USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > A history of the town of Hanover, N.H. > Part 9
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History of Hanover
Vaughn and Harvey Chase as incorporators. This organization was more effective than its predecessor, gathering a library of more than 700 volumes and continuing in existence until January, 1874, when it disbanded and the books were sold at auction. The library was maintained by an annual assessment of one dollar on each member and was open for the drawing of books on the last Saturday of each month. It was kept, at first, at the house of a member, but later for many years in the hall over the store in Etna, where the town meetings were held.
Still another library came into existence during the life of the "Second Library Association," known as the "Hanover, Lebanon, and Canaan Philosophical Library," which was chartered, June 27, 1835, with William Hall and Amos Tenney of Hanover and Thomas Peabody of Lebanon and their associates as incorpora- tors. Little can be learned about this library save that "the meetings for the drawing of books were of a somewhat migratory character, being held alternately in the towns named." It is not known how large the library was, how long it continued, or what became of the books.
The successor to the last two organizations, growing out of the desire for social intercourse and library privileges, was the "Etna Library and Debating Society," formed at Etna in December of 1883, whose object was well stated in its name, and which looked toward the intellectual and social improvement of its members. The membership fee was set at two dollars, and there were to be fines for failing to return at the proper time books drawn from the library.
There were the usual officers, but the care of the library was put into the charge of the directors, while the preparation of the programs for meetings for debate was entrusted to a commit- tee on programs. The meetings were to be held weekly during the winter months, beginning about Christmas, and the regular program consisted of a debate on a question by disputants appointed two weeks in advance. There was always an opportun- ity for volunteers to the debates, and it was generally improved, and after the debate the presiding officer decided on the merits of the debate and the meeting on the merits of the question. The subject of debate partook of the academic, with but a single intru- sion of anything relating to current events. The last subject of discussion, at a meeting held February 12, 1886, was : "Resolved, that man's efforts as related to the business of life are more deceptive than truthful," from which the society never recovered.
85
Etna
A declining interest received its death blow and four more meet- ings at intervals of one, six and three years were mere formali- ties preceding dissolution. After the first years, meetings were enlivened by spoken dialogues by younger people and by the reading of a paper called the "Etna Enterprise" edited by one of the women members.
Membership was confirmed by a certificate, issued on the pay- ment of the entrance fee and renewed on the payment of suc- ceeding annual dues. The highest number of members recorded was seventy-seven.
The library, purchased with the fees and the fines, was kept at the house of one of the members, who acted as librarian and who, after the first, received five dollars a year for his services. A library of 300 volumes was accumulated, but after the demise of the Society the books were given to the new town library located at Etna.
This library was established in 1903 in accord with the "library act" of the legislature, approved April 11, 1891, by which the State gave a sum not exceeding $100 to towns that should provide to the satisfaction of the library commissioners of the State "for the care, custody and distribution of books furnished" by such gift, and that should appropriate not less than $50, if their last assessed valuation exceeded $1,000,000.
The satisfactory care and custody of the books were assured by the construction in 1905 of the present library building through an appropriation of $2,500 made by the town. The work was entrusted to a committee, consisting of H. W. Hoyt, Chandler P. Smith and Robert Fletcher, which drew the plans for the build- ing and superintended the work. The structure, which was of brick on a granite underpinning, was rectangular in shape and one story in height. The interior, consisting of a single room of twenty-five by thirty-three feet, had a paneled ceiling of hazel- wood, which was also the material of the interior finish, while the walls were plastered. To insure the building against damp- ness, as far as possible, an air space was left between the double exterior walls, which were eight and four inches thick, and there was a second air space between the brick wall and the plastering. A fine approach to the building was secured by a flight of granite steps and abutments, the gift of Henry C. Whipple in memory of J. W. Dodge. A fire proof vault on the north side of the build- ing, four and a half by nine by eight feet, was added by a special
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History of Hanover
vote of the town. The total cost of the building was a little over $2,800.
The administration of the library is in the hands of two trustees elected annually by the town.
The library is but one manifestation of the community spirit of which Etna is the center. The tendency to the improvement of social life indicated by the library organizations was also shown in the formation of a Village Improvement Society in 1903, of which the results are seen in the erection of lamps for lighting the streets, the planting of ornamental trees, the construction of walks and a general movement toward the neatness of the place. In 1925 there was built a small structure as a place for the hous- ing of a fire apparatus, at a cost of $1227.36 of which the town furnished $1,000, and also as a meeting place for the fire company. Equipment was purchased which cost $566.79.
The post office in Etna has been unusually free from change of postmasters. The first incumbent of the office was B. B. Holmes, who took it from 1884 to 1886. He was followed until 1889 by H. Y. Miller. The office was then held for a year from 1890 to 1891 by Carrie L. Knowlton and from the latter date until the present by W. G. Spencer.
It is impossible to give with exactness the history of all the houses in the village. Memory and record alike fail to furnish complete information, but, as far as I have been able to learn, the details of construction and partial ownership are given in connection with the accompanying map.
Church
-
4
3
5
65
20
HOUSES IN ETNA
1. A. W. Fitts, built by A. G. Chick.
2. Harrison Trumbull.
3. Harvey Camp, built by Itha- mar Hall.
4. Parsonage.
5 . Carleton H. Camp.
6. W. A. Paine, built by B. Fel- lows.
7. H. O. Hoyt, built by Nancy Currier, 1860.
8. Rev. Jesse Coburn, built by B. Fellows, 1824.
9. Begun by Amos Camp, finished by Laban Chandler, 1873.
10. Library 1905.
11. H. L. Huntington.
12-13. Built by John Gould.
14. Built by H. L. Huntington, 1888.
Mill built by John Gould.
15. C. W. Hayes.
16. H. L. Huntington.
17. Built by Henry G. Chandler, 1795 ; Rebuilt after fire by R. E. Barrows, 1924.
18. Store built by Asahel Packard, 1833 ; burned 1924.
19. Shop built by D. C. Whipple.
20. Two or three buildings put together ; G. M. Bridgman.
21. Shop brought from hill to east by W. D. Knowlton, 1886.
22. Post Office.
23. Built by Perley Buck.
23a. Mrs. Gilman Wright.
24. School, built 1852.
25. Built by H. L. Huntington for grocery store of E. H. Wright.
26. Built by Thomas Praddex,
1891.
27. Walter Sanborn, John Hun- toon.
28. Laban Chandler.
29. Built for creamery ; Almon
Hayes.
30. N. S. Huntington, Joseph Hatch.
31. Grist mill.
32. "Mill house."
33. Built for Abigail Hill; once "Nabby's Knoll."
34. Mary Hall; Calvin Eaton.
35. Mrs. Lewis Merrill; Freeman Smalley.
36. Matilda La Cass.
37. W. H. Hart.
38. W. H. Trumbull.
39. Roy Stevens.
22
24
25
26
27
-
28.
30
35
31
32
36
33
34
37
38[
39
7
70
80
9
11
10
13
12
160
145
17
150
18
19
20
21
23a
23
PLATE V
CHAPTER V
THE CENTER VILLAGE
B ESIDES the villages at the College Plain and at Etna there are several other centers of population that, though much less in size, are yet entitled to distinct mention.
The center village, "Hanover Center," comprises now about a dozen houses and owes its existence to the location there of the first meeting house. It lies along the two mile road, a half mile westerly from the spot at the geographical center of the town, where the "town plot" was laid out upon paper, but which as thus laid out was not in a place convenient for settlement. It surrounds a rectangular parcel of land, twelve rods wide and sixty-nine rods long, containing 5.175 acres, that was conveyed to the town in 1795 by Solomon Jacobs, for a "military parade" ground, in exchange for certain assignments of road allowances. This parade seems to have lain unimproved until 1810, when, at a special meeting in April, the town voted to let it out to be cultivated, smoothed and seeded down, but without expense to the town, and to reserve a pass way on the west side. The highway now passes diagonally across the middle of it. It has never been fenced and never thoroughly smoothed. The first meeting house stood at its southeast corner, and the Burroughs house stood north of it, while the later houses have been on the west side, the house of 1797 being almost directly opposite the first house.
In early times Jonathan Freeman, Jr., is said to have had a store, perhaps in the house which he is reported to have built, in recent years occupied by Willard Hurlbutt. When he gave up the store is not known. Perhaps he sold out to a man named Bicknell, who had a store for many years in the thirties, and perhaps before that time; but if so, Bicknell changed his location, for his store, in which he sold drugs as well as general merchan- dise, stood on the west of the parade and just south of the present school house. Later in the thirties he sold his store to Dr. Edward Smith, who moved the building and made it over into the dwelling house now occupied by Herbert F. Derby.
Bicknell's store was followed by one kept by John Smith. It stood a little south of John O. Gale's house, and may have had
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History of Hanover
also, to some extent, the character of a public house. From Smith it passed to Isaac C. Howard and was burned November 10, 1851. The loss was much felt by the community, especially as the building contained the only public hall in the place, and a generous subscription was made for the assistance of Loren W. Kinne, who proposed to build a store with a hall over it, if he could have help. He built a store on a lot now enclosed in the burying ground, and continued in business for several years, later taking as a partner a veteran of the Civil War, named Smith, but this store was burned about 1864. None has suc- ceeded it.
Besides the suggestion of a public house made above, as kept by John Smith in connection with his store, we have an indication of one in a vote passed at the March town meeting of 1793, when the meeting adjourned "fifteen minutes to the house of Mr. Benja Hatches," apparently under a common impulse to secure the refreshment offered by a tavern of those days.
The school district in which the village lay was Number Three in the original division of the town into districts, but in the course of a somewhat bitter contest in 1826 over a new division, the old district received the Number Thirteen leaving its original number to the seceding fragment. The present school house near the church, west of the parade, was built in 1828, the earlier one having stood about a mile to the north, nearly opposite the barn of La Bombard.
Four meeting houses have stood about the parade. Of the first, which was built by the town on the coming of Mr. Burroughs, the following account is taken from Chase's History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, pp. 193, 194:
This meeting house stood near the southeast corner of the parade at the center village, and east of the highway as now travelled. The ground was given to the town for this purpose by Deacon John Wright, Nov. 17, 1775. He gave also to the town three quarters of an acre west of the meeting house for a burial-lot-the same, in part, that is now in use.
Though still unfinished, the meeting house was opened for use probably in 1774. The town meeting was first held there in March, 1775; on which occasion it was voted to raise £25 for repairing the meeting house and to defray other town charges. In March, 1777, it was voted by the town that the vacant ground on the east side of the house be allowed to the use of the singers, and that the northeast corner be made into seats for the benefit of the town. The construction of news in general seems to have been first left to private enterprise,-each man for himself,-and to have progressed but slowly; for in May, 1778, it was voted "that the town will take at an
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The Center Village
appraisal the pews now in the meeting house, and build pews on the vacant ground, and will seat the meeting house."
Five years later the house appears still unfinished. June 10, 1782, Edward Smith, Otis Freeman, and James Murch were appointed a committee by the town to finish the outside, lay the floors, and make seats in the galleries; and a tax of £20 was raised for that purpose. In April, 1792, a committee was appointed by the town "to seat the meeting house," and four "Quire- sters" were chosen. The town also annually elected a "key-keeper." Lemuel Dowe was thus honored from 1776 to 1778, and then, for a series of years, Solomon Jacobs. Twelve shillings a year was voted to the latter in 1784 for sweeping the house.
Readers of Mr. Chase's History will remember that after the dissension in the church under Mr. Burroughs, he and his people quit the old meeting house and for several years had their meet- ings in barns and private houses, but then decided to have a house of their own. The old house, which, in the distracted condition of the church had been suffered to go to ruin, was, to the great relief of people, set on fire by an incendiary and burned on a night in February, 1797. Of the second house Mr. Chase gives the following account :
Prior to 1791 they [the people of Mr. Burroughs' church] built a new and larger meeting-house on the westerly side of the road, a little north of the parade, on land devoted to that purpose by Jonathan Freeman. It was known as the North Meeting-House, and the old one as the South Meeting - House. Town meetings were held usually in the latter, but in 1791, and occasionally thereafter, in the Burroughs house. It must have been at that date very incomplete, for the church in 1794 made provision, at a cost of $400, "to finish the outside, build a pulpit, plaster the inside walls overhead, make pews on the lower floor, and lay the gallery floors." It had no steeple. On the 2nd of July, 1797, it was struck by lightning and suffered considerable damage.
That part of the old church which had not adhered to Mr. Burroughs continued, under various preachers, and then under Samuel Collins as a minister of its own, to occupy the old building until the fall of 1796, when it determined to have a new house. This was built by private subscription, again quoting Mr. Chase, on the westerly side of the parade, a few rods north of the graveyard. The Universalists, who had at this time, by reason of the dissensions, obtained a foothold in the town, joined in this enterprise, and enjoyed in return the right to use the house every fourth Sunday. It is believed also that the Baptists had privileges there. [On the burning of the old house], the town in the following June voted to dispose of whatever interest it had in it, and to lay out the avails in fencing the burying ground.
This new "South Meeting-house," distinguished as the "large" one, was completed in 1797, according to the inscription upon a tablet which adorned
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History of Hanover
its interior wall near the pulpit. It had a steeple a hundred feet high, with a most graceful spire, surmounted by a cock, which was popularly supposed to crow defiance on all proper occasions. The house was raised June 10, 1796, and the steeple October 28. The peculiarities of ownership in this edifice gave rise to considerable difficulty, but it continued in use between thirty and forty years.
The two religious bodies went on in their separate houses until the departure of Dr. Burroughs in 1809. Uniting soon after that, they had their stated meetings in the south meeting house, excepting on the days assigned to the Universalists, when use was made of the north house. After 1809 the latter was not devoted to any regular use, excepting for the annual town meetings, until about 1830, when the south house having become untenable the north house, being very high posted, was converted into a hall by the laying of a floor above the tops of the old pews. It was then again occupied for Sabbath services and public meetings. In other respects it remained unchanged ; the old sounding board still hung over the pulpit, and in the space of five or six feet beneath the new floor the old square pews were preserved as they stood. Externally the structure without a steeple resembled a barn. For the next ten years this was made to serve for all public purposes in the parish and for the meetings of the town.
Both houses were, however, rapidly deteriorating. In 1833 the town appropriated $300 for repairs on the south meeting house, of which expenditure there is no record, and in March, 1839, an article was inserted in the warrant for the town meeting, on petition of twenty-two citizens, "to see if the town will raise money to repair and put in a state of preservation the meeting house near the center of Hanover which has been used as a Town house for forty years." The vote was adverse, but in the following October $200 was appropriated for the purpose, but probably not spent.
This vote, of course, referred to the north house and an attempt was made in the same year to raise money by subscription to shingle the house, but without success, as the society did not own the building. The south building, which it did own, was in equal need of repairs, but the society resolved not to undertake them unless. it could control and enjoy the use of the building unmolested, as the divided ownership had caused much incon- venience and heartburning. Efforts to obtain a title to it in sever- alty failed by reason of the complication of interests, and in July the plan of building a house entirely new for themselves finally prevailed and was carried into effect under the pastorate of Rev.
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The Center Village
Mr. Ellis, at a cost of about $2100. In November, 1840, pew rents were fixed to aggregate $430, and it was ordered that this amount should be apportioned among the pews annually in October. The new house still stands on the west side of the parade, a few rods north of the site of the other house. After its comple- tion the disposition of the old house was the subject of much wrangling. Finally, about 1844, a party of contestants gathered one night and cutting away the supports of the steeple pulled it bodily over, and the ruins were carried away piecemeal, a part of the material going into the construction of a barn in the north neighborhood belonging to Sheldon Tenney, who headed the Uni- versalist party.
The "new" house is a handsome building, of dimensions fifty- six by forty-two feet, with a belfry and a dome, and contains sixty slips or pews. The land on which it stands was given by John Smith, 2nd. The title rests in the trustees of the society for the use and benefit of the church and society, subject to a joint control. In February, 1844, it was voted to allow the town to use the meeting house for town meetings on terms to be agreed upon, and to sell the interest of the church and society in the old north meeting house. This was done and the building was sold to David Hurlbutt, taken down and set up again in the form of a barn on the west side of the road opposite the present house of G. N. LaBombard, where it was afterward burned.
Not very much is preserved about the houses of the hamlet. That at the northeast corner of the Green is said to have been built by Jonathan Freeman, certainly by one of the Freeman family. The house to the west of it, now occupied by Herbert F. Derby, has just been mentioned. Toward the north end of the west side of the Green is the school house, which was built in 1828. Below the church, already described, is the house of John O. Gale, built by John Smith, probably at the time when he had a store near by. Returning to the northeastern corner of the Green we find, just above the corner, the house of Lester Horton, built by Zeb Real in 1863. Just off the Green, on the north side of the Wolfeboro road, are two houses now owned by C. A. and G. N. LaBombard, of which the more eastern one occupies the site of the house of Dr. Eden Burroughs that was destroyed by fire after Dr. Burroughs left Hanover. The present house was built by Richard Foster, who married Dr. Burroughs' daughter, Irene.
The buildings on the east side of the Green mark the former course of the road. As one goes toward the south the first
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History of Hanover
dwelling, after passing a barn belonging to O. Twombly, is that of Mrs. Alice H. Spaulding. The next is the parsonage of the First Congregational Society, built by the Society in 1835. The brick house below, once belonging to Deacon Asa W. Fellows, was built by Caleb Foster in 1825. Farther down the hill on the same side of the road is the house of Joseph Albert, and nearly opposite is the house of Wilbur LaBombard, which was built by the Rev. Josiah Town in 1814, and still farther down, on the same side of the road, is the old house of Dr. Joel Brown. The house of Mr. Hatch, to which the town meeting once adjourned, was in the field to the east of the present road.
The post office in the village was established August 22, 1828, and the first postmaster was John Smith, 2nd, who was followed by his successor in business, Isaac C. Howard. Since then the succession of officers with the dates of their entering office has been as follows :
Elihu Hurlbutt
1854
Loren W. Kinne
1859
Elihu Hurlbutt
March 23, 1864
David Camp
May
9, 1864
Elihu Hurlbutt 1868
Mrs. Helen J. Gale
1888
CHAPTER VI
THE CENTER CHURCH
T HE checkered and turbulent history of the church at Hanover Center, as far as the departure of Dr. Eden Burroughs in 1809, may be found in Chapter IV of Chase's History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover.
Those who have read that account will remember that the church was an essential part of the town organization, and as such was supported by the proprietors by taxation, the first minister under their employ being the Rev. Knight Sexton, who preached here during the summer for three years, perhaps four, beginning with 1766. The town, as distinguished from the proprietors, assumed the support of the church in 1771, and at a special meet- ing, June 23, 1772, invited the Rev. Eden Burroughs to be the pastor, who accepted the invitation and was installed, September 1, 1772. For some years the meetings of the church were held in private houses in different parts of the town, but in the latter part of 1774 they were held in the meeting house at the Center, though it was still unfinished.
A serious controversy, which arose about 1783 over the subject of church discipline, divided the church, part holding with Mr. Burroughs in seceding from the Presbytery, and part keeping its former relations and securing in 1788 as its pastor the Rev. Samuel Collins of Sandown, N. H., who remained until 1796. From then until the union of the two churches the latter had no settled pastor.
After some years there was a desire on the part of members of both churches to unite, but Mr. Burroughs was not a man to make concessions essential for cooperation, and there were members in the other church who declared that they "would not feel privi- leged under his administration," and no progress was made but after the departure of Dr. Burroughs, to take charge of the church at Dothan, Vt., the union of the two churches at Hanover Center was consummated by the organization of the "First Church of Christ on Congregational Establishment in Hanover," with sixty-nine members, by a council convened at the house of Colonel Otis Freeman, May 16, 1810.1
1 The council consisted of the Rev. Dr. Asa Burton of Thetford, Vt., Moder- ator, Rev. Isaiah Potter of Lebanon, Scribe, and Rev. Stephen Fuller of Ver- shire, Vt.
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History of Hanover
The church was four years without a settled pastor. Early in 1814 the pulpit was supplied for some time by the Rev. Benjamin White of Thetford, and a notable revival was experienced under his earnest and stirring labors,1 by which the way was prepared for a settled minister. The Rev. Josiah Towne of Pittsford, Vermont, was called May 20, 1814, accepted June 9, and was ordained and installed on June 21 by a council of nine churches which convened at the house of Jonathan Freeman, Jr.2
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