USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 29
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 (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
Stockbridge Association
A society unique to Hanover is the Stockbridge Association, a boys' club founded December 31, 1894, and named in honor of Miss Theodosia Stockbridge. In 1855 Miss Stockbridge had begun to gather about her weekly in the red brick schoolhouse
1 The five were Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Bridgman, Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Prad- dex, H. F. Hoyt, Jr., the new members were Mr. and Mrs. E. R. Kellogg, Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Fuller, Mr. and Mrs. C. G. Piper, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Pettee, Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Withington, C. W. Scott, C. W. Stone, George Filiau, M. H. Barstow, H. P. Flint, J. C. Childs, A. B. Childs, Viola La Ha, Ida Campbell, Don S. Bridgman, F. A. Fairbanks, J. H. Foster, Mrs. F. Coffran.
The officers were C. H. Pettee, master, H. F. Hoyt, Jr., overseer, C. W. Scott, lecturer, J. H. Foster, steward, C. G. Piper, assistant steward, T. W. Praddex, chaplain, M. H. Barstow, treasurer, J. M. Fuller, secretary, C. W. Stone, gatekeeper, Mrs. C. H. Pettee, Ceres, Mrs. J. F. Withington, Pomona, Mrs. E. R. Kellogg, Flora, Mrs. T. W. Praddex, lady assistant steward, C. H. Pettee, J. M. Fuller, J. L. Bridgman, executive committee.
291
Societies
later known as Precinct Hall and now named Stockbridge Hall, a class of boys ranging from eight to eighteen years old. At times the class numbered as many as forty. It included negroes, boys who frankly called themselves "rough village boys," and others who later entered college and eventually won high position in the country. Her influence on this group was deep and lasting. Half a century after he was a member of her class Dorrance Currier wrote, "She found in each boy that which she sought, and she sought for the good in them. . . . The source of her influ- ence was her perfect honesty, charity, and sympathy, and she won the love of every boy in the village." Before she left Han- over in 1867, 155 boys had been members of her class. It was one of these, Mr. John C. Paige, who left the funds with which the present Stockbridge Hall was purchased, and at whose suggestion The Boys' Club founded in 1894 was named The Stockbridge Association. And it is the memory of Miss Stockbridge and her work which has inspired the activities of the present association.
The Hanover Woman's Club
In the year 1919 there became evident among Hanover women the desire for some organization which would provide not only recreation and exercise of mental and artistic gifts but also some instrument for community service. A Community and Child Welfare Association, with about fifty members, had been formed early in the spring; when another club for intellectual and social activities was suggested it was found possible to merge the two into one organization, whose purpose as stated in the constitution is "to increase public spirit, and to extend opportunities for study, for recreation, and for service in the community." On Decem- ber 2, 1919, at a meeting to which all Hanover women were invited, this club was formed with a charter membership of seventy-six and was called The Hanover Woman's Club.
Since its founding the club has maintained furnished rooms as the center of its manifold activities. Mrs. C. C. Stewart, the first president, adopted a courageous, far-sighted policy which has been followed with success. The ideal of all inclusiveness in its membership has made the club of great value to new comers in the village. Excellent work has been done from time to time in the community through the clubs departments and committees, which at present are: Art ; Music; Literature; Civics ; Education ; Public Health; The American Home; Hospital Aid; House; -
292
History of Hanover
Social; Membership; Publicity ; Girls Work. In 1926 there were two hundred members, with an affiliated Girls' Club of twenty members. The club is federated with the State and National Women's Clubs.
CHAPTER XXI
BURYING GROUNDS
THERE are nine burying grounds in the township of Hanover, of which several are very small and these are now seldom used. Occasionally an interment is made in one of the smaller grounds, but most burials are made in the graveyards at the College, Etna or the Center.
All of these burying grounds, except those at the College Plain and at Etna (the latter being the last to be set apart), were the expression of the generosity of individuals who recognized the need of burial places in separate localities. In the early days, when roads were poor and small communities were more self- contained, community burying grounds were a natural form of local interest and they were provided by public spirited individuals. In two instances burial plats were conveyed directly to the town, those at the Center and in district Number Two. The cemetery at the College was a tract of land "sequestered" by the Trustees for the use of the College and the community in 1774, though it had been used as a burying ground since 1771. In the other cases plats of ground were set apart by their owners for neighborhood use without special transfer of title to the town or to trustees, or to any particular group of men. The immediate result of indefi- nite ownership has been the neglect of the different burying grounds as families whose members are buried in them have died out or have removed from town.
In the absence of records it is impossible to tell the exact order in which the grounds were set apart, but all except the one at Etna are probably more than a hundred years old and date from the eighteenth century. The first person to die in the town is said to have been a child of fourteen months, of the family of Stephen Benton. Where the burial was I do not know.
Of the smaller burying grounds of the town one of the most ancient is situated on the top of a hill near the spot where Edmund Freeman made the first settlement. It is on the State road not far from the Lyme line, on the right as one goes north, and one granite monument is visible from the road. The land for it was set apart by Ichabod Fowler or his son-in-law, Eleazar Porter, March 17, 1783, but does not appear to have been transferred to
293
294
History of Hanover
the town or to trustees. It became a neighborhood burying ground, as one wrote,1 "simply belonging to the farm, and when a neighbor died, if the person was to be buried there, the friends went there and dug the grave and buried the body." The first person to be buried there was Ruth Fowler, a daughter of Ichabod and Ruth (Grover) Fowler (then living on the Freeman place), who died September 14, 1774, in her fifteenth year, and whose gravestone is still standing. Several of the Porter family were buried there, but their headstones were of slate and the inscriptions have mainly disappeared. Some of the older stones are still legible: Calvin Por- ter, 1783; Phineas Smith, 1786; Josiah Southworth, 1786; John Pingry, 1790; Silas Kinne, 1794. Apparently the last burial was that of Hamilton T. Howe in 1909. The yard was long without a fence, but fifty years ago Herman Everett put a picket fence with stone posts around it, and in later years John F. Tenney had the enclosure put into good condition. In 1920 the fence was broken and the ground overgrown with weeds and brambles, but since then the ground has been cleared. Like some other of the old burying grounds, it has now no one to care for it regularly. The names and dates on the monuments of Hanover cemeteries were carefully recorded in a book by Deacon Asa Fellows of Hanover Center ; the book is now in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Barnes.
In 1787 John Smith, the son of Timothy Smith, conveyed to the town a half acre of land for a burying ground upon river lot Number 38, "where sundry dead persons have already been buried." 2 The stones of Russell Smith (d. 1777) and of Charles and Mary Goodrich (d. 1775) still remain. Here are found graves of Westcotts, Brewsters, Goulds and others beside the Smiths, including Timothy Smith (d. 1792). The ground was fenced and cared for by the Smith family until recently when their adjacent farm was sold. It is said that the purchaser let in his cattle to graze there, until persons interested in the place recalled to the town authorities that the ground had been deeded to the town. Since that time the town has repaired the fences and cared for the burying ground. The latest monument is erected to W. F. Ful- lington (d. 1915). In 1916 Mrs. Laura Smith Barnes of Lyme, New Hampshire, the daughter of Chandler P. Smith, gave to the town $200 "for the perpetual care of the Chandler P. Smith lot in the Smith cemetery," the surplus income to be used "to
1 Mr. J. F. Tenney.
2 Grafton County deeds, lib. 11, fol. 42.
295
Burying Grounds
keep the grass and bushes in said cemetery properly cut and trimmed."
Of the burying ground in the Ruddsboro district we have the following account written in 1889 by Charles B. Dowe:
November 8, 1787, my grandfather, Lemuel Dowe, who was then nine- teen years old, purchased the southerly half of the second hundred acre lot, drawn to the original right of Stephen Freeman, it being the 6th in number adjoining to, and lying east of, the Four Mile road, in district No. 8 in the town of Hanover.
About the same time Daniel Dodge purchased the northerly half of the same lot. On the dividing line, between the above named parties, and near the center of the original hundred acre lot, is a ridge, which has long been occupied as a cemetery apparently since the time of Mr. Rood, the first settler.
About the year 1808 my Grandfather and Mr. Dodge entered into a contract with the people in the neighborhood, by which they agreed to give the land inclosed as a burial ground, upon condition that the friends and neighbors would keep it fenced and take care of it as such. It was laid out in lots, each of the parties to the agreement having a lot assigned to him.
About 1860 my father gave more land and the ground was considerably enlarged on the south and east sides, making it the same as it is today. The original agreement was recorded in the school records of the district, but the old book is lost or destroyed.
Among the dead who rest here may be found Dea. Thomas Ross, Stock- man Sweatt, Samuel Simmons, Samuel Trickey, and, I think, David Walker and Simon Ward, soldiers of the Revolution.
This ground is not wholly without care at the present time, as there is a small fund for that purpose. In 1914 David T. Ross left to the town of Hanover $100 as a fund, the income of which was to be expended in the care of the grave of Isaac Ross, his father, and in the same year David Mason Ross similarly gave $100 to the town for the care of the grave of his father and his own. The income of the fund has been expended under the direc- tion of Mr. Horace F. Hoyt of Etna, who has also done other work in keeping the grounds in order. The last burial noted on a gravestone was in 1916.
The burying ground at Greensboro may have been opened about 1790, as it was the gift to the neighborhood of Lemuel Stevens who lived in the place adjoining, now occupied by William LaBom- bard. Like other small burying grounds it served the families of the neighborhood, Durkees, Hutchins, Hayes, Tenneys, and so forth besides the family of Lemuel Stevens himself, who was buried there in 1839. The earliest stone now remaining is that of "Little Justus," who died in 1809. The loyalty of the neighborhood is seen in the fact that eight soldiers of the Civil War are buried
296
History of Hanover
there. On the stone of Rev. Azel P. Brigham, who died in 1843 at the age of 31, it is recorded that he was "A beloved, faithful and successful minister of Jesus Christ in the New Hampshire conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church." The ground is well fenced and free from bushes, though little cared for.
There are two burying grounds on the east side of Moose Moun- tain. One, about half an acre in extent, lies about half a mile north of Goose Pond on the west side of the road. It was taken "from the farm of Alonzo Melendy" and "those who have lots there paid the money to him."1 Earlier this farm was in the possession of James Eastman, who very likely started the cemetery here.2 The earliest gravestone now legible is that of Nathaniel Willis, who died in 1822, but many gravestones, some of them probably marking earlier burials, have disappeared. In 1825 five children of John Hoit, Jr., died within ten days of each other and were buried here; the stones of Susan Pressey (1850) and Angelina Pressey (1854) remain; the latest burial recorded on a stone is that of William Rogers in 1865. The school house half a mile further north (burned in 1844) was used as a church by the Methodists in early days.
The second of these grounds is on the south of the old Wolfe- boro Road, about a mile from the head of Goose Pond up toward Moose Mountain and not far beyond the Tunis school house. The old Colby farm, not far above this cemetery, is the last occupied house toward the mountain. Colonel Thomas M. Colby, who died in 1892, was apparently the last person to be buried here. Thirteen members of the Withington family are recorded by name on existing stones, the earliest burial in 1842; Nancy Withington, who died in 1869, was born in 1785, when her mother Mary (died 1852) was thirteen years old. None of the remaining stones record a death earlier than 1835, the date on the stone of Richard Fitts.
In addition to the established cemeteries, which exist as such today, there were undoubtedly burials in connection with various farms. For example, in the Chandler community, on the road which turns up a steep hill to the left as one goes up the brook road from the brick church toward Ruddsboro, there still exist two or three stones in an orchard north of the more northerly house. There was also a small burying ground on the Owen farm, on the first road from Etna toward the reservoir; it is
1 So writes Horace M. Bryant of Lyme Centre.
2 J. F. Eastman of West Canaan.
297
Burying Grounds
said that this ground was situated on land now the property of Chandler LaBombard near the top of the hill as one comes up from Etna, presumably near a barn just below his house. No trace of the Owen burying ground remains.
The cemetery at Hanover Center was begun upon land which John Wright gave to the town for burial purposes in 1775.1 It was afterward enlarged by successive additions, Solomon Jacobs giving half an acre in 1805.2 Three funds have been given for the care of lots in this cemetery : $50 by Franklin A. Tenney in 1907 for care of the Andrew Tenney lot; $50 by John R. Runnels in 1915 for the care of the C. E. Homans and J. H. Runnels lots ; and $100 by Francis S. Spencer in 1907 for keeping "the Spencer lot in said cemetery in perpetual good order." In 1898 the town voted to authorize the "Hanover Centre Cemetery Association to ' lay out the unoccupied part of the ground into lots suitable for burial purposes and to make regulations concerning the same, sub- ject to approval by the selectmen." In this cemetery Abigail Woodward was buried in 1771, Asher Wright in 1772, Dorothy Curtis in 1773; and perhaps others were buried there before the land was given to the town. The number of burials before 1800 was perhaps larger, so far as existing records show, than in all the other Hanover cemeteries together, a proof of the rapid growth of population in this region before the end of the eighteenth century.
The graveyard near the Baptist Church at Etna was opened in 1845, money having been raised by subscription and land pur- chased of Alfred Hall. Timothy Owen, who was active in the movement, and one of the committee for laying out the grounds, was the first to be buried there, having fallen dead in his stable soon after the land was purchased. In 1856 the town voted to buy for $8 a lot in this cemetery in which to bury paupers.
The graveyard on the College Plain comprised at first an acre of level land, set apart in the original survey of the village in 1771 and formally "sequestered" by the College Trustees in 1774 "for a burying ground for the use of the college and the inhabitants of this vicinity." The first person to be buried there was Rev. John Maltby, stepson of Dr. Wheelock, who died in 1771. The lots were not sold but were taken up, as necessity demanded, with the tacit assent of the College.
Some fifty years later the spot is described as follows by Mrs.
1 Grafton Co. reg. Lib. 11, fol. 319.
2 Grafton Co. reg. Lib. 46, fol. 296.
298
History of Hanover
Brinley, niece of Mills Olcott, whose father, Benjamin Porter, was buried there in 1818:
A little removed from the village on the westerly side a narrow, beauti- fully shaded avenue led gently to the common burying ground. It was of the genuine New England pilgrim stamp, its monumental tombs and graves abandoned to weeds and nettles and relentless gloom; inclosed by a plain board fence stained with the damp and mould of time; hemmed in and choked up by the high grass, rank shrubs and matted ivy which rambled over it. A few stunted trees were scattered here and there, but these were shriveled into lifeless skeletons, as if unable to resist the inexorable destiny written all about them. The situation was beautiful upon the verge of a deep gorge between two hills lined with a thick growth of young forest trees.
Mr. Frederick Chase comments on the above quotation as follows :
The foregoing description answers very well for the place in my own boyhood twenty-five years later. It was then shaded by many old locust trees scattered without system among the lots, and overrun with dwarf shrubs and cinnamon roses. The deep valley that embraced it was in the spring the abode of many varieties of the choicest wild flowers together with wild strawberry and checkerberry.
Such care as the spot received was unsystematic and spasmodic. For instance, we learn that in April, 1833, Dr. Perkins and Mr. Olcott raised a subscription for the fence for the cemetery at the College.
The Rev. Dr. Richards, pastor of the College Church 1842- 1859, seems to have been the one to whom, more than to any other one person, was due the impulse to care for the cemetery. The old square spot had become crowded and needed enlargement ; the fence had become dilapidated; the trees and the grounds greatly needed attention. As the result of the efforts of Dr. Richards and many others, particularly Professor Brown, the Dartmouth Cemetery Association was formed in 1845 under the state law (Rev. Stat. 1842, Chap. 145) to take control of the cemetery. Dr. Richards continued to give his special attention to it, interesting himself in the care of the young pines which now shade the original spot, securing gravestones and writing the inscriptions for such persons as Sally Duguet and Jinny Went- worth, and finally completing in 1858 a record of all the inscrip- tions on stones then in existence. This record, preserved by the Association, is the lasting memorial of Dr. Richards' interest in the cemetery.
The first important action of the Dartmouth Cemetery Asso-
299
Burying Grounds
ciation was to purchase a tract of land owned by Alpheus Crosby (previously by John S. Cram), and to lay out and fence this tract. In later years the plat which lies to the north of the old cemetery and across a ravine was known as the "new part" of the cemetery. The lots in it were chosen in the order determined by drawing lots, and $5 was paid by each purchaser. Access to it was obtained. by a grant of land from the College, which received in return cer- tain lots for the use of the College. The cemetery was still later enlarged by purchase and gift of land in the ravines and on the east of the original cemetery, the last addition being a strip of land on the east given by Dr. Morris Smith. In 1851 the tomb and the hearse house were built at a cost of $209.87, and a hearse was purchased by subscriptions for the purpose. In 1884 a light footbridge was erected to connect the two parts of the cemetery,. a bridge which finally became unsafe and was removed.
The early interest developed through the association is shown by the fact that in 1848 it was voted "that Professor Brown be- requested to deliver the annual address before the society ;" in 1851 "that it is desirable that an address be delivered at each annual meeting on some subject appropriate to the objects of this. association ;" and in 1867 "that Professor Brown be requested to deliver an address before the citizens of the village on the impor- tance of the cemetery and the necessity of improving its grounds."
The records of the association make clear its effort to care for the grounds and develop their natural beauty. From time to time committees were appointed to repair or renew the fences ; evident- ly the young pines which replaced the locust trees were fostered. and cared for till today they dominate the original part of the cemetery, while the forest trees around the northern section have been allowed to develop and shut it off from the growing village; funds have been given or bequeathed to the association, primarily for the care of special lots, till now its invested property amounts. to $10,735.13 ; in 1912 a careful survey was made of the cemetery property, and the data on the existing tombstones, nearly 1200 in all, were recorded. About 1910 a gateway was put up by subscrip- tion 1 at the entrance from Sanborn Lane; the fence around the southern part of the cemetery, however, has disappeared, and the hedge to separate the grounds from nearby College buildings on the east and private houses on the south has not been kept up.
1 The largest subscribers were John K. Lord and Charles P. Chase, who secured the granite posts and set up the gateway.
300
History of Hanover
Professor E. J. Bartlett 1 calls attention to the fact that :
The early stones are plain slabs, quarried in East Lebanon for the first thirty years or so, of a poor quality of iron-bearing slate or schist, stratified, and easily breaking up along the planes of cleavage. They are commonly finished only on one side and with a trefoil within at the upper edge. Following the slate period, stones of a quality of soapstone, quarried in Ver- mont, were used for a time. Marble of a coarse variety, likewise from Vermont, comes into common use after 1800, and the inscriptions in some cases are very well made and clear. Beyond the distinguished tombs of President Wheelock and his companions, the simple slabs for headstones were held to be enough in the early days Nearly all the later stones are granite of many varieties and sources.
The history of the cemetery at the College is the record of increasing veneration for the dead who are buried there. Of the ten College Presidents no longer living, Dana, Tyler and Nichols, had moved from Hanover before their death; the other seven are buried here with their families, as well as more than forty of the earlier professors in the College. As the result of the care given to the cemetery the great natural beauty of the spot has been developed till every visitor is impressed with the quiet, peaceful, dignified character of this resting place for those who made the village what it is today.
1 A Dartmouth Book of Remembrance (Hanover, 1922)
APPENDIX I
NOTES ON SLAVERY IN HANOVER 1
There were a number of negro slaves held in Hanover in early days. The census of 1767 mentions none; apparently the first were brought here by Dr. Wheelock, including Brister, Exeter, and Chloe, his wife, Caesar and Lavinia, his wife, Archelaus and Peggy. In 1773 the census returns give four male and four female slaves in a population of 342; according to Mr. Dewey there were eighteen colored persons in the village in 1780, but the census returns of 1786 show but four persons, presumably slaves, not included in the class of "white inhabitants and other free citizens." President James Wheelock through his wife came into possession of several slaves, some of whom apparently were freed and lived on in the village. How long slavery continued in Hanover is not known. A partial list of slaves and their children follows :
Exeter
Died
1776
aet. 73
Chloe, his wife
66
1776
Rachel and infant
1776
Archelaus
Caesar
Brister (Bristo)
1805
aet.
70
Lavinia, his wife
1793
40
Swan
66
1793
Randall
66
1793
"Jinny" Wentworth
Denison Wentworth
Child of Randall
1813
Lucy
Sophronia
66
1815
Lundon Dow
66
1819
aet. 100
Peggy, his wife
1820
80
Samuel Freeman
1820
55
Prince Dunbar
¥
1821
Robert Randall
66
1823
75
Jenny Randall
66
1828
60
33
Mrs. Denison Wentworth
1841
24
Maria Pelham
60
1841
24
Staples
1843
46
66
1 From manuscript notes left by Judge Chase.
301
¥
72
1812
aet.
302
History of Hanover
Peggy Jane Parks
66
1844
46
Wm. Wentworth
66
1845
66
29
Charles Wentworth
1845
66
63
Mrs. Denison Wentworth
1847
25
Mrs. Jane Wentworth
60
1850
71
Robinson
1858
35
It is said that Exeter was remarkable for having on his face several copper-colored spots, upwards of an inch in diameter, which caused him to be known as the "spotted African." He was a man of piety, highly esteemed in the village.
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.