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 67
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
624
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
Hopkinton road) ; printers, seven ; harness makers, five ; stereotype foundry, one; stoves, English and West India goods, sixteen ; hard- ware, one ; tanners, three, with four in East Concord ; music teacher, one ; truckman, one ; wheelwrights, three.
Among the business names of that period were William Gault, oppo- site the state house, druggist ; Hoag & Atwood, books and printing, three doors south of the Phenix hotel ; Phenix hotel, Abel Hutchins, proprietor, with three commodious parlors and eighteen lodging rooms. "A pleasant asylum for the traveler and an agreeable resi- dence for the man of business or leisure." The Columbian hotel, south of the state house, kept by John Wilson; the famous Eagle Coffee House, John P. Gass, who respectfully invites the public to · call and "judge him by his measures." Stephen Brown, merchant tailor, opposite the Columbian, W. & R. Restieaux, drapers and tailors ; John Estabrook, northeast corner of the state house yard, dry goods, also teas and sugars ; George Hutchins, one door north of the Phenix hotel, English, American, and West India goods, crockery, glass ware, also geese and sea-fowl feathers; Lincoln & Emery, opposite the state house, English and domestic goods. Financial Concord was represented by two banks, each calling itself the Concord Bank.
That Concord at this time was keeping in touch with the outside world is proved by the fact that there were fifteen stages leaving and entering the town weekly, six of them running to Boston, and besides these there were other passenger vehicles plying from Con- cord to neighboring towns. As illustrative of the kind of trade which constituted a large part of the business in the thirties, this newspaper advertisement of William Gault may be cited :
GENUINE LIQUORS AND GROCERIES. WILLIAM GAULT (opposite the State House, Concord, N. H.) Has just received the following supplies, viz. : 10 Casks Wines, 5 Hhds. St. Croix Rum ; 4 Pipes old Cognac Brandy ; 4 do pure Holland Gin ; 2 Casks old Whiskey ; 1 do Jamaica Spirit.
W. G. endeavors at all times to keep a supply of Old Liquors as good as can be found in the Capital of New England.
The annual appropriations for 1835 afford an insight into the con- stantly changing conditions of the town, and in the increase there
625
MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT.
may be perceived the enlarging area of expenditures made incumbent by growth, maintenance, and improvements, yet the townspeople were frugal and discriminating in their public affairs, extravagance was unknown, and economy in the strictest degree was rigorously insisted upon. Yet the town voted fifteen hundred dollars for the schools, four thousand for roads, and two thousand for other expenses. This sum was considerable of an increase over prior years, but, on the other hand, the population was now estimated at forty-three hundred.
Sidewalks were not looked upon as necessary until many years later ; pedestrians walked in the street summer and winter, but in the sixties and seventies Concord exceeded nearly every considerable city in New England in the extent and uniform excellence of its sidewalks, particularly those of concrete. This is an account of Main street during the period 1830-1850. The reminiscence is dated in 1862:
"There yet dwell upon this chief avenue of the city some inhab- itants who remember when it was always dark at night, unless lighted by the moon ; when artificial beams struggled out of the windows of scattered habitations and a few shops ; when there were no sidewalks, and much of the locomotion of pedestrians was in the same track as that occupied by wagons, and other vehicles peculiar to the times. Then the building now bearing the sign, 'police station,'1 was the most substantial, commercial looking edifice, and Gale's, Stickney's, Mann's, and Butters' taverns the ' hotels' of the capital. The wooden Town Hall on the hill was the boast of the people, and the 'old North Church' was their Strasburg cathedral: its spire and rooster being the wonder of the boys and the pride of their fathers and mothers.
"About 1825 a few people contributed money with which to con- struct a plank sidewalk near the present residence of Dr. Thomas Chadbourne, in order that pedestrians might avoid the 'Slough of Despond' which the streets there became during all wet seasons. The walk had a rail on the street side, to prevent people falling off into the brook which ran at the side of this admired evidence of the enterprise of the people. The town then expended nothing for the benefit of pedestrians-highway work having reference only to cattle, horses, and their drivers. Main street, opposite the store of Messrs. Ford and the entrance to the Steam Mill of the Messrs. Holt, was only a causeway, where two carriages could meet and pass, and each side of the causeway was a gulf, of capacity sufficient to contain a modern-sized dwelling. The house now kept as a boarding cstab- lishment by Mr. Dame,2 was once the stage tavern of Concord, and one of these vehicles, with four horses attached, leaving the house
1 On Main street, opposite Phenix hotel. ? Stickney's tavern,
41
626
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
before day, as was the eustom of the times, was driven off the east- ern side of the causeway, into the depth below. The only protection was round logs some thirty or forty feet in length laid at the brink of the gulf."
Park street, named in honor of Stuart J. Park, the architect of the state house, was opened in 1834, and the same year the energetie John P. Gass, recognizing the growth of the town, ereeted the Amer- iean House, long a noted hostelry, at the corner of the new street and Main, an undertaking that astonished people because of the rapidity of its execution, for the hotel was completed and ready for guests in June, six weeks from the day it was begun.
In the midst of certain prosperity there suddenly eame over Con- eord, as over the whole country, one of those periodieal tempests of wild speeulation which first turned people's heads and then turned their poekets, until, when the end came, wrecks were everywhere. Because Concord was enjoying material health and happiness, the visitation seemed the more severe; the well-to-do were struek with poverty, the rieh beeame poor, all classes felt the stroke, few indeed, eseaped the ealamity. The situation was paralyzing, and many years passed before the direful effeets disappeared. It was said that the people lost one hundred thousand dollars, but the worse loss was that of publie and private confidenee, and Coneord suffered deeply. It was the first, but by no means Concord's last, lesson of this kind.
But town matters went on apaee, courage was restored, bringing with it firm faith in the future, so much so that it was voted to pur- chase two hundred shares of the stoek of the Concord Railroad, with money 1 already in the town treasury, and to subseribe for five hun- dred shares, and to borrow thirty thousand dollars to be invested in the road. The people were quick to see the great advantages to be derived from railroad facilities ; and conservative opposition, if any there was, signally failed to accomplish anything until the excitement earried its advocates to an extreme of action,-then eame the reae- tion. At one meeting it was voted to invest one hundred thousand dollars in the enterprise, but before the money was raised publie opinion ehanged most decidedly, and the town praetieally withdrew from all participation in the matter.
The deeade from 1840-1850 saw a deeided inerease in industrial . pursuits, business energy, soeial influences, the acquisition of wealth, the enlargement of resources, and in general aetivity. In that period the population nearly doubled, and with it went material progress through its various avenues. In 1840 the eensus gave to Concord four thousand nine hundred and three inhabitants; in 1850, eight
1 Concord's share of "Surplus Revenue."
627
MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT.
thousand five hundred and thirty-four, a large part of this being dis- tributed in what was called the main village. That this augmenta- tion of population was unlooked for may be confidently asserted, for in 1843, when it became necessary to add more land to the old cem- etery, the committee, in its report, after stating that the price paid, including the fence and labor, was five hundred and fifty-six dollars and eighty-three cents, congratulated the citizens that the quantity of land which had been purchased and added to the old graveyard would be equal to the public want for half a century. Yet in less than twenty years a larger and more lovely city of the dead was dedicated at Blossom Hill.
The opening of the Concord Railroad gave a great impetus to Concord, and contributed largely to the developments of this pros- perous decade; and a few years later came the Northern Railroad with its well-marked influence on local affairs. Another public insti- tution dates its birth at this time, the State Hospital, which was opened in November, 1842.
In still another direction was manifested the growth of the town in the decade of 1840-1850,-that was in the school statistics. In the former year the school appropriation was two thousand and seventy dollars, and the number of scholars in attendance was one thousand and sixty-two ; in 1850 the appropriation was four thousand one hundred and seventy-four dollars, and the attendance sixteen hundred and fifty-three pupils. Besides the public schools an acad- emy was established in 1835, known as "The Concord Literary Insti- tution and Teachers' Seminary," and for several years enjoyed more than a local reputation. This undertaking was not without its beneficent influence, and did much towards giving to the town a prominence in educational leadership. In 1847 Concord was made the seat of the Methodist Biblical Institute, a well-conducted seminary, whose home was in the ancient North meeting-house, which had been purchased by the trustees, aided by a public subscription, and there the institute remained until removed to Boston in 1867. During a single year, 1843, there were built in the compact part of the town thirty-seven dwelling-houses, making more than fifty tenements, be- sides several business blocks for stores, shops, and offices.
By comparing the votes cast at elections from 1840 to 1850, one may easily see the constant growth of population, and with it the increase in wealth and resources. In 1840 the vote for president and for governor was as follows: Van Buren (Democrat), 545; Har- rison (Whig), 524; Page (Democrat), 542; Stevens (Whig), 495. In 1842, for governor, Hubbard (Democrat), 301 ; Stevens (Whig), 284; White (Independent Democrat), 323; Hoit (Abolitionist), 34.
628
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
In the election results of this year are found the beginnings of the cleavage which was destined later to split apart the political senti- ments of New Hampshire, and in that work Concord had already made a start. In just this political activity may be found another cause of Concord's growth. The place had now become a well-estab- lished headquarters for all political parties ; conventions with hun- dreds of delegates assembled once or twice every year, legislatures convened, public meetings were called, and the name and fame of the town became widespread.
In 1846 the increase in Concord's vote continued and was as fol- lows: Williams (Democrat), 604; Colby (Whig), 396; Berry (Inde- pendent), 218. The next town-meeting saw still another increase of the check-list, as follows : Williams (Democrat), 710 ; Colby (Whig), 592; Berry (Independent), 206.
Thus, in the yearly town-meetings, we have seen the names grow longer on the check-list, so that within ten years the local vote went from about one thousand to nearly sixteen hundred ; although in 1850 there were not far from two thousand names of qualified voters on the list furnished by the selectmen, thus representing a population of more than twice that number, thereby advancing Concord to a foremost rank among the towns of the state.
The year 1850 may be, with propriety, selected as a point from which those changes which subsequently urged Concord forward in material progress may be compared and described. The town, as a town, had now attained that condition which called for such a reor- ganization as should conduce to a more convenient and more intel- ligent management of public affairs. The March meeting had now become an unwieldy assemblage, and frequently necessitated several successive adjournments before the regular business could be com- pleted; and it had become a task beyond the capabilities of selectmen to manage functions so growing and perplexing, so important and diverse. Yet there was a strange reluctance to give up the old meth- ods, and more than one meeting voted against any change. The charter to incorporate the city of Concord was granted by the legis- lature in 1849, but it was not until 1853 that the people adopted it.
The following, from an article printed in a Concord newspaper, gives a lively impression of the town as it appeared about the middle of the nineteenth century :
"Since the croakers persisted that Concord ' had got its growth,' ' seen its best days,' and ' would go behindhand,' very much new land has been possessed, and more remains to be brought into captivity to brick, wood, and mortar. The croakers have been at work, to our knowledge, above forty years, and there was never but one period
-
629
MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT.
when their prophecies seemed in danger of fulfilment-1837 to 1842. It is not much above thirty years since George Kent, Esq., purchased the large estate of the late Judge Samuel Green for about five thou- sand dollars, and although we have no business that sets us ahead like some places, still there are more dwelling-houses upon that tract alone than there were on the entire length of Main street within the memory of men not yet old. It is not twenty years since Sampson Bullard, who had then built his dwelling1 and felt his loneliness, offered John Leach an ample building lot, free, at the side of himself (Bullard) if he (Leach) would erect a two-story dwelling and occupy it, and now South street is filled up in a somewhat cozy way all along from Pleasant street to the farm of Jeremiah S. Noyes. So, since the croakers set at work crying down this political metropolis of New Hampshire what is the sixth ward, with two representatives in the legislature, has so largely increased that it is covered more compactly than any other equal surface in Concord with new and comfortable, and, in some instances, elegant, dwellings. It is almost wholly a ward of dwelling-houses, and more people sleep at night on twenty- five acres of ground in Ward 6 than upon any other equal surface in the city.
"One of the most agreeable circumstances attending the progress of the city is that the growth of the center has not been at the expense of the adjacent parts. We have grown with a uniform but not rapid growth ever since the damaging speculations, 1836-'37, but the outer portions of the city have kept a relative pace with ourselves. Fish- erville is entirely the growth of the period named, it being but a cluster of a dozen or less unpainted dwellings near the old Johnson tavern and the falls, in 1836. East and West Concord and Millville have been improving for twenty years, and each is more populous and in better pecuniary condition than at any former period. Mill- ville, through the establishment of St. Paul's School, and the enlarge- ment of the old brick mansion near the water, and the erection of the chapel, has become one of the most picturesque sections of Concord.
"And another circumstance of gratifying character in the progress of the city is that some reference is now had to the rules of architec- ture in the erection of public edifices and private dwellings, though there is yet, in the latter class, hardly a sufficient departure from a monotonous style. Architectural good taste, here as in other coun- try towns, is a matter of recent growth. In public buildings we have at least one lamentable specimen, but we can console ourselves in that some good specimens have arisen, and one more is on its way up,-the Episcopal church. The new railroad station, it is evident,
1 The residence of Mrs. Alonzo Downing, 1900.
630
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
will be an improvement on its predecessor, and the chapel at Mill- ville is a gem of its kind, for which the projectors deserve the thanks of all people who wish to encourage an advancing good taste."
The middle of the nineteenth century found Concord a wealthy and prosperous place with a population of eight thousand five hun- dred and eighty-four, a very considerable gain on the census taken ten years before-a valuation of real estate exceeding three millions of dollars, and a personal property valuation of nearly six hundred thousand dollars.
A town directory published in the early fifties affords us some interesting facts bearing on local business as it was in those days. The directory does not purport to give much information outside the central village, and its compilers regret that the streets are not only unnumbered, but are mostly unmarked by proper signs. "The pres- ent population," it says, "of the center village is five thousand and fifty-seven, while that of the whole town probably reaches full nine thousand." Among the well-known business places were the follow- ing, of which, in 1900, with two or three exceptions, no trace of original name or owner remains: H. A. Newhall, dry goods, Rum- ford block ; Warde & Walker, hardware, Exchange building; H. A. Fay, crockery, paper hangings, Merchants' exchange; J. W. Little, dentist, C. W. Gardner, barber, Edmunds, Robinson & Co., tailors, Eagle Hotel block ; Day & Emerson, marble works, School strect; Austin M. Ward, jeweler; D. D. Garland, periodicals, newspapers, and Harper's, Graham's, and Godey's magazines, three doors north of Pleasant street; Joseph Grover, hatter, opposite Gass's American House ; Kimball's Daguerrean gallery, Stickney's block (here is one old Concord establishment still conducted by the son and grandson of its first proprietor, and now famous throughout the country for the excellence of its work) ; Flanders & Eastman, stoves, tinware, opposite Free Bridge road; Cyrus Hill, hats, Low's block ; M. C. Cutchins, gunsmith, opposite Free Bridge road; W. G. Shaw, cloth- ing, opposite Columbian; Brown & Young, furniture, front of state house ; Moore, Cilley & Co., hardware, Stickney's block ; Bullock & Sargent, dry goods; George Main, sign and ornamental painter, Cen- tral block ; John Wheeler, building mover; J. A. Gault, drugs, Ex- change building ; J. B. Stanley, jeweler; J. D. Johnson, harness maker; S. G. Sylvester, picture frames, also agent for Boston friction matches ; Winkley & Abbott, tailors (E. W. Woodward, cutter) ; Tripp & Osgood, steam printing ; L. L. Mower, printer, Athenian building ; Milton Olds, tailor; Charles W. Harvey, dry goods ; David Symonds, harness maker; Jacob Carter & Son, jewelers, south of Eagle hotel ; Hutchins & Co., dry goods ; Mrs. Woolson
1
631
MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT.
and Miss Herbert, dressmakers and milliners, opposite Columbian ; A. P. Munsey, boots and shoes ; T. W. Stewart, tailor, Low's block ; Nathaniel Evans, clothing; Daniel A. Hill, furniture ; Morrill & Silsby, printers and bookbinders. Of these names Thomas W. Stew- art alone remains in active business after half a century.
It became evident very early in the town's existence that Concord was not destined to be a large mill or manufacturing center; the people were chiefly farmers who were content to exchange their produce for the goods kept in the stores on Main street. While other places with inferior water power have become great cities, Con- cord has kept on her early course, adding slowly to her wealth and resources. What her people have done has been done in a small way, yet, after a century and a half, the results emphasize her social and material strength and influence.
It has been an aggregation of small undertakings and of close economies that has given to Concord its standing and prosperity. It has been steady work and perseverance, combined with insistence on education and order, that has made the town what it is, Indi- vidual Concord possesses more wealth than statistics can ever dis- close, and it is largely the savings of one generation to another. Few pause to consider how great a source of income has sprung from the forests of Concord. Full forty thousand acres comprise the land surface of the town, and most of that area has borne several growths of the choicest oak, hemlock, chestnut, spruce, pine, elm, and walnut, all contributing their part to the wealth of our people. The present generation knows nothing of the lumber business of years ago. Com- pute three or four growths at only twenty-five dollars an acre, and see how vast a money transaction this has been. Like every calling, slowness was the characteristic ; the results took years, but the end meant money and power. So with the factories and workshops, until one begins to see how Concord, with its want of big mills, can show so commanding a success. Peculiarly is it true in Concord that the laborer and the clerk own their homes, hence the absence of the poor quarter and the district of tenement houses.
At a period embracing the second quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury, Turkey river saw the days of its greatest usefulness in supply- ing power to grist, saw, shingle, and fulling mills, a chair factory and cutlery shop, and iron works. Theodore T. Abbott carried on a cutlery mill at St. Paul's dam in the thirties ; and one year, at least, he supplied congress with its penknives and paper cutters. Near this spot was built one of the earliest grist-mills for the pioneers, and for that reason the vicinity has long been known as Millville.
For many years during the first of the century there was a fulling
632
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
mill carried on by Samuel Runnells, situated on Turkey river, be- tween Great and Little Turkey ponds. It was a two-story building used for dressing cloth, while the carding was done in a building adjacent. On the other side of the river was a large shingle mill owned by Mr. Gooding. The ruins of the ancient dam are visible at this day, almost a century after its construction. The Iron Works, a locality celebrated in Concord annals, received its name from the forge erected in the land east of the present highway bridge a few rods west of South street. At one time during the Revolu- tionary War these works were in operation, but the undertaking was finally given up. Among its owners were Daniel Carter, Daniel Gale, and Philip Carrigain.
In 1835 Concord became the scene of a novel industrial undertak- ing in the formation of a company of townspeople for the manu- facture of silk. The Hazeltine farm on the road leading from the Orphan Asylum in Millville to Silver Hill was bought, buildings put up, and a grove of mulberry trees set out. The expectations of the promoters were not fulfilled, and after a few years' experiment the business was abandoned. That the project was not successful was not the fault of such citizens as G. Parker Lyon, Moses Atwood, Isaac Hill, and Albe Cady, who were its leading promoters.
To Colonel Andrew McMillan must be given the distinction of being one of the first and most enterprising traders in the old town of Rumford. He came to America from Ireland about 1754, enlisted in the Colonial army then assembled near Lake George, and participated for several months as a member of Robert Rogers' celebrated rangers. Marrying a Rumford girl, Hannah Osgood, he settled here some time in 1761, and soon built a store on land now occupied by the Masonic Temple. Here he continued business for several years, one year in partnership with Timothy Walker, Jr., and afterwards with John Stevens, when the store was enlarged by the addition of a second story, which was used several times as the meeting place of the state house of representatives. The ancient ledger of this firm has been preserved, affording us of this generation an instructive and interest- ing view of the wants of customers and the way of doing business.
For the purpose of illustration let us produce the accounts of two or three of the prominent citizens of that epoch.
DEACON FARNUM, DR.
1763
Jan 15 To sundries brought from old ledger, p 196 121 11
£ S d 06
66 1 / 2 gall and pint of N. E. rum
2 19 00
1 lb of Coffey, at 26s
1 06 00
" 1 glass of brandy, 0 04 00
1 qt of wine, at 25s 2 05 00
633
MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT.
£
S
d
Feb. 1 To 1 / 2 gall of brandy " 1 pint of brandy " 1 glass of brandy
4 10 00
1 04 00
0
03 00
.. 8 " 2 lbs. of brown sugar, at 14s 16 4 1 glass of brandy
0
04 00
4
10 00
Mar 1 4 1 1 / 2 gall of brandy at 9s 1 / 2 lb of raisons 14 - 5 pare of men's gloves at 50s,
1 00 00
12
10
00
66 2 pare of woman's black do, at 50s.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.