USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Dublin > Dublin days, old and new ; New Hampshire fact and fancy. > Part 2
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He was close-mouthed and seldom divulged personal af- fairs. When his neighbor, Alfred Frost, met him returning from Marlboro, where he had sold a load of potatoes, and asked, "What did you get for your potatoes, Asa?" he replied, "Money!" -and drove on.
As a schoolboy he experienced considerable difficulty with his lessons. A somewhat strained situation developed between teacher and pupil-the schoolmaster, who bore the familiar first name of William, was not in rugged health and on his way to school occasionally resorted to the use of his doctor's prescrip- tion in the form of tablets or pills. Asa thus described his action: "Bill took a pill, then went up the hill."
He settled on his father's farm, and continued to carry it on up to the time of his death. His neighbors, the Frost boys, always jovial and sometimes hilarious, fashioned in rhyme their own conception of Mr. Knowlton's faithful old horse in this manner:
Asa Knowlton has an old grey mare,
Her back humps up and her belly is bare, Her legs are long and her thighs are thin, But she's a bully old mare, says Asa Knowtin.
The Silas Frost family were excellent people. Mr. Frost was a man of exemplary character and a most kindly neighbor. He was mechanically inclined, a good stone mason, and possessed
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original, ingenious ideas. One of his products was a double- barreled shotgun, one barrel mounted above the other. This construction required an extension to one of the hammers and some other mechanical changes which, completed, produced very good shooting results.
In vivid language he told the boys in the neighborhood of hunting wild animals in his younger days. On their way home at night they timidly hurried through every heavily shaded spot suspecting an attack from a lynx, wolves, or, perhaps, a moun- tain lion.
When a case of hiccoughs, of long duration, failed to re- spond to treatment, Mr. Frost recommended popcorn tea for my sister Jennie. The patient was relieved soon after-it may have been because of the tea, or perhaps the ailment may have run its course.
The Frosts had three sons, Walter, Alfred, and Charles. Mrs. Frost was the sister of John, David, and Zaman Mason, and a cousin of my father.
Alfred Frost, a rugged fellow, said that his grandmother, Abagail Mason, a slight little woman, seventy and more years old, could wring the clothes dryer, by hand, than he could. She had the knack.
Alfred carried on the farm. He offered me twenty-five cents for a day's work helping plant potatoes on Saturday, when there was no school; I immediately accepted the tempting prop- osition. The hired man, whose I.Q. could be rated a trifle on the minus side, entertained with occasional snatches of song: "We're the boys who fear no noise and seldom cry for home." He provided an answer to his own conundrum: "Why is my bed like a wagon?" "Because it's a little buggy."
The day passed pleasantly, and more work was accomplished than expected, seven bushels of seed potatoes having been dropped, as my own contribution to the task. Alfred gave me an extra nickel, totaling thirty cents. It seemed to me highly satisfactory compensation for my day's work.
Walter, the oldest, together with Henry H. Piper, prepared for Dartmouth College at Appleton Academy, New Ipswich. They boarded themselves and carried a generous supply of
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food. Walter considered it a worthy accomplishment to take a whole mince pie, bite into it, and continue eating toward the center until the opening became so deep and wide that pie ex- tended back to his ears. He was a powerful fellow, six feet tall, rowed on the Dartmouth crew, and settled in Colorado Springs, where he engaged in a successful business career.
Two years ago I stopped in Colorado Springs on a return trip from the Pacific Coast via the Canadian Rockies, and called upon Walter's son-Hildreth-Silas Frost's grandson-an attorney.
I had seen him but once before. He was then a student at Harvard and we were aboard a special train for New Haven to attend the annual Harvard-Yale football game.
It was difficult to associate the rugged young student I re- membered with this now elderly, gray-haired man, for time had wrought a change, but when I mentioned Silas Frost, our neigh- bor in Dublin, and the distant family relationship, he grasped my hand warmly and greeted me heartily.
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DISTRICT NO. 5
The old brick schoolhouse in District No. 5 stood on a ledge beside the old Marlboro road past Stone Pond, more than a mile from its nearest scholar
Its rear backed into the Shattuck pasture; across the road in front was Elliott Twitchell's pasture, in which his sugar lot was located. In the sugar house were stored sap pans, tubs, sap buckets, spouts, and hangers.
The schoolhouse was built with a large fireplace which had been bricked up, and a long funnel extended well across the room, connecting a cast-iron stove with the chimney. There was no playground; hill-dill could be played in the narrow road and duck on the rock on the ledge close by; a baseball was quickly lost in the bushes.
Winter traveling was difficult. Roads were plowed leaving an unplowed center, termed a "balk." Twenty-five degrees be- low zero was recorded on the severest days.
Sometimes old Jack was called upon to draw the blue two- seated pung sleigh to the schoolhouse, straw on the bottom floor of the pung for warmth, loaded with half a dozen children, cold and uncomfortable. The passengers delivered, Jack was
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turned around, headed homeward, and allowed to make the re- turn trip, a mile and a half in distance, entirely unguided and alone.
Elbert Robie lived with his parents on their farm at Stone Pond. He played on the Dublin baseball club, the "Crescents," and was somewhat older than the boys at No. 5, but occasion- ally came down to take part in their games.
The Crescents had arranged a game for the coming Satur- day but Elbert went to bed sick the day before. On Saturday morning he got up and prepared to dress for the game. His father forbade his going and an argument arose. Feeling be- came intense and tempers flared when his father seized Elbert's cap and belt, put them into the stove, and burned them up.
That night Elbert climbed out his chamber window and dis- appeared in the darkness. His parents never saw him again! Eventually a boy chum received a letter from him, bearing an Oregon postmark.
Mr. and Mrs. William Spaulding lived in the western part of the town on an elevation overlooking Stone Pond, and gave the place its name, "Spaulding Hill." There were two boys in the family, Fred, the older, and Frank. As Fred reached teen age he attended only the winter term at No. 5, for his services were needed at home for the farm work.
After finishing school in Dublin, Frank prepared at Lawrence Academy and graduated from Amherst College, University of Leipzig (magna cum laude), University of Berlin, Sorbonne, and College of France in Paris; and Clark University (A.M., Ph.D.). He was superintendent of schools in Newton, Massa- chusetts, at Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Cleveland, Ohio.
Amherst College conferred the degree of LL.D. upon him. At the conclusion of the first World War he headed a commis- sion to France for the purpose of establishing an educational system, then accepted a professorship at Yale University.
In recognition of his contribution to the College, Yale es- tablished the Frank Ellsworth Spaulding Foundation. Disting- uished educators participate in the lecture program. The first was delivered by Dr. Spaulding's son, Francis Trow Spaulding, formerly Dean of the Graduate School at Harvard, afterward
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President of the University of the State of New York and Com- missioner of Education in New York State.
Newspapers announced the sudden death from heart failure of President Francis Trow Spaulding, 53 years old, at his Moul- tonboro, New Hampshire, camp, on March 25, 1950.
A second son is associated with a New York publishing house.
Since his retirement the elder Dr. and Mrs. Spaulding have made their home in California. Each summer they motor East, visit New Haven, Amherst, and Northampton at commencement time, and end their stay with their two daughters, who conduct the Mary Spaulding bookshop in Winchester, Massachusetts.
There were two giant elm trees standing beside the road midway between old District No. 5 schoolhouse and Stone Pond. They grew on opposite sides of the road, one close beside the original Houghton home where an old cellar-hole exists now, surrounded by meadow pinks and honeysuckles.
Father related a story concerning their origin as he had heard it in years gone by: These fine old trees were said to have grown from sprigs of elm carried by a horseback rider who dis- mounted at the spot and thrust them into the earth. They took root, grew, and eventually became the great trees we saw in childhood days.
In the mowing opposite, plovers flew over the field and had their nests there. My brother John secured one of their eggs for his collection, which he kept in a shallow cigar box, partly filled with bran. I recollect the plover as a somewhat larger bird than the robin and have never seen them elsewhere. The birds have probably entirely disappeared now from that locality.
MR. APPLETON'S 1786 TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Samuel Appleton, Esq., of Boston, acknowledged to the 1852 Centennial committee of arrangements their invitation to attend, but said his "age and bodily infirmities will compel me to be absent from the occasion."
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Mr. Appleton stated:
I have always taken an interest in the town of Dublin In, or about the year 1786, I resided there for four months and was engaged, during that time, in teaching two dif ferent schools, say of two months each, at eight dollar per month. One of the districts was in the Street, as it wa then called; the other was in the easterly part of the tow near Peterborough. In this latter district, it was arrange for the schoolmaster to live with the family that would board and lodge him the cheapest. Having been informe where I was to board, I set out for my new home on foo carrying the greater part of my wardrobe on my back an the remainder tied up in a bandana handkerchief. On ar riving at the place of my destination, I found my host an hostess, Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks, ready, and apparently glad to see me.
They were to receive for my board, lodging, and wash ing, sixty-seven cents per week. Their house was made c logs, with only one room in it, which served for parlo kitchen, and bedroom. I slept on a trundle-bed, which during the day, was wheeled under the large bed, wher the master and mistress of the house reposed during th night.
Every morning and evening, there were family prayer and reading from the Bible, in which I sometimes took a active part. After spending two weeks at Mr. Fairbanks' I removed to Mr. Perry's. He was a good farmer, his wif an excellent housekeeper, and I finished my school-terr very pleasantly to myself, and, I believe, very satisfactoril to my employers.
Since that time, great improvements have been mad in the public schools of Dublin. I am informed that it cor tains as good schools and turns out as competent teacher as any town in New Hampshire. In consideration of th 'good and healthful condition' of its public schools, and the 'spirit of improvement' which appears to animate thos who are engaged in them, I am induced to send to the tow
Luther Darling's Home at the Foot of the Dublin Trail to Monadnock
His son Josiah succeeded him, followed by William Farmer.
From Snow Hill Looking North Fifty Years Ago
The Wait Place, the Farnham and Frothingham residences on the "Old Common"; Beech Hill is in the background.
Photo by Granite State Studio
Dublin Consolidated School
Dublin Public Library
Photo by Lalime (Swamscott )
Mr. Lehmann's Dublin School-The Library
Photo by Lalime (Swamscott )
Soccer Practice on the Dublin School Memorial Field
Sugar House in Silas Frost's Sugar Lot (1895) Fred Lewis, Charlie Clark, and Henry Frost gathering sap.
Cutting Ice
Dublin men cut considerable ice fifty years ago. Charles W. Fiske pulls out; Willard Pierce rests momentarily; Clifford Gowing saws, while Dr. Smith looks on.
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of Dublin my check for the sum of one thousand dollars, to be appropriated to educational purposes in such manner as the Superintending School Committee shall deem ex- pedient.
With best wishes for the welfare and progress of the public schools of Dublin, for the happiness of its citizens and the success of the approaching celebration, I remain, gentlemen, very respectfully,
Your friend and obedient servant, -SAMUEL APPLETON
Mr. Appleton was a native of New Ipswich, the home of Appleton Academy, named in his honor.
THE TOWN CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL
In 1916, Dublin residents voted to discontinue the District system with its five schoolhouses and erect a central school building in the village, Mr. Mauran to be the architect.
The substantial, convenient building is of brick construction with study rooms for all grades up to and including the eighth. High school students receive daily transportation to and from the Peterborough High School.
There is an excellent auditorium, a kitchen for the prepera- tion of noonday lunches, furnace heat, electric lights, artesian- well water supply, and modern plumbing.
The principal is assisted by three additional teachers, and pupils have the advantage of a music teacher, school nurse, and receive medical and dental attention.
FIRST FREE LIBRARY ESTABLISHED THROUGH THE VISION AND EFFORTS OF THE REV. LEVI W. LEONARD, D.D.
"The First Free Public Library in America was the Dublin Juvenile Library, established in 1822. It was supported by vol-
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untary contribution, but the use of it was free to all." (State- ment by the late Major Otis G. Hammond, Director of the New Hampshire Historical Society, in Some Things About New Hampshire).
Our Dublin Library now has available about 7,000 books and has been authoritatively pronounced "one of the best small libraries in the state." Mrs. Dorothy Worcester is the librarian.
The building, of stone construction, was given by Mrs. Eliza Carey Farnham as a memorial to her husband, the late Dr. Horace P. Farnham, M.D., of New York City. The cornerstone was laid July 10th, 1900, by Rev. Dr. Robert Collyer.
DUBLIN SCHOOL
A boy's college preparatory school was established in Dub- lin in 1935 by Mr. and Mrs. Paul W. Lehmann. Mr. Lehmann is a graduate of Clark University, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. They chose as its name "Dublin School."
The teaching staff of ten members at this time includes graduates of Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, Yale University, Princeton University, Bates College, Brown University, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Pennsylvania.
There are seven subject-matter teachers, two additional teachers in music, and one in art. Most of the faculty live on the campus with their families in six separate house units; they have their meals with the boys, and join in activities outside the classroom. Members of the faculty direct extracurricular ac- tivities, participate in work programs, and coach the athletic teams. About fifteen outside speakers are scheduled each year.
The school provides courses of study required for admission to any college or engineering school. It holds membership in the New England Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, the Educational Records Bureau, and the National Council of Independent Schools.
The grounds cover about two hundred acres. The properties
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consist of six house units, used for dormitory purposes; a new school house containing classrooms, a science laboratory, and the library; a shop; a studio; and other incidental buildings. There are athletic fields, tennis courts, a hockey rink, a ski slope and tow.
The school is a non-profit organization, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Hampshire. In 1947-48 the student body of fifty boys came from thirteen states and three foreign countries.
Modern in its equipment and teaching practices, acutely aware of democratic social responsibilities, "old-fashioned" in its recognition of the "tried and true" both intellectually and morally, the school provides a deep and well-rounded program for each of its students. Headmasters refer to Mr. Lehmann as the headmaster's headmaster, and look upon the school as a highly successful demonstration of an ideal boarding school.
There are over two hundred alumni, most of whom have graduated from colleges and technical schools throughout the country.
Dublin School is an important factor in the town, especially during the normally inactive winter season, providing both ma- terial and cultural opportunities.
The Memorial Athletic Field, built in memory of the five alumni who gave their lives in the recent war, has, perhaps, the most unusual setting of any field in the country, with an elevation in the vicinity of eighteen hundred feet above sea level, and far-reaching views to distant eastern areas which in- clude Mount Crotched, Skatutakee, the Unconoonucs, and Temple Mountain range. In the foreground below is Dublin Village, and to the south and west, Monadnock looms in the distance. The crystal blue waters of the lake, born of moun- tain springs, nestles among wooded hills close by.
MOUNTAIN PASTURES
No other New England town offers a more delightful dis- play of autumn foliage than our own. An ideal spot from which
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to see it is the height of land on the Old Marlboro road, a half mile east of Stone Pond.
The great wide valley in the foreground extends to a higher level and the mountain continues up, in a narrowing line toward the summit, where it ends with a seemingly rounded peak.
The entire territory is covered with a diversification of for- est growth, its foliage of almost indescribable coloring in the fall, greens, yellows, browns, and gorgeous reds, a display to fascinate and enthrall.
About two hundred fifty head of cattle used to be pastured on the Dublin side of the mountain during the summer months. Those old stone walls, built by hardy settlers of early years, many of them extending far up the mountainside, were intended to be permanent pasture enclosures.
Silas Frost said a good man could lay nine rods of wall in a day's time, under favorable conditions, working from sun to sun. But water undermined and settled the stones into the earth at various places, making it necessary to add a rail above the top of the wall in order to give sufficient height.
Colonel Higginson noted these walls during his many years' residence in Dublin, and deplored the well-intentioned, but, as he believed, useless labor involved. He thus describes his ob- servations in his poem.
AN AMERICAN STONEHENGE*
Far up on these abandoned mountain farms Now drifting back to forest wilds again, The long, gray walls extend their clasping arms, Pathetic monuments of vanished men.
Serpents in stone, they wind o'er hill and dell 'Mid orchards long deserted, fields unshorn-
The crumbling fragments resting where they fell Forgotten, worthless to a race new-born.
* From Such As They Are.
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Nearer than stones of storied Saxon name
These speechless relics to our hearts should come. No toiler for a priest's or monarch's fame,
This farmer lived and died to shape a home.
What days of lonely toil he undertook!
What years of iron labor! and for what?
To yield the chipmunk one more secret nook,
The gliding snake one more sequestered spot.
So little time on earth; so much to do; Yet all that waste of weary, toil-worn hands!
Life came and went; the patient task is through;
The men are gone; the idle structure stands.
NEW ENGLAND WEATHER
Cattle were driven up from Massachusetts by dairymen Baker and Flint, of Lincoln; Jahleel Sherman, of Lexington; and Elisha Haines and his son Joel, from Sudbury. The average date of their arrival was May 10th. Ordinarily there was enough feed for them to live out of doors, and the weather was fairly comfortable.
But seasons vary, and following their arrival one year, after two and a half days on the road, the tired cattle were exposed to a ten-inch snowstorm and a night and day of near-winter weather. Three of them died because of the severe cold and snow-covered ground.
No subject is more universally discussed than the weather. People have said "the seasons are changing." But a single year is not a true guide. However severe New England snowstorms of recent years have been, none have yet matched the great storm which ended on the second Tuesday in March, 1888.
Town meeting was adjourned after Dwight Learned, mod- erator, had snowshoed to the village and rounded up enough voters in the town hall to form a quorum in order to adjourn the meeting. To one sitting in M. D. Mason's store and looking
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across the street, only that part of the Gleason store which was above the first story porch could be seen.
Twenty years previous, during the first week of April, reli- able citizens told, there had been snow so deep, and a crust so intensely strong, that ox-drawn loads of wood could be hauled across fields and over fences without regard to highways.
But during school days seventy years ago, scholars going home from school saw Alfred Frost plowing his field in the month of January.
A study of scientific weather records shows a pretty uniform average of heat and cold, wet weather and dry, over a seven years period.
Would-be oracles predict the winter ahead by the fur of wild animals, the elevation above water of muskrat houses, or the thickness of corn husks; cold, if the husks are thick, mild if thin. Mark Twain said he "had observed that if the husks are thick, the winter will be colder than the summer; if thin, the summer will be warmer than the winter."
Before the days of Government forecasting, there were weather-wise sayings, based upon long-time observation, most of them reasonably accurate.
The familiar "Red at night, sailor's delight" meant fair weather the following day.
"Red in the morning, sailors take warning" indicated un- pleasant weather ahead.
When ants carried out grains of sand from their nests, fair weather was expected.
Overcast sky in the morning, the weather doubtful, but numerous patches of cobwebs upon the grass meant, quite posi- tively, that the sun would shine before noon.
"When it rains before seven, it will clear before eleven" is just as true now as it was a century ago. In about nine cases out of ten, this old adage will prove correct.
The cuckoo's calling during the forenoon, in hot haying-time days, indicated showers in the afternoon.
To the old-time native living within the shadow of Monad- nock, fair or unpleasant weather was indicated by cloud condi- tions in their relationship to the mountain. Their type, height,
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and density, together with wind direction, enabled experienced observers to foretell pretty accurately the weather during the forthcoming twenty-four hours.
My father quoted an old Indian saying to the effect that the right time to plant corn in the spring was when new leaves on the oak trees had grown to be the size of a mouse's ear.
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THE FOUR SEASONS
SPRING
What wak'st thou Spring? Sweet voices in the woods, And reedlike echoes, that have long been mute; Thou bringest back, to fill the solitudes,
The lark's clear pipe, the cuckoo's viewless flute, Whose tone seems breathing mournfulness or glee,
Even as our hearts may be
-ANONYMOUS
After a long, monotonous winter, spring, with its milder weather, is always welcome. It was particularly pleasing on the farm, for it ushered in the maple sugar season.
Abbott Burpee lived on the eastern slope of Monadnock, now the home of his son Lewis, which he calls "Hid-Away Farm." Mr. Burpee had one of the earliest sugar lots in town, with southern exposure, and always planned to bring newly made cakes of maple sugar to the village on Town Meeting day, which occurs in New Hampshire on the second Tuesday in March. Therefore it can be said that the maple sugar season in Dublin usually begins about the middle of that month.
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A sugar lot of average size generally sets from five hundred to a thousand buckets. The required fuel was usually cut in four-foot lengths and piled in the shed adjoining the sugar house during the summer. Considerable waste wood of inferior quality could be used for this purpose.
There were years when snow was deep in the woods and roads were plowed with oxen and sled in advance. A rock maple, not a white maple, produces the sweetest and most sap; the tree should be a foot in diameter before it is large enough to be tapped. One bucket is sufficient for a tree of small size, but there were giant maples five and six feet in diameter in the lot to which five and six buckets could be set.
The term "sugar bush" is recent. Perhaps it originated in the city or among people who knew nothing of sugar-making. It was almost never heard locally in olden times. Sugar lot, sugar orchard, or sugar-place were the accustomed terms. Sugar bush is misleading-there are blueberry bushes, lilac and rose bushes, and bushes a few feet in height which grow wild, but maple trees are of great size in comparison. Magnificent speci- mens were found in nearly every lot, some of them, perhaps, sixty and seventy feet in height and five or six feet in diameter. Don't say "sugar bush"!
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