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 49
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Main Street, looking North from Pleasant Street, with Masonic Temple at Lett-1900.
department, by a cavalcade of truckmen, and by numerous other cit- izens in carriages or on foot, moved, to the music of the band, up Main to Penacook street, thence down State to West, and then up Main to Pleasant, where the ceremony of laying the corner-stone was performed by the officers of the Grand Lodge. The procession re- formed, then moved to the state house park, where Fourth of July exercises were held; Brother Mason W. Tappan, of Bradford, read- ing the Declaration of Independence, and Brother William L. Foster, of Concord, delivering the oration.
This event the historian of Blazing Star Lodge has characterized as " a beginning of importance to the Masonic fraternity of Concord." The new apartments were dedicated on the 19th of January, 1859, by the grand officers of the state. The Blazing Star Lodge took a twenty years' lease, during the continuance of which the other Masonic bodies were tenants of the lessee.
In 1859 Mount Horeb Commandery of Knights Templar was in-
,
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PROGRESS OF TEMPERANCE.
stituted in Concord; its first officers being installed on the 21st of November of that year. Of these, Edward H. Rollins was Com- mander; Reuben G. Wyman, Generalissimo ; and Lyman A. Walker, Captain-General. The organization was the revival of an old En- campment-the former name of Commandery-originally located in Hopkinton, and for some time dormant. Under more favorable con- ditions in its new location, it became a flourishing representative of Templar Masonry.
Earlier, about the year 1847, the Trinity Royal Arch Chapter of Free and Accepted Masons had also been transferred from Hopkin- ton to a permanent home in Concord. Later, on the 13th of June, 1860, the Grand Lodge of New Hampshire granted warrant to John Dame, George H. Emery, Thomas L. Tullock, Allen Tenny, Charles C. Clement, Abel Hutchins, James B. Gove, Edward Dow, and Luther W. Nichols, Jr., for establishing Eureka Lodge, No. 70. Accordingly, a new Lodge was forthwith instituted, that was to . become no unimportant factor of Masonic progress ; as was also to become another organization, the Horace Chase Council of Royal and Select Masters, established in 1862.
Nor should it be forgotten in this connection that, while Free- masonry was thus strengthening itself, Odd Fellowship was becom- ing stronger; and that its White Mountain Lodge was flourishing. Though Harmony hall, which had been the pleasant home of the Lodge for fourteen years, was destroyed by fire on the 10th of Sep- tember, 1859, yet, on the 25th of October, 1860, a new home, more pleasant than the old, and occupying the same site, at the corner of Main and Warren streets, was formally dedicated to the uses of Odd Fellowship. There the good work of the Order was to be done for thirty years.
The progress of temperance reform has already been a theme of nar- ration. It will be recalled that the town had, as early as 1852, in- structed its representatives in the general court to support the enact- ment of a prohibitory statute similar to the one then in force in Maine, and had requested its selectmen to license but two persons to sell wines or spirituous liquors-and to do that only for medicinal, me- chanical, and chemical purposes. But it was not until two years after the formation of the city government that the principle of prohibi- tion supplanted that of license in temperance legislation. However, means of restraining the sale and use of intoxicants in the city were found in the efforts of the long-established Concord Temperance Society, and of the recent " Order of the Sons of Temperance;" in the enforcement of the state law ; in the regulation of restaurants by ordinance ; and in the efficient performance of duty by the police de-
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
partment, including its court. Hence Mayor Low, at the opening of his second year of service, could announce the " suppression, in some good degree, of the sale of intoxicating drinks; " and Mayor Clement could, a year later, declare to the city council: "The sale of intoxicating drinks has been stopped, in a great degree, by our predecessors. A wholesome temperance sentiment pervades this com- munity, and any well-directed endeavors on our part to seal up the fountains of so much immorality and misery as dram-shops always are, will, without doubt, meet the hearty approval of a vast majority of our citizens."
On the 13th of August, 1855, the Prohibitory Law, entitled "An act for the suppression of intemperance," went into effect. This event had been anticipated by the city council of Concord, on the 28th of July, in the passage of the following explicit resolutions : - " Resolved-That the late act for the suppression of intemperance in this State meets with our entire approbation :" "Therefore, resolved -that the city marshal and his assistants are requested to prosecute, with promptness and energy, all violations and infringements of said law."
The day after the law went into operation the mayor and aldermen proceeded to put Concord in position to meet the new requirements, by providing for the appointment of liquor agents-one for the main village and one for Fisherville ; the annual salary of the former to be three hundred dollars, and that of the latter, one hundred and fifty. Also, authority was given the mayor to borrow one thousand dollars to be appropriated to the purchase of liquors for the agencies. Charles A. Farnam was the first agent in the city proper, and held the office for six months, when he was succeeded by B. L. Johnston. In all this was manifested the purpose to obey the new law, and by honest and judicious enforcement to test its virtue as a reformatory agent.
Three years before the town became the city, the thought of employing Gas for lighting purposes in the main village was enter- tained. Accordingly, in 1850, an act "to incorporate the Concord Gas-Light Company " was obtained. The capital stock was not to exceed one hundred thousand dollars, and the grantees named were Joseph Low, A. C. Prince [Pierce], John Gibson, Nathaniel G. Upham, George O. Odlin, Perkins Gale, Benjamin Grover, George Hutchins, John Gass, and Cyrus Hill. But not until the 3d of August, 1852, was held the first meeting of the grantees, upon the call of Joseph Low and John Gibson, as provided in the charter. Then associates were chosen and by-laws were adopted. The capital stock was fixed at thirty-five thousand dollars, divided into seven
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INTRODUCTION OF GAS.
hundred shares. Seven directors were elected, with power to choose a president, a clerk, and a treasurer. The directors were George B. Chandler, Nathaniel B. Baker, Nathaniel White, Edward H. Rollins, Micajah C. Burleigh, Rufus Clement, and Benjamin Grover. These met on the same day after the adjournment of the grantees' meeting, and chose George B. Chandler, president, Nathaniel B. Baker, clerk, and Rufus Clement, treasurer. A committee, consisting of Nathaniel White, Edward H. Rollins, and Nathaniel B. Baker, was selected "to solicit subscriptions to stock, and for lights."
Operations were at once commenced; and at meetings of the directors, held on the 3d and 11th of December, 1852, the treasurer was directed to take a bond of the land belonging to the Concord Railroad Corporation upon which-in the language of the vote- " the gas works are in the process of erection." The stockholders were assessed fifty per cent. of each share. The treasurer was given full power to purchase coal, lime, whiskey, and all other articles nec- essary to the manufacture of gas, and was also directed to pay the Somersworth Machine Company the sum of twelve thousand dollars on a contract entered into August 25, 1852.1 At the meeting of December 11th it was voted that the company furnish the supply pipe and lay the same for sixteen feet from the main pipe, or to the person's land who uses the gas. By February 9, 1853, such prog- ress had been made that the directors voted full powers to Messrs. Clement, Rollins, and Burleigh to make arrangements for the furnish- ing of fixtures to the consumers of gas, with instructions to " attend to the duty forthwith." It was also voted that the company furnish gas to consumers at the rate of three dollars and seventy-five cents per thousand feet; 2 and that the treasurer be directed "to procure a deed of the lot on which the buildings of the company are erected, and pay for the same." By summer, gas-light began to be regularly supplied. The town, however, did not at its last meeting in March, 1853, become a customer, but dismissed the article in the warrant as to the erection of ten or more gas-lights on Main and State streets ; properly enough leaving the matter to the city, which was soon to be. The enterprise was prosecuted with success, and in December, 1853, a dividend at the rate of six per cent. per annum was declared. In- deed, during the first year of the city the new mode of illumination grew so fast in public favor that the company the next year increased, with the consent of the state legislature, its capital stock to fifty thousand dollars, divided into one thousand shares, and it also took measures to enlarge its plant.
Of course the gas-light system was confined in its operations and 1 MSS. Records of Gas Company, Vol. I, pp. 10-11. 2 Ibid, pp. 12-13
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
immediate benefits to the compact part of the city, so that it was not deemed expedient-if just-to tax the whole city for lighting the streets of the part specially benefited. Hence, in 1857, under an amendment of the charter, a Gas Precinct, with definite bounds, em- bracing the compact part of the city, was established " for the erec- tion, maintenance, and regulation of lamp-posts, and for supplying the same with gas, in streets and commons, for the purpose of lighting said precinct;"1 the expense to be assessed upon the taxable inhab- itants and property thereof as in case of building schoolhouses in school districts. In this was set a precedent for precinct legislation to which resort was to be had in other matters. Under this ordi- nance the committee on lighting the streets was instructed in Novem- ber, 1857, to cause twenty-one lamps then standing, and which had been erected by individuals, to be lighted at the expense of the pre- cinct. These were respectively located as follows: At the North End, near Francis A. Fiske's store; at the junction of Main street with Franklin, Washington, Fayette, Thompson, Thorndike, and Downing streets ; at the junction of State street with Downing, Thorndike, Pleasant, Warren, School, Park, Centre, and Washington streets ; at the junction of School street with Green, Spring, Rum- ford, and Merrimack streets; and at the corners of Pleasant and South, and of Warren and Green streets.
A few years later another forward step was taken when the city government provided steam " to man the brakes " for its faithful fire department. Fires involving more or less of actual or threatened loss were occurring with sufficient frequency to urge the adoption of improved means and methods for their extinguishment. On the 28th of December, 1856, Phenix hotel was destroyed. Three fires, especially notable, occurred in 1859, and consumed, on the 1st of February, the Concord Railroad passenger station, containing the offices of the Concord, Montreal, and Northern railroads, the tele- graph office, and the commodious Depot hall-the famous scene of public gatherings, social, musical, literary, and political ; on the 13th of June, the South Congregational church on the corner of Main and Pleasant streets, with other buildings near by, including the bakery of James S. Norris, and several shops and dwelling-houses ; and, on the 10th of September, Odd Fellows' hall, with places of business or residence in its neighborhood, on and near the corner of Main and Warren streets. Each autumn month of 1861 had its disastrous con- flagration. On the 10th of September the car houses of the Concord and Northern railroads were destroyed, with their valuable contents. On the 4th of October were consumed, at the southwest corner of
1 Amended charter, June 27, 1857.
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STEAMER "GOV. HILL."
Main and Centre streets, the dwelling-house and office of Dr. Charles P. Gage, Day's Marble Works, and the Merrimack House. On the 14th of November the flames swept over a compactly occupied area at the junction of Main and School streets, and on the south side of the latter. Of the buildings destroyed were the establishment of James R. Hill,-then employing one hundred men in making har- nesses for the state and national governments, and equipments for the New Hampshire regiments,-the dwelling-houses of Chase Hill and Benjamin Damon, the shoe store of Joseph French, and the office of the Concord Gas-Light company.
The disastrous conflagrations just mentioned-especially those of 1861-quickened movements for providing the fire department with additional means for effective service. On the 30th of November a committee that had, under previous appointment, been considering the urgent needs of the city as to adequate protection against fire, reported, by Moses Humphrey and John Kimball, to the city council, as follows: "Your committee believe that the introduction of the Steam Fire Engine should no longer be delayed, and that arrange- ments should be made at once to add one to the fire department of this city-to take the place of the hand engine now located on Warren Street." The report was accepted, and an ordinance was passed in December authorizing Mayor Humphrey and Chief Engineer True Osgood to obtain a steam fire engine. Accordingly, in the spring of 1862, the steamer "Gov. Hill " took its place in the fire depart- ment system of Concord-to be joined in due time by others of its kind ; for though the innovation was at first opposed, yet its advan- tages became so apparent within a year, that, as Chief Engineer Os- good reported, the question was often asked, " Why not change the other two engines, and get another steamer?"
When Concord became a city it had two hundred miles of high- way and twenty bridges, large and small, for the maintenance of all of which the sum of four thousand dollars was appropriated, as had annually been done for twenty years. "This allowance," as Mayor Low reminded the city council in 1854, " experience " had " shown to be altogether insufficient for that purpose; " and that, "conse- quently, in order to meet the deficiency, large sums " had "annually been drawn directly from the treasury." The desirableness of a larger appropriation was recognized; and, in a year or two, the an- nual highway tax reached nine thousand dollars. This increase came none too soon, nor did it prove extravagant. Mayor Abbott, in 1857, declared it to be hardly sufficient to keep the roads and bridges in the passable condition required by law. "The number of indictments found against the city for insufficient roads," said Mayor
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HISTORY OF CONCOR ).
Clement in 1855, " has been by far too large, and our predecessors have found this a fruitful source of anxiety and care." In March, two years later, Mayor Abbott said : "There were four indictments on four several roads the past year ; each of these roads has been sat- isfactorily repaired. There is now an indictment, which is yet unset- tled, on that part of the road leading from Main street to East Con- cord, between Wattanummon and Federal bridges."
How to expend to better advantage the more liberal appropria- tions was a question which found one answer in an ordinance passed in 1855, creating the office of superintendent of repairs of highways and bridges ; for it was realized that the capable supervision of one "discreet and suitable person" in this important department of mu- nicipal administration could not fail of effecting beneficial results. Elected by the city council, and vested with all the powers and duties, and subject to all the liabilities of highway surveyors, this new officer was to collect all taxes assessed for the building and repairing of highways and bridges, whether in money or labor, and to expend them at such times and places as in his judgment the interest of the city might require. He was also to appoint sub- agents or surveyors, approved by the mayor and aldermen, for the thirty-one highway districts-except Nos. 9, 27, and 28-and pre- scribe their limits. The excepted districts-which embraced wards four, five, six, and a part of seven-were to be considered one dis- trict, and were to be under the immediate supervision of the super- intendent himself.
The first superintendent of repairs of highways and bridges was Augustine C. Pierce, who served acceptably for one year. In 1856 the office was held by the mayor-an arrangement that was to be continued for many years, and until the one highway district which had been made to embrace the whole city was placed under the super- vision of a new officer, styled commissioner of highways.
But liberal appropriations and their wise and honest application could not entirely ward off the plague of road indictments. Mayor Willard, in 1860, was constrained to say, in his second inaugural : "A road which was considered safe and convenient in good old com- mon-sense times is indictable now. There is a morbid sensitiveness on this subject with many persons; and with such, it is smart to make complaints. It is very easy to find something at almost any point that is not exactly perfect." Then, again, vexatious road suits were, for a while, much in vogue, brought to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been occasioned by defects in public thor- oughfares. Though these actions at law were largely actuated by mercenary motives, and grounded upon exaggerated or fictitious in-
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HIGHWAYS.
juries, yet surprising verdicts-as characterized by Mayor Clement in 1855-were often found, whereby the city was outrageously mulcted. Mayor Willard struck at this abuse in 1859, when he said : "People nowadays think more about how much they can recover of the city in case of accident than they care about how they can pass a tempo- rary defect with safety. . . We have suffered severely from a morbid and extravagant construction of the law relative to streets and sidewalks." In speaking of this matter in 1861, Mayor Hum- phrey had this to say : " Large expenditures are annually required to keep our streets, highways, and bridges in repair, yet with all our expense for this purpose, suits are constantly brought against the city to recover heavy damages for alleged defects in highways. I would suggest whether it might not have a tendency to put a stop to the bringing of such actions, if each one brought-except in a clear case of neglect on the part of the city-should be promptly and vigorously contested in court."
In later years of the city, claims for damages for highway defects were to be made, but with less frequency, and rarely with the sheer selfishness which largely actuated those of this earlier period. It ought also to be added that the newspapers-especially the States- man and the Independent Democrat-had vigorously opposed those vexatious road suits-so vigorously, indeed, as occasionally to be threatened with process for contempt of court. In the Statesman of October 23d, 1863, appeared the following bit of effective irony : "The most remarkable of modern curative powers is a jury verdict with damages assessed to the amount of a few thousand dollars. This paper has uniformly urged the belief that most of what are called road cases have their origin in nothing but a desire for pelf. We are half inclined to retract our opposition in view of the brilliant medical results of success in suits of this character. If we could publish certificates of the nimbleness of tongues once speechless, the agility of legs once paralyzed, the recovery from ailments seen and unseen which had been pronounced beyond the reach of surgery, all effected by trial by jury, the public would be amazed at the curative effect of a verdict with damages."
In the first year of the city an ordinance in relation to the width and construction of sidewalks was passed. It prescribed that the sidewalks on Main street should be cight feet wide; those on State street-or any other, three rods in width-six feet wide; and those on all streets less than three rods in width, four feet wide-the ineli- nation of all from the outer edge not to exceed half an inch to the foot. They were to be laid true and even upon an established grade, and under the direction of the superintendent of streets. By an
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
ordinance passed six years later, the price of edge-stones, of whatever width or thickness, was fixed not to exceed twelve and a half cents per foot linear measure, and at a proportional rate for a portion of a foot. Six years later still-or in 1865-to encourage construction, the price per foot was increased to fifteen cents. All along from 1859 to 1867 ordinances were passed fixing the grade of sidewalks, includ- ing, at the last date, those of Fisherville or Penacook.
It may, also, here be noted that street sprinkling began to be prac- tised in the summer of the city's first year. For, under a resolution adopted at a meeting of citizens held on the 18th of June, 1853, a subscription was raised for sprinkling Main street from Free Bridge road to Pleasant street. The sprinkler was soon in operation within the limits assigned, and so a beginning was made in a branch of street service which was to become of growing importance, as will hereafter be seen.
Peculiar interest attaches to Auburn street, laid out, constructed, and opened in 1860. The wooded eminence known as Prospect hill, with certain lands adjacent, had, in 1855 and 1856, come into the possession of John G. Hook. The purchaser, a convert in 1842 to the Miller or Advent faith, was already a preacher, having soon after conversion entered upon his remarkable evangelistic career of more than fifty years. But he neither then nor afterwards "preached for a living." With him, thrift followed industry and sagacity in secular callings and enterprises. His land purchase lay remotely to the westward of residential occupation at that time, but with charac- teristic enthusiasm he had calculated its advantages for such occupa- tion. He opened through it eleven streets or avenues, and divided it into eligible house lots. Upon one of these he built his own home, and waited for neighbors to buy and occupy others. The West End, however, had not yet the charm for buyers and settlers which it was later to have. The proprietor, waiting for sales, realized the special necessity of facilitating the settlement of his neighborhood by open- ing a more direct route than that of existing thoroughfares, from the central portion of the city, over his hill, to Long pond; and, fortu- nately for him, many citizens were of like mind. The movement to that end, though finding considerable opposition, was at last success- ful, and in 1860 the city government laid out Auburn street from . Little Pond road through the Stickney pasture to High street, and thence to Washington street in line with Centre. Being the lowest bidder, Mr. Hook promptly completed the construction.
The present and prospective importance of the new street sug- gested the appropriateness of opening it with formal celebration. This took place on Saturday, the 15th of September, 1860. Several
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AUBURN STREET AND THE WEST END.
hundred citizens, including Mayor Willard with other members of the city government, and the petitioners for the street, moved in car- riage procession, led by the Concord Cornet Band, from the Eagle hotel to and along Centre street to Auburn. Two large flags sus- pended across the new street drew from the procession hearty salutes, which were redoubled for the happy projector of the enterprise as he stood by the roadside to respond, hat in hand, to the honors paid him. Thence the march was continued to Little Pond road, along which it wound over highlands to the southern shore of Long pond. There the orator of the occasion, Lyman D. Stevens, made, from a rostrum supplied by " the rear end of a job wagon," a happy address. He was briefly followed by John H. George, Anson S. Marshall, and John G. Hook. The speaking was not post-prandial, for after it came a chowder, well relished, too, though "for it "-as a participant in the repast has testified-" the sea had done little, the pork barrel much."
The orator of the day, after tracing in his address the grand march of improvement which had, for the ten or fifteen preceding years, characterized the history of the city in many important particulars, including streets and highways, had said: "In these improvements of our highways we see indications of our progress in civilization. The opening, therefore, of this new and useful street is an achieve- ment over which we may well rejoice. But let it not be thought that this is a victory which has been easily won. No fewer than five petitions were presented to the city council before' Auburn street was laid out. . . Permit me to allude to the enterprise out of which this street originated as a necessary consequence. Prospect hill, that beautiful eminence over which we passed on our way hither, was scarcely known to a large portion of the people of Concord six or seven years ago. It remained for our townsman, Mr. John Hook, first to perceive the marvelous beauty of the spot, and to come to the conclusion that at no distant day it would be sought for as one of the most desirable places of residence in the whole city. Without means, and I had almost said without friends-but I will not say that, for probity and industry always secure friends-he began to purchase the land. By careful management he succeeded in securing nearly the whole hill and other adjoining lands ; and we may count it fortunate for us that Miller's prophecies of the Second Advent did not prove truc, else we might suppose that our friend Hook, instead of partici- pating with us in the festivities of this day, would have been specu- lating in corner lots in the New Jerusalem. . Some of our prominent citizens regarded the opening of this street with distrust and disapproval ; but many others came up nobly to its support. . The work is now done, and as we can all attest, well done."
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