USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Dublin > Dublin days, old and new ; New Hampshire fact and fancy. > Part 7
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In 1884, Colonel George Elliot Leighton, of St. Louis, bought the John Gleason farm at the west end of the lake and built his summer home there; now it is the property of Mr. Brewster.
Through Colonel Leighton's influence, Monadnock postoffice was established in the brick farmhouse and operated for a con- siderable number of years.
His son, George Bridge Leighton, developed a dairy business and marketed milk, cream, and butter of superior quality. Five farms were purchased in the vicinity and devoted to dairy pro- duction. He continued to carry on the maple sugar lot at the Elmer Howe place, headquarters of his industry.
The Howe farm is located some forty rods west of the lake, the buildings close beside the road. Colonel Leighton caused a granite watering trough to be placed in front of the house and on it were chiseled the words he expressed when he first saw the place: "Happy, I said, whose home is here."
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO
The appearance of the business section of Dublin village has undergone great changes during the course of the past hundred years.
EE
Dublin Village a Century and a Quarter Ago
From a pencil drawing by Maria E. Perry, sister of Mrs. George Gowing, first wife of Henry C. Piper.
Dublin Village in 1900
v.
John Lawrence Mauran
This architect designed the Public Library, the Consolidated School building, the Village Oval, and re-designed the Town Hall front.
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An old drawing was made of the upper village a century ago by Maria Perry, sister of Mrs. George Gowing and first wife of Henry C. Piper. The young lady also made the illustrations for Dr. Leonard's North American Spelling Book.
The picture shows the old brick town-house, a square- shaped building at the top of the second hill west of the vil- lage, where the Frothingham residence stands now. The fine old meeting-house is opposite, and stood on the site where Mrs. Dr. Farnham afterward built her summer home, "Breezy- top," now owned by Mrs. Bremer.
The old parsonage remains unchanged in appearance and location, once the home of Dr. Leonard, where the first free public library was established. The site deserved and has now received a bronze tablet to mark the spot where this important historic event occurred.
The small brown Moses Marshall cottage was owned by Mrs. Caroline May and Miss Lydia Dodge, summer residents, in 1866, but was bought in 1880 by the Craigin family, who spent their vacations here. The house burned down some fifty years ago.
The brick church was erected by the Trinitarian society and stood on the site of the present Souther house, more recently owned by the Gleason family. It was taken down and in its place a new building of wood construction was erected in the lower village in 1877.
Joseph and Aaron Appleton conducted a store in the small house on the left, at the top of the first hill, eventually pur- chased by the Leffingwells of Providence, R. I., who enlarged it to a three-story building and operated it as a summer hotel, under the name "Appleton House," and finally changed it to "The Leffingwell." Joseph Appleton sold needed merchandise, including Medford rum, which cost 3 cents per glass with su- gar, 2 cents without. The buildings burned in 1908.
The Dexter Mason house has remained unchanged, except for the small porch at its front door, since it was occupied by Ebenezer Greenwood, town clerk and postmaster, who was born in a log house opposite the Rider Mill, near Thorndike Pond, in 1812.
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The Union Store, next it, was moved back when M. D. Mason took over the business in 1869, and became his back store when a new structure was erected in front of it. The building was afterward raised to two-story height, and was conducted over a period of fifty-seven years by Mr. Mason, and myself. Glen H. Scribner now operates the Clover Farms store there.
The large building on the right was Chamberlain's Tavern, built in 1772, and moved east to its present location in 1852, when the Unitarian church was erected in its place.
Altemont Masonic Lodge was established in Dublin in 1815, and held its meetings on the upper story of the tavern until the Lodge was moved to Peterborough in 1825. The building be- came the home of the late Wilfred Fiske; Mrs. Fiske is the present owner and occupant.
James Chamberlain built the large residence in the left fore- ground in 1773, afterward owned successively by Rev. Edward Sprague, Benjamin and Joseph Perry.
The Chamberlain house was later taken down, and out of the material were erected twin residences, one of them owned and occupied by George Gowing, the other by George Gleason.
The Gleason house was destroyed by fire in 1949; in its place the new owner, Millard Worcester, has erected a mod- ern garage.
After the present church was constructed in the village, a row of horse-sheds was built along the highway where the Emerald Service Station is now located. These were removed afterward and a set of hay scales installed.
Across the street nearly opposite, a small barn stood close beside a beech tree some twenty feet in height. Several deeds were excuted in past years mentioning this particular tree as one of the objectives designated in the description of property conveyed. Tree and building were removed when the town hall was built in 1881.
THE VILLAGE OVAL
John Lawrence Mauran redesigned the front of the town
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hall in order that it might better conform to the surrounding architecture, and suggested white paint, with trimmings of green, as the ideal color combination for a country village.
With the construction of the South Side Highway, built during the period between 1914 and 1918, Mr. Mauran aided in the movement to eliminate the unsightly telephone poles from the street, with their scores of wires and cables, and place the wires under ground. Numerous catch-basins were installed and connected for the purpose of draining off surface water.
Mrs. Mauran gave the oval to the town, as a memorial to her parents, Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Chapman, who had long been summer residents of Dublin. A concrete curb encircles it, and, at the west end, a thirty-ton boulder was brought in by tractor and placed within the circle.
A steel flagpole has been erected near the center. Suitably grassed, and pleasingly embellished with flowering shrubs, the small and attractive oval adds a bit of charm to the village center.
Walter Robbe fell from high up on a telephone pole, across the street from the town hall, while repairing an electric wire and was killed.
Twenty and more years ago, two young people were re- turning from a dance by automobile at an early morning hour. A dense fog and, perhaps because of the loss of sleep, fatigue made driving hazardous. The car struck the boulder head-on with such impact that the great thirty-ton stone was moved back slightly from its place. The young lady in the car died from the effects of injuries received.
At the last March meeting it was voted to narrow the oval, removing part of a protruding shoulder of the sidewalk at the east end to give wider clearance for cars and trucks in aid of greater safety.
GALEN CLARK
Dublin has produced a considerable number of men and women who have gone from their native town and gained po- sitions of prominence in the world
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It would be inadvisable to attempt to list their names here, lest we inadvertently omit others equally deserving, but it does seem desirable to mention the name of one former resident of whom townspeople know very little, but whose career was both interesting and unusual.
Our library contains his published book and includes the author's portrait. Hildreth Allison has provided the following sketch of the former Custodian and Guardian of the Yosemite Valley:
"Galen Clark was the son of Jonas Clark, of Townsend, Massachusetts, who settled in that part of Dublin which is now Harrisville, in 1797, and established the first woolen mill in town, on the site of the present Colony Mills. Jonas Clark sold the mill to James Horsely, in 1804, removed to Shipton, Quebec, but re- turned to Dublin in 1819.
"Galen was the seventh, in a family of eleven children, born in Canada, but spent his early life in Dublin. He could see no future here; farmed for a time, but disliked it intensely. He served an apprenticeship as a "bound boy," but having worked out his time, he removed to Missouri, where he married. Two brothers, George Faber and Samuel Fulton Clark, graduated from the Harvard Divinity School and were ordained Unitarian ministers.
"Clark was of a restless nature, and, feeling the urge of great cities, moved from Missouri to Philadelphia, where his wife died.
"He drifted west again and prospected for gold in California, but with little success. His health failed, and the doctors gave him a year to live. Sick and discouraged, he sought the heart of the Sierras.
"While hunting in the vicinity of Yosemite Valley, in May, 1858, he fell in with a party of friendly Indians who told him of a nearby stand of gigantic trees, which no white man had ever seen.
"Clark doubted their veracity, but his curiosity was aroused, and he investigated. Almost before he realized, he was walking among an impressive growth of evergreens averaging two hun- dred and sixty-five feet in height and of proportionate girth.
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Their stature, stateliness and venerable mien, overawed him, and he removed his hat in reverence.
"One of the mightiest of these fabulous trees, still standing, is calculated, by count of its rings, to be 3,100 years old. This giant was growing more than a thousand years before the time of Christ; is 273 feet high, 130 feet from the ground to its low- est limb, 102 feet in circumference, and 24 feet in diameter 16 feet above the ground.
"Clark lived among these mammoth Sequoias for a year, surprised his physicians, and completely recovered his health. When the great trees passed into public ownership as Mariposa Grove, he became their custodian and was later appointed Guardian of the Yosemite Valley.
"Galen Clark was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt, whom he escorted through the grove during one of Roosevelt's trips through the West; and a friend, too, of John Burroughs, the naturalist.
"Mr. Clark lived to a great age, being nearly one hundred years old when he died. Four Sequoia seedlings, now grown to stalwart giants, mark the corners of his grave."
NATHAN METHLEY
Nathan Methley, 86, poet, folk singer, balladeer, lives alone on the dirt-surfaced Gold Mine road, just over the bridge and quite close to what was once District No. 3 schoolhouse.
The Wellman family lived in this house years ago and, after they vacated, Fred Knight moved in; his large family grew up there. Fred was part owner of Moore Brothers and Knights' sawmill, located a few rods south on the road to Jaffrey. C. Fred Wellman was Dublin's finest penman.
The Diamond Ledge Gold Mine Company operated in town, but for only a short time, for no gold was found. They did ac- complish something however, which has remained: they gave the highway its name-"Gold Mine Road."
Nate Methley doesn't record his music on paper. He may not be able to tell an F clef from a G, or a half note from an
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eighth. His music is composed and carried in his head. That he can keep separate some two dozen of his compositions without reference to notes seems an unusual accomplishment. His voice is remarkably sweet for a man of his yearš.
Most of his poems are of a sentimental sort and tell of youth and home and happy days of long ago, like this one:
O, that nice little cottage
With its gable and porch, The wood in the shed, white maples and birch;
The little brown barn with its mows full of hay,
The nice old stable where the cows used to stay.
Mr. Methley's homespun philosophy and poems have at- tracted quite a good deal of attention; newspapers and maga- zines have given him considerable publicity.
DUBLIN, A SUMMER RESORT
Mr. and Mrs. Thaddeus Morse began taking summer board- ers in 1857. Their home, at the outlet of the lake, was frequented by persons who afterward became permanently identified with the town's summer life.
In 1872, Mrs. Copley Greene, of Boston, erected the first summer residence in Dublin, on the east side of the lake, fol- lowed by Dr. Hamilton Osgood with the second. Gen. Crownin- shield built the third, his elaborate home near the top of Beech Hill, afterward owned by Miss Amy Lowell and now the prop- erty of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Sterling.
A few years later, Mrs. Greene and Dr. Osgood sold their property and moved to "Lone Tree Hill," on the south side of the lake, where an interesting colony was established which became known as the "Latin Quarter."
Within this area have lived Mrs. Copley Greene; her son, Henry Copley Greene; Miss Mary Amory Greene and her sister, Miss Margaret; Dr. Hamilton Osgood; Col. T. W. Higginson; Henry Pemberton; Prof. H. B. Hill; his son, Prof. Edward Bur-
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lingame Hill; Joseph Lindon Smith; Abbott Thayer; George de Forest Brush; Sumner B. Pearmain; Mark Twain; the Kenneth Browns; Hendrik Willem Van Loon; the Misses Caldwell; Aldrich and Troupe; Prof. T. W. Richards; Edmund C. Tarbell, and Prof. Sanger, of Harvard.
TEATRO BAMBINO
Joseph Lindon Smith's Italian Theatre, "Teatro Bambino," a unique and charming outdoor structure, has afforded delight- ful entertainment each summer during the half-century of its existence.
While it was being constructed, Mr. Smith was ably helped by his father, but he let it be known that more assistance was needed by posting a large-lettered sign on his avenue, which read, "Laborers Wanted."
The appealing sign brought two more capable workers in the person of Professor Pumpelly and Colonel Higginson, who labored faithfully with shovel and wheelbarrow. At the conclu- sion of the long, hard day's work, his willing assistants, hot and weary, departed for home. They were confronted with these de- pressing words, which appeared upon the opposite side of the "Help Wanted" sign-"NO PAY."
The names of Colonel Higginson, Professor Pumpelly, Russell Sullivan can be recorded among distinguished persons taking part in the theatre productions, along with that of George de Forest Brush, some of whose early artist's life was passed upon western plains.
In Mr. Smith's studio barn, Frank W. Benson, who spent many summers in Dublin, painted Colonel Higginson's por- trait. Professor Karl Baerman gave two delightful piano re- hearsals there in 1898.
Mr. Smith has generously lent aid to every worthwhile cause in which he has been asked to assist. At eighty-six, he is still painting skillfully, and, together with Mrs. Smith, has just re- turned from Egypt, where he accompanied four fellow archæol- ogists into the tomb of Kaufuier, at Sakkara. He has done ex-
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tensive work in mural decorations, taught in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and at Harvard University.
At their home, "Loon Point," Mr. and Mrs. Smith have en- tertained graciously. Miss Amelia Earhart, aviatrix, Mrs. Smith's cousin, was a visitor at their home shortly before taking off on her last ill-fated flight.
On October 19, 1950, the morning newspapers announced the death of Joseph Lindon Smith, aged 87, world famous artist and archæologist, which occurred at his Dublin home during the previous night.
GENERAL CASPAR CROWNINSHIELD
General Crowninshield was the first wealthy aristocrat to come to Dublin to locate. He was a member of the Somerset and other clubs, and was well known in Boston business and professional circles.
After a season at Dwight Learned's he bought a tract of land high up on Beech Hill, extending westerly to the Harris- ville road. His residence, completed in the vicinity of 1875, stood fully eighteen hundred feet above sea level and com- manded a sweeping view of the lake, mountain, and distant hills to the west.
His house was the first in town to be equipped with bath- rooms, furnace heat, housekeepers' accommodations, and but- ler's pantry.
The stable had quarters for coachman and groom and box- stalls for the horses. To his open carriage was hitched a pair of beautiful bay horses, wearing silver-plated harnesses, driven by a coachman in livery. It was a brilliant, unusual spectacle to our youthful eyes to see the equipage speed past our home, over the narrow dirt road, toward the mountain brook.
In our cemetery, a boulder of the "pudding-stone" type, marks the burial place of Elizabeth Clark Crowninshield, wife of General Caspar Crowninshield. She died in Dublin on De- cember 28, 1885.
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COLONEL HIGGINSON
Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson first came to Dublin in or about 1880, and boarded in the home of John Mason. His title, Colonel, was earned through participation in the Civil War. Afterward the Mason place was sold to Daniel Catlin, of St. Louis, who built his beautiful summer residence there. The location commands one of the town's finest views of lake and mountain.
Colonel Higginson said his name was sometimes confused with that of his cousin, Henry L., wealthy banker, of the firm of Lee, Higginson & Co., but he disclaimed pretense of possess- ing wealth himself.
The wedding of the Higginsons' daughter and only child, Margaret, to Dr. J. Dellinger Barney, of Boston, took place in the Unitarian church in Dublin.
Colonel Higginson was born in 1823; at the age of thirty- five he had formed acquaintanceship with distinguished literary characters and had corresponded with both Carlyle and Darwin. In later life he became an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt.
In his private diary he had made a series of notations de- scribing his impression of some of his author-friends: "Mr.
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Emerson, bounteous and gracious, but thin, dry and angular in intercourse as in person. Garrison, is the only solid moral reality I have ever seen incarnate, the only man who would do to tie to, as they say in the West, and he is fresher and firmer every day, but wanting in intellectual culture and variety. Whittier is the simplest and truest of men, beautiful at home, without fluency of expression and with rather an excess of restraint. Wendell Phillips is always graceful and gay, but inwardly sad, under the bright surface. Thoreau is pure and wonderfully learned in nature things, and deeply wise, and yet tedious in his monologues and cross-questioning. Theodore Parker is as won- derfully learned in books, is as much given to monologue, al- though very agreeable and various, he is still egotistical, dog- matic, bitter often, and showing marked intellectual limitations. Mr. Alcott is an innocent charlatan-maunders about nature and when outdoors has neither eyes, ears, or limbs. Lowell is infinitely entertaining, but childishly egotistical and monopo- lizing."
In 1862, Higginson joined the 51st Massachusetts Regiment and was given a recruiting office in Worcester, where he ac- cepted a request to become colonel of a Negro regiment.
After the war he resumed his literary career; Cheerful Yes- terdays is one of his outstanding productions.
For twenty years he acted as advisor to Emily Dickinson, who, in 1862, had sent him four of her poems for criticism.
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson had been shrouded in mystery, and was a legendary figure and recluse. Re- garded by some critics as America's greatest poet, her talent was but partly recognized until after her death in 1886 at the age of fifty-six. She had written at least twelve hundred poems between 1862 and 1886, and, perhaps, several hundred more.
Together with Mabel Loomis Todd, wife of David Todd, professor of Astronomy and Director of the Observatory at Am- herst College, Colonel Higginson selected and edited the first and second volumes of Emily Dickinson's poems for publication.
Scores of letters were sent from his Dublin summer home in 1890-1891 to Mrs. Todd in Amherst, relative to the prepara- tion of the forthcoming book. The Todds visited the Higginsons
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in Dublin. We recall having taken many letters to Mrs. Todd to the post office, invariably penned in his small, neat hand, always in violet ink.
Colonel Higginson was one of Dublin's best liked and most admired summer residents. He was interested in town affairs, civic activities, and became the first President of the local Vil- lage Improvement Society. It was during his term of office that the Improvement Society bought the tower clock from the Uni- tarian Society in Keene, and installed it in the belfry of the vil- lage church. A new electric clock has since taken the place of the original: a memorial to the boys in service of the Second World War.
He gave lectures and delightful public readings on literary subjects.
Mary Thacher Higginson, his wife, was author of a con- siderable number of poems. In 1893, there was published a small book entitled, Such As They Are, Poems by Thomas Went- worth Higginson and Mary Thacher Higginson.
A highly prized copy of the little volume lies on my table beside me, inscribed in the Colonel's neat hand and written with violet ink, as usual, addressed to my wife and myself "With cordial regards from their friends, The Authors."
The Higginsons built their new home, "Glimpsewood," on the south side of the lake and were a welcome addition to "The Latin Quarter," the colony of residents in that locality.
Mrs. Higginson dedicated her first poem in Such As They Are to their new home. It is recorded here under the title
GLIMPSEWOOD
The water glimmering through the leaves- One soft blue peak above-
The murmuring quiet summer weaves- This is thy home, dear love!
The pewee's call awakes the day, And in the sunlight dim
The hermit thrush's thrilling lay Shall be thine evening hymn.
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The forest birches wave and gleam Through bows of feathery pine, Ah, no, dear love! 'tis not a dream This fairy home is thine.
The finest of Colonel Higginson's poems, it seems to me, is his "American Stonehenge," written at "Glimpsewood." It ap- pears in this book under the subject Mountain Pastures.
Colonel Higginson frequently walked to the village over the then dusty road, to do an errand at the post office; nearly as often, perhaps, he rode with me on the backless seat of the de- livery wagon while I was serving as clerk in the store which I afterward conducted.
He was a courtly gentleman of the old school, like his friends Bryant, Holmes, Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, and Lowell; charming and gracious, beloved by everyone, an outstanding figure in Dublin's distinguished colony when the town was at its peak of popularity as a summer resort.
ABBOTT THAYER
Abbott Handerson Thayer was a resident of Dublin for more than thirty-five years. He was regarded as one of America's foremost painters, a naturalist of recognized ability, and the dis- coverer of protective coloration, which led to the use of camou- flage. Barry Faulkner, Richard Meryman, and Alexander James were pupils of Abbott Thayer.
He made use of photography, to some extent, in his paint- ing and in connection with his experimental work in protective coloration.
Miss Balestier, of Brattleboro, sister of Mrs. Rudyard Kipling, sat for her portrait with Thayer. She boarded at the Rice's and frequently rode with me on the delivery wagon to his studio. I photographed her hands, which enabled Mr. Thayer to do some detailed work without the presence of his subject; photo- graphs were made of his "Caritas," too, in which he used local models.
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Some of Thayer's best work hang in Washington, D. C., studios, and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Several paintings of Monadnock are included in these groups.
During the winter the family tried living with very little heat in the house, believing the cold air to be more nearly free from germs which cause the common cold, but Mr. Thayer said that whenever he rode on the train afterward he was par- ticularly susceptible and almost invariably became the victim of a bad cold.
Outside his studio on one occasion he was experimenting with a stuffed partridge, surrounding it with sticks, pine needles, and dry grasses, and asked me to photograph it. The bird was so cleverly concealed by its surroundings as to be almost invisible. He published a pamphlet afterward, containing the picture and an explanation of his theory of protective, or concealing, color- ation.
While we were engaged, a carriage containing three ladies drove up the avenue toward his house. Mr. Thayer dreaded visitors and didn't want to be interrupted. He suddenly jumped over the wall close by, lay down, totally invisible to everyone but himself-a perfect demonstration of complete concealment- and remained hidden until the visitors drove away. Then he re- appeared and said, "False alarm."
One day he held a snake in his hand-a checkered adder, generally supposed to carry a poisonous bite. Mr. Thayer let the snake bite his finger in order to prove, he said, that we have no poisonous snakes here. He said the fangs of a poison snake fold back into the roof of his mouth, but, if he bites, they are thrust forward, and an adder snake is constituted differently.
Mr. Thayer said, "Dublin is the only place I know of where no native is afflicted with hay fever."
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