USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Goshen > History of Goshen, New Hampshire : settled, 1769, incorporated, 1791 > Part 17
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Seven machines were operated, including the bolter, gang- saws, lathe, slotter and other pieces of special equipment, and provided constant employment for six men, with a daily output of 20 to 25 boxes of pins of five gross count to the box.
Mr. Rogers was presumably living in a house where Charles S. Abbott now resides. This is assumed because in later years James W. Rogers, a half-brother, owned the place. With the establishing of the new factory, however, Mr. Rogers built a two-story house a short distance down the road, lately the home of Mrs. A. A. Ayotte.
Clothespins were selling in the wholesale-market at $1.25 per box when the Rogers factory opened, but the Sunapee machines were so efficient as to make them in great demand wherever
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white-birch lumber was available and in a short time the price began an alarming decline.
After operating but six months, Mr. Rogers sold the business to Mason D. Lear and Hollis H. Sholes, two local young men, who finished out the season and, apprehensive of further price- cuts, disposed of the factory to William Tandy.
The large farm carried on by Mr. Sholes' father adjoined the clothespin-factory and he easily resumed his life-long vocation there. With Mason D. Lear there seemed no employment of sufficient attraction locally and he went on to Olean, N. Y., where extensive woodworking industries were centering. Here he married and made his permanent home, a successful business- man; d. Nov. 26, 1927, at Olean.
With his years of experience in various phases of milling and manufacturing, Mr. Tandy had reason to be sanguine of his success, even in an undertaking known to be difficult. Clothes- pins had slumped to eighty-five cents per box. Every method promising expedition or economy was put into effect by the new owner, but all proved unavailing. The downward trend of prices could not be halted by one small mill and after two years of operation when pins had dropped to fifty-five cents, Mr. Tandy was forced to discontinue the business. A further loss of two car-loads of pins, worth $1,400.00, was a serious blow to him. The pins had been shipped to Boston wholesalers who proved unreliable and all efforts to collect the sum due him were fruit- less.
Mr. Tandy subsequently removed to Cornish where he oper- ated a grist-mill until prevented by failing health. He died March 5, 1891.
The Purington Shingle Mill
In 1860 Imri Purington built a shingle-mill on the Gunnison Brook above his house, now the home of Harry G. Bartlett. Two dams were built, one at the mill which produced a fall of eighteen feet at the wheel-pit, and another, a short ways above, as a storage-reservoir. The mill-dam was anchored upon a huge
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boulder in mid-stream and, though now wrecked, still makes a pretty water-fall.
Mr. Purington m. Mary Lear, dau. of Walker and Susan (Meserve) Lear, who was b. April, 1808, and d. June 19, 1891. He d. Aug. 18, 1891, aged 74 years. Both buried at North Goshen.
Their son, Eugene I. Purington, took over active management of the large and productive farm in his father's declining years. Owning a mountain woodlot that grew an abundance of virgin spruce, he sought and obtained a contract with the Boston and Maine R. R. for the delivery of clear spruce shingles, of which he produced 40,000 annually. This substantial business fur- nished the required winter-employment so much sought by all farmers.
Mr. Purington's extensive property was purchased by Eben N. Moody of Dedham, Mass., in the fall of 1899 and he removed to Newport. For a few years Mr. Moody and his son Ralph, now a resident of Whitingham, Vt., made use of the mill, the lag- saw furnishing an admirable means for sawing hardwood logs into stove-length blocks. A dry-kiln was extemporized and large quantities of stove-wood were sold. With the accidental burning of the dry-kiln this business was given up.
First Steam Saw Mill
Adjoining the Purington farm on the east was that of John Vinal Gunnison, the last one of his long family line to live in Goshen. His father, Vinal (Ephraim2, Samuel1), owned six hun- dred acres of farm and mountain-woodland and was conceded to be one of the substantial farmers of the town.
To this goodly heritage John V. was born Feb. 27, 1837. After receiving his education in the public schools and at Meriden and New London, he returned home and engaged in lumber- ing, farming and dealing in livestock. Always of an active tem- perament, he extended his lumbering-operations, spring, 1871, to include a saw-mill placed directly across the highway from his residence, now the property of Paul H. Merrigan. Correctly ap- praising the decreased water-flow available so high on the course of the stream, he put in a steam-engine for power; this action
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signalized the revolutionary trend to steam-power then taking place throughout the country.
With an investment of $11,000, the mill was fully equipped and with the extension of the railroad from Bradford to Clare- mont Junction, Mr. Gunnison obtained the contract to furnish spruce lumber for all the bridges, fences, cattle-guards and rail- ings needed in construction. A. P. Welcome was in partnership with him for a time, Mr. Welcome later taking specifications for fences and railings while Mr. Gunnison continued to furnish bridge material alone, at $20 per thousand, old-growth moun- tain-spruce, clear of dead knots, shakes and wains. He had six teams working in the woods and on the road. One winter, he recalled, was very open with little snow, and shoeing oxen and horses and mending broken sleds was the daily routine.
To use up the hardwood timber that inevitably resulted dur- ing extensive lumbering, Nathan Foster of Washington put in a clothespin-machine and operated it for some time, until Mr. Gunnison bought one of the improved Smith machines then made in Sunapee.
Prosper Barrows, one of his choppers, was of French-Canadian descent, forerunner of the many families of like ancestry who later settled in town. Barrows lived a quarter-of-a-mile south of Mr. Gunnison's, at the top of the next hill on the mountain- road, the buildings now gone. Another neighbor, Benjamin F. ("Benny Frank") Lear, was likewise employed.
When the mill was destroyed by fire in 1875, with its contents, and Mr. Gunnison proposed to rebuild if he received sufficient encouragement, he was deeply hurt by the seeming ingratitude of some of his townsmen who defeated a measure proposing lim- ited exemption from taxation. He subsequently removed from the farm to Mill Village, to the square house once occupied by Virgil Chase, and in 1888 took up residence in Newport, deal- ing in real-estate. In 1892 he was elected sheriff of Sullivan County and retained the office until reaching the age-limit of 70 years. Early in life he made eventful journeys west and south to Louisiana and Texas, details of which were ever after vividly retained.
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Mr. Gunnison married, Jan. 16, 1867, Angie Carr, dau. of Robert and Claora (Goodale) Carr of Hillsboorugh, and sister of the Village store- keeper, E. H. Carr. Ch:
1. Belle G., b. Dec. 30, 1868; m. May 8, 1902, William H. Nourse of Newport.
2. Sadie H., b. June 9, 1870.
3. Claora A. ("Orrie") b. Dec. 20, 1873; m. June 28, 1898, Rev. Sheridan W. Bell of Ohio.
4. Alice M., b. April 11, 1877; d. May 30, 1895, while a student in New- port high school.
Sugar River Creamery
The butter-factory was built in the spring of 1886, a fine, commodious building, thoroughly equipped with steam-power and all butter-making appliances. A young man by the name of Odell was the first butter-maker, though Ezra C. Pike there- after had principal charge until closing of the business in Febru- ary, 1892. Ernest Hurd had also been employed.
Incorporation of the creamery association was procured early in 1886 by a group of promient men, with the following stock- holders; Bela Graves and Wm. W. Hall of Unity; Lucius A. Purmort and Henry Walker of Lempster; Charles E. Stubbs of Newport; Elias W. Pike, Melvin C. Gregg, William T. Thissell and Elisha H. Carr of Goshen. Capital stock was authorized at $2.000.00.
The business was conducted upon the co-operative system. Producers provided themselves with "Cooley Creamers," wherein the dilution method was used for cream-separation; a glass- gauge inserted in the tall, straight-sided cooling-can denoted the number of "spaces" of cream to be paid for. The system was commendable in every way, as it introduced the rapid cooling of milk by the use of ice in the water-filled tank which held the several containers.
A paid driver collected the cream two or three times a week, according to season, providing a lucrative market for the dairy- men of the region. Quality of product was highly rated in the butter-market and during the last years almost the whole output was shipped to private customers in New York City and Boston. It is said that disagreement among directors proved the ruin of the business.
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Blacksmiths
The three Benjamin Rands, each a blacksmith in turn, have been recorded. With the early passing of the younger in 1825 the family line was done. Eventually the equipment of the old shop was conveyed to a new position at the southern end of Rand's Pond and put into service again by Walker Lear.
The road by which the new blacksmith's patrons would have reached his shop is believed to have circled the east shore of the pond and across its northern end, to make a junction with the Province Road. Tradition tells of it and an embankment, close to the shore-line, is still to be seen. Although seemingly higher than necessary, it has been pronounced by authorities definitely a road-elevation. No other use can be conceived for such an embankment. It was not until July 13, 1839, that the town voted "to lay a road from the Lang Road by (or past?) Walker Lear's to Vinal Gunnison's," a distance of slightly over a mile.
A new road, for the accommodation of cottagers, has recently been brought in along the west shore of Rand's Pond. Wherever encountered, the old grading was found too close to the shore to be of use in the new phase of development.
At the Four Corners the blacksmith-shop of John McCrillis maintained its steady flow of patronage by reason of excellent workmanship as well as constant application to business. This happy combination continued under the proprietorship of his son, William H. McCrillis, until his removal from town subse- quent to 1873. Unwelcome proofs that population was declining could not be indefinitely overlooked and for the next few years blacksmiths came and went at the old shop, unable to make a competent living. About 1880, under the ownership of Ai Rich- ards, business was suspended and eventually the shop was torn down. The great, smoothly-flattened tire-setting stone, with a hole in its center to accommodate the hub of the wheel that was being worked upon, is still to be found at the old location, opposite C. J. Oliphant's.
For fifteen years previously a second blacksmith-shop had
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been in operation at the Corners. It is said to have been built about 1860 by Ezekiel C. Baker, near the present home of John Stelljes, at the foot of the mountain on the Washington road. Mr. Baker had learned his trade at the shop in Mill Village, in all likelihood with a relative, Amos Baker. When his shop burned, his advanced years made it impractical to rebuild. He d. Jan. 15, 1877, aged 75 years.
The first blacksmith at the Village, Robert S. Cammet, built a little shop about 1820 at the west end of the grist-mill bridge; was trading at Barnes' store 1816; account settled March 6, 1817. How long Cammet was in business here is not definitely known; the quoted phrase "within twenty years it (the Cammett shop) had been succeeded by a rather more pretentious structure which Amos Baker erected," is visibly a generalization. The marriage of Amos L. Baker to Aurelia M. Hall in October, 1842, sug- gests residence at the Village then or soon after.
Additions twice made in the ensuing years have brought the shop to its present size and appearance. It still stands, weather- beaten but showing the original red paint upon its clapboards.
Various owners followed Amos Baker, blacksmiths by the surname of Hadley, Clark and Sargent. George B. Lear, son of Dea. Asahel Lear of Sunapee, was for a short time in business here as a journeyman, being followed by Day E. Maxfield. Mr. Lear removed to Newport in 1870 and, upon the death of Dea. D. B. Chapin, a partnership was arranged with Day Maxfield and the two men purchased the Chapin blacksmithing estab- lishment; this arrangement continued for many years.
George B. Lear, b. July 3, 1839, m. May 2, 1857, Maria A. Dodge of Goshen, who d. Apr. 17, 1877, aged 38 yrs .; m. 2d., May 6, 1878, Mrs. Jennie Robinson of West Windsor, Vt.
In 1870 Burk Booth purchased the old Baker shop from Mr. Maxfield and carried on a profitable business for three decades. His equipment was very complete. A lover of horses, he took special care in their shoeing and was regularly consulted as a veterinary. The ox-sling, in an attached shed, was a massive frame equipped with wide, riveted side-leather straps and a wooden windlass, by means of which the ox requiring shoes
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was lifted bodily from the floor, whereupon his feet were strapped securely to standards provided for the purpose. Mr. Booth's house stood across the road from the shop and was a place of open hospitality. He was a tall, powerful man with shoulders and arms developed at the anvil.
In 1899 Horace M. Booth succeeded his father in the shop, having grown up in the business. A skilled mechanic in many lines, he gradually turned his attention to woodworking and carpentry, one of his most outstanding achievements in this field having been the complete modernization of the present Lyn Brook Lodge. The very attractive dwelling of Eugene Goyette is further proof of Mr. Booth's skill. One of the last - and certainly the most spectacular - pieces of work performed by him at the old shop was the ironing of the snow-roller, in 1921.
There are nostalgic memories of this ponderous contraption seen rolling along the snow-filled roads, drawn by six horses, the driver, muffled in great-coat, cap and mittens, perched atop and buffeted unmercifully by the wintry blasts. The roller, five feet in diameter, was built in two six-foot sections, giving a total width of slightly over twelve feet. Records show that Emmett Robinson had machined and assembled the wood parts required in its construction and its total cost was $86.11. Though not original it was a radical departure from age-long custom, being designed to keep the traveled path on top of the snow instead of plowing through it. In truth the old snow-roller must be credited with having produced a wide, good road upon which sleds and sleighs could turn out and pass with ease and safety. Yet the advent of the automobile followed so closely upon the building of the roller in Goshen as to cut short its real useful- ness.
Burk Booth, b. Unity?, 1844; m. 1865, Helen L. Mathewson, of Acworth, dau. of Dolly Mathewson who m. Jan., 1868, Ralph Keyes, 71, of Acworth; rem. to Goshen. Mrs. Helen Booth was b. 1845; d. 1910. He d. 1915. Ch: Horace M., b. Feb. 9, 1876; m. April 9, 1905, Wilhemina Robert.
A young apprentice of the senior Mr. Booth's, Ernest Hurd of the adjoining East Mountain district, went on to complete a very successful career in Lynn, Mass., dealing in real-estate.
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Another young blacksmith to make his start in town was John W. Purington, son of Clifton Purington. Brought up on his father's farm at the Center, he built a blacksmith-shop near the family home and installed, besides his blacksmithing tools, the hand-powered bench-saw once used in the old carriage-shop, as well as the small, upright steam-engine that O. A. Lear had re- cently discarded. The shop and its equipment was burned one dry day by sparks from the smoke-stack. The shop was rebuilt, but the young mechanic had outgrown his limited field of pa- tronage; he removed to Sunapee and from thence to New Boston.
During 1920-21 Stephen P. Williams moved into the Dr. Jones house at the Village and opened a blacksmith-shop, soon removing to Warner.
A brick-yard was operated by a man named Chamberlain about 1810, on the present O. L. Nelson farm.
Cider-mills were necessities when every family was supposed to put in and "make" its own barrel of vinegar. Joseph Chandler built a cider-mill on his farm at the Center and passed it on to David McLaughlin; it was finally given up about 1870, by the third owner, Imri P. Adams, partly because J. P. Gove had put cider-making equipment into his saw-mill at the Corners.
CHAPTER XVII The Old Town Meeting House
T HE committee selected at the first town-meeting of Goshen, held March 8, 1792, "to pitch upon a place for the Center of the Town," (p. 14) consisted of the Selectmen and Ephraim Gunnison, Amos Hall, William Story and Daniel Sherburne, each the representative of a different section.
A sightly spot was chosen, being a wide hill-top with a slight southerly trend, in full view of the houses at the Corners a mile away. That it was not the geographical center of the town can be seen at a glance; in relation to the cultivable area of the day, when cleared land extended much farther to the east, a reason- able accuracy was displayed.
The earlier associations along the Province Road were slow to give way. The name "Commons Road" denotes the location there of a common-pasture, rather than a formal green as we now apply the term, it is believed. The two or three houses once standing, in, or near, the road-corners and the stock-pound on the northwest corner of James Libby's land, for the con- struction of which $4 was voted May 3, 1796, ("Voted to have it 25 feet square and 7 feet high"), these were not abandoned until the Province Road had become definitely a thing of the past.
Jan. 11, 1810, a meeting was called to see if the town would vote "to give the Society formed to build a Meeting House in Goshen any sum of money for the purpose and privilege of holding Town Meeting in the contemplated Meeting House at all times the Town shall find it necessary, provided the said house shall be built." What action was taken upon the proposi- tion, if any, is not recorded. Six years passed without a word in the town books, or elsewhere, to indicate the cause of delay. The original proposition indicated a group of churchmen, the
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"Society," seeking town participation in their enterprise. The leaven of their devotion had permeated the whole when next the matter came forth.
March 18, 1816, the town voted "to build a Meeting House and build it somewhat similar to the Lempster Meeting House." $500.00 was appropriated, "to be laid out on said House the present season." To picture the proposed building one must remember that the imposing tower which now distinguishes Union Hall at Lempster Street is an addition that was not in existence in 1816. A plan was required; a committee was ap- pointed to draught one and present it at the next meeting, two weeks from date. On March 26 the citizens again assembled and voted to accept the plans as brought forward; the house to be fifty feet long and forty-two feet wide. Luther Barnes, Nathan Willey and John Currier were empowered to purchase land and take a deed in behalf of the town, to contract for material and to superintend the building of the new house.
Thereupon, with the committee's diagram before them, it was voted to sell pew ground in the said house to the highest bidder.
"Voted to sell pews in said House on Friday, March 29th, at 2 o'clock, P.M." The place, Luther Barnes' store, proving un- suitable for the Friday gathering, it was decided to transfer the meeting "to the Hall of the Tavern house across the highway." Here, at Capt. Trow's, with plenty of space available, the meet- ing went on to reconsider the vote taken relative to the spot of ground on which to set the meeting-house and gave the com- mittee "leave to build it on Jonathan Badger's land." This placed it north of the highway, whereas the original plan of 1810, "to buy a piece of land of Mr. Cofran for a common, or parade for the Town, where the house is to stand," would have located it on the south side. The new structure was "to be set parallel with the road ... with the Porch to the East." As an incentive to activity it was further "Voted that each religious denomination in the Town occupy and improve the Meeting House their proportion of the time according to the share they own in said House when it is finished."
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Beginning with No. 1, the 45 body-pews were auctioned off in numerical order by Luther Barnes, styled "Vendue Master." The first eighteen brought from $23.50 to $50.00 (the latter sum being paid by Luther Barnes, Calvin Bingham and John Mc- Crillis). Rear pews brought from $9.00 to $24.50; the better- situated wall-pews, 28 in number, brought up to $40.00 each, but the 24 gallery pews went at a low price, averaging $12.50.
Pew owners, in addition to the three mentioned, were: Reuben Willey, Seth Chellis, Nathan Willey, Jonathan Badger, John Cutter, Ephraim Gunnison, John Smith, Stephen Dolloff, Elias Smith, William Story, Joseph Chandler, Nathaniel Chellis, Theo- dore Richardson, Samuel Edwards, George Lear, William Tandy, John Calef, James Philbrick, Caleb C. True, Leonard Bradford, David Baker, Charles Meserve, John Sherburne, Peter Gregg, Benjamin Cofran, Daniel Attridge, and Smith Marston. Wall- pews were struck off to Samuel Gunnison, Samuel Humphrey, Parker Tandy, Josiah Fletcher, John Currier, Belknap Bartlett, Micajah Peasley, Samuel Cutts, Wm. Robertson, Jr., Samuel Stevens, Richard Baker, Benjamin Gunnison, Walker Lear and Benjamin Cofran, in addition to many whose names have been listed previously. In the gallery purchases a few new names ap- peared; Samuel White, Arrouet Gunnison, John Thompson, John Currier, Oliver Booth, Alvin Roundy and David Harris. April 3, 1819, David Harris sold pew No. 24, Gallery, to Timothy Smith, for $10.25, "same as he gave." Nathaniel Chellis sold body pew No. 32, to Daniel and Joseph Gage.
The frame of the house was put up during the autumn of 1816, Nathaniel Sherburne receiving from the town, April 8, 1818, "$15.00 for framing the Meeting House." During the "raising" two men from Washington fell from the frame, and the sight so unnerved "Squire John" Gunnison that he was obliged to descend from his position. It is told that one of them, though sustaining cuts and broken bones, soon recovered, while the other man, who showed little effects of his fall, suffered internal injuries that were long in healing. Nov. 23, 1818, at an adjourned town-meeting, "Voted to accept the Pews, inside of Meeting House and Porch, as now finished." At this time pews
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that had remained unsold at vendue were auctioned off to the highest bidders:
No. 44, body pew, $15.25 to Levi Sholes.
No. 43, body pew, 14.00 to Daniel Lakeman
No. 34, body pew, 9.75 to Thaddeus M. Fuller
No. 35, body pew, 11.75 to Dr. Reuben Hall
No. 33, body pew, 10.50 to Oliver Booth
No. 1, gallery pew, 8.50 to John Gunnison
No. 3, gallery pew, 10.00 to James Libbey
No. 4, gallery pew,
10.60 to Nathan Willey
No. 13, gallery pew, 9.50 to Jonathan Badger
The building had the appearance of being two-storied, as a double row of large, many-paned windows filled each side, six in a line for the body of the house and six above for the gallery. When asked the reason for so many windows the answer in- variably came that Luther Barnes, merchant at Goshen Corners, agreed to donate the glass free of cost.
The porch mentioned was the outer vestibule so common to churches of that period, and as it was the entrance, placed the building sidewise to the main road. From the porch once rose a short steeple with a weather-vane, the "belfry," although no bell was ever placed within it. Mr. Wm. H. McCrillis described it as similar in architecture to the old school-building now standing in the rear of the Sullivan County Registry of Deeds at Newport.
Upon entering the vestibule through one of the double doors, a second door directly ahead admitted to the body of the house, while stairs at the sides led up to the gallery. In the gallery seats were available upon three sides of the building and even partly across the fourth end, each way toward the pulpit. Built around against the wall ran a single row of square "family-pews," as they were called, a waist-high partition enclosing each, with spindle-work around its top, surmounted by a carved rail. A little gate gave entrance, with benches along the sides that were arranged to be lifted up to allow more room when the occu- pants stood during the service. In front of these more aristo- cratic enclosures three rows of single pews, closed by door toward the aisle, made out the width of the gallery.
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