USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > Hanover, New Hampshire, a bicentennial book : essays in celebration of the town's 200th anniversary > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26
Just north of Mr. Wright's she passes the store of Justin Hinds who sells books and does printing and book-binding. There is a special sale on pen knives and sealing wax. Mr. Hinds has just published a book containing the Constitution of New Hampshire, Constitution of the United States, Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, and the Constitution of Vermont, selling for twenty-five cents or thirty-seven cents according to the binding. North of this she stops in at the shop of Joseph Roby and orders a new kettle made. Mr. Roby makes any article of tin ware and repairs tin, pewter and crockery. On the corner (now the "Inn corner") stands the tavern belonging to Ebenezer Brewster. It is leased to William Poole but she still thinks of it as Dewey's Coffee House after its previous proprietor. Here her husband is waiting, having a toddy and discussing the news of the day with other gentlemen of the village-it seems that George III, though im- proving somewhat physically, is not going to be capable of resum- ing his duties as king.
1861: The Civil War is beginning. Mrs. 1861 cannot drive across
114
Main Street
the Common. It has been leveled, seeded and surrounded by a neat fence. Lang's store no longer occupies the building at its northeast corner, which has been remodeled into a lodging house for students. In fact, most of the businesses have moved south of Wheelock Street as Eleazar Wheelock had hoped and the majority of the trades people live in that section. The College and faculty are settled north of Wheelock Street-making a real separation be- tween the town and College. Professor Samuel G. Brown now lives on the corner, northwest of Main and Wheelock Streets. Across the street on the southwest corner is the brick house of Joseph Emerson. Dr. Samuel Alden built this brick house just behind his white one and moved the old house down into his garden on West Wheelock Street.
Mrs. 1861 stops her horse in front of the next building, gets out, and ties the reins through the iron ring secured to the granite post in front of Cobb's store. S. W. Cobb has taken over the white- pillared building which Mr. Emerson maintained for many years after Dr. Alden. In the little extension to the south Dr. J. A. Smith is selling drugs. She decides to buy a bottle of bitters as a tonic for her father. Next she passes Benjamin D. Howe's book bindery in the little building Sylvester Morris built for a shoe store. Beyond this are two small, almost identical buildings; then two dwelling houses, the southernmost of which is where Dr. J. A. Smith lives. Here began the bakery business and candy business which has now moved to the north end of town (and will become Hanover Crackers and Dartmouth Chocolates). Between these latter two buildings a little lane leads to a livery stable facing east into Main Street.
Since the road is rather muddy she decides not to go any farther but glances down past the rows of houses on both sides-each with a tidy fence of individual and sometimes intricate design to sepa- rate it from the rest of the town and to keep roving animals from straying in. As it is spring the neat woodpiles have dwindled. The warm mud smells good and a robin chirrups from one of the young elm trees which a group of citizens set out eighteen years ago. As she crosses near the junction of Main and Lebanon Streets a green triangular plot catches her eye and she thinks how good it is that they now have water coming down from the aqueduct on the Greensboro Road to fill these cisterns rather than having to rely on the town pump and individual wells. She can remember when there was not a single bathtub in town.
115
Hanover Bicentennial Book
South of Lebanon Street on the east side stands Major Ten- ney's brick house; the Wainwrights live just south of this. On the north corner of Main and Lebanon Streets is the house where John Demman, the hatter, lived and had his shop. Now his daughter carries on as milliner. Mrs. 1861 stops by and picks out a broad brimmed velvet hat which Miss Demman will start to trim for her soon.
When she comes to the sign of the teapot on a long pole she stops in at Mr. Albert Wainwright's tin shop to see if he has finished mending her milk pan. Mr. Wainwright does such fine work with tin. Children love his shop and like to watch him work. The sleds intrigue the boys and carefully worked pieces of doll's furniture the girls. He supplies new pots and pans for the housewives and mends those with leaks.
She puts her milk pan under her arm and starts up past the long four-storied Tontine building. Here she has seen many businesses come and go. On the corner she looks in the window at the wares of the J. B. Parker Bookstore. Further on she calls at the post office, just moved to this building. She can remember when Mr. Levi P. Morton, who left for Boston about twelve years ago, oc- cupied all the middle section of the first floor with a grocery store, dry goods store, and a tailoring shop in the back. Now they have divided it into individual stores again. She passes Whitford & Gibbs, merchant tailors, specializing in gent's furnishings. Then she goes into Dewey & Co. for a spool of thread. A bolt of pretty print catches her eye. This is just off the train from New York, the clerk assures her, and holds it up so that she can see it better in the dimness of the heavily stocked shop. Only twelve and a half cents a yard. But that seems too much. She will need nine yards, hooks and eyes and a bit of ribbon for a dress. After some discussion they settle on a dollar for everything. She examines the fine brocade and fancy silk for seventy-five cents a yard. The new Wheeler and Wilson sewing machines are on display in the cor- ner. She makes a note to tell her husband of the good price on the false bosoms and stiff collars in the men's department. She puts her cloth inside her milk pan and returns to the street, planning her new frock as she goes along.
Beyond the Tontine building are two wooden buildings. She nods to Mr. Nichols of the furniture store standing beside his goods in the first one. She looks inside and a handsome hair- stuffed rocker pleases her. She would like to get one of those new
116
Main Street
wash stands for her north bedroom. In the second building is the telegraph office. At a passageway between this and the hotel a stage coach, having left its passengers by the pillared portico of the Hotel at the front door on Main Street, goes by to the stables behind. Mrs. 1861 remembers that not long ago, before the two buildings stood between the Hotel and the Tontine, this was all open courtyard. Here she used to watch the wagons come in at commencement time, or on circus or muster days.
Mr. Horace Frary has taken over the Dartmouth Hotel and several years ago put dormer windows on the formerly unlighted top floor. To the east of the hotel rises the annex with its big hall upstairs. She is looking forward to the traveling ventriloquist, mimic and magician who is coming to perform here. She heads back to her horse and wagon thinking that it is good the days are getting longer and one does not have to worry about getting caught out on the street after dark without a lantern.
1911: The year of the first transcontinental plane flight. Mrs. 1911 comes down the street in a new Reo four-cylinder, thirty- horsepower touring car, recently driven up from Boston by Samuel Rogers. Her husband is at the wheel driving very slowly so that horses will not be frightened. He stops at the bank-two buildings north of Wheelock Street on the west side of the street -and she gets out to do a little shopping. She starts down past the "Golden Corner." She will always think of the corner by that name after the big yellow house A. P. Balch built there. Later this was bought by Frank Davison, after his business was burned out in the Tontine fire, and used as a general store. Since the turn of the century, however, the College has owned the corner. The new Commons Hall where the college boys eat stands here now. Across Wheelock Street is the brick house of the Casque and Gauntlet Society-the same one Dr. Alden built years ago. Gone is Cobb's store and the little building next to it where M. M. Amaral practiced his tonsorial arts. This was the location of the first express office. Now in this place is the red brick Davison block, built in 1893 and 1903. She stops in at the Dartmouth Bookstore to say "hello" to Mr. E. P. Storrs but finds he is up at the reservoir with Prof. Robert Fletcher checking the water level. So she buys a Hanover Gazette and moves on. Davison & Ward have just sold their grain, grocery and hardware business to two of their clerks, Ira Leavitt and Arthur Childs, who continue to
117
Hanover Bicentennial Book
operate it just south of the bookstore. She passes this and goes into the main dry goods section which Davison & Ward have retained, "The Big Store." She nods to Carl Ward. Raymond Baird shows her some bargains-fans of all kinds from ten cents to a dollar and a quarter, chiffon and silk auto scarves, and parasols worth a dollar and a half going for ninety-eight cents. There is also a clearance on corsets with the sage reminder that "figures are made not born."
Next comes the Bridgman Block, built in 1900, burned in 1906 and rebuilt in 1907. This replaces "Hen" Swasey's fine big house and livery stable, which provided "nice nobby teams at all times," and the narrow twin buildings. One of these went to 3 Pleasant Street and the other was moved to the west and has become stor- age space for Rand's Furniture Store. The first store in the block is the Dartmouth Tailoring Co. owned by Pasquale Serafini or Serry as the students and his friends have found it easier to call him. The mortar and pestle projecting from the next berth pro- claim Allen's Drug Store. Previous to Allen's and just north of this in the building which burned was Mead's Drug Store. John McCarthy has moved his barber shop out of the Hotel and over to the next store. In the rear H. Sanborn has his pool hall. At the corner of the building is Rand's Furniture Store with "coffins and caskets constantly at hand." This business moved in 1887 after the big fire in the Tontine building over to the spot just west of the Golden Corner on West Wheelock Street; then into the Bridg- man Block when it was built in 1900. George Rand founded it shortly after the Civil War where Nichols' furniture had been. She goes in to talk to Will Rand, son of George, about renting one of those vacuum cleaners. The store is also featuring piazza rockers, go-carts and the best lawn mower in town for three dollars.
Beyond Rand's on the corner stands the wooden Precinct Build- ing where the fire engines are kept-the Walker building. There is talk of a new building to house Precinct offices and the fire engines. Charles Nash and Frank Tenney run the livery stable, now swung around to face the north since Allen Lane has been extended all the way through to School Street. They are proud of ten new carriages and a new electric brush for cleaning off the horses. A popular predecessor of theirs was Hamilton T. Howe- "Hamp" Howe-who built up a big livery stable and in 1895 be-
118
Main Street
came host of the Wheelock Hotel. His drivers met all the trains in Norwich with their coaches.
Frank A. Musgrove has his press and publishes the Gazette in the house on the next corner to the south where Mr. N. A. Hunt- ington previously lived. The Musgrove family lives upstairs and The Dartmouth has offices on the second floor in the rear. The Episcopal church rectory stands next to the south and then a little chapel. Beyond this are the homes of A. W. Guyer, D. B. Russell, Adna Haynes and P. N. Whitcomb. On the corner before East South Street is the business block which Dorrance Currier built up after the Tavern burned in 1888. Farther down on the other side the Currier farm and acres of pasture stretch to the east and south.
The pleasant big elms arch like an umbrella over the street. Some of the granite posts with the rings remain but they are be- ing replaced by metal pipes at the edge of the sidewalk. Mrs. 1911 appreciates the sidewalk and the hard surfaced road which re- duces the dust and mud. Gas, from the gas works behind Wilson Hall, lighted the street lamps from 1872 until 1893. At that time they were replaced by electric lights. Lining the streets now are telephone poles which are laced and garlanded with wires.
She crosses the street to Tanzi's store and takes a look down the street where E. P. Storrs' big brick house stands on the south corner of Lebanon and Main. South of this stands Mrs. Phelps' large white house. Across East South Street is Dr. Gates' old house, which was moved down the street in 1884 when Wilson Hall was built on the southeast corner of College and East Wheelock. She wants to buy some bananas and Angelo Tanzi cuts them from one of the big bunches hanging from his ceiling. He has persuaded other merchants to share freight loads coming into White River Junction so that residents of these northern towns may have fresh fruit. It does not seem long ago that Mr. Tanzi was coming around to sell fruit in a canopied wagon drawn by his horse "Jim." She goes into E. T. Ford's hardware store next door to look over the Magee iron ranges. This is now a three-story building, Mr. Wainwright having added two more stories.
Mrs. 1911 never looks north from the hardware store without shuddering as she remembers the fire in 1887 during which all the buildings from here up to and including the hotel were burned. In place of the Tontine now stands the big brick block,
119
Hanover Bicentennial Book
the southern half built by John L. Bridgman and the northern half by Dorrance Currier. On the south corner of the Bridgman building another big mortar and pestle announces L. B. Down- ing's Dartmouth Pharmacy, the Rexall Store. Lucien Downing, who came in 1868, is now a kindly looking gentleman with white hair and beard encircling his round face. Thin spectacles rest on his nose. He is a respected deacon of the church and, for many years, would not sell tobacco in his store. She nods to the young clerks-Bob Putnam and John Gould. Grant Eastman comes in from the mysterious rear section of the store where he has been grinding glass stoppers to fit medicine bottles. She decides to try out the Simonds and Poor soda fountain which has just been installed. After choosing a round small table, she settles on a slender chair with wire legs and a wire back arching into a heart shape and orders a cherry phosphate. Sipping her drink from a straw extracted from a glass cylinder on the center of the table she idly reads the ads for Dr. Kilmer's Swamproot, Doan's liver pills, Fatima cigarettes and Castoria ("children cry for it"). H. H. H. Langill walks by, carrying a large black camera, and mounts to his studios just over the drug store.
Refreshed, she continues on her way, stopping for a while at C. D. Brown's Hardware Store to look at the North Pole ice cream freezers and the Crawford parlor stoves. In Dudley's store she admires the heavy woolen Shaker sweaters made especially for this store by the Enfield and Canterbury Shakers. Dudley's sells all ladies' and gentlemen's clothing but specializes in athletic out- fitting. She finds a real bargain-a $2.50 union suit for 89 cents.
North of the brick block are two smaller buildings. She stops at N. A. Frost's to see if the watch she left there has been repaired. In Goodhue's Shoe Store she purchases a box of Interwoven socks, four pairs for a dollar. She goes into A. W. Guyer's grocery store to buy coffee at thirty-five cents a pound and puffed wheat. She looks over his supply of canned goods, "from the field to the can in the same day," but thinks of her shelves neatly piled with her own jars and feels it would be extravagant to buy any. She ad- mires the men's suits in the window of Campion's next door "made right in Hanover" for $22.50 to $35.00.
A new Wheelock Hotel has been rebuilt after burning in 1887. Since 1902 the College has owned it, renamed the Hanover Inn, and the business is managed by Arthur P. Fairfield. Classes will begin soon again and salesmen from New York and Boston stores
120
Main Street
are checking in. They will spread their wares in the sample room of the hotel and hope to take orders from the boys.
Across the Common on the northeast corner Webster Hall has been standing for three years. She promises herself that she will not miss Lyman H. Howe's motion pictures next time they come there. Everyone is talking about Dash to the North Pole.
On the southwest corner of the campus opposite the entrance to the hotel there is a watering trough hewn from a solid block of granite. The main basin is for horses and on the side is a smaller trough for dogs. The trough occasionally receives a member of the freshman class who is felt by the sophomores to be in need of a cooling off.
Her husband is waiting by the Inn with the car. Fall is coming and they will soon put the car up for the winter. She hopes there will be more snow this year for the icy conditions of the roads caused far too many sleighing accidents last year.
To-day: 1961. Mrs. 1961 has been skiing but has saved time for shopping before her family gathers for dinner. She circles around the block twice, makes a false sally and retreats where a small foreign car is hidden among its larger neighbors and finally finds someone coming out of a parking place where she can slip in. She puts a nickel in one of the parking meters which now dot the street much as the old granite hitching posts did in other years. The wires have disappeared underground and there are no tele- phone poles. The elms left are venerable but many have not sur- vived the hurricane of 1938 and the Dutch elm disease.
She goes into the Dartmouth Bookstore in search of a book leading the "best seller" list. Will Goodhue, who has managed the store since Adna Storrs' death, finds it and charges it to her. As she goes by the Beefeater she recalls other restaurants which have occupied this same niche-The Indian Bowl, The Wigwam, and Scotty's Cafe (and its owner Charles Scott who ran the second- hand emporium, The Little Store, for many years afterward). List- ing eating places her mind travels back to the hardy ladies like "Ma" Rood and "Ma" Smalley who ran eating clubs in their homes and often acted as second mothers to the college boys. In Ward's Department Store, Inc., formerly Davison & Ward's, Mrs. Ward finds her a drip-dry blouse. Mrs. Ward is Deacon Downing's daugh- ter, Bessie, who has been carrying on the business since her hus- band, Carl Ward, died. Now her son Earl is in the business also.
121
Hanover Bicentennial Book
Serry's comes next, now owned by Frank Zappala since Serry's retirement in 1954. She then goes into John Piane's Dartmouth Cooperative Society and College Bookstore. Mr. Piane worked in the College Bookstore when he was in Dartmouth, class of 1914, and later became the owner. The Dartmouth Co-op was formed in 1918. She discusses a new pair of skis with Richard Fowler, Mr. Piane's son-in-law who now manages the Co-op. The skis have come to this country through Dartmouth Skis, Inc., one of the largest ski distributors in the country, managed by Mr. Piane's son, John Piane Jr. Rand's Furniture Store is still at the corner of the building with George W.'s grandson, Richard B., and two great-grandsons, Richard B. Jr. and Robert, in attend- ance. Bob has learned the business of funeral directing. There are still "coffins and caskets constantly at hand" though now in the funeral home on School Street. The next brick building is owned by James Campion and holds the Hanover Consumer Co-opera- tive Society, where she buys steak and frozen vegetables. This building replaces the old Walker building and was built by George Gitsis who had his Campus Café here in 1929. Many busi- nesses have spread out down Allen Lane. Gone is the livery stable, and The Inn Garage of Raymond Buskey, on the north side, stands ready to service town vehicles.
The building on the south corner of Allen and Main Streets was built by Frank Musgrove in 1915 after his house burned. The presses were so slightly damaged that they could be repaired and the new building was built up around them. Mrs. Musgrove con- tinues to manage this building since her husband's death in 1932. At the completion of the building the post office moved over here from the other side of the street and occupied the north side where Williams Laundry Office and Mrs. Zappala's Variety Shop are. The printing office was on the south side where Al Johnson's Music and Recording Studio is now. The building previously used as the Episcopal rectory moved back to make room for the new Precinct building in 1929 and was torn down in 1959 for the parking lot. The little chapel traveled down the Main Street to become the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bosquet, now the Archie Thorburns'.
Mrs. 1961 makes a note of a skirt in the window of Town and Country (owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lewis in the Bishop Block) which she would like to try on when she has more time. On she goes past Emil Rueb's Camera Shop, Edith's (Clara Sauter)
122
Main Street
Cut-rate Drugs, May McKenna's Specialty Shop (descended from Maud Marden's), Amidon's jewelry store, and stops to buy coffee cake for tomorrow's breakfast at Ruth's Bakery owned by Robert Rogers. Next stands the Nugget building with Ranald Hill Opti- cian on one wing and on the other the Webster Shop taken over from Walter Swoboda by George Wrightson in 1959. She can re- member the old Nugget between the Casque and Gauntlet house and the Howe Library on West Wheelock Street. She can remem- ber the old silent films with the pianist banging out appropriate accompaniment to the shifts of mood. And later the days of the peanut fights before the first show and the occasional raids by the students subdued only when Mr. Arthur Barwood, the manager, had summoned the police with tear gas. The movies were shown in Webster Hall from 1944, when the old Nugget burned, until 1951 when the Hanover Improvement Society tore down two wooden houses on the west side of South Main Street to replace them with the new Nugget. It is hard to remember the Tavern Block south of this though it has only been gone three years to make room for the parking lot. She waves to Jack Manchester as she passes the Gulf Service Station on the south corner which he has been managing since 1943. She buys a frozen cream pie at Al's Super Market and looks longingly at the dresses in the window of Nance von Mettenheim's Hampshire House in the same building. Across the street Al Lauziere has remodeled the Green Lantern Inn which he bought from Joe Saia in 1959. This is the old Cur- rier farm.
She crosses the street and stops at Eastman's Drug Store, the old Gates house on the corner of East South and Main, which the Eastmans bought in 1959 for the drug store when the bank took over the Brock building to expand to the north. The drug store is in a brick addition to the south and she goes in to purchase some vitamin pills from Roger Eastman. Roger's father started the store in 1938, two days before the hurricane struck, and since his death in 1957, Mrs. Eastman and Roger have carried on the busi- ness. Fonda Fucci of White River Junction has a dress shop, Bou- tique 68, in the north side of the main building.
She goes along up the street glancing down East South Street to Church's Children's Clothes, opened by Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Church in 1953. Mrs. Harry Heneage now owns the Wainwright- Phelps house on Main Street. The next corner holds the post office, Dave Storrs having sold his brick house, orchards and barns
123
Hanover Bicentennial Book
to the government in 1928. Ives Atherton as Postmaster is assisted by a crew of twenty-five, ten of whom deliver mail daily to the citizens of the town. Before crossing it she looks down Lebanon Street. Past the post office is the house containing the offices of Ski Magazine with William T. Eldred as editor and publisher. Be- hind this is the building used by Dartmouth Skis, Inc. After the diner and the branch of the Hanover Hardware Co. are the build- ings to the east belonging to Trumbull-Nelson Contracting Co. This was begun more than forty years ago when W. H. Trumbull bought Masterson's blacksmith shop in this location. Mr. Trum- bull is now retired and Dale Nelson carries on the business.
Just before the Grange Hall stands the new building of the Hanover Home Industries, member of the New Hampshire League of Arts and Crafts. This was built in 1959 when their former building was torn down to make room for Hopkins Center across the street. Still farther down and on the north side of Leb- anon Street is Rogers Garage Inc. Mr. Rogers came to town in 1904 to be chief engineer at Dartmouth. He soon acquired the agency for Reo cars and in 1914 built the first garage in Hanover. One of his daughters married Manning Moody who has been in the business since 1928.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.