USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Concord > History of Concord, New Hampshire, from the original grant in seventeen hundred and twenty-five to the opening of the twentieth century, Volume I > Part 42
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· In 1830 two mutual companies-the New Hampshire and the Mer- rimack County-shared the business of fire insurance with the Etna of Connecticut. Twenty-three years later five additional companies, the New England, the Equitable, the Columbian, the Union, and the People's, were in the field. Of course, the fire risks of the town con- stituted but a small part of those dealt with by these companies. Their operations took a wider range; extending in some cases throughout New England, and even beyond. For some years Con- cord was a lively center for this department of business activity ; but upon the prevalent adoption of the stock plan of insurance, and from other causes, most of the mutual companies ceased to operate.
Though the insurance companies proffered indemnity for loss by fire, the town, as ever, was seeking security for its people against such loss by maintaining an effective fire department. In 1835 two new fire-engines were purchased for use in the main village; the two before used there being respectively transferred to the East and West villages. In 1845 a new organization of the department was effected under a recent state enactment whereby a Board of Engineers, con- sisting of a Chief and not more than twenty Assistants, annually appointed by the selectmen, could be substituted for firewards. Lu- ther Roby was appointed chief engineer, with eighteen assistants.4 He
1 See Thespians, in note at close of chapter.
2 Bouton's Concord, 412.
3 Ibid, 421.
4 See Fire Department Reorganized, in note at close of chapter.
-
391
DESTRUCTIVE FIRES.
served in that capacity, with a varying number of assistants, till 1852, when he was succeeded by Nathaniel B. Baker. In 1846, upon re- port of a committee, consisting of Franklin Pierce, Joseph Low, and Richard Bradley, the town purchased for two hundred dollars Engine No. 3, its house and fixtures. It had hitherto belonged to Lewis Downing, who for two hundred and twenty-five dollars had purchased it in 1833, for the main purpose of protecting his manufacturing establishment. His employees had always manned it. There had been no occasion to use it for its special purpose, but the engine com- pany had done good service in the protection of other property in different parts of the town ; and private subscription had provided an engine house, buckets, and twenty-five feet of hose. In 1847 a Hook and Ladder company was organized; and thenceforward other requisi- tions of the department were successively met by the town.
But in spite of wise municipal precautions, Concord was not a stranger to destructive fires that got the better of its firemen. Thus, on the evening of February 13, 1849, the extensive plant of the Downing-Abbot coach manufactory (then owned by J. Stephens Abbot) was, with the exception of its fire-proof blacksmith's shop, entirely consumed. Thus, again, on the night of the 21st of August, 1851, occurred the greatest conflagration with which Concord was ever visited. At an hour before midnight the church bells rang out the startling fire alarm ; for flames were seen issuing from the old " Mechanics Row " building, wooden, and three-storied, standing in rear of the apothecary shop of Edward H. Rollins, and near to and northerly of the Eagle Coffee House. The firemen, including those of Fisherville and East and West Concord, were prompt in answer- ing the call to duty ; but despite their best efforts, the flames spread in all directions from the place of origin, until they had reduced to ashes and charred ruins the whole densely occupied business area ex- tending in length, south, from a point opposite Park street, to Rum- ford block, opposite the junction of School and Main streets ; and in width, east, from Main street to the railroad tracks. Fortunately the atmosphere was calm ; but within the doomed area, Stickney's block, the Eagle Coffee House, the Merchants' Exchange-recently erected upon the ashes of Butterfield's block-and other structures, large and small, were consumed with much of what they contained ; what was saved mainly finding temporary security across the street, in front of or within the state house yard.1 Four engines, manned by five hundred men, had come up from Manchester, but their arrival was too late to be of much service. " The night," writes Asa Me- Farland, "was one of great commotion, the parallel to which had
1 See List of Sufferers by Fires, in note at close of chapter.
392
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
never been experienced by the people of Concord, many as had been the fire alarms to which they had responded by their presence and their labors." 1 The light of this "great fire " was seen far and wide over the state, and beyond, even as far as Franconia, Thetford, and Portland. "At Portsmouth," says Dr. Bouton, "it is said, it appeared as if only twelve or fifteen miles distant; and at Francestown it shone into sleeping chambers like the light of the waning moon." The fire was probably of incendiary origin, and a reward of one thou- sand dollars was offered for the arrest of the criminal, but without avail.
The work of rebuilding soon began and went briskly on. The reimbursement of losses by insurance materially helped the losers promptly to replace old structures by new and better. Within a year after the August conflagration, "the burnt district," which had been extended to Free Bridge road by a lesser fire in January, 1852,2 was largely occupied by new and elegant buildings, nearly all tenanted or ready for use. Meanwhile, some of the merchants whose shops were destroyed had found tolerable accommodation in a line of long and narrow ten-footers, along and between the east side of the state house yard and the west margin of Main street, where was to be seen for about a year a busy Merchants' Row.
Newly and forcibly impressed by the August conflagration, as to the importance of a fully equipped fire department, the town, in No- vember, held a special meeting, at which Joseph B. Walker, Luther Roby, and True Osgood were made a committee "to investigate the wants of the fire department." The committee reported in March, 1852, that the town was provided with six good engines : Nos. 2, 3, and 4, in the main village; No. 6, at West Concord; No. 7, at East Concord, and No. 8, at Fisherville ; that it owned two thousand one hundred and fifty fect of reliable hose; and that it had fourteen public reservoirs in the main village, and three in Fisherville-aggre- gating a capacity of nearly ten thousand cubic feet. The committee's recommendations, to construct five other reservoirs, to obtain addi- tional hose, and to continne the compensation of firemen at twenty- five cents per hour, as fixed the preceding year, were adopted. The town, however, while taking such measures to promote the efficiency of its fire department, indefinitely postponed the article of the war- rant-"To see if the town will vote to abate any part of the taxes „of the sufferers by the fire in August last." 3 But, in fine, with all attempts to meet the wants of the fire department, there was the one great want-that of an adequate supply of water-which could not
1 "An Outline of Biography," etc., 89.
' Bouton's Concord, 491; also, see List of Sufferers by Fires, in note at close of chapter.
3 Proceedings of Town Meeting, 1852, p. 17.
393
STREETS DEFINED.
be met by the town; nor, indeed, was it to be until the twentieth year of the city.
In March, 1834, the town, conscious of growing importance, and aware, "from the great increase of inhabitants in the compact part, that new streets or highways " might be required, voted that " streets" might "be authorized by the selectmen, and become highways to be thereafter maintained by the town." The proviso was added that if any street should "be required for the especial benefit of the owner of the land through which " it might "pass, the necessary land " should " be given for the purpose by the owner," and "the road and suitable water-courses be first made " by him " to the acceptance of the selectmen." It was further voted that "whereas, for more easily describing lots and residences, the names of the several streets now made, or hereafter to be made, should be known and recorded, there- fore, in order that suitable names may be given to such streets within the limits of the 9th, 10th, and 11th school districts, a committee be appointed, who shall be authorized, with the concurrence of the own- ers of the land, when it has been given for the purpose, to report proper names to the selectmen ; the same, when approved by them, to "be entered on the records of the town," and the streets thereafter to be known by those names. Whereupon, William A. Kent, Abiel Walker, and Timothy Chandler having been appointed "to name streets," reported in June following twenty-six streets named and described, together with Rumford square, "a plat of ground appro- priated by George Kent, for a public square, containing five acres, lying between Merrimack and Rumford streets." 1
The avenue afterwards to be known as Bridge street was not then defined, and there was no bridge to give it name. For the Free bridge in Coneord -- and the first free one on any part of the Merri- mack-was not built until 1839. In that undertaking citizens in the central part of the main village took especial interest. At the first meeting for consultation called by John P. Gass, and held at the American House, in the fall of 1838, Governor Hill in the chair, a committee was raised to obtain subscriptions in Concord and towns to the eastward. The subscription having reached four thousand three hundred eighty dollars, Nathan Call and John P. Gass, of Concord, Bailey Parker of Pembroke, and Cyrus Tucker of Loudon, as build- ing committee, erected in 1839 a bridge of wooden piers. A road, opened across the interval on both sides of the river, and through the gully eastward, was laid out by the road commissioners, who assessed one half the cost npon the town. In 1841 the bridge was carried off by a freshet, but was restored at a cost of three thousand dollars.
1 Bouton's Concord, 394-397; also, see Streets, in note at close of chapter.
394
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
The next year a powerful opposition was raised agamst it by inhabi- tants in other parts of the town, and the bridge was voted to be, "in its conception, location, and construction, impolitic, unequal, and op- pressive, and ought not to be continued at the expense of the town." The question of maintaining it went into court, but in 1850 select- men in favor of a free bridge were chosen, and, as instructed, rebuilt the bridge in a substantial manner.1
The street named Park, in honor of the builder of the state house, and running along the north side of the capitol grounds, was the opening, to Main street, of a court hitherto reaching from State street to the residence of Judge Nathaniel G. Upham, built in 1831.2 At the northwest angle of Main and Park streets, from which, in March, 1834, the " green store " and the " Emmons house " had been removed a short distance,-the former west, the latter north, -- John P. Gass and son laid the underpinning of the American House in April, and, in six weeks and two days, completed the spacious hostelry and opened it to guests, having thus accomplished a feat of expeditious building rarely equaled.3
Naturally, the defining of the streets, the number of which by 1850 had become forty-seven,4 was gradually followed by greater attention to making the side tracks, worn by pedestrians, into regular side- walks, properly detached from the main highways, and otherwise improved, so as the better to answer their purposes. But the paving of the natural surface with brick or other material, with or without granite edge-stones, was rare for many years, while definite widths and grades were never established under the town government.
In those days, too, gradually accumulating capital sought more profitable investment, and business enterprise new channels of gain. The example of Lowell helped stir the desire of appropriating to manufacturing purposes the rapid waters of the upper Merrimack. The Amoskeag and Hooksett Falls, with Garvin's and Sewall's in Concord, promised returns more or less rich upon capital invested in their improvement. Naturally, "the mighty falls at 'Skeag," with which Governor Belcher had been so much pleased nearly a century before, were most attractive. Capitalists of Boston and vicinity were now taken with them, and in 1831 the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was chartered with a capital of one 'million six hundred thousand dollars. To prevent competition, the corporation, four or . five years later, absorbed by merger of stocks, the companies control- ling the water-powers of Hooksett and Garvin's Falls, that of the lat- ter being in the hands of the Concord Manufacturing Company, with an appraised capital of one hundred thousand dollars. In this merger,
1 Bouton's Concord, 741-2. $ Bouton's Concord, 411.
' Residence of Dr. Charles R. Walker in 1900.
+ David Watson's Directory, 1850.
395
MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES.
the investments of several Concord men contributed to a corporate stock that, by wise handling, was to become one of the world's great manufacturing enterprises, as well as to found a new Manchester, and cherish its marvelous growth to metropolitan proportions. But a heavy river dam constructed above Garvin's became the sole sign, and was to remain but a sign, that "Bow Gore " might possibly become a populous manufacturing center. What there might have been of advantage to the growth and material welfare of Concord, had not the control of its fine water-power at that point passed to the Amos- keag Company, is a matter of speculation, not of history.
In 1835 an attempt was made by the "Sewall's Falls Locks and Canal Corporation " to utilize another water-power for manufacturing purposes. Already, some ten years before, a sawmill had been erected by Ebenezer Eastman, Simeon Virgin, and Jeremiah Shepard on the east side of the river, about midway between the place of the modern dam and Sewall's Falls bridge, and by them was used for sawing all kinds of lumber until it was destroyed by fire in 1837.1 The new enterprise contemplated the construction of a dam at Sew- all's Falls, whence a canal was to be excavated terminating near Federal bridge in the village of East Concord, the site of the contem- plated cotton mills. The works were begun, but never finished, and the enterprise was given up, " with heavy loss to the corporation," 2 and with nct a little disappointment to many who had grounded upon its anticipated success high hopes, especially for the growth and improvement of the east village, and generally for the consequent advancement of the town. At the same time, however, just above on the Contoocook, where, for some years, miscellaneous manufacturing had been carried on, the property of the chartered Contoocook Manu- facturing Company came into the possession of Freeman and Francis Fisher, of Boston, by whom were commenced operations, destined to a better issue than were those at the falls of the Merrimack, just below, and for whom a precinct of the town was long to bear the name of Fisherville.
In 1835 a company was incorporated in Concord with a capital of 825,000 for the manufacture of silk. The feasibility of silk cul- ture in New Hampshire had for some years considerably engaged the attention of thoughtful minds, and tests thereof on a limited scale had been made. The purpose of the new company was to experiment under more favorable conditions. Isaac Hill, Albe Cady, G. Parker Lyon, Stephen Brown, Moses G. Atwood, Samuel Evans, Charles Smart, and John Whipple were prominent in the enterprise. The farm of Ballard Haseltine in the southwestern part of the town
1 Fact communicated by Charles Virgin.
2 Bouton's Concord, 432.
396
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
was purchased, hundreds of mulberry trees were planted, and other provisions made for prosecuting the business. Silk was produced in small quantities for a few years, at the end of which the undertaking was given up-leaving in reminder the name of "Silk Farm " to the pleasant locality of the unsuccessful experiment.1
But a more profitable industry had been for years, and was still, developing in the inexhaustible granite deposits of Rattlesnake hill. Here, from 1819 to 1834, the work of stone quarrying and finishing was pursued by different contractors with vigor and profit, giving employment to many, and finding a market near and remote for its products. In the 30's, 40's, and early 50's the " stone business " was energetically prosecuted by Luther Roby. In subsequent years its operations were greatly enlarged, the history of which is told in a special chapter.
The years from 1833 to 1837, inclusive, were remarkable through- out the country for a speculation in real estate and its signal col- lapse. This "wild-cat " scheme for getting rich became a mania by 1835; the phase of it prevalent in New England being known as the " Eastern or Maine Land Speculation.". It was not confined to real estate in the wilds and paper townships of Maine; it extended to lands in almost all the principal cities and villages of New Eng- land. It raged in Boston and infected Concord. As Dr. Bouton has recorded: 2 " Visionary schemes were projected, airy hopes raised, and extravagant sums paid for land with the expectation of amassing thereby a large fortune. Lots in Concord valued at from forty to sixty dollars per acre suddenly rose to twice and five times that sum ; purchases were made-generally on credit-and many lots changed owners. Associations were formed of gentlemen who had by their industry laid up a few hundred or thousand dollars, and the whole was placed at stake in a race for wealth. In 1837 the crisis was reached, the bubble burst, and a large part of all who had enlisted in the enterprise found their money gone without an equiv- alent. The loss to persons in Concord, principally by speculation in eastern lands, was estimated at from seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollars. The consequence was a pecuniary embarrassment which lasted long afterwards, and from which some never recov- ered."
That crisis of 1837, which put to crucial test the financial sound- ness of banks as well as of individuals, found in Concord the " Up- per " or Merrimack County bank in good trim and able to weather the storm of revulsion. Without formal suspension of specie pay- ments it maintained its credit, suffering comparatively little from
1 Bouton's Concord, 433-4.
2 History of Concord, 423.
397
THE CONCORD RAILROAD.
specie runs; the holders of its notes deeining them as good as Benton's bullion. The "Lower" or Concord bank was less fortu- nate. It foundered, and finally, in 1840, sunk into hopeless bank- ruptcy ; thus contributing an element of temporary reaction to the financial progress of the town.
During these years the Railroad enterprise was developing through- out the country. In New Hampshire, notwithstanding the hostile tendency of excessively conservative legislation as to "right of way," and " the personal liability " of corporate stockholders-to say noth- ing of the financial stress of the times-it forged ahead. The iron track of the Concord Railroad, under the charter of 1835, was to thread the valley of the upper Merrimack. Concord had early ap- preciated the advantages to accrue from the undertaking, and had in its municipal capacity subscribed, in 1837, for eight hundred shares of Concord Railroad stock at fifty dollars the share. The public interest had become so enthusiastic by 1839 that William A. Kent, Robert Davis, and Joseph Low, who had already served as a sub- scription committee, " were empowered and directed, in behalf of the town, to subscribe for two thousand shares of the Concord Rail- road stock, and to borrow a sum not exceeding one hundred thou- sand dollars, redeemable after the year 1850; the interest on the loan to be paid from the income of the road, or otherwise, as found expedient." 1 But this proposed action was deemed, upon second thought, too venturesome, in view of all contingencies, and was not carried out. Moreover, the town, two years later, manifested its continued shyness of such investments in disposing even of its eight hundred shares of railroad stock without reluctance; for the future prosperity of the Concord Railroad could not be foreseen, nor had a glimpse of the golden gleam of its ten per cent. dividends been caught.
But this action of the town in its municipal capacity did not pre- vent individual contribution of wise, strenuous, and persistent efforts for completing the iron tie of communication between the metropolis of New England and the capital of New Hampshire. Nor did such efforts fail ; the thirty-five miles of track from Nashua to Concord were duly laid: to Manchester by July, 1842; to Concord, the north- ern terminus, by September. Early in the evening of Tuesday, the sixth of the latter month, came into town over the completed road the first through passenger train from Boston. As the engine " Amoskeag," heading "three passenger cars and some baggage,"2 puffed into the corporation grounds-afterwards known as Railroad square-the multitude of men, women, and children thronging about
1 Bouton's Concord, 427.
2 Ibid, 446-7.
398
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
the temporary station, received with loud acclaims the wondrous visitation, while peals of cannon thundered welcome.
Thus, at last, had been accomplished a work of great promise for the progress and welfare of the town-a promise the fulfilment of which would and did at once begin. During the very next year thirty-seven dwelling houses, supplying fifty-one tenements, were erected ; as were also buildings, not a few, for mercantile, mechanical, and other business purposes. Between the years 1840 and 1850 the population nearly doubled. Preeminently eligible, indeed, was now the situation of Concord as an attractive center, upon a railroad bearing its name, which, at the latter date, had already become a leading trunk road with its important radiating branches, the North- ern, the Montreal, the Claremont, and the Portsmouth.1 .
. The electric telegraph was introduced into Concord in 1848; six years after the opening of the Concord Railroad, and four years after the construction of the telegraphic line between Baltimore and Washington-the first in the world. The first Concord telegraph office was in a ten-footer lean-to specially built for it and adjoining the south side of the Columbian Hotel. Ira F. Chase, of Vermont, was the first operator. He was succeeded in 1852 by Joseph W. Robinson, who was the first resident of the town to learn the art and mystery of telegraphy. Ten years later, this same Concord operator, having become superintendent of the Boston and White Mountains District of the American Telegraph Company, commenced the con- struction of the lines which, in a few years, connected nearly all the prominent towns in northern New Hampshire, as well as all the mountain hotels,-not even the summit of Mount Washington being excluded from the circuit of communication.
In November of the year 1842, and thus nearly in coincidence with the opening of the Concord Railroad, the New Hampshire Asy- lum for the Insane was opened for the reception of patients, to the blessing and honor of the state and the enhanced prestige of the capital. For ten years had this great enterprise of wise philanthropy prominently occupied the public thought. But how effectually its accomplishment had been promoted by the wise counsels and untir- ing exertions of Concord men, and the financial liberality of the town, has, with other facts in the history of the institution, been so fully treated in a special chapter, as to necessitate here only this passing reference.
While, as has been seen, the town was in the mood of subscribing for Concord Railroad stock, and by authority of the legislature could, in 1837, hire money for such investment, a new source of revenue
1 The detailed history of Railroads in connection with Concord is to be found in a special chapter.
399
THE SURPLUS REVENUE.
promised to supply loans wherefrom to pay assessments on subscrip- tions, and did in fact pay, in part, one on six hundred shares. Somewhat later an appropriation was made from the same source for the Asylum for the Insane. This new and promising financial resource was the Surplus Revenue. For, the national debt having been totally extinguished, with a surplus still remaining in the treasury, an act was passed, in 1836, by congress, and approved with misgiving by President Jackson, to "deposit " with the states all of that surplus found on hand January 1, 1837, except five million dol- lars,-the deposit to be held till recalled by the general government. The amount thus to be disposed of was thirty-five million dollars; and, upon the prescribed ratio of representation in house and senate, New Hampshire's share was nearly nine hundred thousand dollars. At the winter session of 1836-'37, the state legislature accepted the trust, and provided for the deposit of the money with such towns as might vote to receive it, and pledge faith for the safe-keeping and return of the same upon demand; the division to be made, "one half on the apportionment, and the other half on the polls, as returned at the " winter " session." The measure, having passed both houses after weeks of deliberation without party division, received the assent of Governor Hill, rather in deference to the judgment of the legis- lature than in obedience to his own convictions ; for he felt that it was a mistake to scatter the money among the towns, rather than- as he had recommended in a message-to allow the state to invest it, and use the proceeds for the relief of state taxation; or to loan a portion of it, on easy interest, for the promotion of enterprises of public value.
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