USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Goshen > History of Goshen, New Hampshire : settled, 1769, incorporated, 1791 > Part 27
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February, 1834, Nathanial Gunnison married Sarah Ann Richardson of Goshen, who died suddenly about three years later. This sad experience was an epochal point in his life. He says:
"The day of the burial was severely cold. Brother A. L. Balch of Newport officiated and preached an admirable sermon in the meeting house at Goshen Corner. After the services at the grave I returned to my desolate home * *. . On that lonely night * * I resolved to give up my prospects of wealth and go out as a preacher of the gospel of the grace of God, not doubting in the least but that I could convert the world in a very short time. I finished my school and in April, 1837, commenced study for the ministry with Rev. A. L. Balch of Newport, N. H. Thus the whole current of my life was changed by this one affliction. Had not God visited me with a severe trial I doubtless should have continued a tiller of the soil and become a worshiper of dollars. Afflictions do not come by chance. They are of God's appointing. By affliction I was made a minister of the Word of Truth."
Many important pastorates were held by him in Massachu- setts; was nine years at Halifax, N. S., where he served for a time during the Civil War, as acting consul, later removing to pastorates in Maine. He died, 1871, at West Waterville, Me., leaving a wide circle of friends and a fine family, who have honored his name.
Earthquake, 1846
Dea. Alfred Abell recorded, Aug. 25, 1846; "This morning about five o'clock, I heard a rumbling noise like cattle running; it soon shook the house, the windows began to jar, as if a heavy peal of thunder had struck near by; it soon passed off with a rumbling noise. This shock was realized in the city of Boston and throughout the New England states."
The Winter of 1859-60 laid a great depth of snow over the countryside. During late February and early March an ex- ceedingly heavy crust formed and sleighs and sleds coursed at
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will "across-lots" over the tops of walls and fences. A house over on the Dodge lot, below the Blood farm, was drawn on the crust that winter more than a mile, to be relocated on the Chandler hill-top at the Center, now the Ivan E. Scranton residence.
P. Tandy, Acrostic Writer
Parker Tandy, grandson of the pioneer Parker, was one of those human conundrums who add color to every family-line. Endowed with an excellent mind and a good education for the times, he seemed destined for a large sphere in life. He picked up the rudiments of Indian language, rather than Latin and Greek, but made no use of it afterward. He became a successful farmer, married into an excellent Croydon family and was known to be well-to-do. In his later years, however, his accumu- lations vanished and he became almost a vagrant, picking up a meal here and there as he traveled. His wife was deemed pe- culiar, but it was always a moot question whether Parker's wanderings were in quest of peace or were caused by his do- mestic unhappiness. Mrs. Tandy's revealing complaint to a visit- ing neighbor was remembered:
"There goes Parker, whewity-whew and here I stay, a-stewity stew!"
From his youth he had written acrostics, those creations of rhyming-meter, no longer seen, wherein the first, last, or certain other letters of each line taken in order, spell a word or phrase (Thorndike-Barnhart). He made use of the acrostic form in enthroning the names of his patrons in verse. With increased leisure his acrostics became more numerous and gained him fre- quent donations, for they were cleverly put together and always echoed lofty religious sentiments.
In his travels Mr. Tandy always carried a black leather satchel, useful for groceries, parcels of food, or tracts for distribution. He was in Carr's store at the Village one day when the local painter, something of a wag, was engaged in touching up the store's interior with fresh white paint.
"Ought to have your name on that satchel, Mr. Tandy, so's nobody will pick it up by mistake," the painter suggested and much to his surprise, the old gentleman acquiesced. A very
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few minutes' work at the back of the store and the painter had lettered the side of the bag and brought it forward, relying upon the old man's blindness to cover up his mischief. "P. Tandy, Acrostic Writer," it read. Far from being troubled by the inscription, however, it was observed that Mr. Tandy when in a public place, invariably carried his satchel with the lettered side in view.
Inventory for the Year 1811
Number of Polls, from 18 to 70 years of age, excepting those from 18 to 21 who are enrolled in the Militia, Presidents, Professors, Tutors, Instructors, and students of colleges, Ordained Ministers, Preceptors of Academies, paupers & idiots,
Acres of Orchard land,
9
Acres of Arable land,
751/2
Acres of Mowing land,
373
Acres of Pasture land,
532
Horses, of all ages (five years old, four, three, etc.,) Oxen, "
98
108
Cows,
180
Neat Stock,
279
$24.
Sum total of Money at Interest, including bank stock, stock in the Fund, and securities for any kind of proper- ty at interest more than interest is paid for,
600.
On a single rate for the last State tax, 18 cts., 2 mills
The above made out and returned to the General Court by us, the subscribers,
William Story
Nathan Willey
Selectmen of Goshen.
November 16, 1812.
97
Yearly rent or Invoice of Mills, yearly repairs deducted, Sum total of the value of Buildings and real estate, im- proved and owned by residents and non-residents, not included in the above,
5,030.
Sum total of the value of all unimproved lands owned by residents or non-residents, 24,196.
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
Hardships of the Pioneers
(Sept. 5, 1877, a reunion of the Tandy family was held at the old home, at which Rev. Lorenzo Tandy delivered a pre- pared address, from which the following excerpts are taken.)
"When our grandparents moved to Goshen in 1788, not a pound of hard coal, nor a cubic foot of illuminating gas had been burned in this country. No stoves were used and no con- trivances for economizing heat were employed until Dr. Frank- lin invented the 'Iron framed Fireplace.' All the cooking and warming in town and country was done by the fire in the brick or stone fireplace, or heated brick-oven.
"Pine knots or tallow candles furnished the only light used to read or work by in the long winter evenings, and sanded floors supplied the place of rugs and carpets and paint used nowadays.
"The water needed for household purposes was brought from the spring, brook, or pond, or drawn from the well by the 'creaking sweep.' No form of pump was used in this country till after 1800. Nor were there friction-matches in those days; hence if the fire on the hearth went out and there was no tinder, or it was damp, so the fire would not catch from steel and flint, or firelock, the only alternative that remained was to go to the nearest neighbor and borrow a brand, or light the piece of candle in the tin-lantern and bring it home to kindle the fire by. I have done both of these ways in my boyhood, before I ever heard of a friction-match.
"Only one room in a house was warmed, unless some one of the family was sick, or visitors were being entertained. In the other rooms, or in the open chambers, from which the stars could be seen through the knot-holes and crevices, the tempera- ture was often at zero during the nights in winter. Adults and children alike undressed and went to bed and got up in the mornings and dressed themselves in a temperature colder than our modern barns and woodsheds. The bedclothes would be frozen about the head in the morning, yet customary routine forbade complaint.
"We complain of hard times, but if we had to go to Charles-
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town by marked trees and bring home provisions for the family on our backs, as our forefathers did; or if we had no meat but wild game, we might have occasion to cry 'Hard times.'
"One hundred years ago there were no four-wheel top-car- riages, or light, easy riding buggies, or chaise, in town. The first 'one-horse chaise' that was owned in this region was the prop- erty of 'Squire Currier, and his fellow-citizens prophesied that 'he would come to nothing,' because he was so extravagant.
"Boots for winter were not thought of; instead, shoes and leggings, or moccasins were worn and the young man who first made his appearance in a pair of boots was considered so fast and vain that he would be a spendthrift and would never lay up anything against the proverbial rainy day.
"Instead of cultivated farms and framed houses, the primitive forests prevailed, with a clearing here and there on the hills. Log houses served the double purpose of shelter for the family and a protection against wolves and bears. As these clearings were on the hills, the early settlers could see the smoke from their neighbor's home by day and the light of their fire by night. The roads, which at first were only foot or bridle-paths, were cut from hilltop to hilltop, rather than along the valleys as now. The first meeting-houses were built on the highest land in the settlements. And these were furnished with no means of warming them in winter; the devout worshippers either carried their foot-stoves, filled with hot-coals from the hearth at home, or sat without even this comfort, during the long forenoon and afternoon services, not on cushioned seats, but on bare board benches.
"Yet I know our fathers and mothers were thankful for even these means of Divine Worship and probably there were fewer sleepy hearers in those days than now. Notwithstanding all these infelicities, they were happy, for they had brave hearts and 'love at home' and were doing and daring for God and those they loved."
A Yankee Visits Texas
Two sections of land in the west that had been awarded the Gunnison men for participation in the War of 1812 were re-
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
tained by the family for many years, and just prior to the Civil War, John V. Gunnison, son of Vinal Gunnison, went out with the late Austin Corbin, then a rising lawyer, to look up the family claims. After discharging this matter of business, he went south to visit an older brother, Arvin Nye Gunnison, who mar- ried Sarah Putnam of Milford, N. H., and was then manufactur- ing cotton-gins and cotton-presses in New Orleans, La. Amos Gunnison, another brother, was in company with Arvin and later served on the staff of Gen. Beauregard and was wounded in action.
Sectional feeling was very intense and one of Arvin's agents, a northern man, resigned in fear of his life. A long and arduous collecting trip into Texas was thereby postponed. The arrival of John suggested his being sent upon this dangerous mission, inasmuch as a part of his plan in visiting the south had been to investigate the raising of sheep in a climate warmer than that of New Hampshire. It was expected that the flock double every three years, and this journey offered him the opportunity of carrying on his observations in a great sheep-raising state. He decided to take the trip and had it not been for the coming of the Civil War, he would undoubtedly have settled in Texas.
"My brother's wife protested against my being allowed to go among the hostile southerners," he related in an interview in 1922, "but Arvin told her there were many good friends of his all along the way and that I wouldn't have any trouble when they found out that I was his brother.
"So I went to Shrevesport, La., to outfit, for the trip ahead was one of eight hundred miles, to be made on horseback. The horse I finally chose was young, well-built and warranted to swim head and withers out of water, a very necessary requirement, as there were many creeks and few bridges along the route I was to traverse, where, by the way, as the horse dealer delighted to tell me, no less than eight northerners had recently been seized and hung." Many times Mr. Gunnison was questioned sharply by suspicious natives, but succeeded in explaining himself so well that no violence was offered.
"Well, at the first creek my horse waded into the water with
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evident aversion and when it reached his belly he suddenly turned tail and bolted for the bank. I succeeded in stopping him and, turning, urged him in again. In spite of the utmost pre- caution however, he whirled on me the second time and again bolted for dry land. At the third attempt at the ford I forced him to swim, but to my surprise, he thrust his head into the creek till only ears and nostrils showed, sinking himself so deeply that the water nearly reached my saddle-bags though I had slung them upon my shoulders for safety. I later found that the horse was notoriously vicious in swimming. Otherwise he was a tough, untiring beast and carried me well.
"I carried blankets for camping in the open if need arose, but almost without exception I found shelter for the night, al- though for miles at a stretch there might be no houses. In many of the cabins there were queer or half-witted inmates. I well re- member that upon entering one cabin I noticed in one corner of the low room strips of cured bacon were piled, tier upon tier, almost to the ceiling; and to make conversation I commented upon the fact that they had a fine lot of bacon. 'We shore have,' agreed the old lady, 'and there's more in the loft.' It seemed a fact, for the poles which constituted the loft-floor were sagging under a considerable weight and were hung with drops of fat which presumably oozed from the bacon above."
Mr. Gunnison paused to see if the listener's face expressed open disbelief of his narrative and apologized for what he was about to tell. "If I hadn't seen these things in print," he said, "I wouldn't dare tell you of the wild pigeons that used to winter in the south, but now I'm going to, impossible though it sounds.
"One afternoon, as sunset was approaching, several times I heard distant reports which I supposed to be thunder. I had been told of a place to put up for the night which I knew must be near, and making haste, I reached a plantation of size and nice appearance. The owner was a customer of my brother's and greeted me cordially. While my horse was being stabled, I ob- served that a thunder shower seemed imminent. 'Thunder shower,' replied my host, 'Oh no, that's the pigeons breaking timber.' Then he explained that the wild pigeons were so thick
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
that they were ruining the crops and doing much damage to the standing timber through their habit of roosting so thickly in one tree that the combined weight of the birds would actually cause the tree to break down, with the reverbrating sound which I had mistaken for thunder. Pigeons and pork was the chief of their diet, to paraphrase the old rhyme, and I was fed upon pigeons until I grew heartily sick of them. To obtain them, all the men had to do was to go out with shot-guns and shoot at random into the dense packs of roosting pigeons and pick up the dead birds by the basketsful."
The collecting trip was proving a success, that winter of 1860- 61, and the sum of gold in his saddle-bags increased steadily, becoming a source of much anxiety.
By reference to history it will be recalled that Texas had voted herself out of the Union, and the Governor, Sam Houston, had been deposed on March 18. Under pressure from the South, Gen. Twiggs surrendered to the rebels all the United States troops, forts and property in Texas. It will be readily under- stood, then, how violent feeling had become. At Jefferson City, Texas, Mr. Gunnison witnessed a demonstration at which an effigy of Abraham Lincoln was hung in the street, and he hur- ried back to New Orleans, realizing that the explosion between North and South was imminent. It was none too soon. Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, S. C., was fired on that Sunday, April 12, 1861, and Mr. Gunnison left New Orleans the fol- lowing Tuesday, on the last boat that went north from that city. He was met with tearfully-happy greetings and excited questionings upon his arrival home. Rumors had reached the North that the capitol and the city of Washington were in flames. Could it be true? Upon this point he could reassure them, but none realized the final cost of the struggle then begun.
Arvin N. Gunnison stayed with the South. Born June 1, 1824, he went as a schoolteacher to Georgia when about nineteen, sub- sequently settling in New Orleans. As the war developed, he re-designed his factory for the manufacture of gun-carriages. With the capture of New Orleans, his factory was confiscated and at the war's close he bought a plantation of 400 acres in
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Bolivar County, Miss., on which has since grown up the present town of Gunnison, where he died, March, 1882. His fourth son, the late Hon. William T. Gunnison, was born in Greenville, Miss., Sept. 22, 1869. He prepared for college at Exeter Academy and was graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1892; entered Harvard Law School, where he received his de- gree in 1895; immediately opened an office in Rochester, N. H., where he ever after resided, an honored and respected member of the bar and long-time chairman of the N. H. Public Service Commission.
The First Automobile
It was fitting that a Newport doctor should have the first car in these parts. Dr. Henry Stickney's "Locomobile," with the doctor at its tiller, is still remembered by the older generation; if the car, on its bad days, refused to climb a hill, the doctor let it roll back down onto the flat, turned it around and drove home, completing his calls with horse and buggy.
But the first auto actually owned in Goshen was a 1907, Model R, Ford Roadster, bought by Hollis H. Sholes in 1909 from a Claremont dealer. It was driven by his son, Harold V. Sholes, and the near-misses from runaway horses, water-bar flights and failing mechanical gadgets is still marveled at. Harold recalls that he drove the car three years on one set of plates.
The second Goshen-owned car was undoubtedly the 1910 Metz Roadster taken in trade by William T. Thissell in the year 1912. Although the Metz possessed a transmission-system that was theoretically marvelous, and Mrs. Mabel Pike an expert at driving it, the disc drive-clutch would glaze over and begin slipping despite liberal applications of fullers-earth, and event- ually the anxiety of getting home after a journey abroad be- come so acute that the car was given up.
Other early automobiles were owned by Horace M. Booth, Fred W. Pike, John S. Smart and Emmet S. Robinson.
The First Town Report, hand-written, was put out in 1879 by Rev. John A. Bowler, on a duplicating-machine. Mr. Bowler was a very active young minister preaching at the Methodist church.
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HISTORY OF GOSHEN, N. H.
The Town Hearse
Funerals, prior to 1900, were conducted with a simplicity that recognized them as times of trial, both emotional and financial. Most elemental of all equipment was the bier, a low, wooden stand with side-rails projecting at each end, upon which the cof- fin rested during committal services and while being carried from house to grave. At the North Goshen schoolhouse a bier was stored in the school entry.
In 1842 the town voted to "build a hearse and hearse-house; to locate said house on the Common near the Old Meeting House." But if a hearse-house was actually built at the Center the fact was forgotten and succeeding generations knew only of the little building across the road from the Village cemetery.
In 1896, town records show that T. A. Williams was hired to paint the hearse for $15.00, and H. S. George, the Village harness- maker, leathered the shafts of the vehicle for 50c. E. H. Carr recived $3.00 for driving the hearse. The following year, 1897, our blacksmith, Burk Booth, substituted a wagon-pole for the one-horse shafts at a cost of $12.00 and had it leathered by Mr. George for $1.75. Thereafter, it was a memorable occasion in more ways than one when Mr. Booth, tall and austere, mounted the seat of the hearse to drive his span of high-stepping Morgans.
The advent of the motorized funeral-coach abruptly retired the town hearse, whose running-gear was so strong and sturdy that it was purchased by a private party for farm use.
In 1921 the unused building was converted into a tramphouse at small expense, John G. Pike being paid $8 for lumber fur- nished, Peter Liberty $1 for a stove (second hand), and W. R. Nelson 40c for a saw-horse (new). It may be presumed that the continuing implications of the saw-horse-or dislike for the proximity of the cemetery-so enraged some later transient occupant that, upon departing, he burned tramp-house and contents.
Visit of President Taft
In the autumn of 1912 President William Howard Taft toured the East. Press-notices kept New Hampshire folks in-
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formed of the party's progress as it motored across Vermont toward the Connecticut River. The President would stop briefly in Newport and Keene; this would bring the distinguished guest through Goshen.
On the afternoon of October 10, the day of the President's expected arrival, the Goshen Ladies' Auxiliary, then allied with the Grange, was holding its regular meeting at the sum- mer home of Mrs. F. W. Pierce, Roselyn Bungalow.
As the Presidential party was proceeding southerly on the Keene road a group of women, who had evidently been waiting for the purpose, fanned out across the highway, their leader waving a large American flag. It was the Ladies' Auxiliary.
The cavalcade of cars came to a halt and Mrs. Pierce came forward to explain in her disarming fashion that they only wished to make President Taft an honorary member of their group. The President graciously signed the paper presented him and then went on to write: "For the Association - ," paused in uncertainly for correction, drew a line through the last word and completed the sentence, "For the Society of Mt. Sunapee Grange, at the instance of Mrs. Pierce," and with many expressions of good-will resumed his journey.
The page was framed and given a place of honor at the Grange Hall, where it may still be seen.
CHAPTER XXVI A Library Emerges
OLIVE G. PETTIS MEMORIAL LIBRARY
THE incorporation of the Goshen Social Library by the N. H. Legislature, June 9, 1803, marked an ambitious phase of state history that has, unfortunately, left little mark. Many other towns were simultaneously incorporating their own Social Libraries. A group of prominent citizens comprised the "pro- prietors of the Social Library in Goshen, with continuance and succession forever." They were: Alan Willey, Esq., Samuel Gunnison, Wilson Shaw, Benjamin Willey, John Calef, Stephen Bartlett, Joseph Coch(f)ran, Micah Morse and Amos Calef. They were vested with power to raise monies for defraying ex- penses and for enlarging the library and to make rules and by- laws for same (Laws of N. H., Vol. 7, p. 132). The outcome failed to make permanent record. Where the "Library" was established and how long it was kept in being is not known.
It is not unreasonable to assume that the library of ninety volumes, mentioned by the N. H. Gazeteer of 1823, as being then maintained by the Methodist society in the old town meet- ing-house, comprised books from this early institution.
Of later date and more enduring tenure were the Sunday School libraries maintained by both Congregational and Baptist churches in town for many years. Judged by the standards of today the volumes were small and uninviting, both in appear- ance and contents, yet they afforded reading-matter on a high plane and were undoubtedly far more highly-prized than books of the present; witness, the floods of periodicals and magazines which litter our tables, largely unread. Brightness was added by the "Pansy" books and others of like newness, with the intro- duction of copious illustrations, largely lacking in the earlier volumes.
The public library as we now know it, a town-supported in- stitution, was soon to make its appearance.
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A LIBRARY EMERGES
Following the death of her mother, Mrs. Olive G. Pettis, July 8, 1884, Mrs. Sarah Halladay Deming of Providence, R. I., a daughter much beloved, disposed of the personal estate. Con- fronted with the disposition of a rather extensive and cosmopoli- tan collection of books, Mrs. Deming was prompted to make the generous offer that if Goshen folk, among whom as a girl she had grown up, so desired she would present the volumes to the town, in her mother's memory. The suggestion was laid be- fore responsible parties and at the town meeting of March 12, 1889, it was "Voted to accept Mrs. Sarah H. Deming's donation of books and her terms," viz .: that suitable housing and a li- brarian be provided by the town and the sum of at least $25.00 be expended annually for new books. A committee of five, consisting of Mrs. Deming, William T. Thissell, Rev. Josiah Hooper, Jessial P. Gove and Hial F. Nelson, were appointed to prepare a suitable place in which to keep the books and see to all other necessary arrangements.
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