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 II > Part 17
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Canal Boat and Freight House of Merrimack Boating Company.
836
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
The first boat of the Merrimack Boating company made its way to Concord, October 20, 1814, and in June, 1815, regular semi- weekly service was established, with the promise of more frequent departures if the traffic should permit, as shortly thereafter it did. One landing was constructed just below the site of Concord bridge, with Samuel Butters as agent, and another near Federal bridge, where Stephen Ambrose did the honors. This was ten years before the com- pletion of the Erie canal.
These events were important to an inland town, but the arrival of the first boat, toward the close of the war with England, did not dis- turb the gravity of the people. Three years later, July 18, 1817, President Monroe embarked on the canal boat President to view the picturesque water above Turkey falls, now the summer solace of the Passaconaway club, and to pass through the five locks at Garvin's falls. The Middlesex canal had proved to be of national consequence. Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury, had made it a topic in a report on inland navigation in 1808, and Commodore Bainbridge reported later that by its use he got materials to build the Independ- ence frigate, refit the Constitution, and so send the latter out of Bos- ton although that harbor was blockaded by a British fleet.
The fame of these Merrimack river waterways so filled the land that in 1819 contractors and laborers were sought here for like under- takings in other states.
The distance by canal and river from Boston to Concord was eighty-five miles, and the earlier rate for freight to the upper landing in Concord was thirteen dollars and fifty cents a ton, to the lower landing, thirteen dollars; downward freight, eight dollars and fifty cents or eight dollars. These rates were gradually reduced until in 1842 they were five dollars a ton for upward and four dollars for downward freight. A considerable reduction in boat freights and canal tolls was caused by the competition of the Portsmouth and Concord Wagon company in 1818. The granite to build Quincy market was boated down for three dollars and fifty cents a ton, and like shipments went beyond Boston to New Orleans and Baltimore. These shipments of granite are mentioned as early as 1819. Hay- ward's New England Gazetteer, published in 1839, has, in an appro- priate place, a steel engraving wherein is Rattlesnake hill and a horse railway by which granite is going to a landing on the Merri- ·mack. On the river is a canal boat under sail, with boatmen in dress suits, a picture of the imagination. Cord-wood was also a consider- able item of downward freight.
On June 27, 1817, a rival to the Merrimack Boating company was chartered by the New Hampshire legislature (Richard Bradley
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CANALS, STAGE LINES, AND TAVERNS.
and others being grantees), which, although it put some boats on the river, did not gain a great share of the business. It was called the Concord & Boston Boating company.
There was discontent in 1820 with the rates of the Merrimack Boating company, and another was formed, called the Union Boating company, with Abel Hutchins, Albe Cady, William Kent, Joseph Low, Benjamin Gale, and others, among the stockholders. This provoked the Merrimack company into storekeeping, and it dealt here in rum, sugar, molasses, tea, flour, iron, and general merchandise. In 1821 both interests were merged in the Boston & Concord Boating com- pany. The service of the latter company required twenty boats of fifteen tons' capacity each. Each boat was navigated by three men. On favorable reaches of water, with fair wind, sails were stretched. Between seven and ten days was required for a round trip between Concord and Boston, and boatmen's wages were from fifteen to twenty-six dollars a month. The gross earnings of the Concord boats from 1816 to 1842 have been stated at six hundred eighty-nine thonsand six hundred and ninety-six dollars, out of which one hun- dred eighty thousand six hundred and eleven dollars was paid the canal companies for tolls.
Steam navigation on the Merrimack was attempted in 1819, when a steamboat came up the river and made some local voyages. From 1834 to 1838 there was a steamboat called the Herald, owned by the Merrimack River Steam Navigation company, plying between Lowell and Nashua. John L. Worthen was master of this boat in 1837, and General George Stark, in an article in the Granite Monthly, vol- ume IX, page 9, says Jacob Vanderbilt, of Staten Island, a brother of the commodore, served in the same way a single year. Passengers going to and fro between Boston and Concord, by rail below Lowell and by stage above Nashua, dined on this boat, which made two daily round trips.
James Sullivan, afterward a governor of Massachusetts, was the earliest friend of these boating enterprises. John L. Sullivan was a manager of the Merrimack Boating company,-a lively man, apt to use printer's ink. He had a canal route surveyed to the Winnipiseo- gee. Theodore French was for more than twenty years manager of the boating company's interests in Concord, and remained in such control to the end.
The upward freight of the boats was merchandise of infinite variety, but it is rather surprising to find that among this freight were flour, corn, butter, and cheese, agricultural products coming to our country valley, as do now onions from Bermuda and Egypt, melons from the Carolinas, and beef from Texas and Nebraska.
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
The boats could of course do nothing in winter, and teams claimed part of the business in summer. The baggage-wagons of Isaac Clem- ent, of Concord, were advertised liberally.
There must have been a charm to the river in the summer days of this inland navigation. There was nowhere more delightful water, no greener shores, no more fragrant air, no sweeter bird songs. Here were the leap and plash of salmon, there a cloud of pigeons that ought never to have been called wild, and are now unhappily almost extinct. The sound of the boatman's horn floated along the valley. Sails could be seen across points of land, and conjecture busied itself as to whose might be the coming boat. To a careless observer this might seem the land of the lotus, but toil stood beside the boatman.
As to these river men, were there ever people bred to the water who failed to be adventurous, generous with earnings, careless of health ? Such were the boatmen of the Merrimack. Reverend Edward L. Parker has put it on record, in the History of London- derry, that when he was clerk in a store near Piscataquog landing, frequented by raftsmen, so constant was the demand for " flip " that the loggerhead was kept always hot, ready to perform its office. In the "Sketch of a Busy Life," by E. D. Boylston, of Amherst, is related the author's not altogether pleasant recollection of a Sunday night in 1829, which he, a homesick lad of fifteen, spent at a Thorn- ton's Ferry tavern filled with boatmen.
Until 1819 the income of the Middlesex canal was applied to its betterment, but between 1819 and 1836 the dividends were sufficient to restore the original investment without profit to the shareholders, that is if such investment was the smaller of the sums hereinbefore mentioned. The Boston & Concord Boating company made regular dividends after 1826, until in 1842 the Concord Railroad put the whole business at rest. The canal made a stout struggle against the inevitable. Its friends declared, in 1830, that "there never can be sufficient inducement to extend a railroad from Lowell westwardly and northwestwardly," and hence they argued that as the canal served the public so well, it was not worth the while to build the Boston & Lowell Railroad.
But the days of the canal were numbered. The casual traveler to Boston may still trace the crumbling outlines of its channel, and the hollow of its tow-path; and some, who look beyond a veil of trees, see in Wilmington a pool of the old waterway where fair white lilies bloom and quicken the thoughts of such as appreciate achievements of the past.
A little way off from the main line of the railroad one may still find various picturesque reminders of the canal, such as the lock at
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CANALS, STAGE LINES, AND TAVERNS.
Talbot mills, the abutments and pier of the aqueduct over the Shaw- sheen between Billerica and Wilmington, and the stone bridge on the Brooks estate at West Medford. There is a reach lying between obsolete embankments in Woburn, still filled with water, which needs for complete restoration only a weary horse towing a boat laden with sugar, coffee, molasses, and, likely enough, Jamaica rum, for William West, John D. Abbott, William Gault, and other Concord traders. Any loiterer here, if he be accompanied by some person familiar with the neighborhood, will be shown where the constructor of the canal dwelt, and told of careful maps for a grand northern canal system, as well as picks and shovels used in primitive construction, now regarded as family heirlooms.
One of the fruits of the Middlesex canal is the Baldwin apple. Discovered in obscurity, and propagated by the surveyors of the channel, it was named for their chief, and has outlived the activities of the canal itself.
The canal enterprises beyond Concord which were contemplated early in this century have had brief mention in this narrative.
The Sewall's Falls Locks & Canal company was incorporated in 1833, the grantees being John Eastman, Stephen Ambrose, Cyrus Robinson, Elisha Morrill, Jonathan Eastman, Jr., Robert Eastman, Jeremiah Pecker, and Robert Pecker, most of them East Concord real estate owners. Asaph Evans, who had a store at " Parliament Corner," and other Main street people, were, to their eventual regret, promoters of the undertaking.
The purpose of the Sewall's Falls company was to build a canal, two and a half miles long, from a point on the river near Federal bridge to an inlet above Sewall's falls. Beside its service to naviga- tion, this canal was to provide power at East Concord, where it was estimated the drop at ordinary stages of water would be sixteen feet. It was intended to construct two watercourses to lead off eastwardly from the main canal, and between these would be situated mills seeking power. After performing its helpful office, the water was to run out by a raceway to the valley of Mill brook. It was estimated that there would be power enough to drive twenty-three mills of five thousand spindles each, and this estimate was confirmed by so good an authority as the second Loammi Baldwin.
The embankments of this partly-constructed canal, thirty feet apart, may yet be readily traced along the meadows west of East Concord village. Just above its south junction with the river were to have been the needful locks for lifting boats to the upper level, and the expectations as to boating were so ardent that there was talk about steam navigation to Plymouth.
840
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
So far as construction went on the Sewall's Falls canal it was sub- stantial and impressive. The solid walls of shapen granite for the locks held staunchly in their appointed places down to a time within the memory of many living people, or say to the year 1847, when the excellent work of the old builders was hauled away to be used for piers and abutments under the adjacent railroad bridge. The dam at the falls was about half completed under the direction of " Boston John" Clark of Franklin, whose stout figure is well remembered on our streets.
Various hindrances came into the way of this enterprise, and further legislation was sought in 1836, 1837, and 1840. By this time the coming of the railway may have disheartened the share- holders, the hard times of 1837 had done their fateful work, and although the corporation lingered into the forties, the whole was abandoned after the expenditure of forty thousand dollars.
Some interest in Sewall's falls as a source of water-power was manifested again in 1859, when Mr. Baldwin's report and the esti- mates of 1836 were reprinted. In 1884 it appeared once more, and in 1893 the existing dam was built, which has its place in another story.
Another project which was then obtaining local attention was the Contoocook canal. This was designed to leave the Contoocook river either at Horse Hill bridge or at the Borough, come down through West Concord, west of the parish church, past Blossom Hill, past the old prison site, and go through the main town west of State street, reaching the Merrimack either at its confluence with Turkey river, or at a point about half a mile above the old Concord bridge. One line would have been about nine miles long, the other a mile and three quarters shorter. Real estate in West Concord on the line of this canal was advertised as very desirable.
It was estimated that this canal in condition for navigation would cost, exclusive of land damages, one hundred and forty-six thousand three hundred and seventeen dollars and twenty-nine cents, a sum which persons familiar with later values of money and labor would deem too small. Such surveys as were made were by Professor James Hayward, who afterward constructed the original Boston & Maine Railroad, and Captain Benjamin Parker, who lived and died on Centre street. The canal was to be eighteen feet wide at the bot- tom, and the whole fall, from the point of beginning to the Turkey river terminus, was found to be 124 89-100 feet; to the other point of connection with the Merrimack, 121 94-100 feet. It was intended to divide the whole descent into four falls of about thirty feet each. These falls were to be located at convenient situations,
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CANALS, STAGE LINES, AND TAVERNS.
and each fall might drive eight or ten factories of three thousand six hundred spindles each, and so, it was argued, there would thereby be provided power more than equal to that at Lowell. Each mill site would be worth, so the old estimates say, ten thousand dollars.
This project was opposed naturally by people owning mill privi- leges on the Contoocook below the point whence this canal would depart, and by others interested at Sewall's falls; so it came to naught, and, as not a spadeful of earth was turned in its behalf, it has been well-nigh forgotten.
Returning to the topic of transportation by highways, it should be kept in mind that in 1790 only seventy-five national post-offices had been created in the United States. In February, 1791, the legisla- ture of New Hampshire established four weekly post routes, made rates for postage, and certain allowances to post riders, who should be appointed by the president of the state and his council. Thomas Smith was appointed to ride from Concord to Keene; John Lathrop, to Haverhill: Ozias Silsby, to Portsmouth. George Hough then received a state appointment as postmaster of Concord, and a like United States appointment in 1792. He located the post-office on the east side of Main street, near the junction with School, on prop- erty which he purchased from Aaron Kinsman. It had been the Kinsman tavern.
In 1794 there were five national post-offices in New Hampshire. Postal rates were so high that it was customary for obliging travelers to carry all the letters of a neighborhood to their destination. On December 28, 1799, Postmaster Hough advertised in the Courier of New Hampshire unclaimed letters which had come to his office for persons in Antrim, Boscawen, Canaan, Derryfield (for John Stark), Enfield, Gilmanton, Goffstown, Hillsborough, Merrimack (for Mat- thew Thornton), New London, Pembroke, Pittsfield, Plainfield, Sanbornton, Sandown, Salisbury, Warren, and Windham. So many letters were advertised as unclaimed that it seems probable some were rejected because postage was not prepaid. It was a long while the custom to communicate with friends by mailing a newspaper in which a column had been selected and needful successive letters dotted with ink ; thus an intelligible message could be readily made out, if the plan had been pre-arranged.
High rates for postage sometimes provoked individual competition with the government. In 1844 A. Roberts & Co. conducted a letter express business, Concord being one of their stations, with an office at the drug store of Foster & Rand, opposite the state house. Their charges were, to Boston, five cents; as far as Buffalo, eleven cents.
842
HISTORY OF CONCORD.
In 1845 national postage rates were reduced, and a penalty affixed to carriage of letters by express.
There was at least a quarter-century which was the period of the post-rider, who is mentioned in Parson Walker's diary as early as 1780. That useful individual was the herald and news-agent of his times. He carried parcels, to quote the advertised words of John Lathrop, one of the fraternity, " for a reasonable reward." He dealt in newspapers, buying from publishers and selling to people along the way. He received and gave credit, and half yearly or yearly his appeals for settlement got into print, in form somewhat akin to that by which the country editor has from generation unto generation made his plaints known to a not too tender world. Thus the names of many of these worthy men have not been forgotten, but it would be difficult to follow all their routes and their terms of service accurately.
( POST-RIDER'S NOTICE COT A LL. delinquent subscribers for Newsfa. pers on the route from Concord to Ex. eter, are requested to hold themselves in ren .. uffess to Pay up the amount due from them, up to the first day of January next. There who live off the road are requested to letto their respective Proportions in money, where their papers are Ten. Those who negodet this seasonable notice, may expect to receive a call in a more disagreeable wa' SAMUEL MARTIN
Concord, Dec. 20, 1824.
In 1781 John Balch, of Keene, under authority of the Committee of Safety, rode fortnightly from Portsmouth by way of Concord and Plymouth to Haverhill, thence down the Connecticut valley to Charlestown and Keene, and across country to Portsmouth. Timothy Balch appears to have performed like service as late, at least, as 1785. In 1790 Samuel Bean was post-rider to Boston, and Nathaniel Wilcocks rode by Hopkinton, Warner, Sutton, Newbury, Sunapee, and Newport, to Claremont. John Lathrop rode to Dartmouthlı college. In 1799 one Mitchell rode through Hopkinton, Warner, Sutton, New London, Newbury, Bradford, Henniker, and Weare. Many of the routes were, like his, circuitous. Stephen Abbot informed the public that he had undertaken a route through Loudon, Gilmanton, Alton, Wolfeborough, Middleton, New Durham, Farm- ington, Pittsfield, and Chichester. Ezekiel Moore, Peter Sleeper, and Josiah Abbott were early riders to Plymouth. In 1807 Samuel Tallant was on that route; in 1818, between Concord and Fryeburg, Me. In 1809 James Tallant rode a circuit through Bow, Dun- barton, Pembroke, Chester, Candia, Deerfield, and Allenstown ; at another period to Amherst. Samuel Wales in 1809 was courier to Chichester, Epsom, Loudon, Pittsfield, Barnstead, Gilmanton, Alton,
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CANALS, STAGE LINES, AND TAVERNS.
Wolfeborough, Tuftonborough, Moultonborough, Sandwich, Centre Harbor, Meredith, and Gilmanton Academy. Some time prior to 1814 Ezekiel Dimond rode through Hopkinton, Warner, Sutton, New London, Newport, Newbury, and Bradford. Jonathan Phil- brick, 1812-'20, seems to have held the route between Concord and Charlestown.
In 1813 Samuel S. Norris, mail-rider from Concord to Fryeburg, Me., gave notice that he would run a carriage for passengers and baggage, if sufficient encouragement was given; in 1814 Norris & Bean intended to run a two-horse wagon thither; and Josiah Fogg, on the same route, advertised that he intended shortly to run a covered carriage.
James McColley was riding from Concord to Keene in 1817, and James C. McPherson in 1819; Simeon B. Little from Concord through Hopkinton, Boscawen, Salisbury, and Andover in 1818-'19. In 1815 Benjamin Small, Jr., was on a route from Concord to Amherst ; and Jeremiah Emery to Hopkinton, Boscawen, Salisbury, Andover, and Canterbury. Joseph Smith at one time had a route through Charlestown to Walpole. Peter Smart was seen as a post- rider in 1814, and will appear again later on. Jeremiah Blake drove to Exeter, 1818-'20; John H. Durgin to Hopkinton, Henniker, Hills- borough, Lempster, Acworth, and Charlestown, 1815-'17.
On a route to Claremont and Cornish, Smith Downing rode in 1810, Richard C. Gile in 1812, Benjamin Hill in 1814, and Thomas Hackett later. Silas Hathorn rode to Walpole and Keene in 1810, and the Shannons (Samuel and John S.) and Robert Tibbitts appear to have ridden to Dover, 1816-'20. John S. Shannon for a time rode to Gilmanton. Richard Dicy, Mical Tubbs, and Ebenezer Clark were in the fraternity.
Doubtless others there were who rode as stoutly when the mid- summer sun smote the highways, and when storm swept the hills, who sold the annual election sermons, carried news of war and peace, tidings of weddings and of death, the duns of weary creditors, and the billets of lovers, but their names have been omitted from the chronicles of the times. These post-riders were forerunners of the rural mail delivery men of 1900.
These details may be monotonous, but they serve to show to how wide a country, for a long time, Concord was the centre of news and information ; and searching them out has developed another impres- sive fact of similar import, namely, the excellence, variety, and abundance of the books then advertised for sale here.
Such means of communication as have been herein described became gradually insufficient. The Concord Mirror of August 12,
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HISTORY OF CONCORD.
1793, stated that gentlemen of Concord, Chester, and Haverhill, Mass., had agreed to put on a stage line hence to Boston in the fol- lowing September. The History of Haverhill, p. 454, says such a line was put on in the following November, but quotes no authority for its statement. However that may be, satisfactory evidence of a southern stage in the next year is found in the following advertise- ment copied from the Courier of New Hampshire of October 2, 1794:
NEW LINE OF STAGES
FROM CONCORD, IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, TO BOSTON.
The Proprietors of the above Line inform the Public that a Stage will in future leave Concord on Saturday morning, at 6 o'clock (thro' Chester) for Haverhill-leave Haverhill on Monday morn- ing, 8 o'clock, for Boston-leave Boston on Wednesday morning, 8 o'clock, for Haverhill-and leave Haverhill, on Thursday morning, 6 o'clock, for Concord. Another Stage will leave Haverhill on Thursday morning, 8 o'clock, for Boston, and leave Boston on Saturday morning, 8 o'clock, for Haverhill.
The best Drivers, Horses, and Carriages are provided for running the above mentioned route; and the utmost punctuality in setting off and arriving will be observed. The Proprietors therefore flatter themselves they shall be able to give entire satisfaction to all who are pleased to embrace so easy and expeditious a mode of travelling as is here offered.
Each Passenger will be allowed to carry 14 lb. Baggage gratis.
For passage, apply to Mr. Robert Harris, at Concord; Major James Duncan, at Haverhill, or at Peabody's Tavern in Boston.
Oct. 1, 1794.
Whether this was a successful and permanent beginning of local stage lines may be open to doubt. William A. Kent, a lifelong citi- . zen of Concord, who was fourteen years of age in 1807, has been quoted as saying there was no stage between Concord and Boston until that year. Daniel Webster, in his autobiography, says that in 1805 " stage coaches no more ran into the center of New Hampshire than they ran to Baffins Bay."
North of Concord, John M. Shirley, in his history of the Fourth New Hampshire Turnpike, printed in 1881, says: "One of our townswomen (Andover, N. H.) remembers the stages passing up the turnpike just prior to the War of 1812." 1 Charles W. Brew- ster, probably writing with evidence in his hands, in " Rambles about · Portsmouth," Series I, pp. 187, 188, says the earliest stage from Portsmouth to Boston was a two-horse " stage chair," April 20, 1761. He mentions Bartholemew Stavers, of the Portsmouth flying stage- coach, of 1763, with four or six horses, as the first regular stage-
1 Granite Monthly, Vol. IV, pp. 430, 448.
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CANALS, STAGE LINES, AND TAVERNS.
driver north of Boston. Stavers was a loyalist, and hurried off to England in 1774.
Hayward's Gazetteer of New England, under the title of Shrews- bury, Mass., says Levi Pease of that town, "the father of mail stages in this country," started his first line of mail stages between Boston and New York in 1784.
To some minds, perhaps, nothing is a stage except a stage-coach, but it will be convenient in this narrative to use the word in its common, every-day sense, and regard as a stage any advertised con- veyance making regular trips for the carriage of travelers. On prim- itive roads, with few passengers, stout wagons with no more than two horses would be sufficient for the traffic.
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