USA > New Hampshire > Coos County > Lancaster > History of Lancaster, New Hampshire > Part 56
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Our motto is " Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty," the broad foun- dation on which to-day stands the Grand Army of the Republic.
The officers of the present year are :
Mrs. Addie E. Wilson, president; Mrs. Abbie S. Call, senior vice- president; Mrs. Ella F. Hall, junior vice-president; Nettie McKel- lips, secretary ; Mrs. Susan Folsom, treasurer; Mrs. Elizabeth S. Pierce, chaplain; Etta I. Baker, conductor; Jennie Phillips, guard ; Mrs. Mary Hartley, assistant conductor; Addie P. Forbes, assistant guard.
The corps holds its meetings the second and fourth Saturday even- ings of each month.
THE WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION.
There was a meeting of a number of women held at the residence of George E. Carbee, on Sept. 1, 1888, for the purpose of organizing a Woman's Christian Temperance Union. After some discussion of the subject, it was voted to organize such a society, which was done, with the following list of officers :
Mrs. W. S. Ladd, president; Mrs. W. A. Folsom, corresponding secretary ; Mrs. M. J. Hartford, recording secretary ; Mrs. S. A. Brown, treasurer; Mrs. W. D. Marshall, Mrs. F. D. Hutchins, Mrs. Persis F. Chase, Mrs. Mary H. Williams, vice-presidents ; Mrs. Frank Spooner, Mrs. C. E. Allen, and the vice-presidents, visiting com- mittee.
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FRATERNAL SOCIETIES OF LANCASTER.
This organization has done much for temperance. It has not only agitated the temperance question with respect to reforms, but has helped to correct intemperance in many ways. It has sent several intemperate men to the Keeley Institute for treatment. It has taken care of the families of others while at the various Gold Cure establishments, and in various ways has administered much charity to the unfortunate. It has organized and carried to success the reading-room movement, which is now one of the permanent institutions of the town supported by public funds. It has dis- tributed literature to the prisoners in the county jail and to inmates of the county almshouse, and to the lumbermen in the camps dur- ing the long, dreary winters. For a number of years these earnest women have been serving warm dinners at town-meeting and the fall elections, in the town hall.
OTHER TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.
Lancaster has at no time been exceptional to other New England towns. The drinking habits of the early colonists, characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race, were planted here in the life of the earliest set- tlers. Rum was regarded as indispensable to health, comfort, and sociability. Everybody drank in the early days, until habits of in- temperance were formed in the lives of the second or third genera- tions, who, having more ease and means, sought excitement in the convivial customs of their day. Within a generation from the found- ing of the town it had its confirmed inebriates, and at no time since then has the community been free from that class of unfortunates.
As early as 1825 the Masons passed a vote prohibiting the use of liquors in the lodge, which was an arraignment of the intemperate habits of the community. It was not until ten years later that the churches took a very active stand against the drink habit. There was no public agitation of the question until that great tidal wave of ex- citement accompanying the Washingtonian movement. In due time Lancaster had a Washingtonian society organized, and here, as else- where, it had its course, giving way to other organizations after a time.
The next temperance organization in town was the Sons of Tem- perance. This organization flourished for a time, and after a lapse of some few years a lodge of Good Templars was organized in the room over R. P. Kent's store, on Main street, Dec. 4, 1865, by par- ties from Littleton. These, no doubt, did much to foster temper- ance sentiment among their members, but their influence was neces- sarily limited by the secrecy surrounding their actions.
About 1880 the Temperance Union was formed. Its aim was to unite all the churches and the religious sentiment of the community against the evils of intemperance and the liquor traffic. Its meetings were held on the third Sunday evening of every month, and usually
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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
there was given an address on some phase of the temperance ques- tion.
In 1895 this society was disbanded and an auxiliary branch of the New Hampshire Law and Order League formed in its place. This latter movement is the outgrowth of changes in public senti- ment on the temperance question. No longer is intemperance regarded as an evil to be remedied by moral and religious senti- mental agitations, but a sociological question that must be regulated by law. Intemperance is now regarded by all intelligent persons as a disease, and a propagation of a diseased condition of life is com- ing to be looked upon as a violation of all social order.
The drinking habit in Lancaster is restricted, and tippling is regarded with contempt by the intelligent and respectable people of the town. Gradually more sensible views on the question be- came entrenched behind a body of intelligent social customs, and the habits of the people are improving with respect to temperance.
The " R. S. C. club " was a secret organization, with a weird ini- tiation and ritual, composed of the choice spirits of the day in the late 40's, and held its meetings in the hall over Adams's blacksmith shop. Its initials, " R. S. C.," stood in some occult way for " Ros- cicrucian,"-the delvers in ancient magic; perhaps, as Bailey Al- drich's "Rivermouth Centipedes," were so named from having a cent-a-piece. O. G. Stephenson, Edward Wilson, Edward E. Cross, B. F. Hunking, and others now departed from town or from life, were of the elect, and some staid citizens now residents, could recall the "work " of those years.
MOUNT PROSPECT GRANGE, NO. 241.
Mount Prospect Grange, No. 241, was organized March 13, 1896, by State Deputy T. H. White, assisted by Deputy Gilbert A. Mar- shall, of Lancaster Grange. It starts out with the largest list of charter members in the United States. The first meeting was at Eagle hall, and at 8 p. m. a goodly company was present to wel- come the visiting officials, and Messrs. J. D. Howe and C. E. King, who had labored earnestly for the success of the farmers' cause in Lancaster.
Deputy White called the members to order in a happy speech, in which he told of the work of the grange, its mission, and then ex- plained the secret work in four degrees. J. D. Howe reported ninety charter members, and the election of officers was called for by the deputy, with the following result :
C. E. King, worthy master; Chas. A. Howe, overseer; B. C. Morse, lecturer ; J. S. Peavey, steward ; Fred Holton, assistant stew- ard; Ira G. Noyes, chaplain; J. E. McIntire, treasurer; J. W. Flanders, secretary ; J. S. Woodward, gate keeper; Miss Mary
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PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Batchelder, Pomona; Mrs. Florence Morse, Flora; Mrs. Irving Mc- Intire, Ceres ; Miss Lilla Hartshorn, lady assistant steward.
After the officers were chosen they were installed by Mr. White, and conducted to their chairs by Mr. Gilbert A. Marshall, and the grange turned over to the worthy master, C. E. King. In Deputy White's closing remarks he spoke of this grange being the largest he had ever organized, and predicted a large degree of success for it in the future.
Following is a list of the charter members: C. E. King, Irving McIntire, Geo. H. Johnson, H. F. Richardson, E. L. Morse, Alfred E. Remick, W. G. Baker, J. D. Bridge, Mrs. J. S. Peavey, I. W. Hopkinson, Selden C. Howe, Ira G. Noyes, Geo. H. Stalbird, W. H. Hartley, J. W. Flanders, T. T. Baker, D. W. Batchelder, Mary E. Batchelder, Nellie A. Woodward, C. A. Howe, W. C. Hodgdon, C. W. Evans, J. S. Peavey, Annie Abbott, B. C. Morse, Mary M. Clough, Mrs. M. E. Stowell, F. C. Grant, Alma P. Hilliard, H. S. Webb, Mrs. O. J. Morse, Mrs. A. M. Beattie, C. W. Brown, Albert Chase, Payson E. Fernald, Geo. S. Stockwell, Elden Farnham, A. B. Sleeper, H. Adams, B. S. Adams, Mrs. W. A. Thompson, Mrs. J. E. Deering, Pearl Cummings, Geo. H. Morse, Mrs. L. R. Hosmer, Mrs. C. E. King, Mrs. Irving McIntire, Mrs. Geo. H. Johnson, Mrs. H. F. Richardson, Mrs. E. L. Morse, Mrs. Alfred E. Remick, Mrs. W. G. Baker, Mrs. J. D. Bridge, Ida M. Peavey, Mrs. I. W. Hop- kinson, Mrs. Seldon C. Howe, Jennie M. Noyes, Fred Holton, Mrs. W. H. Hartley, Mrs. J. W. Flanders, Mrs. T. T. Baker, Annie J. Hodgdon, Ed A. Woodward, J. S. Woodward, Lilla Hartshorn, J. E. McIntire, Etta A. Evans, Irving D. Hodgdon, Louisa T. Rosebrook, E. B. Morse, M. E. Stowell, Mrs. C. A. Howe, H. S. Hilliard, Emily T. Hilliard, J. H. Morse, A. M. Beattie, Geo. S. Peavey, Mrs. Mary E. Brown, E. P. Corrigan, Mrs. Mary Fernald, Mrs. Geo. S. Stockwell, Mary Farnham, Mrs. Ellen M. Sleeper, Mrs. H. P. Adams, W. A. Thompson, J. E. Deering, M. B. Evans, Mrs. W. C. Hodgdon, L. R. Hosmer, Mrs. H. S. Webb.
CHAPTER XIV. PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE-THE JAILS-THE COURT-HOUSES-THE HOTELS -THE OLD RED GUN HOUSE, AND THE STATE ARSENAL-THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
Prominent in the history of Lancaster have been its early public buildings; and among them none has enjoyed so much promi- nence as the old meeting-house, the first church building in the
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Province of New Hampshire north of Haverhill. For many years the early settlers, though religious in profession and reared under Puri- tan influences, got along without a meeting-house. We find by consulting the town records that preaching was sustained for a number of years prior to the building of a church building, or the organization of the Old First Church Society. In 1791, steps were taken looking to the erection of a meeting-house, which culmi- nated in the building of a spacious structure on a scale that was indicative of the character of the pioneers. They attached great importance to the community they had founded, and made large sacrifices to uphold and perpetuate it. When it came to building a meeting house they laid out one large enough for a community much larger than Lancaster has yet become. After the growth of a century the old structure still holds the largest popular assem- blages of the town with room to spare.
The old meeting-house was erected on a common known as Meeting-House Hill, now known as Soldiers' Park, purchased by the town, and consisting of six acres, six town lots. Most of the land has been suffered to be lost to the town through carlessness on the part of the people, due no doubt to the diversion of interest in the old church, with the growth of other churches at later times.
The land on which the building stood was level from the crest, and preserved a clear outline on the same level from Pleasant and Cot- tage streets. The building faced south, and stood square with the points of the compass. The western end was about six rods east of John M. Whipple's line; and the north side about on a line with the south side of Cottage street. The meeting-house was reached from the north by a road cut into the side of Sand hill, which was very narrow and steep; and by three flights of steps from the north- west, one above another, each flight consisting of some twelve steps. The landing at the foot of the hill was about where the southeasterly corner of the Boswell house now stands.
The building, in outline, as it then stood, is still preserved in the first and second stories of Music, or Town hall, as many call it. As it stood on the common there were two porches containing stairways to the galleries that run around the entire building, except about one third of the north side where the pulpit stood, they would seat between four and five hundred people on their three rows of seats raised one above another. The stairway on the west end of the building continued up into the belfry and spire to a height greater than anything in this region. All the seats were so arranged that they could be seen from. the pulpit. The front row of seats were known as the " singers' seats," and would accommodate about fifty persons.
The body of the house was entered by doors from each porch,
OLD MEETING-HOUSE. BUILT 1794. REMODELED AND ENLARGED INTO PRESENT MASONIC TEMPLE.
MASONIC TEMPLE AND TOWN HALL, 1889. FRONT OF TWO LOWER STORIES BEING THE MEETING-HOUSE OF 1794.
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PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
and a double door on the south side directly opposite the pulpit. The broad aisle extended from this door to the pulpit, which was built with considerable taste, and was reached by a flight of steps It was so high that a view of the galleries could be had from it, as well as of the body of the house. There was a row of pews all around the body of the house, under the' galleries, except as it was cut through by the doors, and the space of the pulpit on the north side. The broad aisle divided the house into two equal parts, and aisles divided the wall pews from the body pews, of which last there were two tiers on each side of the broad aisle. The wall pews were raised two steps above the floor of the aisles. The pews were oblong in shape, finished and divided by paneling two and a half or three feet, surmounted by a slight balustrade and cap, so that a boy seven or eight years old could sit in one of the wall pews and look through and study the house and its occupants. Board seats extended across the back sides and both ends of the wall pews, and across one side and one end of the body pews. There was no upholstering whatever. All the seats, except the wall seats, were hung by means of loose iron hinges so as to admit being turned up when the congregation stood for prayers. The din and noise of rising and turning up the seats, and turning them down again in sitting down, can be better imagined than described. Many seemed to vie with one another to see who could make the most noise in manipulating the seats.
Over the pulpit hung the sounding-board, resembling an inverted tunnel five feet across. It was suspended from the ceiling by an iron rod, and hung directly over the head of the minister. Doubt- less the mind of many a boy, at times, wandered from the preach- er's theme to conjecture the possible results of that rod breaking and dropping the sounding-board upon the head of the minister.
The " deacon's seats " were directly in front of the pulpit, and in fact below where the minister stood, facing the audience. In front of the deacon's seat stood a broad-leafed table, on which the com- munion service was set on stated occasions. This table was sus- tained by iron braces and was let down when not in use. On the pulpit and the deacon's seats was the only attempt at painting about the house. These were covered with a slight coating of lead color. As to means of warming the house in winter, there was not even an attempt, until the house had been in use more than twenty-five years, when a stove was set up directly in front of the pulpit in the broad aisle. So far as it affected the temperature of the im- mense building it might as well have been set out on the common. How ever the worshipers kept from freezing in that cold house in dead of winter is a mystery we will not attempt to solve. However, the women dressed in heavy flannels, and wore heavy knitted socks
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HISTORY OF LANCASTER.
over their shoes, and every thoughtful matron, when she entered the church, was followed by a boy carrying her foot-stove, a tastily made wooden frame with a bail, inside of which was a tin or sheet-iron lining, about eight inches square, perforated on top. In this stove was a sheet-iron pan holding a quart or more of burning coals. The matron seated, the boy placed the stove under her feet, which she would pass to her daughters as occasion demanded. But the men and the boys! I fancy that their gallantry and the lack of enough coals to burn through a Puritan service of more than an hour in length, left them with cold feet. Be that as it may, the old meeting- house had a hold on the inhabitants of the town that no modern one has ever enjoyed.
In front of the house, and a little distance from it, were two " horse blocks," which were cut from immense pine logs, of the requisite height, with two steps in each, to enable the ladies to mount and dismount their steeds, for many of them were accus- tomed for many years after the early occupancy of the meeting- house to ride on horseback. Many of the young women were adepts in that manner of riding. Not a few of the more sprightly girls would disdain the horse block and mount from the ground by placing their hands on the necks of the horses and springing into the saddle. Tradition says that Lucy Howe, who married Ethan A. Crawford, and Betsey Stanley, who married James B. Weeks, were accustomed to mount their horses in that manner. The latter is remembered by a few who still survive as an excellent rider even in advanced age. .
Excepting the stately and aristocratic chaise, of which Parson Willard owned the first in town, carriages were not in use in Lan- caster until about 1820; and those who did not own a chaise had to ride on horseback or travel on foot. A walk of two or three miles for the boys and girls of that day was thought to be only a refreshing exercise. The girls usually exchanged, by the roadside, their heavy walking shoes for their thin morocco ones, that would show their feet to better advantage, before reaching the church. The elderly people usually came to church on horseback, some with a child riding behind them; but those who could afford a chaise, and there were many, neither walked nor rode horseback, no matter how near the church they might live, or how they got about town on week days. On Sunday morning the chaise was hitched up, and the mistress of the house with her children, rode to meeting in what was considered becoming style. And it is said by one who still remembers those scenes, that it would do any one of to-day good to see the grace and dignity with which madame would alight from her chaise, while one of her boys, or a man who had preceded her on foot or horseback, took her horse and chaise away and cared for
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them while she entered the house and took her seat in her pew. In fact, the whole congregation seemed to enter the church with a pe- culiarly reverential awe that can hardly be understood by the people of the present generation.
THE CONGREGATION.
The congregation that assembled in that ancient place of worship was one of uncommon character; and we borrow the following des- cription of it from the pen of Judge James W. Weeks, who remem- bers the old church and the congregation since before 1820, as he was born in 1811, and is of almost unimpaired faculties at the pres- ent writing. He says :
" I occupied, with my parents, the first wall pew west of the front door, and usually sat in the corner next the broad aisle and the lesser aisle west, so I was able to look through between the banisters and study the house, the whole of which was exposed to my view except small and unimportant sections. Directly in front of me, in the first body pew on the left, sat Deacon Farrar, his wife, and Miss Abbie Bergin, who usually dressed in white, and attracted the attention of boys by the deliberate manner in which she entered the pew and took her seat. The deacon was a dark complexioned, dyspeptic little man, with his thin black hair combed up to the top of his head to cover his baldness. In the second wall pew on the left sat Mrs. John Moore and her son William, who carried his head a little to one side. His first wife I do not remember seeing at church; but his second wife (Mary Sampson) soon made her appearance, full of life, bright and handsome as any of her daughters. In the first wall pew on the right of the door from the west porch, sat Captain Stephenson, his son Turner, and his daughter Eliza. The captain was an old man, quite bald and stooping. Richard Eastman and family occupied the body pew directly in front of the west door. David Burnside, fresh and ruddy, with blue coat and bright buttons, showed him- self with his wife in the second wall pew on the left of the west door. Thomas Carlisle, also wearing bright metal buttons, with his dressy wife, occupied the next wall pew adjoining Burnside's. The minister's pew was the first one next to the wall west of the pulpit. Mrs. Everett, a handsome widow, with her daughters, occupied about the fourth body pew on the right of the broad aisle. Mrs. Board- man occupied the next pew adjoining toward the pulpit.
" That congregation is arrayed before me as if it were but yesterday that I saw it last. A little later, perhaps 1822, Jared W. Williams from Connecticut, with his wife, appeared in the old church. Royal Joyslin also returned from Bath. He was straight and handsome as a man is ever likely to be. Soon an exceed- ingly pretty lady, Julia Barnard, changed her seat, and was seen sitting in church with Mr. Joyslin. Nothing attracted my boyish attention more than the different manner in which the people stood during prayers. The women usually stood erect, with their heads on the railing of the pews. Some fidgety men and wo- men were constantly changing their position. There was Major Weeks, tall and stately, six feet and two inches in his stockings, standing like a post, perfectly erect, with arms folded and eyes cast upon the floor a few feet in front of him as if on parade, never moving a muscle, however long the service might be. Deacon Farrar and a few others, leaned over the tops of their pews.
" There was one thing that troubled my boyish mind! I could not see the sing- ers. All I could see were several men and women come into the gallery from the
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east porch, and at the close of the service, as the congregation passed out, Will- iam Lovejoy, with strong and sonorous voice, would announce marriages intended, and the like. This seemed a part of the service. After a time I got a seat in the gallery, when my curiosity was gratified. The singers were twelve or fifteen powerful men, and perhaps as many ladies. What the music lacked in culture and taste it made up in power ; and such strains of melody as went up to the Great Majesty on high were neither faint nor to be misunderstood.
" No choir seems blessed with perpetual peace. This one was no exception to that rule, for one morning in the days of Orange Scott, Francis Bingham ap- peared in the singers' seats with a bass viol. The hymn was started, and the strings of the viol vibrated. That caused the ancient chorister to stop; and ad- dressing the fancied offender, said, ' Mr. Bingham, you must put away that fiddle. We can't sing.' The . fiddle,' however, held its own on that and many succeed- ing Sundays, and was soon joined by the tones of a flute in the hands of O. W. Baker, and a clarinet played by Walter Sherman.
" At the close of the services the Doxology was usually sung to the tune of " Old Hundred.' The benediction followed, when the congregation left as rever- ently as it had assembled."
Such, reader, was the first church of Lancaster, from a hundred years ago down to within the recollection of men and women still living; and what the influence of such men and institutions have had in shaping the destiny of our civilization can scarcely be con- jectured. One thing is certain: the reverential influence of the scenes here described by Judge Weeks, show themselves in the lives of the men and women of those days who still linger with us, in a manner that should cause the younger people to carefully consider them as worthy of much thoughtful respect and imitation.
THE JAILS OF LANCASTER.
The Old Fail .- The first prison in Lancaster consisted of a room in the Wilson tavern at the north end of Main street where the first court sessions were held in the hall of that building, 1804- 1806. For two years that prison room was kept by Judge Will- iam Lovejoy, who along with many other distinctions adds that of being the first jailor of the county. In 1806, when the first court-house was erected there was a jail in course of construction also. Both buildings were erected on lands given for their res- pective purposes by Artemas Wilder, who owned a large tract of land at the north end of Main street. This jail was a wooden structure, two stories high, with a residence for the jailor's family. It had an upper and lower room for prisoners. That portion of the building was constructed of hewn elm logs eighteen inches square bolted together with iron bolts, its heavy wooden doors se- cured by padlocks. Isaac Derby, "Squire Derby" as he was called, hewed the elm logs for this old jail. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and the War of 1812. He tended the old Wilder mill for many years.
ORIGINAL COURT-HOUSE. NOW PUBLIC LIBRARY. (Originally with flat roof, without porch or tower.)
BRICK COURT-HOUSE, 1835-1868. FROM OLD COUNTY MAP.
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PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
This building stood on the same lot where the present jail now stands only a little to the east of the present one. It was built on con- tract by Colonel Chessman and Nathaniel White.
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