USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 3
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Once at least since 1808 the attempt has been seriously made to beautify the Green with trees along the walks, but the saplings developed a strange tendency toward nocturnal somersaults, being found in the morning with their branches in the ground and their roots in the air, and the experiment was not further tried.
Even the building of the fence did not at first put an end to the roving of cattle. Pasturage on the Green was claimed by some as a prescriptive right, and differences between' townsmen and stu- dents from this cause were not infrequent. "Cowhunting" had been in former years a favorite evening amusement among the students, to which even grave theologs were not averse, though incurring thereby, as the records show, the stern censure of their society, and numberless were the tricks played upon offending animals. One horse is said to have been painted white and thus hidden from its anxious and exasperated owner, though grazing under his very eyes.1
II
In the College district the beginning of business of every kind was in the hands of President Wheelock. It centered, of course, at first about the College hall and store on the east side of the Green, to which for some years the villagers looked for their supplies. Before long, it drifted away from there to gather about the southwest corner of the Green, as was evidently Wheelock's plan. The tavern stand was laid out at the corner where the Casque and Gauntlet house now is, and Captain Aaron Storrs was the innkeeper officially recognized, and after about 1773 the merchant. Dr. Crane, the physician, in his house opposite the center of the south side of the Green, in company with Moses Chase of Cornish, dealt in drugs and to some extent in other goods. In 1778-79 Wheelock's nephew, Jabez Bingham, Jr., appears in trade near where the bank now is (40 South Main Street), and a little later it would seem that Wheelock's son, Eleazar, had a store on the Tontine lot. The barber, the hatter, the carpenter, the mason, and in 1778, the printer and the steward were given places near the inn. The shops of the tailor and the shoemaker, as well as the potash and brickyard and wash-house were on what we call Lebanon Street, and the blacksmith's shop
1 See an article in The Dartmouth for December, 1872, p. 402, by Samuel Swift, and the Autobiography of Amos Kendall, p. 23.
PLATE II
THE GREEN, SOUTH SIDE
Looking eastward toward the Gates house: about 1870
OLD HOUSE ON LEBANON STREET (see p. 62 f.)
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The Village at the College
from 1774 to 1779 was on the Green north of the Commons Hall.
Quite contrary to Wheelock's intention and much to his dis- gust, a diversion was made toward the northern limits by John Payne with his inn in 1772. But the seat of business in general was not yet affected ; indeed the village during the war grew but little. When that was past a considerable number of settlers came in, lots were laid out quite extensively to the southwest and the northwest, and in course of a few years most of the unoccupied lots belonging to the College were taken upon long leases. The erection of Dartmouth Hall after 1786 brought in many workmen, and on its completion in 1790-91 the students' commons were brought to Colonel Kinsman's new hall near the site of Rollins Chapel.
Then came Richard Lang from Salem, Mass., and opened a store in a little square shop of two low stories near the corner where Webster Hall now is. He was the first in town to engage in general merchandizing on a large scale, and was by far the prince of business men here of that day. Alone of them all he was successful and acquired wealth. About 1794 Ebenezer Wood- ward had a store in his house on the crest of the hill east of Rollins Chapel, as will be mentioned later.
The last decade of the century was one of rapid growth and great enterprise, being one of the most prosperous times in the early history of the College. After Dartmouth Hall came the chapel in 1790, the Academy and Commons Hall in 1791, the meeting house in 1794-95, and the bridge in 1796. In all these public works nearly $35,000 was expended. All this, of course, brought business, and stores were opened in different parts of the Plain, and in 1794 a newspaper was established. Captain Storrs' prosperity as an innkeeper had been greatly impaired by Captain Ebenezer Brewster, who unexpectedly, about 1782, opened a tavern across the way, where the Dartmouth Hotel and the Han- over Inn have since stood, but in 1792 or 1793 Rufus Graves, a graduate of 1791, bought out Captain Storrs, built a store on the site of the present Dartmouth Bookstore, with a large hall above it, and entered into an active competition with Mr. Lang as a merchant in all branches. He not only had like Mr. Lang a potash, but he also conducted a tannery near the present site of the Alpha Delta Phi hall. At about the same time, 1792, one David Cristy of Sudbury, Mass., set up a general store in an old building where Robinson Hall now stands.
The plans of Graves for bridge and turnpike (to which point
26
History of Hanover
was given by the meeting of the Legislature here in 1795), led Mr. Lang to fear that the business center would be drawn again to the south end to the advantage of his competitors. Not to be thus outdone he purchased in 1792 the lot opposite that of Graves, on the northwest corner of Main and Wheelock Streets, and raised upon it a large building for a store with a hall overhead. Before it was done Graves, in 1797, borne down by the expense of the bridge, failed, and Mr. Lang, finding his fears groundless, turned his new building into a dwelling for himself, and continued his business at the old place at the north end of the Green. The only other dwellings then on the north side of the Green were the house east of the meeting house, occupied as a tavern by George Foot, and another, where the vestry now is, occupied in part as a drug store.
The northern quarter was now gradually improved by other shops, in buildings east and north of the Commons Hall, and in the lower story of the hall itself. In the latter was opened in 1795 the pioneer bookstore of the place by Josiah Dunham, editor of the village paper. There was at length gathered hereabouts quite an assortment of tradesmen-tinsmith, hatter, watchmaker, saddler, tailor, blacksmith, besides, from 1806, a second general store rivaling Lang's, kept by General James Poole in a house next north of the present Rollins Chapel, and from 1809 the inn of Benoni Dewey in the house now belonging to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity (38 College Street). All this time business was active at the south end, though much scattered, several of the shops being along the west side of the Green and even on Cemetery Lane.
In 1813 business received a great impetus toward concentra- tion by the building of the new brick "Dartmouth Hotel" and a little later of the "Tontine." After this the business prosperity of the north end waned more rapidly, and about 1820 Mr. Lang removed his store to the old low-browed building, then in his garden, in which David Cristy had formerly had his store. The Commons Hall was pulled down in 1826, General Poole died in 1828 and his store did not long continue. Ever since, the tendency has been increasingly to contract the business area into Main Street, south of Wheelock Street. Few of the early traders were successful, nearly all passing sooner or later into bankruptcy. Even Mr. Lang, late in life, underwent the same experience, though he finally paid his debts in full and had a handsome property left.
27
The Village at the College
The difficulties which beset a tradesman of a century ago, both in securing supplies and maintaining credit, are well brought out in an extensive correspondence, covering nearly thirty years from 1790, between Richard Lang and his brother David in Salem, Mass., who acted as Richard's agent there in procuring goods and helping him meet the obligations of purchase. Salem and New York City were the chief markets from which Mr. Lang drew his supplies, to both of which places he made occasional visits, but he depended to a great degree upon his brother, to whose shrewdness in buying, skill in the selection of goods and financial assistance was due no small part of his success.
From New York goods came mainly by the river, but from Salem by four-horse teams which made the trip one way in about a week, carrying from one and a half to two tons as a full load. The roads were often rough and as a load frequently consisted of all kinds of articles from bar iron to glassware, injury was not infrequent. Freight charges were based on weight and were about a dollar a hundred pounds, and it was of much moment that loads should be secured in both directions. Mr. Lang usually secured teams for the trip to Salem and his brother arranged to have everything in readiness for the return, so that there should be as little delay as possible between discharging and loading.
Ready money was very scarce. Almost all purchases were made on three to nine months' credit, although David Lang occasionally reports an especially advantageous purchase for cash, and he is constantly cautioning his brother to exercise great care in giving credit on sales, and to collect his accounts as closely as possible, but collections were very difficult and accounts often ran a very long time and were then settled by barter and by the transfer of land. This explains the fact that much of the land about this village passed through the hands of the traders and often from them to merchants in Boston and elsewhere, and also explains the extraordinary amount of litigation that marked the first half of the century in this section, which arose for the most part from the attempt to collect accounts or notes given in their settlement.
Barter naturally held a large place, and the main articles which Mr. Lang sent to Salem in exchange for goods were butter, cheese, beef, poultry and pork, at prices (in 1806) respectively of 21c to 23c a pound for butter and 11c a pound for cheese, and for beef 20/ to 30/ a hundred, while poultry cost 6c to 8c, and pork 7c to 8c a pound. The prices in Salem of the chief articles brought to Hanover were: iron bars, $110 a ton for cash, $120 a ton on credit,
28
History of Hanover
molasses 38c a gallon, W. I. rum 77c a gallon, N. E. rum 47c a gallon, coffee 32c a pound, loaf sugar 21c and W. I. sugar 121/2c a pound, raisins $6 a box (which was called "very dear"), lemons $11 a box (in 1814 they were $25 a box), port wine 7 / 6 a gallon, tea, Souchong, 66c, Bohea, 36c a pound (during the war of 1812 tea rose to $2 a pound), English glass 5x8, $15 a box. Prices of course varied somewhat from year to year. Thus, in 1811 hay was $20 to $25 a ton; the next year it fell to $14, but except for the years of the war the range of prices was not remark- able.
David Lang's letters present an extraordinary mixture of piety and business sagacity. A strict Calvinist, he brought his religion into his daily activities, and exhortations to repentance, reflec- tions on the wickedness of sin, the danger of impending death and the need of instant preparation for it, as well as lamentations on the indifference of men to their immortal concerns, are inter- woven with the price of butter, the need of care in buying and packing cheese, the difficulty of securing satisfactory goods, and the importance of restricting credit for sales and of making close collections. The word GOD is never written except in capitals and almost always as a symbol of wrath to come, but in the next sentence it gives way to expressions of business shrewdness.
Traffic, not manufactures, has in general given life to what- ever business the town has possessed, but there were a few manu- factures. The manufacture of hats was commenced as early as 1774 by Asa Huntington in a little shop on West Wheelock Street near the great elm in front of the Psi Upsilon house (No. 10). We do not hear of him after 1777, but the trade was practised in the village, certainly at intervals, as late as 1820, by Eleazar Fitch at the Humphrey Farrar place in 1786, by Woodbury R. Fitch and Co., in 1806, at the "Green Store." 1
Pottery was made on a somewhat extensive scale by Winslow Warren in 1795, and before him by Jacob Barrows, in a shop that stood on the north side of South Street in the garden of the Givens place (No. 7). The industry ceased about 1800. In 1795 we hear of a weaver, one Thomas George, at his house near the College. There was a fulling mill on Mink Brook, a mile and a quarter east of the village, not far above the place where the road over Mt. Support crosses the brook, besides the tannery of Rufus Graves and the several potash places. Our knowledge of
1 Dartmouth Gazette, May 26, 1813.
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The Village at the College
business matters before the advent of the newspaper in 1795 is fragmentary and accidental, but from then on, as long as the papers continued, the advertisements of the tradesmen allow one to glean considerable information as to their presence in the village and their locations.
Books were sold in a small way at several of the early stores, but a bookstore was opened for the first time in Hanover in 1795 in the Commons Hall (where Rollins Chapel now is) "at the sign of Sterne's head" by Josiah Dunham, who was at the same time editor of the newspaper, and who advertised in it a long double list of books of all sorts, together with stationery and paper hangings and "a pleasing variety of copper plated pictures." This store, which soon had a rival, as would appear from the advertisement in the Eagle of May 29, 1787, of Phelps and Ells- worth, who announced "books and stationary" together with a "general assortment of spring goods," continued but a year or two, and in March, 1798, a new bookstore was opened imper- sonally, under the simple name of the "Hanover Bookstore," but kept by Professor John Smith, who was also College librarian, in his own house "opposite Park's store." Professor Smith died April 30, 1809, and his widow, Susanna, carried on the store, which in November of that year was removed into a new shop just north of his house (where the Episcopal rectory now is, 19 South Main Street) and enlarged to a general store. In June, 1813, Mrs. Smith closed the business and the store passed into other hands, probably those of Adna Perkins and Josiah Hub- bard, but before long it was taken over by Harry Carpenter.
In March, 1807, Moses Davis, the printer, having in the preced- ing December moved his printing office to the house now owned by C. D. Williams (25 South Main Street) set up there a new bookstore next door south of Professor Smith. Davis died in 1808, and the Spears who succeeded him continued the book- store, and advertising for a bookbinder added in 1809 book- making in all its branches, but their store and printing office were in the building west of the Green, already mentioned as occupied earlier by David Cristy and later by Richard Lang. In the meantime Justin Hinds came to town from Walpole about November, 1808, and taking the Parks stand on the east side of Main Street opened a bookstore opposite Professor Smith's, "next door south of Dewey's tavern." About 1815 he bought of Aaron Wright the next lot south and removed thither, his house standing back from the road. His shop, just north of his house,
30
History of Hanover
had as its sign a large picture of Benjamin Franklin on the door. He continued in business until his death in 1840.1
An apothecary's shop, we may readily understand, was among the earliest provisions. Dr. Crane, the first Hanover physician, and Dr. Lewis of Norwich, both dealt in drugs, as shown by accounts still preserved. We find Dr. Crane furnishing the army medicine chests in 1775 and 1776. In 1785 one Asa Holden obtained from the College the parcel of land on the west side of the Green, where the Tuck Building now stands, and we hear of him in 1790 as keeping a "medicine shop" on it. Six or seven years later he died. In 1795 we learn of one Samuel G. Mackery dealing in drugs and medicines (with other things) in a house that stood near where the vestry of the Congregational Church now is, and for a few years subsequent to 1797 Abraham Hedge was associated with Dr. Nathan Smith under the style of Smith and Hedge, but in what locality I do not know. Drugs undoubt- edly formed a part of the stock of Rufus Graves and of Dr. Elisha Phelps, who succeeded him in 1797-98. In 1797 Dr. Alden, who succeeded Phelps at the Graves corner, entered systemati- cally into the drug business (in connection with a general store) and made it permanently successful. To accommodate the busi- ness, which he turned over to his son-in-law, Otis R. Freeman, he built on the south side of his store an extension in which it remained until 1881, being carried on successively from 1845 by Dr. T. P. Hill and from 1856 by Dr. J. A. Smith until 1868, when it was taken by L. B. Downing, who in the last mentioned year removed it across the street to a store next the hotel and later to a store in the south end of the Tontine, where, except for the interruption caused by the fire of 1887, he continued it until his death in 1918, when it passed into the hands of R. J. Putnam.
The course of business which, as has been said, gradually gathered in the section below the Green, and also the growth of the village, may perhaps best be seen by a summary account of the more important lots and houses in that part of the village, together with that of some in other parts.
III
The lot at the southwest corner of Main and Wheelock Streets, where the Casque and Gauntlet house now stands, originally com-
1 In 1811 he advertised as having in press Cooper's Surgery. In 1810 Spear advertised the publication of a History of Modern Europe.
31
The Village at the College
prising two acres, sixteen rods on Main Street and twenty rods westward, was granted by the College for an inn to Captain Aaron Storrs, who came here from Lebanon, N. H., in 1771 to under- take the business of innkeeper in connection with a general agency for Wheelock. Here he built in that year the first two-story house on the Plain, except that of Professor Woodward, which was raised the same day and afterward burned. The house stood flush with Main Street and four feet inside the line on the north. About 1782 Ebenezer Brewster set up an inn across the way, on the corner that has been occupied by a hostelry since that day, and, perhaps in view of a diminishing patronage, Storrs turned his attention to the river ferry, which he leased of the College in 1783. He was a prominent man and in 1786 he was a member of the New Hampshire Legislature. Later, probably in 1789, he moved across the river to what is now known as the Lewis place, and thence, late in 1793 or early in 1794, he went to Ran- dolph, Vt., of which he was a charter proprietor, where he died August 14, 1810.
Excepting a narrow strip, two rods wide at the south end, previously sold, Storrs transferred this land and house after 1787, probably in settlement of a debt, to Samuel Parkman of Boston by whom it was conveyed in 1793 to Rufus Graves, already mentioned as a graduate of Dartmouth in 1791 and a student of divinity under Professor Smith in 1792. He built next south of the corner a large two-story building with a hip roof in which he opened a store, the second story containing a large hall. A little below this store were the hay scales and for the years 1795-96 and 1798 Graves was the "clerk of the market."
Graves was a man of great energy and enterprise. In addition to his store he had a tannery (where the Alpha Delta Phi hall now is), for which he advertises for thirty or forty bushels of potash in 1798. In 1792 he joined with Ebenezer Brewster and Aaron Hutchinson, a lawyer of Lebanon, in the project for a bridge over the Connecticut river, and having secured the aid of capital- ists in Boston he designed and built the first bridge in 1796.1 These various enterprises involved him in debt and he failed in business. Remaining in town, however, he was appointed Lieu- tenant-Colonel commanding the 16th U. S. Infantry in May, 1799, and opened a recruiting office in Hanover, but removed to Massa- chusetts in 1800. However, he continued his connection with
1 For an account of this bridge see the writer's History of Dartmouth College, pp. 654f.
32
History of Hanover
Hanover, and was a lecturer in chemistry in the Medical School from 1812 to 1815.
The business of the store passed in 1797 to Phelps and Ells- worth (Dr. Elisha Phelps of Chatham, Conn., a practising physi- cian, and John Ellsworth), but owing to a scandal in which the Doctor became involved, the partnership lasted but a year, and after an interval the business was taken by Dr. Samuel Alden, who came from Stafford, Conn., and bought out Graves in September of 1799. In the same building he kept a general store and a drug store, and for the accommodation of the latter interest he extended after a time the building on the south side, changing the hip roof to a pitch roof. The succession in the drug business has already been mentioned.
About 1823 Alden built the brick house (now the Casque and Gauntlet house) immediately in the rear of the Old Storrs house, and when it was done moved his furniture out of the back door of the old house into the front door of the new, and then moved the former to the northwest part of his garden, to the place where it now stands on Wheelock Street, remodeled as the home of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, the oldest house in the village. Dr. Alden continued in business in the same place until his death in 1842, when the business was bought by Joseph Emerson, who occupied the house until his death in 1888. For a time he gave up the business to T. D. Smith, then resuming it for a time finally passed it to S. W. Cobb, who after many years was fol- lowed for a short time by his son, W. D. Cobb. The old hall had been cut up into rooms, which had been used mainly for offices of various kinds, and the building was taken down by F. W. Davison in 1903 to make way for the present brick block. The large wooden pillars that adorned its façade now form the front of the Phi Gamma Delta house.
Immediately adjoining this building on the south was a small one-and-a-half-story building of two rooms, abutting directly on the sidewalk, built by Deacon Sylvester Morris of Norwich as a shoe store. How long it was used for this purpose, if at all, I do not find, but later the northern one of the two rooms was used for the post office under W. Kinsman, D. F. Richardson and S. W. Cobb, and still later for a barber shop by M. M. Amarall. The other room was occupied for many years by B. D. Howe as a bookstore and bindery, and after his death in 1867, as the express office. The building was moved when its larger neighbor was torn down, to a position in the rear of the new
33
The Village at the College
building and was used for a restaurant, but was replaced by the present brick restaurant and theater in 1916.
Next below this, also on the original Storrs lot, there was built about 1796 a two-story house, standing lengthwise along the street, by B. J. Gilbert, a lawyer who had his office in a small structure in the rear of his house, afterward used by the mer- chants as a salt house. From Mr. Gilbert the house passed to Jabez A. Douglass, and after his death was occupied in turn by Dr. Edmund R. Peaslee, before his removal to New York City, by Mrs. Maria T. Benson, H. H. Clough and H. K. Swasey, the last of whom had a livery stable in the rear. It was moved away in 1900 to Sargent Place, and on the site Mr. D. S. Bridg- man erected the brick block which was burned in 1906 and then replaced by the present block that carries his name.
The narrow strip which Captain Storrs sold from the south side of his lot passed through various ownerships without buildings until 1794, when it came into the hands of Jedediah Baldwin, who came about this time from Northampton, Mass. In the next year he built upon it a two-story shop, letting the second story to Heman Pomroy, a tailor, and using the first story for his own trade as a watchmaker. With him was his brother Jabez, who afterward went to Boston, becoming one of the firm of Baldwin and Jones that later became Shreve, Crump and Low. The shop was burned, February 3, 1800, but was rebuilt and occupied by Baldwin as a watchmaker's shop and also, as he was postmaster from 1797 to 1811, as a post office, being known as the "Green Store." This shop had a bow window, which was smashed by the students in retaliation for a fine of two dollars imposed upon Darling, one of their number, for assault upon a boy in connection with. the "herding" of the cows of the villagers, June 9, 1808. Baldwin was the complainant, and later his horse was painted white with the words "two dollars" on his sides.1 In front of the store were the hay scales, which Baldwin bought of Rufus Graves in 1799, on account of which probably he was several times made "clerk of the market." Objection having been made to the position of the scales, Baldwin moved them to a place nearly in front of the present Episcopal Church. On Baldwin's death in 1811 the shop passed, probably through a mortgage, into the possession of John Wheelock, who left it by will to Princeton College. The shop was occupied by tradesmen of many kinds until it was moved away, becoming No. 3 Pleasant Street. Bald-
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