History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 28

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124

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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

Having disposed of the Carroll County Pioneer, Mr Roberts removed to Ossipee and started a job office. In May, 1859, he commenced the publication of the Carroll County Register, which he continued to publish till a few weeks before his death, a period of nearly six years, when he sold his subscription list to the Granite State News. The Register was a five-column, four-page paper issued every Thursday morning as " A family newspaper, devoted to the interests of Carroll County in general." Terms, single subscriptions, in advance, $1; five copies, $4; twelve copies, $9. Mr Roberts worked hard both early and late, but failed to make his business a success. He evidently made the mistake often made by men who lack experience in the newspaper publishing business. To induce patronage he made his prices both for sub- scriptions and advertising too low, and endeavored to make up for the loss by overwork. Such a course may answer for a time, but in the end results in failure, as it did in Mr Roberts's case. Too close application brought him to an early grave.

The Granite State News was started by James R. Newell, at Wolfeborough, November 1, 1860, and printed on a second-hand press over fifty years old. The News was at first a six-column paper, issued weekly at "one dollar a year in advance, or $1.25 if not paid within the year."

In his " Introductory " Mr Newell said : -

It will be the aim of the publisher to make the News a family paper - one which will be entertaining to all. We shall devote particular attention to the collection and publication of items of local news, in order that persons who formerly resided in this vicinity, and who have removed to other places, may; by subscribing for the News, be kept informed of everything of interest that transpires in the neighborhood of their former homes.

Mr Newell edited and personally conducted the paper until December 5, 1861, when he enlisted as a private in Company I, Eighth New Hampshire Volunteers, and left his business in charge of Charles H. Parker, the present publisher. Mr Newell was the only person in the office who had a competent knowledge of the printing business, and Mr Parker soon found his position to be anything but a sinecure. With a small list of subscribers, an office wanting in almost everything (including experienced workmen), with very little advertising and less job custom, the prices of stock and wages constantly increasing, it was well, perhaps, for the enterprise that the new publisher was entirely ignorant of the requirements of a successful printing and newspaper business.

To give one illustration of the enormous expense incident to the publishing of a newspaper in those " war times," the white paper for the newspapers, which could be bought before the war for nine cents a pound, rose in price to twenty, twenty-two, twenty-five, and even as high as thirty-two cents a pound. As the subscription price - too low at first - was unchanged, the profits would necessarily be imaginary.

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At the end of four years Mr Newell, finding that there was no prospect of making the News self-sustaining, decided to sell out if possible; if not, to discontinue the publication of the paper. It was in the middle of the canvass for the reelection of President Lincoln when this conclusion was reached. Thinking it would not help the matter any in New Hampshire, to have it go abroad that a Republican paper had died for want of support in the midst of a hot campaign, Mr Parker purchased the establishment, increased the price to $1.50 per year in advance, bought the subscription list of the Carroll County Record published at Ossipee, and by putting in from fifteen to sixteen hours for a day's work, practising the closest economy, and making " typos " of his girls when they should have been in the schoolroom, seven years more was added to the life of the News.

During this period some prominent Democrats came to the conclusion that a Democratic county ought to support a Democratic paper, and, by donating $500 in cash, and guaranteeing five hundred subscribers, induced Mr Elijah Coulliard, an excellent printer of long experience, to commence the publication of the Carroll County Democrat. The Democrat run two or three years and died of starvation.

In 1872 the publisher of the News enlarged his paper to seven columns per page, and, with the assistance of a friend, purchased a Fairhaven power-press. Before this purchase there had only been one press in the office, which had been used for all purposes. This was the one purchased by Mr Newell for fifty dollars when the News was founded. It was a " patent-lever " press made in 1804 ; a press that has a history, and which is still in use in the News office, and yet capable of doing the best of work. The purchase of the new press and the application of steam-power relieved the publisher from a degree of hard labor which was beginning to tell upon a strong physical constitution, he having been his own pressman always, as well as editor, devil, and all hands, as circumstances required.

In December, 1879, Mr Parker enlarged the News to an eight-column paper, with no increase in subscription price. From that date to the present the prosperity of the News has continued, and it has been a most valuable party aid, as well as a good local paper.

In 1879, George C. Furber, so long an able publisher of the Republic at Littleton, established the White Mountain Record, weekly, at North Conway. He made it an active Democratie paper, and beyond question alienated support that a neutral or independent sheet would have had. It had an existence of something over a year and was in quite a flourishing condition when the pressure of other business caused the withdrawal of Mr Furber, who took the " plant " with him. In 1880, Mr Furber published a summer paper, The Idler, a very handsome and ably conducted journal, which did good service in preserving much of historical information in that section. It is a matter of regret that its publication was not continued.

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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

After the discontinuance of the Record, Van Cullen Jones continued the name in a paper which he conducted weekly for one summer. Some year or so later, J. A. Seitz, who had been publishing an independent religious journal, The True Religion, at Norway, Maine, removed his office to North Conway, and in connection with that paper began the publication of a local weekly, The White Mountain News. Edward H. Crosby took the New's after two years' time, but it soon died.

Eastman's Monthly Ray, a four-column, eight-page "Congregational journal for the church, the Sunday-school, and the home," was published at Centre Ossipee for a time from April, 1881. Its price was fifty cents a year.

The Carroll County Pioneer, was established at Wolfboro Junction, in 1881, by George S. Dorr. It is a weekly Democratic paper of seven columns, pub- lished Fridays at one dollar a year in advance. Mr Dorr is a young man of exceedingly good ability, of fine poetic taste, and justly acquired popularity, and is a " born editor."

Sandwich Reporter. - The first number of this paper was issued at Sand- wich Lower Corner, June 7, 1883, by Charles H. Blanchard, editor and proprietor, who still publishes it. In February, 1884, a power-press was introduced, and the office is now supplied with two presses and about sixty fonts of type, and does some very satisfactory job-work. The Reporter is published weekly, has 840 circulation, and costs one dollar a year. It has been a valuable medium for the preservation of historical and genealogical information.

Charles H. Parker, the veteran publisher of the Granite State News, is the one par excellence to be mentioned in connection with the press of Carroll county. He was born in Portsmouth, May 26, 1819, and is thoroughly a " self-made " man, having made his way through life entirely by his own exertions. When a lad of seven he was apprenticed to a farmer for seven years, but broke away at the age of eleven, continuing, however, to work at farming until he was seventeen. In 1831 he came to Wolfeborough, but as he desired to be near his mother who needed his aid, he went to Newmarket where she resided, and became an operative in a cotton factory. With a great desire for knowledge, his opportunities for learning had been most limited, but now, during his spare hours, he applied himself to study, and acquired proficiency in the branches taught in common and high schools. An oppor- tunity offering, he became with great diffidence, a teacher in a back district in Lee ; succeeding finely, he opened a private school in Newmarket. After a few weeks he was induced to take charge of one of the village schools, and taught seven years - twenty-one terms- in one room. After this he taught three terms in Searsport, Maine, then, coming to Wolfeborough, he taught six or eight winter terms in the village school. His principal business here for some time was official ; he was deputy-sheriff eight years, and sheriff five years ; in 1858-59 he was representative of Wolfeborough in the legislature.

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In 1860, at the request of Mr Newell, Mr Parker became editor of the NEWS until a permanent one was procured. Thirty years have passed, and he has not laid down the editorial pen. He purchased the office in 1864 and has since been its publisher. Under his management the Granite State News has ever been positive and aggressive, in strong logic and plain, crisp English dealing stalwart blows in advocacy of the right as he saw the right. Truth was truth and must be spoken. He has had strong opposition, but no one has alleged that he did not believe what he wrote. Expediency and time-serving have had no tolerance from him. And he has ever been the advocate of those things that benefit and uplift mankind. Originally a Democrat, he was one of the few who organized the Liberty party (the first anti-slavery party) in this state, and from that time he has affiliated with the party demanding freedom for all. He is a Freemason, an Odd Fellow, a Unitarian, and, with almost radical views in favor of temperance, has been connected with all societies originated to advance that cause, and his trenchant pen has done good service in its advocacy. He married Sophia Blaisdell, a native of Middleton, and has four daughters : Abbie (Mrs Fred W. Prindall), Fannie (Mrs George F. Mathes), Alice M. (Mrs Charles Thompson), Nettie (Mrs Edwin L. Furber).

The frosts of age are gathering round his head, but the fire of his mind burns brightly, the keen touch of his humor is as delicate as ever, and we voice the desire of all in wishing him a long continuance of his useful career.

TIMBER AND LUMBER. - The vast quantity of early white-pine which would have been so valuable to-day was practically exhausted long ago, and no data are left to estimate either its amount or value. Some, even at an early period, went down the Ossipee and Saco, more went from Lake Winnipiseogee to the mills at Meredith, the Weirs, Gilford, and Meredith Bridge, and so on down to the Merrimack, while some went by the way of Alton to the lower country. Much was cut, used, burned, and wasted by the first settlers. How- ever it was used and what its valuation, concerns us of to-day nothing in traeing an outline of the timber production of the last fifty years.

The first large operator on the Merrimack and its head-waters who touched the county on its western side was Nicholas G. Norcross, who had previously acquired the title of "Timber King of New England" from his extensive business in Maine. In 1844 he established himself on the Merrimack, and, expending more than $100,000 in purchasing rights at the principal falls, blasting rocks, removing obstructions, and adapting and improving the river- channel, changed the former laborious and tedious method of locking rafts around the falls into the "driving " of logs down the river. His operations took in a portion of Sandwich, and his men worked on different parts of the Lake.

The first real lumbering in Tamworth, Ossipee, Sandwich, and Albany was done by Josiah Thurston, of Freedom, and John Demeritt, of Effingham,

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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

about 1855, and the first great drive was bought by Horace Hobson. Mr Thurston was an active operator for nearly a quarter of a century. J. P. Cushing, of Tamworth, was several years in the business, in 1879 contracting to get 1,000,000 feet per annum for a term of years, but later confined his attention to manufacturing. For the first ten years nothing but white-pine was sent off. Then, as pine grew scarce, hemlock and spruce became the staple products. Attention began to be given to the hard-wood growth about twenty years ago.

In 1883 and 1884 Towle & Keneson were operating extensively in Tam- worth in spruce and hemlock, employing from forty to seventy-five men. In 1885 and 1886 John L. Peavey & Son had a mill in the southern part of Ossipee, and operated in spruce, hemlock, and hard wood. They were also in Albany working largely. They placed a mill there in 1855 and another in 1857. In 1885 they began on birch, maple, and beech, which they sawed into flooring from one to three inches in thickness. The output from their mills in Albany has been from one to three millions per annum. This firm is one of the heaviest in the county, and has a mill now in Wolfeborough.

In 1868, when a concerted movement was made to advance the Great Falls and Conway railroad from Union Village to West Ossipee, a meeting was arranged between the prominent officials of the Eastern Railroad Corporation and leading citizens of the county at Union Village, at which these citizens gave carefully prepared estimates of the support various towns in the county would give to the proposed extension of the railroad. Ossipee was represented by Asa Beacham, Joseph Q. Roles, Henry J. Banks, Samuel D. Quarles, and Lorenzo D. Moulton. Their estimate of what Ossipee would send to market over the road was : timber, 376,000,000 feet ; wood, 441,000 cords ; bark, 50,000 cords; available sites for mills and mills for lumber production within six miles distance, 40; merchandise tonnage per annum, 1,500 tons. Charles Cook, of Tamworth, estimated that his town would send : timber, 100,000,000 feet ; wood, 2,000,000 cords ; shoe-pegs, 6,000 barrels ; hay-rakes, 2,000 dozen ; merchandise tonnage per annum, 750 tons. Henry J. Banks gave an estimate for Sandwich : lumber, 5,000,000 feet ; wood, 1,000,000 cords; bark, 3,000 cords ; merchandise tonnage, 220 tons. William H. Allen estimated that Conway would send : lumber, 300,000,000 feet ; and a merchandise tonnage of 1,500 tons a year. John M. Nickerson said that Albany offered "large quantities of hemlock, pine, spruce, maple timber and wood growth covering thousands of aeres around the base of Chocorua mountain."

In 1872 statisties were furnished to the Portland and Ogdensburgh railroad along its route as follows : -

Chatham has 100,000,000 feet of hemlock and spruce lumber standing. There is a large amount of poplar.

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Bartlett has 28,000 acres of wooded land, and 150,000,000 feet of spruce and hemlock ready for the lumberman. Bark for tanning is available in unlimited quantities. Maple, birch, beech, and poplar are abundant. There are six water-powers; one, Goodrich Falls on Ellis river, has 100 feet descent.

Jackson las 19,000 acres of wooded territory. 100,000,000 feet of lumber available for use, mostly spruce and hemlock, especially spruce. It is of large size. Several water-powers are unoccupied on Ellis river.

Hart's Location. A good deal of spruce, hemlock, and some pine adapted to clapboards are standing upon it.

Conway has four water-powers, part improved, with thousands of cords of poplar for pulp, excelsior, etc., in the vicinity ; 20,000,000 feet of pine are still standing in the town, with hard and soft wood, spruce and hemlock.

The towns of Freedom, Effingham, and Ossipee run and will continue to run their lumber largely down the river to be cut up by its water-powers, or at Steep Falls on the Saco, from which point it will take rail to Portland.

In 1876 Albany was furnishing much lumber, mostly hard wood. Ossipee was doing a large business in manufactured lumber, produced by F. K. Hobbs & Co., J. B. Moulton and the heirs of L. D. Moulton, and others. Towle & Keneson and Thurston & Towle, of Freedom, were lumbering extensively in Ossipee and South Tamworth in hemlock and spruce, which was driven down the various streams leading to the Saco. Charles MeKenney and Horace Hobson, of Maine, were operating quite heavily in Ossipee. Bartlett Bros, of South . Tamworth, were manufacturing lumber on a large scale at their mills at that place. In 1880 Mr Hobson cut about 3,000,000 feet in Bartlett and Jackson.

Since the early operations in pine in Moultonborough, lumbering has been carried on more or less by small operators, never attaining high propor- tions. Emery's newly refitted mill has revived it somewhat, about 2,000,000 feet being eut in the winter of 1888-89.

Colonel John Peavey, for many years the largest operator in Tufton- borough, informs us that in 1823, when he went into trade, the most of the lumbering of the town was in red oak "shook " for molasses hogsheads. A large quantity was manufactured here, the home price being about fifty cents and the Dover price about one dollar. They were drawn by teams to Dover, a trip occupying four days. Captain Tristram Copp used to own a large team with which he would draw "shook " down, and load back with goods. There were also a great many beef-barrels made for the Dover market. Considerable pine was standing when the Boston, Concord, and Montreal railroad was built. This became quite valuable with the advanced facilities of transportation, and it was eut, drawn to the lake, rafted, and floated to Lake Village. The price in the log on the shore of the lake ranged from five to ten dollars per thousand.

John L. Peavey informs us that in 1852, when his knowledge of lumbering details began, the lumber interest of Tuftonborough was connected with

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HISTORY OF CARROLL COUNTY.

the old-pine mentioned above, hemlock, and oak. The hemlock was less in quantity than the pine and was sawed at Lake Village and Wolfeborough mills. The oak was for hogshead staves and found a Boston market. Colonel John Peavey was doing more in lumbering than all other operators. He employed a large erew for those days - twenty men. Wages was sixty-five cents a day. More or less was done in a small way until 1881, when John L. Peavey began quite extensive operations on the Whitehouse lots in old-pine and oak. He employed thirty men, used a portable sawmill to eut his logs, and got out "shook " and ship-timber. The last went to Gloucester, the " shook " to Portland and Boston, and the pine mostly to Nashua and Boston. He operated here two years, getting out 1,500,000 feet annually.

The primitive growth of pine in East Sandwich is said to have been unsurpassed in New Hampshire as regards size and quality, but it was carried down the river many years ago when it was worth two dollars per thousand, and it is not often now that one of the old king pines can be seen. In a not very extensive manner many small operators have cut off a very large amount, including pine, hemloek, poplar, and birch. A disastrous wind of a cyclonic character prostrated much timber in Sandwich in 1883, including whole groves of massive hemlocks. In 1884 John L. Peavey located his mill on the W. M. Weed lot, and employed seventy-five men. This had been considered the heaviest hemlock growth in the county before the hurricane, and the trees then lay in an apparently inextricable confusion piled thirty feet high in some places. From one hundred acres of this mass Mr Peavey cut that year 1,600,000 feet, mostly in boards sent to Massachusetts. No lumbering of consequence is now done in Sandwich.

A correspondent from Conway, under date of February 1, 1879, thus sums up the production of lumber : -

There will be about one million feet of lumber in the logs landed on the banks of the river near this place to float down in the spring to mills below. There are manufactured at the peg-factory one thousand cords of birchwood per year. This requires two hundred thousand feet of poplar boards for boxes, which are also manufactured here. Also, about six hundred cords of birchwood are cut into spool timber; one thousand cords of oak are cut into staves and made into shooks for the West Indian trade, and about five thousand cords of hemlock bark sent from this station during this winter. W. H. Allen sends from this station a large amount of manufactured pine and spruce lumber, cut at the base of Chocorua moun- tain, from as good quality of timber as grows in New England.

At this writing (1889), besides the mills of Mr Peavey in Albany, there are two others on Swift river, owned and operated by George Sanders, of Nashua, and Haven Quint, of Conway. The Bartlett Land and Lumber Company are getting from Albany most of their supply for their mill in Bartlett. Commencing about 1874, this company has produced from three to

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five million of feet annually of pine, spruce, and hemlock ; the - pine has been much less in quantity in recent years. This is shipped by rail to Portland. In Bartlett in addition to this company are C. F. Buffum & Co., large operators, and several others who ship from Glen Station.

J. F. Smith has a mill at Avalanche Station, in Hart's Location, and is doing quite an extensive business in the production of lumber.

Henry Heywood has been producing about 3,000,000 feet of spruce in Jackson annually in 1888 and 1889.

Messrs Towle & Keneson, of Freedom, operate in Tamworth and Sand- wich, on Ossipee mountains, and for several years have cut from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 feet annually.

Davis & Hodsdon, of Centre Ossipee, carry on lumbering in Ossipee and Albany. Mr Hodsdon (Arthur E.) has also formed a partnership with C. B. Gafney, of Rochester, as Hodsdon & Gafney, for Inmber operations in Wakefield and Ossipee.

In Wolfeborough are the manufacturing and lumbering firms of Libbey, Varney & Co., Hersey Brothers, and A. Wiggin & Son. They get out pine, hemlock, and hard-wood lumber.

Poplar used to be in fair demand for shingles, boards, etc. ; in later years both poplar and spruce have been in great demand for the manufacture of wood-pulp.

MAPLE-SUGAR MAKING. - [By Dr S. B. Wiggin.] In the early history of Sandwich 1 but little attention was paid to sugar-making. At first, in clearing the farms, the early settlers did not reserve the sugar-maple, so that when the industry was found to be of some importance, many who desired to engage in it had to go back on the mountains and the uncleared lands to find the maple-trees. But now the rock-maple is as carefully preserved as the apple-tree, and the income of the sugar-orchard is frequently greater than from the apple-orchard. Seventy-five years ago the axe and gouge were used in drawing the sap from the tree, and it was caught in troughs scooped from logs of wood. The sap was then "boiled" in iron kettles suspended over an open fire, usually made between two logs of wood lying parallel on the ground. The kettles were hung from a pole placed upon two crotched stakes driven into the ground. The implements used and the sugar- camps, when there were any, were of the rudest kind. The sugar then made was very dark in color and very strong in taste, owing to foreign substances constantly getting into the sap, and its almost continual burning on the sides of the kettles as the flames of the fire wrapped around and above them. Then, when a man went far away from his dwelling to make sugar, he would sometimes remain in the woods through the season, living on potatoes and salt pork, or some such rough fare, his camp being made of a few poles covered

1 This article, while speaking of Sandwich, applies to the whole of Carroll county where the maple grows.

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with spruce or hemlock boughs. When these camps were pitched near where bears made their winter quarters, occasionally Bruin walking abroad in the warm spring days would call upon the sugar-maker. Sometimes the bear and sometimes the sugar-maker would beat a hasty retreat, and sometimes " fight " would be shown, but no serious casualties are recorded by early historians. At the end of the season the man would pack up his troughs beneath some large tree, bury his kettles in the ground to remain till the next season, then take his sugar or syrup upon his back and return home.

The sugar thus made was of so inferior a quality that it had little market value, yet it was the almost exclusive "sweetening " in the families where it was made. But time has wrought a great change, not only in the process of manufacture, but in the product. Instead of the axe, gouge, auger, and trough, small bits, and metallic, or nicely turned spouts are used; tin buckets have replaced the troughs and later wooden buckets; galvanized iron pans and evaporators set in well-built arches have taken the place of kettles; tin-lined tanks are used as receptacles for the sap; the utmost care is taken, and eleanli- ness is carefully observed in the manufacture; comfortable framehouses have taken the place of the ruder huts, and instead of the dark, coarse sugar and black syrup, sugar is made almost rivaling the refined in whiteness, syrup clear as crystal, and both of the most delicious flavor. The market value has trebled in the last half century and the quantity made is many times greater. Now nearly every farm has its sugar orchard or "sap yard," and the industry is one of the most important.

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History of Carroll County, New Hampshire, Part 28

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co. Number of Pages: 1124

Author: Merrill, Georgia Drew
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Boston : W.A. Fergusson & Co.
Number of Pages: 1124