USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Lancaster > History of Lancaster, New Hampshire > Part 29
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After another month it was sent to Plymouth, and had it not fallen, accidentally, into the hands of a friend of Mr. Grant, who for- warded it to him in Albany, N. Y., there is no telling if he would ever have received it. It could not have reached the sender, unless some one had violated the laws in opening it, for there was no other way to find out from whom it came. Through the carelessness, and sometimes dishonesty, of such carriers valuable letters often were lost or stolen, to the loss and inconvenience of the senders of them. Not infrequently people did not dare to take the risk of sending important information, especially in times of war, for fear their letters would be stolen, or rifled of their contents. Then the high rates of postage made it necessary for people to write as seldom, and as short letters, as possible. He was not a true friend, in those days when money was so scarce, who would write double letters, and too often, for it would subject the receiver of them to considerable cost to pay for them.
An instance of those days, where a bill for goods, that should have been packed with the articles, was forwarded by mail to Richard P. Kent, with unpaid postage of 18 3-4 cents. The mer- chant inveighed against such needless extravagance, and protested that he "could not be burdened with postage to such an enormous amount" as the correspondent's method entailed.
The writing material of those early days was crude. There were no envelopes in which to inclose letters. They were written on sheets of rough, hand-made paper, and so folded as to keep the writing out of sight. There were many ingenious methods of fold- ing to make them neat, strong, and safe. They were held together
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by wafers or melting a bit of sealing wax and dropping it upon the edges or corners where they overlapped. Among the many old letters that have fallen into my hands there is one from a young lady of one of the " first families" of the settlement to her lover, which was sealed with hard boiled maple sugar. Whether that act was symbolical of the "sweet nonsense" it contained, or whether she had no sealing wax, I cannot say. The missive was written in what, I believe, was the first attempt at poetry in Lancaster; and but for its crudenesss I should be tempted to give it here as such example. It was rather a matter of the heart than of the intellect.
When Lancaster received its first mail at the hands of a regular mail carrier, we cannot say ; but so far as we have any authentic information the first mail carrier, or post rider, to this section, was one William Trescott of Danville, Vt., who rode the district in 1812. We find an old advertisement, published in Athol, Mass., in which he called upon subscribers in Lancaster who wished to pay for their papers in produce to leave. it at Carlisle's store. His route laid through Danville, St. Johnsbury, and Barnet, in Vermont; Littleton, N. H., Concord, Waterford, and Lunenburg, Vt., and Lancaster. He was at the time an old man over sixty years of age, and rode a little short and spiritless black horse, which was also quite old. Trescott was by trade a sieve maker, and used to carry, on his trips on the mail route, a lot of the rims for his sieves strung on the neck of his horse. These he bartered at his stopping places, and to some. extent along the road. He was a quaint figure in a broad-rimmed hat and brown coat, mounted upon a pair of saddle-bags full of mail with his overcoat rolled up and strapped on behind his saddle.
The first postmaster in Lancaster was Stephen Wilson, the mer- chant at the north end of the street. Just when he received his appointment is not known with any degree of certainty; but we have certain knowledge of the fact that he was postmaster in 1803; and that at that time the mail came from Haverhill, N. H., which was the nearest office. From there it was carried on horseback, as we have described it, at the hands of Mr. Trescott. Whether another preceded him is very uncertain. At the time referred to his route had grown to include several new offices that had been established near the line between these two northernmost ones.
Col. Stephen Wilson held his office until 1807, when he was suc- ceeded by Abram Hinds, then a lawyer practising here. He was later register of deeds. Mr. Hinds held the office for a term of five years, and was succeeded by another lawyer, S. A. Pearson. Mr. Pearson kept the office in his law office, in the home of the late H. A. Fletcher, on Main street. He was a very popular postmaster, and held the office for seventeen years, the longest term it has ever been held by any man here. During his incumbency, about 1825,
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the mails began to arrive twice a week from Haverhill. By this time the roads had become good enough to justify the use of a two- horse wagon in carrying the mail. This arrangement served a double purpose ; the mail carrier could carry an occasional passen- ger and small bundles between the several points on his route, which was a common practice, and no doubt was the germ of the wonder- ful express system of transportation for small articles, now so much in use.
In the second issue of the White Mountain Ægis, June 29, 1838, we find this advertisement :
" Lancaster, Littleton, Haverhill, Hanover and Lowell Mail Stage. Through in two days ! The southern mail will leave Lancaster every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, at 5 o'clock a. m. and arrive at Haverhill same day, in season for the Telegraph Mail down Connecticut River .- This arrangement will make a direct line from Lancaster to Lowell, Mass., in two days by way of Hanover. Returning, leaves every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and arrives at Lancas- ter next day, at 5 p. m.
"L. A. RUSSELL & Co., Proprietors. " Littleton, May 29, 1838."
The following description of the arrival of mails, the postmasters, the post-offices and the distribution of mails I find, from the pen of Lieut. James S. Brackett, in the Lancaster Gazette in 1885, and give it here as it presents us a vivid picture of things as they appeared to a young lad, over sixty years ago :
" Fifty years ago the mail was brought from Haverhill in a barouche drawn by two horses. The barouche was succeeded by the more pretentious and elegant coach drawn by four horses, and the Jehu who handled the lines and with mighty flourish and crack of whip reined in the fiery steeds at the post-office door, and with pride and pomp whirled his panting, foaming team around to the hotel, where, with politeness and dignity, he handed down the passengers, was the envy of all the boys who stood agape and witnessed the wonderful feat.
" Those were days of simplicity in the country towns, and the arrival and departure of the mails three times in each week were occasions of moment. Some anxious hearts were in waiting to hear from absent friends or the news from distant places, but there was no rush to the ' delivery' as now; the postmaster took with care the letters and papers from the mail-bag, and called the name of each person who had the fortune to receive a letter or package, and if the person was present it was handed out to him; if not, the package was put into a drawer or laid upon a shelf or table to await the time it should be called for. After a while it was found convenient to have letter ' pigeon-holes' constructed and arranged alphabetically that time might be saved in looking over the accumula- tion, as a paper or letter might be required. Postage was not prepaid as nowa- days, but the postmaster charged the amount due on a package to the receiver, if he was known and able to pay his debts, and once a quarter presented his bill. If the receiver was a stranger or an impecunious individual, the postage was required before delivery.
" Dr. Benjamin Hunking was the first postmaster whom I remember, succeed- ing Samuel A. Pearson in 1829. Dr. Hunking was an earnest and consistent
18
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Jacksonian Democrat, and for that reason was appointed to the office of post- master. For several years the office was kept in the house where he lived, now known as ' Elm Cottage.' The mail matter was so limited that the little closet in his sitting-room sufficed for the reception of all that came or went, and when a letter was called, the doctor, and in his absence, any member of the family, would go to that small closet, look over the letters and papers and hand out the required package. The doctor, owing to professional and other business, soon, however, appointed as his deputy Reuben L. Adams, a man well and favorably known in this vicinity ; whereupon the office was moved down street, and kept for a while in a little room at the south end of the front piazza of the house built by Harvey Adams, which afterward became the property of Presbury West, and is now owned and occupied by Nelson Sparks, 'corner of Main and Elm streets. In 1842 Dr. Hunking resigned, ' rather,' he said, ' than be removed from office,' and the appointment of Mr. Adams was secured.
"When Gen. Taylor became president, Robert Sawyer, being a Whig, and quite ardent in his political faith, was given the post-office. It was at that time considered quite singular that a man who had so recently become a resident of the town should receive the appointment, but Mr. Sawyer discharged his duties to the general satisfaction of the citizens. Of course when Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire's favorite son, assumed the administration, Mr. Sawyer ' stepped down and out,' and Harvey Adams, who had always been a Democrat, a native of the town, and a very respectable citizen, succeeded to the office of postmaster. An office was fixed up in what is now the Shannon building, and presided over by his daughter, Mrs. Flora Adams Darling. James A. Smith having rendered important service to the party was next made postmaster and performed its duties well.
" Royal Joyslin, an old-time Whig, who had long resided in town and been identified with its interests, and a man of sterling integrity, was appointed post- master under President Lincoln. Mr. Oliver Nutter, who had been in town but a few years, a Republican, was appointed in place of Mr. Joyslin. He was suc- ceeded by John W. Spaulding, and he by Charles E. Allen."
Such was the post-office and its management in the days that have gone by, and the like of which will never be seen again. Lancaster is now within eight hours of the metropolis of New Eng- land by mail, and the telegraph and telephone have brought it within speaking-distance of the whole nation. No community is now left to itself as in former times. If any improvement is made in the means of communicating information it affects the whole country at once.
As the railroads approached Lancaster it began to receive daily mails in 1850, when the stage lines could make daily trips; and when the Concord & Montreal railroad reached Lancaster in 1870, mails began arriving twice, and soon four times, a day. With the completion of the Maine Central Railroad in 1890, the mail service was twice that of the previous twenty years, giving the town as good mail facilities as could be desired.
In 1886 a post-office was established at South Lancaster, with E. A. Steele postmaster. In the latter part of that same year a post- office was established at the " Grange," at East Lancaster, with Wil- liam G. Ellis as postmaster. These offices have been a great con-
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venience to the people living in the remoter parts of the town, and in towns adjoining.
The southwestern portion of the town gets its mail at " Scotts " in Dalton, while a large portion of Guildhall and Lunenburg in Ver- mont, and Northumberland and Jefferson in New Hampshire, use the post-office at Lancaster village.
CHAPTER XXII.
SOME EPIDEMICS OF DISEASES THAT HAVE VISITED THE TOWN.
It is a common tradition that the early settlers of Lancaster were a very healthy class of people; that very little sickness existed for many years, and that perhaps seldom serious in character and results. All those claims may well be true, because none but the most healthy and rugged sort of people would have thought of undertaking life in a wilderness so remote from all sources of relief as the town then was. That their descendants for one or two gen- erations were almost as hardy and healthy as themselves was no doubt equally true. It would have been strange if it had not been so.
The conditions of life in a new country were always favorable to health. The people were compelled to lead an active and abstemi- ous, out-door life. There was little or no excitement upon which to fritter away their nervous energies after their periods of labor. All worked hard; but if they suffered from muscular fatigue, healthy food and rest, for which they had abundant leisure, would restore them again soon, and even leave them stronger for the severe and continuous exercises incident upon a pioneer life. There was no idleness with its vices and excesses that blight the life of a people as nothing else does. If attacked by disease their abundant vitality enabled them to make a speedy and favorable recovery with none but the simplest of remedies, if indeed they always had so much as that. Accidents, for various and obvious reasons, we are inclined to think were fewer among them than among us of to-day. In fact, there was less opportunity for accidents. The people of those early times used fewer vehicles and machinery than we do; their houses were generally one-story cabins; they had almost no calls to ex- pose themselves to the dangers of accidents commonly known to us.
As communities grow older and larger they produce changes in the conditions of life that foster certain diseases and vices that prey upon the vitality and character of men. When the population was widely scattered over a comparatively larger area than now, filth
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did not accumulate rapidly enough to pollute the air, the water, and the food with the germs of disease. If, through ignorance, care- lessness, or by accident, one family was attacked by a contagious disease the conditions were against its spread to other families. Every family had its own water supply in some convenient spring or well; there were no dishes or utensils used by scores of people in common, as at present; there were few places of public resort, or promiscuous gathering to scatter disease. As a consequence there were for many years no contagions to devastate the popu- lation.
In 1839 Capt. John W. Weeks wrote a sketch of Lancaster in which he said of dyspepsia : "Dyspepsia with its languid and down- cast look is beginning to make its appearance among us; but as farming and gymnastic exercises are becoming again fashionable, it is hoped that disorder will soon be as little known as it was among our fathers." In that hope, however, the captain was reckoning without proper assurance, for that disease has always been pre- valent.
Epidemics of Small Pox .- In the Provincial Papers, Vol. 6, page 794, I find that the general court, on Friday, June 26, 1771, acted upon a petition from the selectmen of Lancaster relative to small pox. The town records do not show that it was of sufficient mag- nitude to call for a record of their action, nor did the action of the general court seem to indicate that the outbreak was a very serious one, although the disease was at that time quite prevalent in vari- ous sections of New England. In 1811 the disease broke out again. This time it was alarming enough to justify calling a town- meeting at the meeting-house on August 26, to take action with respect to authorizing some one to "inoculate, and to establish one or more pest-houses." Constable Reuben Stephenson and John Wilson (the latter was not an officer) personally notified the one hundred and one to appear at the meeting, as above stated. It was voted :
" To erect a hut or camp in the jail-yard and confine to said limits persons and their families when afflicted.
" That the town request the Court of Common Pleas to license Dr. Benjamin Hunking as a physician to attend the houses that may be erected."
There were several cases, none of which was fatal. By prompt action it was stamped out in a short time, and did not spread beyond the limits of the village after the confinement of the cases in the pest-house in the jail yard. It was not necessary to urge pre- caution as the people held it in great fear, more, probably, on account of the disfigurations it left than the fatality of the disease. So great was the fear that it was often impossible to secure com-
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EPIDEMICS THAT HAVE VISITED THE TOWN.
petent nurses for the persons sick with it; and the physician who attended a case was not likely to get any other calls while there was any danger of the spread of the disease. In consequence of this fear he generally remained with his small-pox patients until they recovered or died, then disinfected himself and went back to his other patients. During the period intervening between that out- break of the disease and the next one in 1849, there were several scares over alarms that went the rounds that small-pox had broken out; but they were unfounded.
In 1849 Stephen Hovey, living then next south of the Josiah Bellows house above the fair grounds, had small-pox. The rumor got out that it was in the village, and people were afraid to come here to transact any business. It caused a stagnation for some weeks. The editor of the Coos Democrat stated in his paper April II, that there had not been a case of the disease within the village limits for thirty years, and that there was no danger to any one coming freely into the stores or upon the streets. It did not, how- ever, allay the fear until the cases were entirely recovered.
Mr. Hovey took the disease in February, and died March 15, 1849. He was attended by Dr. Eliphalet Lyman, once a noted physician. He seems to have had poor judgment in the manage- ment of either the disease or the nurse, Aunt Eunice White, for a dispute arose between them as to whether the room should be kept hot or cold. The doctor piled wood on the fire and heated up the house, but as soon as he was gone the nurse opened the windows and cooled it down. Hovey died, either from the disease, the treat- ment, or the nursing. We do not attempt to locate the responsi- bility. So fearful of the disease were his neighbors that sufficient help to decently bury him could not be had. He was placed in a rude coffin and gotten into the yard where it was put on a bob sled, and drawn by a yoke of oxen to a point near the woods south of his house and buried about where the Maine Central Rail- road track crosses the line of the farm in rear of the General Cong- don place.
Other members of his family took the disease, but recovered from it. Meanwhile the town authorities had sent Dr. John Dewey to Boston, Mass., for vaccine matter, and on his return, March 15, proceeded to have everybody in town vaccinated. The disease made no further ravages, and the fear subsided for many years., Vaccination was regarded as a satisfactory safeguard against small- pox, and the people sought safety in its practice.
This disease made its appearance again in 1865, in a more for- midable manner than ever before. In July of that year, eight cases were discovered in the old Coös Hotel, then standing where Lin- scott's store and the barber shops do on the corner of Main and
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Canal streets. There were living in that hostelry at the time twenty-one persons, all of whom had been exposed to the con- tagion by the thirteenth of the month. The selectmen acted promptly, and removed all the occupants of the house, with their bedding and other things necessary to their comfort, to the old Daniel Spaulding place on Page Hill, three miles out of the village, where they were taken care of. All the cases made a favorable recovery.
Since that time no alarms of its presence have existed, though I understand there have been several cases of the disease, which owing to prompt and careful treatment did not spread to other persons about them.
Scarlatina .- In 1813, scarlatina, or what was represented by Capt. J. W. Weeks in 1839 as such, broke out in a most malignant form during the early spring; and in three months carried off twenty-seven persons of whom thirteen were heads of families. Among this class were some of the most prominent men of the town-John Moore, Gen. Edwards Bucknam, Deacon Joseph Brackett, Lieut. Dennis Stanley, Humphrey Cram, and a number of younger men. It was most notably severe among older people and children of feeble constitutions. The first case was that of William Stanley, a son of Dennis Stanley, who had been to Portland on busi- ness. Soon after his return he came down with the disease and died. It continued to spread, and created great excitement among the people as they probably did not understand its nature or the proper treatment of it. It was generally considered, at the time, as a somewhat mysterious disorder that had direct connection with the uncommonly severe weather that had just been passed through. Mrs. J. B. Weeks, a daughter of Lieutenant Stanley, remembered for many years that the eaves of the houses did not drip for the period of three months in midwinter. Further than leaving the people somewhat debilitated, the weather could have had nothing to do with the disease, either in causing or spreading it. The fa- tality of the disease, and the loss of so large a number of promi- nent men and women, cast a gloom over the community for many years, and it is referred to now by older people with a shudder.
Cholera .- A considerable degree of excitement ran through the town in 1857, over the rumor that two men had died of Asiatic cholera. They were Wm. Rowell, August 5th, and D. G. Smith, proprietor of the Coös Hotel, August 12th. It is not now possi- ble to gain definite knowledge of the true nature of the disease from which those two men died; but it may well be doubted whether it was anything more than cholera morbus, a summer complaint quite common at that season of the year, and not con- tagious as was feared at the time.
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EPIDEMICS THAT HAVE VISITED THE TOWN.
Typhoid Fever .- The most dreaded of the contagious diseases that have occurred for many years has been typhoid fever. Per- haps it has not created as much fear and excitement as some others; but its hold upon the community from 1840, until within twenty years, or less, has been strong.
When the only water supply of the village consisted of the springs and wells near the houses, where the pollution of the soil penetrated to their waters, this disease was fearfully prevalent. Until 1871 there were no sewers to carry off the slops and the surface waters. These laid until the soil took them up, or until they evaporated, accompanied by more or less noxious gases, and were hot beds for the propagation of the germs of various diseases. Typhoid fever is the result of filth. When man gets the soil about his dwell- ing and water supply filled with pollutions of all sorts, he is making conditions that favor this dreadful malady. Once it reaches the springs or wells from which water is taken, its spread is certain and rapid in proportion to the amount of the water used.
The disease was epidemic in the village in 1864. At times there were more than a dozen cases, all confined to a very limited area ; none of them was south of the court-house. Again in 1881 there were some twenty cases, all confined to the southern end of Main street. The cause of their spread was found by Dr. F. A. Colby, who studied them and reported to the State Board of Health, to have been local.
Since those two instances there have been cases in different parts of the town, but not epidemic.
Since the putting in of what was known as the " Allen system " of water pipes from several good springs outside the village limits, which were kept pretty clean, the number of cases has been gradually decreasing. Since the present system of water-works has been generally supplying the citizens of the village with pure water the disease has been losing its hold upon the community.
Diphtheria .- This disease first made its appearance in town during March, 1863, when two deaths resulted from it. The first was a child of J. H. Woodward's, which died March 17. The next to succumb to its fatal ravages was Maria, daughter of Asahel Allen, March 18. Other cases recovered, but the community was wild with fear lest it should decimate the village. The source of that outbreak is not known with any degree of certainty.
There were occasional cases of it until 1879 and 1880, when it became epidemic again. Much excitement prevailed over it at that time as there were many cases and a number of deaths. From July 2, 1879, to February 5, 1880, there were not less than twenty deaths from it. It invaded the homes of cleanliness and comfort as well as those of filth and squalor. Its only victims were children.
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