USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Goshen > History of Goshen, New Hampshire : settled, 1769, incorporated, 1791 > Part 16
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Mr. Robinson was continually elected to various town-offices; was Selectman for many terms and was chosen Representative to the Legislature of 1894-5; was active in Grange circles and Master of the local group. He was born in Orange, Vt., Aug. 2, 1859, son of Alexander and Sarah (Moore) Robinson, one of a
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family of ten children; m. (1) March 9, 1881, at Goshen, Mari- etta Parker, dau. of Jonas and Zeroyda (Chase) Parker. She d. May 9, 1897, and Mr. Robinson m. (2) June 14, 1901, Miss Katherine Egan of Unity. He died Nov. 16, 1933. Ch:
Marjorie, b. June 15, 1902; m. M. Bertrand Carter, recently of Hartford, Conn.
The saw-mill machinery was removed by Mr. Carter to a position near their homstead, where it was operated for a short time by means of a gasoline-motor. Thus vanished the last of the water-powers in town.
The Booth-Willey Card-Board Shop
The pages of New England history are filled with stories of "Yankee inventions" that were produced to fill a specific need, only to disappear before a newer invention, or the rapid change of economic conditions. The buggy-whip is a classic illustration of this, matched in a smaller degree by the hand cards once in everyday use in the carding of cotton. Millions of card-boards were produced in this immediate area and the industry became highly specialized.
It is stated that Royal Booth, Jr., (Royal,2 Epaphras1) about 1830, built a small shop for the manufacture of card-boards, at the Corner, on the brook that flows through the meadow- farm of Yvette Huot, above the cement-bridge. At about this same time, Col. Thomas Laws was making card-boards in the adjoining town of Washington. What connection, if any, existed between the two shops is unknown, but with the purchase of the Laws property by Ezra P. and Joseph A. Howard, in 1847, it is apparent that the Washington shop assumed dominance in the industry. Ezra Howard m., Jan., 1844, Mary Trow of Goshen.
The cotton card was described by the late Austin B. Willey of Claremont, as follows:
"These boards were finished with fine wire teeth and sent South for carding cotton by hand. This was in the days before the Civil War. ... They were in universal use here all through Colonial days and beyond. My mother had a pair of them, though they had then passed out of actual use. The
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boards were about a foot long, curved, thick on one edge and thin on the other."
Royal Booth, Jr., was an inventor as well as a mechanic of much ability and he developed many ingenious devices to facilitate card-board production. Intent upon enlarging his field, he sold his shop, about 1845, to his brother-in-law, Merrill Willey, and removed to Kelleyville, where an abundant water- power was available on the Sugar River. Just when he advanced from getting out card-boards to making the machines them- selves is not known, but before long he migrated to Sunapee Village, which at this period was a veritable Mecca of inventors, the home of threshing-machines, clothespin-machines and ma- chines of many sorts. He occupied the basement of Dexter Pierce's clothespin-shop, later the site of the Brampton Woolen Company, where he began building card-board machinery. In 1857, a fire which started in Mr. Booth's factory destroyed not only the whole building but also the peg-shop of Abiather Young on the east side of the river.
Mr. Booth died in Claremont, still inventing, still building improved card-board machines, although their day had been run, and still followed by that jinx, fire. A machine, approaching a stage of automatic production, was burned in his workshop shortly before his death.
At Goshen, Merrill Willey combined the card-board business with his farming, getting out boards in the rough only, sawing them out and then packing them up out-of-doors to dry. They were drawn away the next summer to the neighboring town of Washington where Ezra Howard finished them for market. Mr. Willey's son, Austin B., whom we have previously quoted, recalled that Mr. Howard paid his father about six dollars per thousand pairs, in the rough.
"One spring." he continued, "my father got out a hundred thousand pairs, hiring Jessial Gove as extra hand. It is my recol- lection that he paid Jessial seventy-five cents a day and board, and Mr. Gove was a big, stout man.
"Only beech timber was used. First the logs were sawed up into blocks twelve inches long by a power cross-cut, or lag saw,
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outside the shop. I was the boy who took the blocks away and set the gauge for my father to shove the log up against, to give the proper length to the next block.
"After the yard got pretty full of blocks they were piled up, one on top of the other, as high as two men could throw them. This was all done in the late winter, all logs being blocked up before any boards were sawed. Later, as fast as stock was needed, the beech blocks were quartered, the bark taken off and the heart split away so as to leave a hollowing chunk about five- and-a-half inches thick. They were now ready for the saw.
"The saw used was of the barrel type, larger than those used for sawing tub-staves and heavier, possibly three to three-and-a- half feet in diameter with two step-cone pulleys on a heavy shaft, the whole hung into a substantial wooden frame, for iron frames had not then come into the market. These saws were owned by Mr. Howard and were moved into different shops that con- tracted to get out cardboards for him. By the way, my Uncle Royal later made these saws for himself. Into these whirling steel barrels the blocks of green beech were pushed by hand, back and forth. The first piece that came off was a thin slab, the next a good board. The waste from the shop kept us in fire- wood the year around."
In the course of time the property had been acquired by Solon Willey and by him it was sold in 1885 to Hial F. Nelson, who took the hand-hewn frame apart and moved it to the Vil- lage, rebuilding it in its original form on the Gunnison Brook, where previously a cooper-shop of Capt. Daniel Stearns' had been burned.
Cooper Shops
A community of enterprising men developed along the moun- tain-road that once led southerly from the "Squire John" Gun- nison farm, later owned by Elisha Winham, past John Chandler's busy yards, to Goshen Four Corners. Only one house, of the round dozen then inhabited, is still standing, the summer home of Hon. Charles Howard of Massachusetts. In this thriv- ing community, built in part on soil originally Fishersfield, the
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names of Baker, Bradford and Stearns were prominent. The two latter families came here from Mont Vernon, N. H., a town which also contributed Dr. Ira Weston and Levi Trow, tavern- keeper, and probably others.
Before coming to Goshen, Daniel Stearns had served in the defense of Portsmouth from the town of Chesterfield, m. Mary, dau. of William, Jr., and Hannah Bradford of Mont Vernon. He built up a large farm, comprising a fine sugar-orchard, and eventually erected a small cooper-shop in his dooryard, where inclement weather would find him busily setting up by hand the various utensils of his trade.
Sidelights upon those early years are thrown by records of the Goshen Congregational Church; thus, May 9, 1819, "Mary, daughter of Mary, wife of Daniel L. Stearns," was baptized. The infant must have been Hannah M., who was born Feb. 8, 1819, and later married Jonathan Ingalls. From the same source the record is provided that Oct. 9, 1824, Dr. Ira Weston, Miss Anna Bradford and Mary, wife of Daniel L. Stearns, were received into the church by letters of Recommendation and Dismissal from the church in Mont Vernon. Mary Stearns and Anna, or Anne, Bradford were sisters.
Bereavements continually recurred in the Stearns family in the years that followed. A son, Granville, six years of age, died Jan. 12, 1825; their daughter, Anna B., twenty-one, died Oct. 14, 1837. Benjamin Stearns (rel. und't'd.) died June 15, 1834, aged 47, and in June, 1842, a daughter, Mary F., two years old, was taken from them (Corners cem. inscriptions).
In 1848 Mr. Stearns sold his mountain-farm and cooper-shop to Asa L. Baker (David1), then a young man of twenty-four, and removed to Mill Village.
For fifty years Mr. Baker industriously carried on his allied trades. The cooper-shop was tiny and without power, though standing beside the mountain-brooklet that separated his farm from that of a brother, Lovell Baker. Yet his coopering came secondary to his farming and the lack of power was not an in- surmountable difficulty; the foot-treadle and spring-pole had been driving lathes since man first set his hand to the shaping
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of objects. Old-growth spruce stood in abundance on the nearby slopes and it was skillfully seasoned and worked into tubs for various uses about the household. Mr. Baker's sap-buckets were still scattered through neighboring sugar-houses within our re- collection. Of the old-fashioned type, slightly smaller at the top than at the bottom, so as to prevent their hoops from shedding in the hot weather of late spring, they were cumbersome and . awkward to carry about. This was no fault of the maker.
Mr. Baker used to recall to attentive listeners that "Aunt Anna" Bradford, who lived in a house away up the mountain- side, south of the lead mine lot, not infrequently caught sight of bears loking into her windows at night.
Meanwhile, at the Village Daniel Stearns had built a new cooper-shop, placing it beside the Gunnison Brook from which he derived power by means of an over-shot water-wheel, later replaced by a turbine. Either of the two turbine-wheels then in local favor, the Chapman, or the Tyler water-wheels which were made in Claremont, would have marked a material gain in utilization of power. The water-privilege was limited to a fall of twelve feet, after being carried across the face of a steep bank in an earth-canal, but it was of much greater practical value than at present, owing to an extensive system of flowage- basins then existing along the course of the stream above. For many years a dam was maintained at the outlet of Rand's Pond, with flowage rights that benefitted all the downstream mill- owners alike. The gate was closed at night to impound the inflow and opened in the morning by someone engaged for the pur- pose, to allow a limited flow to escape. With the simultaneous opening of other mill-gates for the business of the day, it is readily apparent that the normal flow of the stream would have been materially increased.
For the ensuing seventeen years Mr. Stearns maintained a cooperage business of considerable volume. His wife, Mary Bradford, d. Aug. 5, 1849, aged 53, and he m., 2d., Dec. 12, 1850, Cynthia T. (Sholes) Eaton, widow of Calvin Eaton of Bedford, whom she m. in Goshen, Oct. 11, 1831 (N. H. Spectator). A son
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of the Eatons, Joseph H., d. 1849, aged 17. She d. Jan. 19, 1879, aged 72. Daniel Stearns d. March 16, 1867, aged 72.
Arvilla B. Stearns, wife of Aspasio H. King, m. Sept. 30, 1851; d. Sept. 23, 1864, aged 36 yrs., 9 mos.
Oren B. Stearns, b. Aug., 1832. "May 17, 1876, the body of O. B. Stearns was found on the banks of the river (Sugar River at Newport) near the residence of Wm. S. Kempton."*
Almira C. King, his wife, b. April, 1830; d. April, 1872.
Rudolph, son of O. B. and A. C. Stearns, d. April, 1872, aged 4 yrs., 10 mos.
Lydia P. Stearns, b. March 11, 1830; d. May 27, 1900.
(Village cem. ins.)
Jonathan Ingalls, son-in-law of Daniel Stearns, had undoubt- edly acquired proficiency in the cooper's craft during previous years and assumed proprietorship. He was a ponderous man, in striking contrast to the dimunitive size of his wife. He lived in the house now owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Lund, who have greatly improved the property in every way. He was b. Jan. 27, 1825, and d. April 21, 1905. His wife, Hannah M. In- galls, d. Jan. 23, 1895. No children.
Prior to 1882, Mr. Ingalls disposed of the cooper-shop to Charles Putney, an enterprising young man who invested capital in improved machinery and facilities. It is not known whether Mr .Putney had reached a stage of production or not, before he lost everything by fire and, without attempting to rebuild, re- moved to Claremont where he successfully engaged in business.
The mill-dam and flumes had sustained but little injury from the fire and in the summer of 1885 Hial F. Nelson bargained with E. H. Carr for the abandoned property. The old card- board shop at the Corners was standing empty and idle and this Mr. Nelson moved to the Village and rebuilt on the site of the burned mill.
The old-time cooper had supplied countless items of everyday use, even to wooden plates and bowls that were made to do until crockery, largely imported from England, could be secured by the settlers. Of tubs, barrels and boxes there were unending shapes and sizes - sugar-boxes, with lapped hoops and covers;
*Hist. of Newport, Wheeler. No details given.
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wash-tubs, with two opposite staves left standing in which hand- holes were cut; the keeler was a low tub. And there were water- buckets, meat-tubs and butter-tubs, sap-buckets, churns, chop- ping-trays, butter-paddles, spice-boxes, a multitude of articles made from wood in a new country where both ingenuity and wood abounded. Wooden-hoops were a joint creation of keen tools and craftsmanship, the tucked-under type, made of split withes, or rived brown-ash, requiring especial skill.
By the time Mr. Nelson entered the field the items of manu- facture had narrowed down to meat-and-butter-tubs and a con- tainer for shipping maple-syrup, shipments of tub-butter having already declined. These syrup-kits were made in two sizes, three and five gallon, and met with an active spring demand until the introduction of the tin gallon-can. There was an apprehensive fascination in watching the cooper at his heading-lathe, cutting kit-heads out of thin squares of pine board - when his sharp chisel-point would suddenly liberate a pin-wheel of flying corner- fragments that became in boyish hands very creditable toma- hawks. Riveted hoops of band-iron were driven onto the turned and sanded kit after the material had been run through swag- ing rolls for shaping.
The tin syrup-can was neat and light and could be filled with hot syrup, whereas the pine kit tolerated only that which had been thoroughly cooled, owing to the resinous taste otherwise imparted to the syrup. The market for syrup-kits vanished, and although an opportunity was presented to continue their man- ufacture by conversion to the salt-fish trade, Mr. Nelson decided against it. The business had furnished at best only part-time employment and, with unquestioned wisdom, in January, 1891, he moved his family of boys to the large and well-known Gunni- son-Cofran farm in Goshen Center, where Capt. John W. Gun- nison had passed his boyhood.
Cabinet Shop
For a period previous to 1842, Henry Chandler maintained a cabinet shop where Emil Benes now lives. Mr. Chandler was a skillful workman and for several generations pieces of furniture of his making were cherished by their owners, showing much
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beauty of design and finish. He also made coffins, nicely lined and stained and in regular demand. When other interests caused Mr. Chandler to give up their manufacture in 1843, Parker Richardson, Sr., storekeeper at the Village, found time from his other duties to continue supplying local needs in that line.
Bedsteads, designed for use with straw-ticks and feather-beds, weer made locally by Ansel Dunbar, who lived on Lear Hill, where Mr. and Mrs. Carson Field now reside. The cord-bed frame was made of hardwood with turned posts which were mortised to receive the side-rails. It is evident that all bedstead- makers had not mastered the technique of tenon-and-mortise cutting, for a terse description has been handed down of the bed-frame that had to be driven together with a sledge-hammer and yet "would walk all over the floor." The operation of "cording up" the bedstead with crossed ropes and the tightening- wrench was a task requiring patience as well as experience. Ansel Dunbar was b. in Grantham, April 20, 1819; m. Lydia A. Nelson Apr. 13, 1843. d. Dec. 30, 1904.
Joiner's Shop
As the Village grew, two little shops appeared, built close against the main street, with their back-windows overlooking the millpond. One of these was located nearly opposite the present residence of Eugene Pysz, and was built by Wise Bart- lett for use as a joiner-shop; its bank-wall, next to the highway, is still standing. The joiner made interior woodwork, doors, windows and stairs, as opposed to the cabinet-maker, who con- cerned himself solely with furniture. The period of Mr. Bartlett's business is indicated by records of payments to him found in the selectmen's accounts, thus: "Feb. 6, 1833, gave Wise Bartlett an order for two coffins, one for Mrs. Hudson, one for Benj. Rand, ... $5.00." In 1839 he received orders from the selectmen for two more coffins "and Guide Boards," totaling $16.34. In 1841 he was reimbursed for a coffin made "for Mrs. Sischo," cost $3.00. This sum was apparently a standard charge at the time, as Parker Richardson was given orders in the same figures in 1841 for coffins "for Mrs. Calef and Widow Mary Brown."
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In June, 1840, Mary Chase, a Revolutionary pensioner, 76 years of age, was listed as living with "Bartlett Wise," or, prop- erly transposed, Wise Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett eventually sold his little shop to Virgil Chase, Esq., a shoemaker by trade. Relation- ship of the two families is unquestioned.
Virgil Chase, Citizen and Shoemaker
Previous to the purchase of the joiner-shop, Mr. Chase had lived in the large, two-story house with hip-roof, later burned but then standing on the present Library foundations. Common custom of the time allowed the shoemaker to carry on his trade in some well-lighted corner of his own dwelling, preferably the kitchen. It was not unusual for him to travel about, staying at each customer's house while making up footwear for the entire family.
Boots, the best made of calfskin, were customarily worn by the men of 'Squire Chase's day, pliant and weather-resistant when well-tallowed, or stiff and cracking when not. The women wore shoes - as did the children, when not running barefoot. The wearing of leather-boots is still within the remembrance of some. Boots and shoes were in reality custom-made, with each person's individual last, properly built up and conforming to fit, frequently shelved for periodical use.
Prospering in business, Mr. Chase built the brick house, later occupied by Dr. Wheeler, and removed there with his family and his shoemaking. There are reasons to believe that the pur- chase of Wise Bartlett's joiner-shop occurred at this time, for notes, hastily made more than fifty years ago, speak of the ex- tensive business Mr. Chase embarked upon at that time, hiring three and four extra workmen in busy seasons. As the joiner- shop stood almost directly opposite the new house, its location would have been advantageous.
Mr. Chase was interested in the furtherance of town affairs and took an active part in politics, both at home and in wider spheres. He was an early member of Mt. Vernon Lodge A. F. & A. M., of Washington, N. H., and is credited by historian S. H. Edes with having saved his Lodge from possible extinction. The
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circumstances hinged upon the surrender, in 1833, of the charter of Corinthian Lodge of Newport and the enfeebled state of its sister lodge, Mt. Vernon.
"Virgil Chase was Master of the latter lodge for five consecutive years," Mr. Edes states. "Activity was reduced to an annual communication and then, in 1846, the Goshen members, sterling citizens such as Jonas Parker, Mr. Chase, ("Squire") John Gunnison and John McCrillis, came to its rescue and a coalition was formed with certain former Corinthian members where- by the Lodge, then in its 46th. year, was moved to a new home in Newport.
The charter of transfer, suitably endorsed, was forwarded to the Master, Virgil Chase, at 'Mill Village, Newport Postoffice,' and is still preserved in the lodge safe, in its original wrappings, within a round, metal tube."
A humorous incident of village-life during this period has been preserved by the late C. M. Brown of Newport, writing under a pseudonym in the Argus and Spectator. It concerns Mrs. True, a near neighbor of the Squire's, and considered somewhat peculiar.
"Her eldest daughter was engaged to marry a New York man," it ran. "As soon as the news reached the mother, who was known to exaggerate in telling what she learned, she left her home to go to one of the neighbors. On the way she met Mr. Chase, at the time high sheriff for Sullivan County. 'O Squire Chase,' she called, 'Have you heard the news? My oldest darter Polina is going to be married to a New York man who is worth a hundred thousand million dollars. How much is that, Mr. Chase? He owns a big farm right in the center of New York City and keeps a lot of cows.'"
The statement has been made that Mr. Chase was in busi- ness here for fully fifty years, but a more careful reading would seem to indicate that he was making shoes for a total of fifty years in all. He died Aug. 16, 1867, aged 71. His wife, Ellen L., died Sept. 27, 1872, aged 77 yrs., 5 mos. (Corner Cem. ins.)
Upon the death of Mr. Chase, the shop was purchased by Imri Adams, who, after a brief occupancy, sold to John R. Cutts by whom it was moved across and along the road to his own dwelling to become a tool and wagon house.
Wheelwright Shop
The second small shop mentioned, between the road and the river, was built by James Heath, a wheelwright, in 1856. It was situated a few rods south of the Chase shop. A cider-press was operated for a short time in the same building, but was soon
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removed and the wheelwrighting alone continued by Mr. Heath and his son and by the several ensuing owners.
Carriage Factory
In 1875, Ora T. Alexander of Lempster bought the wright- shop and energetically enlarged his business until removal to more commodious quarters became necessary. In the winter of 1880 this was accomplished by the erection of a new, two-story building on the rise by the Baptist church. The wheelwright- shop had become a carriage-factory. The carriage-making occu- pied the lower floor, while on the floor above a paint-shop was conducted by Fred Stocker. A manually-operated circular-saw used by the partners attracted much admiring comment and may well be considered a forerunner of the small mechanical tools now available for use with electricity. This valuable and prom- ising industry was summarily suspended two years later by the death from typhoid-fever of both young men.
The new building was not allowed to stand idle for long. Olan A. Lear, son of Dea. Asahel Lear of South Sunapee, a blacksmith by upbringing and choice, purchased the property and converted it into a blacksmith-shop. During a temporary absence from town, Mr. Lear was induced to sell the building and it was taken down and moved to Newport. Returning in 1895, however, he built a new cottage upon the site of the carriage-factory and after moving the old Heath shop to a position nearby, he remodeled it into a very convenient smithy. A man of great ingenuity and easy accommodation, Mr. Lear not only cared for the needs of his community in shoeing, mak- ing sleds, mending chains and farm-equipment, sharpening stone-cutting drills and the like, but added to his plant a 6 h.p. steam engine and wood-working machinery. The extent of his activity may be appraised by the fact that he averaged to get out 100,000 wood laths yearly, besides his custom-work.
Upon gaining a contract for hame-woods from the Sunapee hame shop, then in full operation, he transferred his attention to the heavier production of red-oak squares required for the hames. Of these, 60,000 were sawed and delivered in 1903. Dur-
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ing the same year Mr. Lear moved his machinery to the old creamery building, then standing idle, and with a larger steam- engine for power, installed a board-saw at the north end of his main shop. Steam-power gave him a slight superiority over the water-power mill at the other end of the street and he gained considerable custom, without detriment to the business of the new owner there, Mr. Robinson.
On a Saturday afternoon, May 15, 1909, while at work with a helper in his mill, Mr. Lear was instantly killed by a fragment of wood flying from the board-saw. He was sixty-three.
The Clothespin Factory
In 1872, Increase Rogers erected a new building measuring sixty-four by thirty feet and two stories in height, and equipped it with the latest Sunapee clothespin machinery. With the ex- ception of the tannery, this was the most promising industry that had appeared in town. The new factory was situated on the steep south bank of the Gunnison Brook, just above the cement-bridge by O. L. Nelson's. The location was ideal for the employment of water-power, but Mr. Rogers, knowing its inade- quacy, put in a steam-engine, by means of which he could not only assure himself of dependable power but could convert his waste into fuel.
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