774, the house which stood next east of the present Inn, and which was burned in 1887.
Dr. Crane was then the only physician in town, and, as was usual at that time, he dealt also in medicines, and perhaps to some extent in other goods. In 1773 he appears to have had for a part- ner in his trade Moses Chase of Cornish. In 1775 a deed described him as "apothecary." He furnished medicines on several occasions in considerable quantity to the surgeons of Colonel Bedel's regi- ment in 1777.
In October of 1772 he fell under censure for alleged malpractice in the treatment of Mrs. Sexton, but successfully defended him- self in a letter to Dr. Wheelock. In 1773 he petitioned the General Court for leave to set up a smallpox hospital for inoculation, but his petition was refused, and in May, 1776, he himself went to Montreal to undergo inoculation. He entered the military service in 1777 as surgeon in the Massachusetts line and remained in it until the close of 1780, and perhaps later, being at Saratoga and at Valley Forge, his wife remaining at Hanover in the meantime. During his absence his house was rented to Ebenezer Brewster. He died February 26, 1786, leaving a wife and children in destitute circumstances. His widow, Hannah Brown Crane, afterward married Colonel Aaron Kinsman and survived until 1817. Dr. Crane had a son, John H. Crane, who was graduated from Dart- mouth in 1799 and who became a lawyer in Boston. Both father and son were members of the Society of Cincinnati.
Dr. Joseph Lewis, who lived just across the river, though not an actual resident of Hanover, must be included in our list, since his services in those early years were in requisition here.
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He was born in Old Lyme, Connecticut, but his father removed to Windsor, Connecticut, and young Lewis came to Norwich in 1767 and lived, first, in a little log house in the woods south of Blood brook, close by the place where now is the north end of the rail- road cut. Afterward, about 1790, he purchased the land and house owned by John Sargent, at the west end of the ferry, where his descendants of the fourth generation still live. He carried on the ferry and also owned the mill at the neighboring falls of Blood brook. From these various occupations the doctor after a time acquired wealth. He was a man of great natural ability and of iron physique, held in good repute as a physician, but exceedingly uncouth, rough and eccentric. His customary dress was a buck- skin suit, and he was not particular to have it clean. As his posi- tion and means improved, his slovenly dress became a source of mortification to his wife, who, finding curtain lectures ineffectual, determined at last upon a bolder stroke. Having secretly secured for the doctor a fine new suit of broadcloth, she substituted it for the buckskin suit one night after the doctor was asleep, and to clinch the matter she took the old dirty buckskin breeches and put them to soak under the ice in the horse trough. Later in the night there was a call for the doctor from a distance, and on turn- ing out to answer it he missed his clothes. Scorning the new breeches and determined not to be thus outgeneraled, he demanded to know what had become of the buckskins in tones that his wife dared not resist. Learning where they were, he withdrew them from the trough, wrung them out and putting them on, soaked as they were, rode away to visit his patient.
An earlier characteristic exploit of his, when he lived in the log house, was the boiling in a kettle, set on the rocks back of his house, of the dead body of an old negro, Cato, in order to obtain the skeleton, which he afterward mounted and kept hung up in his house. He first removed the skin and had it tanned in Hanover. When the fact was known the tannery was saved from popular attack only by an armed guard. There is still preserved an instru- ment case covered with the leather, and the rocks bear Cato's name to this day. In 1775 Dr. Lewis was appointed surgeon's mate and joined the expedition under Arnold against Quebec by way of the Kennebec. He spent the winter in Canada in the hospitals, mostly in charge of soldiers sick with smallpox. Later he returned to his practice in Norwich, where he died June 1, 1833, at the age of eighty-six.
Dr. John Williams came from Stillwater, N. Y., with
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Comfort Sever in 1773, and was received as a pupil in Dr. Wheelock's house. In September of that year he wrote (from the College) thanking Wheelock for his paternal kindness and instruc- tion, and asking his advice as to settling in some neighboring town. In another letter he speaks of leaving Hanover because of the jealousy of Dr. Crane.
In January, 1776, Wheelock wrote to Doctors David and John Lathrope at Norwich, Connecticut, commending Williams as a "skillful and prudent physician who had had of late a full and extensive practice," asking them to trust him for £20 worth of medicine, saying that "if he can't be supplied with medicines our sick will be exposed to suffer." Williams was evidently success- ful in his errand, for Wheelock notes in his diary, February 14 next, "Dr. John Williams informed me that Dr. John Lathrope had made a present of £20 in medicine to be paid by him to the College." In August of that year he was in charge of a smallpox hospital, probably on the edge of Lebanon, where he seems to have taken up his residence.
Dr. Laban Gates, who seems to have originated in Colchester, Connecticut, came to town in September, 1774, highly commended to Dr. Wheelock by Elisha Tracy and Philip Turner as having been, though a young man, long an apprentice of Dr. Turner of Norwich, Connecticut. He lived at first in the College building, afterward in the house that stood on the south side of Lebanon Street, nearly opposite the foot of College Street, which is spoken of in a deed of 1785 as his "present" residence, but in 1796 as his "former" residence. About 1785 he built a large two-story house at the corner of College and Wheelock Streets, since known by his name, and in which he lived and died. It was removed to the lower end of Main Street in 1884, to make room for the new library building.
He was a man of great eccentricity, and doubtless difficult to live with. He married Huldah Ormsbee, and, in 1801, under the heading of "Partnership dissolved" he warned all persons against trusting his wife, Huldah, as she had left his bed but not his board, and began proceedings for a divorce, but apparently without success, as the modern ideas of incompatibility did not then prevail. His wife died October 20, 1833, aet. seventy, and Dr. Gates died April 27, 1836, aet. eighty-three. Some of his family removed to Canada, but his house descended to his daughter Almira, who married a man named Divine, and figured as one of the characters of the village for many years. The marriage was not a happy one
.
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and soon the parties separated, Mrs. Divine having for some years a small school for children.
Dr. Gates had a wooden leg, and in consequence a halting gait. He once fell into a dispute with a fellow traveler, ignorant of his infirmity, about their relative powers of endurance and a bet was made, to be determined by immersing the foot in boiling water, wherein, with the help of his wooden leg, the doctor was easily victorious.
There were several physicians in Hanover in the early days, of whom we know very little. One of these was Dr. George Eager, of whom almost all our knowledge comes through the record of deeds. He first appears in Hanover in 1774, when he purchased, in June of that year, an acre of ground for a house lot at the north end of the village, on the north side of the road nearly opposite the end of Park Street, close to the large elm that long faced that street. In September of 1777 he sold the lot to Dudley Chase of Cornish and in April following he removed to the build- ing, erected by Comfort Sever and afterward used as a store, and still later as an office, that stood on the present site of Robinson Hall. Eager lived there until 1781, when he appears as of Walpole, though again in Hanover in 1786. He went into the army as surgeon's mate and later as surgeon, but where he came from or what became of him we do not know.
Another one of these physicians was Gideon Tiffany, who came from Keene in 1782 and bought the house of Jabez Bingham which stood on the east side of Main Street, a rod or more back from the street, about where the blacksmith shop now is. He also bought the lot where Mr. E. P. Storrs lately lived, 42 Main Street, and had a barn there. He was himself a very illiterate person, as some of his letters show,1 but several of his sons were graduated from college. I have been unable to find the date of his death, or where he was buried.
A third physician who just comes into passing view was Dr. James Moor, who appears in connection with the unauthorized inoculation of smallpox in 1788, but is styled a "transient person." That he intended a longer residence seems probable from the fact that he purchased, in October of that year of Asa Holden, river lot, No. 51, but, if so, his purpose changed, for he sold the lot in the following January. In the local court records of 1795 there is a confession of judgment running in his favor under the descrip-
1 New Hampshire State Papers, XII, 381.
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tion of "physician, late of Hanover." Nothing more is known of him.
With the establishment of the Medical Department there was a change in the professional character of the resident physicians. Indeed, the first really competent physician of Hanover was Dr. Nathan Smith, the founder of the Medical School. He began his first course of lectures here in November, 1797, but his home and family still remained for several years in Cornish. The Trustees, insisting in 1804 that he should make Hanover his home, he moved his family thither, and bought in 1806 the land on both sides of the road at the northeast end of the village. His house, which was burned in 1855, stood just north of the present Medical School Building and nearer the street.
From the beginning of his connection here in 1797, and possibly earlier, Dr. Smith's professional services were in requisition both as a physician and surgeon over a circuit constantly enlarging. He enjoyed a wide reputation for unsurpassed skill, judgment and coolness, and, what is of equal importance, for tenderness in the discharge of the savage duties which surgery, without anesthetics, then imposed upon a practitioner. He was generous to a fault, genial, cheerful and inspiring. He was wholly devoted to his profession and regarding the controversy which broke out between the College and the University in 1815 merely as an obstacle to the successful prosecution of his work in the Medical School, and apprehensive of the effect of acts of the Legislature on the subject of securing material for anatomical dissection, he determined to go to a field where he would be less hampered by partisan activities. He therefore accepted an invitation to the Medical School of Yale College and removed his family to New Haven in the spring of 1817, but annually returned to Hanover and con- tinued to practise in this region as late certainly as 1821. No physician has ever been more honored and beloved. He died at New Haven in comparative poverty, January 26, 1829. He organized the Medical Department of Yale College in 1813, and that of Bowdoin College in 1820, and also gave lectures on "Medi- cine and Surgery" at the University of Vermont from 1821 to 1825. His portrait hangs in Webster Hall, the gift of Dr. Peaslee.1
There are preserved many interesting circumstances of his
1 Eulogies were delivered upon him immediately after his death by Profes- sor Jonathan Knight of New Haven, and by President William Allen of Bow- doin, and a memoir by Professor O. P. Hubbard of Dartmouth was delivered at Hanover in 1879. In 1914 there came from the Yale University Press the "Life and Letters of Nathan Smith, edited by Emily Smith."
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History of Hanover
career, for which space here is wanting, but a few anecdotes, drawn from Professor Hubbard's sketch may be admitted.
Called once to a neighboring town to amputate the leg of a poor fellow, which had been shattered by an accident at some celebra- tion, Dr. Smith performed the operation and, after it was done, being asked the amount of his fee, he named fifty dollars, which was speedily contributed by the sympathizing crowd and paid to him. After carefully counting the money he gave it to the patient and rode home.
He performed the second operation on record for ovariotomy, at Norwich, Vt., July 5, 1821. It was, however, with him an original one, for he was not then aware that it had ever been done before. He was the first to unite a cleft palate, and in connection with many other subjects his methods and devices were original and effective. He never lost a patient from hemorrhage consequent on an operation. His nerves were as steady as iron when operat- ing, but sometimes, in anticipation of the pain which he was about to cause, his agitation would show itself even in tears.
As was common at the time, Dr. Smith dealt in medicines. In this business he had a partner, as shown by an advertisement in the Dartmouth Gazette, Dr. Abraham Hedge, who had received the degree of M. B., the degree then given by the Medical School, in 1799, and who later was a druggist in Woodstock, Vt., and a practising physician in Chester, Vt., but I have been able to secure no further information about him or about Dr. Elisha Phelps, who for a year sold drugs, as well as other goods, at the Graves corner.
Dr. Cyrus Perkins, the son of Isaac and Joanna (Edson) Perkins, was born at Middleboro, Mass., September 4, 1778. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1800 and in the same year married Abigail, daughter of Professor John Smith. He studied medicine with Dr. Nathan Smith and was graduated M. B. in 1802, receiving an M. D. in 1810. After practising some years in Boston he returned to Hanover in 1810 as colleague of Dr. Nathan Smith in the Medical School, and the next year built for his resi- dence the house afterward occupied by Professor Sanborn, and still later converted into Sanborn Hall. Dr. Perkins took an active part in politics and in social life, and was also prominent in the militia. He took sides very strongly against the College in the controversy of 1815-1819, being a Trustee of the University, its treasurer for ten months, and also a professor in it. Unable to be reconciled to the result, although he remained on terms of personal friendship
PLATE VII
DR. DIXI CROSBY
DR. NATHAN SMITH
DR. E. R. PEASLEE
DR. C. P. FROST
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with many of the adherents of the College, he retired from the general opposing sentiment of the victorious party and removed in 1819 to New York City. There he practised his profession suc- cessfully some thirty years, until his death on Staten Island, April 23, 1849, in his seventy-first year.
During this period Hanover enjoyed the presence of two very distinguished physicians, Reuben Dimond Mussey and Daniel Oliver, but the latter practised very little, mainly in emergencies in the absence of Dr. Mussey. Both were professors in the Medi- cal College, and for a part of the time Dr. Oliver was professor of intellectual philosophy in the College.
Dr. Mussey was born in Pelham, N. H., the son of Dr. John and Beulah (Butler) Mussey, June 23, 1780. Graduated from Dartmouth in 1803 he studied medicine under Dr. Nathan Smith and received from the College the degree of M. B. in 1806 and of M. D. in 1812. From 1814 to 1838 he was a professor in the Medical School, holding different chairs. In the latter year he removed to Cincinnati, but came again to the east in 1858, resid- ing in Boston, where he died June 21, 1866. He was eminent as a physician and as a surgeon with a reputation second to none in the State. "In person he was short, spare, with high cheek bones, a small gray eye and a broad prominent chin, and with a brusk and forbidding manner. For over thirty years he was a strict vegetarian." He was greatly interested in the cause of temperance, which he aided effectively through pamphlets and public addresses, an address which he gave in 1827, first, before the students of the College and then before the New Hampshire Medical Society, having wide influence. The last publication of his life, written in his eighty-fourth year, was an earnest temperance tract, entitled "What Shall I Drink?" Dr. Mussey was also a student of music and had much to do with the revival of music that occurred during his early residence in Hanover. For most of the time between 1815 and 1838 he was the president of the Handel Society, which had so honorable a part in the musical activities of the time. He was twice married, his first wife being Mary Sewall and his second Hitty Osgood of Salem, Mass. Four sons were graduated from Dartmouth, of whom two became physicians.
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