USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > Hanover, New Hampshire, a bicentennial book : essays in celebration of the town's 200th anniversary > Part 18
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Only a few years ago a stalwart member of the Post Office force, while on his delivery round, strode firmly across a lawn on West South Street. An old aqueduct vault cover, completely concealed, gave way and plunged him about eight feet into three feet of water. No one living knew of the existence of this vault. Fortu- nately the mailman was uninjured, and the mail, after being dried out, was delivered the next day. How many more of these booby traps there are, time will tell.
The aqueduct gave excellent water to some fortunate families. It has been claimed, and with some truth, that it was far superior to any other supply, including the present one. A few public res- ervoirs were maintained from which water could be drawn to fight fires. But there was no engine to utilize the water, and in the opinion of the majority, not enough water to warrant the pur- chase of an engine.
In that relatively waterless age, there were naturally many fires. A complete catalog of these could hardly serve a useful purpose here, and any interested reader is referred to Lord's History of the Town of Hanover. But this chapter would be incomplete without mention of the "Great Fire" of May 15, 1883, and the "Hotel Fire" of January 4, 1887.
The "Great Fire" was in the classical tradition: Saturday after- noon, a barn, small children with matches. The barn was on the south side of Lebanon Street, and east of College Street. The fire, fanned by a strong southeast wind, burned everything south of Lebanon Street. Several times the fire leaped across to buildings on the north side. College students as spectators at a small fire can be very critical of the efforts of the firemen, and very vocal; but
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in a real emergency, they will give their best. This was an emer- gency, and they gave their best; but even that would not have been enough except for the timely arrival of a Fire Engine and Company from Lebanon, which confined the fire to the south side. Although fourteen houses were completely destroyed, and twenty families left homeless, the property damage was estimated at only $25,000. These were humble homes, not stately mansions.
The more serious and destructive "Hotel Fire" broke out in the Dartmouth Hotel, on the site of the present Hanover Inn, about 2 a.m., Tuesday morning, January 4, 1887. South of the Hotel were wooden buildings which soon caught and spread the fire to an enormous brick building, a curious old ark, called the Tontine, which contained most of the stores in the town, and the halls of several fraternities. The night was one of the coldest of the winter; the College being on vacation, there were no students; and again the fire might have swept the entire village, but just at the crucial moment, when the local force, with completely inade- quate equipment, was trying to hold the fire at the south wall of the Tontine, the Lebanon Fire Engine and Company arrived- this time by special train!
This must have been an epochal trip, roughly between 5 and 7 of a bitterly cold January morning. The hurried telephone call (and how thankful they must have been that this modern con- venience had been installed); the emergency dicker with the B & M for a special train (engine, tender, flat car?); the hauling the Fire Engine to the station; the loading; the swaying, lurching trip to White River Junction and then up the Valley to Norwich and Hanover Station in a moonless night on an open flat car with the temperature twenty below; the hastily organized horse-power at the station; and the long tug up the hill! But the Lebanon Fire Engine and Company saved the day, and by 9 a.m. the chief corner of the village, although a smoking ruin, was no longer dangerous. Perhaps the real heroes were the horses.
The big advance came in 1893 when the reservoir to the north- east was constructed, and a gravity system installed. The driving force behind this was the new President of Dartmouth College, Dr. Tucker, who clearly realized that the village and College must have adequate water. Previously there had been considerable de- bate as to whether it would not be better to pump Connecticut River water to a stand-pipe. We may be abundantly thankful we were spared this.
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The new reservoir brought an abundance of water to the vil- lage, although all the accounts state that it was absolutely unfit to drink for some time, the decaying vegetable matter giving it a very sulphurated taste. Eventually this improved, but aqueduct users continued to show a smug complacency over the superior quality of their supply.
With the new water supply came fire engines; and although there have been fires, they have been confined to one building. The following brief list includes the more serious conflagrations: Dartmouth Hall (February 18, 1904); the Bridgman Block (Oc- tober 30, 1906); South Fayerweather Hall (February 26, 1910); the Inn Stables Garage (May 13, 1925); the White Church (May 13, 1931); Dartmouth Hall again (April 25, 1935); and the old Nug- get (January 28, 1944).
We select two from this list which were of most concern to the village. The Inn Stables Garage was a massive wooden tinder-dry building on Allen Street, containing seventeen automobiles and their gasoline tanks. Competent observers say it was only the com- plete absence of wind that night which saved the center of the village from destruction. Without paying too high a price, we learned that such a building, and such use of the building simply cannot be tolerated. Less dangerous, because of its rela- tively isolated situation, the burning of the White Church pro- vided the most spectacular fire of the present century. Of itself a beautiful structure, it did not fit in with the architectural develop- ment of the College, and it had been planned to move it to a new site. Before this could be done, it burned. By tradition and senti- ment, the town suffered a loss; the new White Church is function- ally better equipped to meet the needs of today. This is not a situation where a mathematician should try to balance the gains and the losses.
The picture today is much more reassuring. In the village there is no potential disaster center like the old Inn Stables Garage, and in general the danger spots have been eliminated, or reduced. There is a trained fire-fighting force, and excellent equipment. Lebanon and White River Junction can come to our aid in a matter of minutes-without the assistance of the B & M-and we can go to theirs. It is a long step from the fireward of 1781 with his "staff five feet long, painted red, and headed by a bright brass spire six inches long," to the firemen who operate the aerial lad- der on the precinct truck.
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Floods have actually never played a major role in the history of Hanover. Only a few farms are affected by even a substantial rise in the river. This rise used to make travel away from Hanover somewhat difficult, but this is hardly a significant factor today. It is true our brooks go on a tear and wash out roads and small bridges. This is expensive, and may be of considerable hardship to a few, but not much more than a nuisance to the many. Yet before the river was as much restrained as it is now, the ice going out in the spring was a spine-tingling spectacle. And even today any vague rumor that a barn has washed away in Lyme and is due to hit the Ledyard Bridge in an hour or two, will inspire many, from College and village, to hasten down the hill to the river in what might be called a hopeful frame of mind. Students thor- oughly enjoy minor disasters, and acts of God, provided there are no serious injuries, and not an excessive amount of damage. Dur- ing the November flood of 1927 a possibly prejudiced faculty felt that the students were spending more time in watching the Con- necticut and White Rivers than they were on their studies. But one also remembers the long train of flat cars leaving Norwich, loaded with most of the undergraduate body, bound for Hartford, to spend a long, tedious, dirty day cleaning up the silt and muck which the receding waters had left.
The weather of the Proprietors, of the first settler Edmund Free- man grd, and of Eleazar Wheelock-that weather is still our burden, or our privilege. The early settlers found the winters long and cold, and with no desire to start a controversy, it must be stated that the weather hasn't changed in the last two hundred years. The old plaint that "winters aren't what they used to be" goes back to the exceedingly mild winter of 1620-21 when the Indians said exactly that to the Pilgrims at Plymouth. All of us remember the bitter cold spells, and we remember that as boys and girls the snow was always over our heads-when we were about three feet tall. The records of the Shattuck Observatory in Hanover show conclusively that there have been no significant changes. And the winter of 1957-58 with the greatest snowfall on record temporarily silenced a few of the oldest inhabitants with their everlasting "winters aren't what they used to be."
Certainly it is cold in Hanover. The all-time official record seems to have been -41° on January 19, 1857; although tradition makes much of January 19, 1810, "Cold Friday," when the tem-
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perature was perhaps a mere -35°, but, so reliable accounts assert, a howling sixty-mile gale blew all day. Modern residents boast of February 16, 1943, when it was -40° in the village. Daylight saving time was in effect-these were war-times-even at 8:00 a.m. it was dark, and the chimes on Baker Library played "Carry me back to old Virginny."
These temperatures will seem very conservative to some, and undoubtedly will cause mild protest. Nearly every farmer is con- vinced that it is colder on his farm than anywhere else. When it is thirty below in the village, Etna will report 36, the Center will say 42, and the hardy character who comes in from Moose Moun- tain mutters 48. Some of this is honest variation, more of it is temperamental thermometers, most of it is simply the desire to show that out our way it is tough, and we can take it.
For either you take pride in your weather because you think it is good, or you take pride in it because it is bad; and in the latter case the worse it is, the more pride you take. This latter pride is a survival pride, and for years it was the dominant pride of town and College.
This century has seen a profound change, and the lion's share of the credit for this change goes to Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover. Winter has become a New Hampshire asset, not a liability. It is a little difficult to imagine Eleazar Wheelock praying for snow. Yet the ski resorts and the Dartmouth Outing Club do exactly this-and apparently with considerable success. What was bad weather to be endured is now good weather to be enjoyed. And if some of us prefer home and oil heat to hurtling down the slopes of Tuckerman Ravine, we still know that this change is for the better.
The town owes a debt to John Ledyard and his fellow-students who in 1772 climbed Velvet Rocks and slept all night in the snow in the dead of winter, to the students who carried out the zebra and the great bird and then threw snowballs at the flames, to the students who laughed at the hurricane. Something of their perennial youth has become a part of our town. Winters will con- tinue to be cold, and the winds blow and waters flow, and we would not have it otherwise. But these students have shown us that unusual conditions can be met with courage, and even with laughter; that is the important thing.
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16 Hanover Out of Doors by Frederick S. Page
A HEAVY forest blanketed the land when the first settlers came to Hanover-"a dreary wilderness" as one observer described it. Here on the plain where Wheelock made his first clearing, and running northward to Camp Brook, was a dense growth of lofty pines. A thick stand of hemlock occupied the somewhat lower, and at that time swampy ground, to the imme- diate southeast of the clearing. Hardwoods-maple, beech, birch, ash, oak, basswood and others predominated on the hills to the eastward, but hemlocks and pines grew among them. Spruces and firs, though not mentioned in any descriptions so far found, were doubtless present in large numbers at the higher altitudes and in swamps, as they are today. The white pines were the tallest trees found here as well as elsewhere in the colonies and often grew to be of extraordinary size. One of these that stood on the campus was measured by David McClure and in his own words "was, from the butt to the top, two hundred and seventy feet." This must have been an unusual specimen but there are records of others found elsewhere that approached this tree in height. An observer who lived on the Lyme Road after the College was established, who saw the stumps and doubtless some of the standing trees north of the village, reported that "trees four and five feet in diameter and one hundred feet to the first limb occupied the ground." Probably pines six feet and more in diameter grew in Hanover but no record of them has been found.
Disposal of the trees was necessary before cultivated crops could be produced. Aside from the comparatively small amounts of wood used locally most of it was burned. The pine stumps in par- ticular were a problem in the new fields, because of their large size and because they were slow to decay. It required as much labor to dispose of the stumps as to cut and burn the above ground portion of the trees. Frequently old pine stumps with several feet of roots still attached were turned up on edge along a desired line to form a fence. The remains of one of these old stump fences, in
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Lebanon, may still be seen along the north side of Gould Road that leads to the present Sachem Village.
All the white pines of a size and quality suitable for masts and spars were reserved for the royal navy when the town was granted and none of these was supposed to be cut without a permit. Ap- parently no mast timbers were sent to market from Hanover but during the winter of 1771-72 Wheelock cut 1500 pine logs near the river to be sent to Springfield, Massachusetts, in the spring. The logs were seized by the agent of the Surveyor General of Massachusetts as improperly cut. Though eventually released, the assessed damages were greater than the value of the logs.
Today the virgin forest is gone but the Hanover hills are green with newer growth. Many of the fields and pastures cleared dur- ing the first century of the town's development have gradually reverted to forest during the second. Crops of pulpwood and saw- logs have been harvested on land that once produced wheat and sheep. Elm and maple shade trees stand along our village streets where the King's pines once grew.
Shade trees were doubtless planted here and there near the vil- lage streets soon after land had been cleared and the settlement was well established, but apparently the first organized effort to provide them began in 1843 when the Hanover Ornamental Tree Association was formed. Not only is it on record that the Associa- tion sponsored a tree planting program but ring counts on the too numerous stumps of trees felled by the hurricane of 1938, to- gether with smaller numbers since, indicate that most of the larger trees in the village were planted around the middle of the last century when the Association was most active. Photographs that date back to the early seventies show good-sized elms and maples along the older streets that doubtless derive from this pe- riod. Many trees that stand today such as the two sugar maples on the east side of the campus, the large American elms in front of Parkhurst, McNutt, and 60 South Main Street can be readily identified in some of the old photographs.
The older elms on the north side of West Wheelock Street were set out during the 1860's by Professor John E. Sinclair. Those on the south side, originally forty in number, were dug up near Blood Brook and planted where many of them stand today, by two men in the employ of Dr. William T. Smith a few years later.
During the last decade of the nineteenth century the Village Improvement Society helped to care for the village trees and to
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plant new ones. Soon after the Society was formed a violent hail and wind storm (June 14, 1892) struck the village and "the entire length of Main Street was stripped of many of her most stately elms, while other streets suffered equally, particularly Maple and School Streets." Many chimneys toppled, including three on Reed Hall, and the Old Pine on Observatory Hill was severely dam- aged. The Society did much of the work of clearing up the streets and was warmly commended for its work by the Hanover Gazette. In the spring of 1895 The Dartmouth reported that "between one and two hundred trees have been set out in town this season by the Village Improvement Society."
For many years following its organization in 1922 The Hanover Improvement Society provided funds for the care of precinct trees and for planting new ones. At present the precinct budget regu- larly carries a substantial amount for these purposes. All the street trees are sprayed once or twice a year, many are pruned, some are perforce removed, new ones are planted. The trees planted and cared for by Dartmouth College and numerous individual land- owners all add to the attractiveness of the village streets.
Three important outdoor improvements at the northern end of the village were initiated near the turn of this century: the golf course later to become the Hanover Country Club, Occom Pond, and Pine Park. All of these projects were due to the fore- sight, energy, and generosity of a few public spirited people and all of them have in different ways added to the attractiveness of the town.
The nine holes of the original golf course were laid out in rough pasture land west of the Rope Ferry Road and running north of the Kibbie property to the top of the hill. The land was purchased by fourteen interested citizens and the organization formed came to be known as the "Country Club." All the profits from this popular venture were used to improve the course but eventually more capital was necessary to make more expensive and extensive changes. Since most of the "Club" members were associated with Dartmouth College it seemed desirable to them that the College should take over the property. This was done in 1915 and since that date the history of the Hanover Country Club is more intimately connected with College than with town. How- ever, the chief immediate improvements were the extension of the original course to eighteen holes on land purchased along the
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The Old Pine (cut down 1895) and its stump
The White Church, before 1869; erected 1795, burned 1931
BEEF
Episcopal Church on Lebanon Street in the 186os
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Lyme Road and by arrangement with the Pine Park Association, the construction of a club house, and the erection of a high steel footbridge across Girl Brook valley. Later a new nine-hole course was added.
The shallow waters of Occom Pond now cover what was earlier an unattractive marsh. The funds necessary to buy the land, re- move bushes and build the low earth dam were raised by subscrip- tion through the efforts of Charles P. Chase and Thomas W. D. Worthen.
During the winter a considerable area is kept cleared for skaters under the cooperative auspices of the College and the community. Before the construction of a covered rink the hockey teams practiced and played their games on the pond.
Soon after the ice has disappeared the pond is taken over by a host of noisy frogs and toads for breeding purposes. The frog's eggs imbedded in rounded masses of gelatinous material and the similar toad's eggs in two long parallel strings are left to hatch in the gradually warming water, but the mature toads soon leave for drier abodes. Through the summer months the greenish tinted, usually tranquil water reflects the images of passing clouds and those of the trees along the shore. During some summers in the past a pair of graceful swans and a flock of mallards provided by Dr. Howard N. Kingsford swam about the pond. In the late fall an occasional flock of wild ducks and more rarely a flock of geese, on their way south, spend the night here.
Pine Park contains about ninety acres of land located in the lower Girl Brook valley and stretching for some distance along the shore of the Connecticut River to the north of the Hanover Precinct. Most of this irregularly shaped property lies well hidden between the hills but from nearby Vermont the portion next to the river is readily visible. There the pine woods stretch south- ward from the flooded valley of Girl Brook nearly to the gully through which Occom Pond drains to the river.
The history of Pine Park as such goes back to the year 1900 when Charles P. Chase, then treasurer of Dartmouth College, learned that the Diamond Match Company had opened negotia- tions for the purchase from the Hutchinson estate of the pine woods near the river north of the village. Others were consulted and $4100 was raised among eighteen subscribers to purchase the property. An informal association under the active leadership of Professor D. Collin Wells managed the tract until 1905 when the
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present Pine Park Association was formed and incorporated under the laws of New Hampshire as a tax-free, non-profit or- ganization. The next year, on petition of the Pine Park Associa- tion, the Hanover Country Club and other abutters, Rope Ferry Road was realigned from the end of North Main Street to the park boundary and the portion within the park discontinued as a town road. This was desirable "to secure more adequate protec- tion against fire and other damage." The last addition to the park area was made in 1912 when Mrs. Emily Howe Hitchcock be- queathed forty-six and a half acres of wooded land adjacent to the north and northeastern sides of the original tract to the associa- tion. This, with a small strip of land given by her earlier to straighten the eastern boundary, brought the park to its present size.
During the winter of 1912-1913 changes were made to insure a better and more permanent method of park management. The stockholders transferred their property in the corporation "both real and personal" to five persons "to hold the same as joint trus- tees." Negotiations were concluded with the Precinct Commis- sioners and the Trustees of Dartmouth College for the Precinct and the College to assume active administrative details through two managers. Adna D. Storrs was elected Park Commissioner by the Precinct and Charles P. Chase was appointed by the College. The trustees, earlier directors of the Corporation, were William J. Tucker, president; Charles P. Chase, secretary and treasurer; John M. Gile, John V. Hazen, James F. Colby. After the death of Dr. Gile in 1925 neither of the managers was a member of the board of trustees. This unfortunate situation was remedied in 1937 when Donald L. Stone was elected Park Commissioner fol- lowing the resignation of Mr. Storrs. Still later the College For- ester, Robert S. Monahan, who is also a member of the board of trustees was appointed Manager for the College.
Improvement of the park was started soon after the tract was acquired and continued on a voluntary basis for about a dozen years. Paths were cleared, dead and down trees together with most of the undesirable hardwoods removed and many of the pines were pruned. In later years hired labor has been used for the necessary upkeep.
During the winter of 1924-1925 a thinning was made over the whole park area. The operation is of interest, not only because it improved the Park, but also because it was the first large-scale
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operation of the sort to be made in or near Hanover. The cutting was probably at the suggestion of Dr. Gile who secured Mr. Frank Hancock of Milan to supervise the work. Mr. Hancock and his family spent the winter in a small temporary building not far from the spring on the east side of the esker (the narrow ridge near the river) and the horses used in the operation were housed nearby. Mr. Storrs blazed the trees to be removed and local laborers were hired to cut and haul the logs and burn the slash. Due to close supervision, the stumps were cut lower than was the current practice and remarkably little damage was done to the remaining trees. Nearby logs were dragged with a single horse to one of several skidways on the river bank but those from more remote areas were hauled on sleds. Gile and Brackett, who had contracted for the logs, set up a portable mill on the Vermont side of the river a short distance south of the highway railroad cross- ing. In late spring a boom was run diagonally downstream from below the park to the mill and the marked logs were floated to their destination a few at a time. This was doubtless the shortest drive of any large number of logs ever made on this part of the Connecticut River.
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