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 40
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The change in church pews is an illustration of the democratic tendency of the times. In the Old North, as in other meeting-houses of that day, the pews had doors with bolts to them. The pew was the owner's social stronghold, and no more intimate invitation could be given to a stranger than to enter this exclusive apartment on Sun- day. The pews were almost as separate as houses, and each was carpeted and furnished according to its owner's taste and means. At one time one of the striking features of the Old North was the pew of Dr. Peter Renton, a prominent physician of Scotch extraction, who came to Concord in 1822. His home is now the John Abbott place, 236 North Main street. (It was in the north L of this house, which once extended to the sidewalk, that the Thespian society in 1844 held their private theatricals [see p. 428]. For the next twelve years the hall in this L held the museum of Dr. William Prescott, who sold the house to Mr. Abbott in 1857.) Dr. Renton had a pew in the gallery, and it was his pleasure to fit it up with crimson curtains and cushions, which gave it the effect of a box at the opera.
In old times people not only owned the pews they sat in but the land underneath. When the present North church was built in 1873 one of the first preliminaries was to secure a transfer of the separate small strips of land from the pew owners in order that the society might have a deed of the whole lot. This exclusive pew ownership had sometimes led to amusing complications. In the first part of the nineteenth century it was the custom for many years to give an oratorio in the old North church on the evening of Election day. Singers came from far and near, and the admission fee was high, two ninepences or twenty-five cents. On one of these occa- sions a certain Mr. Potter of East Concord announced that he was going in without a ticket. He owned a pew in the meeting-house which he claimed he was entitled to occupy at all times. He won his way, followed by a dozen small boys.
It was not until 1810 that the Old North church was dignified by a bell. People were so much pleased with its sound that it was ordered to be rung not only for Sabbath service, but three times on every week day,-at seven o'clock in the morning, at noon, and at nine o'clock at night (curfew). The bell-ringer was quite an impor- tant official during the first third of the century. A certain Mr. Augustus O. sustained this dignity for many years, and it was of him that this story is told. Like nearly everybody else in those days Mr. O. was addicted to the use of ardent spirits. Going one Saturday night to Deacon Gault's store for his usual supply, and not having money enough for the customary quart, he asked for credit. The deacon, who knew his customer, said, "Can't you keep Sunday on a
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pint ?" "I suppose I could," said the old man seriously, "but how would it be kept?"
The excessive use of liquor in old times may be attributed in part to the monotony of diet. A variety of food was impossible to the carly settlers. Salt pork and beef, corn, beans, a few of the coarser green vegetables, and bread made of rye and Indian meal were the staple of their sustenance. Dr. Hale says wheat flour was rare, even in Boston. There was much reliance on bean porridge. This was made by boiling a quart of peas or beans, four gallons of water, and two or three pounds of pork or beef in a kettle over the open fire. The mixture was cooked till the meat was soft; then that was taken out and Indian meal stirred in to thicken the liquid. This must have made what Charles Dudley Warner calls "good, robust victual." Bean porridge was used for breakfast and supper ; it was also frozen in solid chunks and given to the men to take into the woods when they went chopping. Another common dish, said to have been a favorite with Governor Langdon of Portsmouth when he boarded with Deacon John Kimball (great-grandfather of Dr. George Morrill Kimball, who lives on the same site), was baked pumpkin and milk. The top of the pumpkin was cut off, the seeds taken out, the cavity filled up with milk, and then the mass was baked for twelve hours in a brick oven.
Housekeeping was very much simpler then than now, when every modern convenience and luxury means greater elaboration and more worry in living. Food was the main thing in old times, not style in serving. As Denman Thompson says, "Nobody ever sat down to our table and asked ' Is it good ?' The only question was, 'Is there enough?'" There was no going to market in old days. The main resource was the family pork barrel. People lived on salted, not corned, meat all winter, and when they killed a calf in the spring or a lamb in early summer, they traded three quarters of the creature with their neighbors, who later returned similar courtesies. There was no provision for keeping fresh meat.
Fortunately the woods and ponds supplied an abundance of game and fish. Deer were once numerous on what are now the main highways ; snipe and woodcock could be shot on the intervales ; quantities of pickerel were caught in winter through holes in the ice ; and, until fifty years ago, many farms had nets for the snaring of the beautiful wild pigeon. These birds, which settled on the fields in enormous flocks, were caught by hundreds for the Boston market. Ducks and geese were found in the ponds and old river- beds,-notably Turkey and Turtle ponds, Fort Eddy, and Sugar Ball Eddy. Magnificent wild turkeys were sometimes captured and used
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to improve the domestic breed. Trout were plentiful in brooks which once flowed across what are now our paved streets. West brook is still affectionately remembered. It started in White park, flowed through the old prison yard, down by Washington street, through the West estate, where John West and later his son-in-law, Senator E. H. Rollins, long lived, and crossed Main street near Ford's foundry, where used to be a deep ravine. Scholars who attended the Merrimack grammar school thirty years ago used to linger on Wash- ington street to watch this beautiful brook, then visible on the Elwell prop- erty and in the Gilbert garden, though it had been forced to flow underground the rest of its course.
The West and Rollins House.
Gray squirrels and partridges were once abundant, and the latter remain with us. Before the Merrimack became choked by dams, quantities of shad and salmon were caught in pots and nets. These fish ran up the river in the spring, leaped the falls, and deposited their spawn in northern waters. The runs divided at Franklin, and the salmon always went up the Pemigewasset river, because they liked the cooler water, while the shad kept to the Winnipesaukee. Garvin's falls was a great place for these fish. People salted down salmon by the barrelful in those days ; codfish was a comparative luxury. John M. Hill (1821- 1900) said that he remembered the apprentices' indentures, printed by his father, the late Governor Hill, in the thirties and forties, in which the specification was made that the apprentices should not be required to eat salmon more than twice a week at their masters' tables.
The mention of game suggests home-bred poultry, and recalls an anecdote over which two generations have laughed. Benjamin Gale, the taverner, was one day carving a fowl whose joints obsti- nately refused to be dismembered. Turning to his wife he said, " This hen is tougher'n old Granny Shute." Why, Mr. Gale," re- sponded his spouse, " you should not speak disrespectfully of Granny Shute. Her father planted the first corn ever raised in Concord." "Good'n God'n," rejoined her husband, with his characteristic cxplc- tive, " this must 'a' been the chicken that scratched it up!"
For vegetables our carly townspeople raised cabbages, beets, pota- tocs, squashes, or whatever could be stored in the cellars to keep all winter. Turnips were grown on burnt land. The fresh green things,
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so much prized now, were unattainable then. Elderly people remem- ber when tomatoes as eatables were non-existent. The plants were cultivated as garden ornaments for the sake of the little red fruit or berry the size of the end of one's thumb, and surrounded by a dry husk. These were called love apples. Celery was first known as lovage, unsuitable for the table, and lettuce belongs to this genera- tion.
When everybody had a farm, or at least a garden, pickling and preserving occupied much more time than they do now. People who were familiar in their childhood with the pantries and store-closets of Mrs. Richard Bradley, Mrs. (Governor) Hill, and other notable housewives, well remember the jars and firkins of cucumber pickles, purple cabbage, and mangoes, prepared by these good ladies every fall. The mango was the most delicious of all, and its taste is unknown to the present generation. It was a small melon, whose inside was scooped out, the cavity filled with all kinds of spices, cin- namon, allspice, clove, nutmeg, horse-radish and the like, and the whole tied up and steeped in a vinegar pickle.
Preserves were always made pound for pound, equal parts of fruit and sugar. Strawberries and other small fruits and quinces were treated in this way. The quince was the richest of all, and so rich that its delicious flavor was often diluted with preparations of pears and apples. Brandy peaches, it must be confessed, were a favorite confection with people who could afford such luxuries. For every- day use and for " pie timber," quantities of apples and blueberries were dried. The making of mince meat continues even unto this day, but people do not now bake their whole winter's supply of pies at Thanksgiving time and freeze them up to last through the season. Boiled cider apple sauce was made in the fall and again in the spring when it was time to overhaul the cellar and pick out the specked fruit.
The hog killing was an important autumnal ceremony. The butcher came to the barn and the killing and dressing were done on the premises. Much of the work, like trying out the lard and mak- ing sausages, was brought into the house. A pig will yield a greater variety of food than any other animal. The backs and bellies were salted and formed the staple of the family pork barrel. The hams were smoked over a cob fire. The spare ribs, or " speribs," furnished the principal roast meat for the winter. Head cheese, scraps, hars- let (heart and liver), baked cheek, souse (pigs' feet boiled), were other preparations made from the inexhaustible swine, and some of these were very good, as the farmers of to-day can testify.
Until the invention of stoves, all roast meats were turned on spits
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before an open fire. The Dutch oven, made of tin, was a useful arrangement because that sheltered the roast on one side, while the spit could be turned with freedom. People who have known this style of cooking declare that meats are never properly roasted unless before an open fire ; when put in the oven they are simply baked.
It is possible in these times to buy every kind of cooked food, sauce or vegetable ready for use, neatly done up in a paper box, a tin can, or a glass jar. It is hard for us to realize that our grandparents were unable to obtain even the common necessities except in their crudest form. Salt was the great desideratum of the early settlers, but people whose memories go back to the early decades of the nine- teenth century will tell you that it could be bought only in the solid or rock form. Grinding or pounding the salt for table use was one of the wearisome tasks of childhood. Cream of tartar did not exist, but the use of sour milk was universal. This was so generally under- stood that old recipes are always careful to specify new milk if that kind is needed. Soda came in the shape of pearl-ash, made by refin- ing potash, which was leached from ashes. A potashiery was an important feature of every hamlet. The one in Concord was located just north of Ferry lane, and was managed by Jonathan Herbert.
The table furniture of our ancient town was as primitive as the food. In the eighteenth century wooden bowls, platters, and spoons of home whittling were common. Pewter plates and dishes repre- sented cherished possessions brought from their Massachusetts homes by the early settlers. Thrifty housewives usually had half a dozen thin silver teaspoons about the size of our after-dinner coffee spoons. Often there was no other silver in the house. As the settlement increased in numbers and intercourse with the outer world became less difficult, and especially after some Concord men gat themselves wives from Portsmouth, Boston, or other great metropolitan centers, foreign luxuries began to creep in. Of course, all silver was solid in those days, and it was hand-wrought into rather cumbrous vessels like tankards, porringers, and the like. Weight was of more value than workmanship; the "heft " was the thing considered. Probably a pair of those old flagons contained more actual metal than the hun- dred elaborate trifles that constitute a collection of modern bridal presents.
Silver forks seem a latter-day refinement, for in Dr. Oliver Wen- dell Holmes's " Life " he speaks of silver forks and napkins when he was studying in Paris, in 1835, as elegancies to which he was unused at home. If a minister's son, a descendant of the Wendells and the Quincys, brought up in the refined circles of Cambridge, looked upon such matters as novel, it is not likely that they were familiar in a
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little New Hampshire village, even though it were the capital of the state. Steel forks, two- or three-tined, and steel knives were in com- mon use up to the time of the Civil War. Children in well bred families were taught how to eat with their knives, that is, to put the blade into their mouths with the back, not the edge, toward the lip. All this has changed, and the rise of silver plating has happily abol- ished the old scouring brick.
Beside the preparation of food, which has just been described, the women had plenty of other occupation. The making of soft soap and of candles were two necessary duties. Every family had its leach tub, with the bottom perforated with small holes. This was filled with ashes through which water was poured, making lye. The lye was boiled with grease, producing that slippery, yellow compound formerly applied to soiled clothes and kitchen floors. Candle-making occurred when a " beef critter" was killed. One method was to stretch the wicks across a tub and pour melted tallow over them. A little tallow was poured at a time and allowed to cool, and then the process was repeated until the candle had become swollen to sufficient size. "Dip " candles made in this way were long and irregular, and it was thought a great improvement when tin moulds came into use. The wick was drawn through the middle of the mould and fastened at either end, and then the tallow was poured in.
The hands of women were not idle in the afternoon, but were occupied with work which could be carried on while they were sitting down, or when company was present. The girl was taught in her earliest teens to prepare for the future household. Some of us to-day cherish yellow homespun blankets, or woolen sleeping sheets, or blue and white coverlets woven by our grandmothers for the furnishing of their four-post mahogany bedsteads. Those who have the embroid- ered valances with gaily-colored flowers and birds, as brilliant as when first wrought, are fortunate indeed. Mrs. Betsey Pearson Marston (1806-1903), the venerable mother of George Marston, said that in her youth girls wove bed-ticking as well as sheets, table- cloths, and towels. They wove woolen cloth for winter gowns and aprons. The wool was sheared from the sheep, carded into rolls, spun and woven at home, and then the cloth was taken to the fuller's to be dyed and dressed. When Mrs. Marston taught school the embroidering of samplers was one of the regular branches of instruc- tion. Patchwork quilts of endless variety were made in leisure hours, and no girl was thought ready to be married until she had knit a pillow-case full of stockings. Even in the last generation every bride with a suitable " fitting out " brought to her new home several " comfortables " covered with chintz and lined with cotton batting,
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also some "live geese" feather beds, made and filled with her own hands.
Before passing to modern times it may be well to recount the changes made in supplying heat, light, and water for houses. The earliest method of getting fire was by striking the flint and steel. Every family kept this simple apparatus, as well as a box of tinder or scorched linen for the spark to ignite. When the fire was once started in the fireplace, it was expected to keep for days, because the coals were always covered with ashes at night. When the coals were dead in the morning or the supply of tinder had given out, it was not an uncommon thing to go to the neighbors to " borrow fire." Lyman D. Stevens, born in 1821, remembers when a boy being sent on such errands, which were doubtless familiar to his contemporaries. The fire was usually carried by a lighted candle enclosed in a per- forated tin lantern. This was the only form of lantern till glass and oil became common.
The early settlers used pitch-pine knots for an illumination until they were able to make dipped and moulded candles. Phosphorus matches were introduced about 1835 or later. The first lamps burned whale or sperm oil. The latter was a choice variety, pro- cured from the head of the sperm whale, and gave a soft, clear light. The whale oil was superseded by camphene, a highly inflammable liquid; and when petroleum was discovered, kerosene came into vogue. The first kerosene known in Concord, somewhere in the fifties, sold for one dollar and fifty cents a gallon. It was called Downer's oil, and was made from Albert coal mined at the head of the Bay of Fundy. Kerosene sells now for a few cents a gallon. The Concord Gas company was established in 1853, and incandescent electric lamps were introduced into houses about 1890, though Con- cord streets and stores were lighted by electricity ten years earlier.
The early settlers built their dwellings near springs of water, and when these were not available, they dug wells. The primitive well had a sweep with a heavy weight at one end to balance the rising bucket. Such sweeps have almost entirely disappeared about Con- cord, but there is a fine one still located near the old Locke place on Christian Shore in East Concord. The inside of this well is lined with delicate green ferns, and a glance down its cool depths makes the drink of water even more refreshing. Refrigerators are a mod- ern luxury, and housewives of the last generation used to keep their butter down the well in hot weather. After the sweeps were given up, the wells were run by a windlass. This mode of raising water is not so picturesque or is it any casier, but it takes less room. A well with a windlass stands in front of the Deacon Benjamin
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Farnum place, at West Concord, where his son Charles now lives, and in many other places outside the city proper. When pumps were set in the kitchen, 1820-'30, and people did not have to go out-doors to draw water, it was thought that housework was much simplified, but some families on Main street continued to use wells and do without wet sinks until after 1850.
The first aqueduct in Concord was built by Amariah Pierce, who conveyed water from a spring on the hill through logs in which an auger hole was longitudinally bored. In 1858, or thereabouts, Nathan Call's water-works supplied water fron springs in lead pipes. A big cistern was set in the customer's kitchen, and the water flowed constantly into this through a fine gauge. If the cistern became full, an overflow pipe conveyed the surplus to a trough in the barn for watering the horse and cow. Subsequently, Nathaniel White con- structed a larger system, taking the water from springs and from Little pond. The city water-works brought Long pond into our faucets in 1872.
We are coming now to modern times. Social customs change so gradually that it is difficult to set a boundary between the old and the new. For the sake of convenience, let us consider the old era as extending about one hundred years after the settlement of the town, or until 1825 or 1835. The principal actors of that time sleep in the Old North burying-ground. We know of their ways and manners by tradition or record. The modern period embraces the last seventy years, and is all included within the memory of elderly people now living. About the beginning of the modern era, the town began to lose its homogeneity. The Old North church ceased to be the common meeting-place. Dr. McFarland was the last min- ister settled by the town. When Dr. Bouton was called, in 1825, it was to a parish instead of a township. New denominations were arising, and even the Old North itself did not long remain intact.
The growth of population demanded greater accommodations, and the establishment of the South church, in 1837, was preceded and followed by the separation of the west and the east parishes from the parent organization. The location of the state liouse (1816) on its present site instead of on the court-house lot was another blow to the North-enders ; and when the railway station was finally set near its present location (it was once hoped that the Northern Railroad would have a station in the rear of the Pecker garden, now owned by Dr. W. G. Carter), it was seen that the town was growing, and growing to the southward.
The railroad came to Concord in 1842. This brought about many social changes. The introduction of the Irish as domestic servants
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came soon after. In course of time, most well-to-do families began to keep, and still continue to keep, one girl or maid of all work. Until the Civil War, the regular wage of the " hired girl " was one dollar and fifty cents a week. In cases where she was expected to milk the cow, the stipend was raised to one dollar and seventy-five cents. Double the sum first mentioned is the lowest price now paid a maid of all work, four dollars is not unusual, and the trade on her side often does not include the Monday's washing. If a modern domestic were asked to milk a cow, she might say that she had never seen such an animal. Yet thirty or even twenty years ago almost as many families kept cows as kept horses, and every house of any pre- tension had a stable. It also had a garden and a well, but shaved and sand-papered lawns were unknown.
The old-fashioned gardens have been superseded by turf and trim shrubbery, more finished, perhaps, but somehow without the quaint, old-time charm. Substantial houses forty or fifty years ago had a front yard, a side yard, and a back yard. If the mistress were fond of flowers and the grounds were very much ornamented, there might be two rectangular flower-beds edged with brick on either side of the front walk. The side yard might have a set of flower-beds, inter- locked in elaborate fashion, and bordered with box or pinks, those old-fashioned, double, very pink pinks, sweet smelling, with narrow gray-green leaves and stems. Inside the beds were double butter- cups, purple columbines, marigolds, hollyhocks, dahlias, garden helio- trope, spiderwort, day lilies, honesty, white and damask roses, sweet williams, and bachelors' buttons.
The garden of Mrs. (General) Davis, at the northeast corner of State and Franklin streets, was of this type, and to childish eyes it seemed an earthly paradise. Her house had a little square bay win- dow to the south, filled with flowers and birds, the first conservatory in town. On her broad piazza, covered with hop vines, was a well whose iron-bound bucket reached down to a spring of the coldest and purest water. Her pleasant home is now occupied by W. G. C. Kimball. Another garden, whose flower and vegetable beds were marvels of neatness and thrifty growth, belonged to the late Judge Asa Fowler, when he lived in the house which he built at the North end, No. 234 North Main street, now occupied by Frank S. Streeter. On the south side of this house was a sunken enclosure, reached by stone steps, where Mrs. Fowler cultivated beds of tulips and other flowers.
People in those days had a thought to utility as well as beauty, and in many gardens, even on Main street, the side yard contained pear trees, grape-vines, strawberries, and even corn and other veg-
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etables. The back yard was usually bordered by the woodshed, clothes-lines, and hen pen. Whatever the grounds were, they were always-except when under shiftless ownership-enclosed by sub- stantial palings. Our ancestors had the wholesome English horror of being exposed to the street, and would as soon have removed the sides of their houses as taken down their fences.
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