USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 20
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The number of polls in 1791 was twenty-three, and in 1800 they numbered seventy-one. The increase was made up largely of persons who were not disposed to burden themselves unnecessarily with charges for the maintenance of public religious worship. Thenceforth the town, in its corporate capacity, contributed little or nothing for that purpose. The people who had borne the burden
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The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century.
so long under adverse circumstances, continued to prove their faith by their works, and maintained Christian worship without a pastor, without a meeting-house, and without the appropriation which the laws of the State permitted every organized community to make for the establishment and maintenance of religious worship. There was nothing of sectarianism or dogmatism in the community at that period. Rigid Presbyterians like James Rankin and stern Baptists like Nathan Caswell subordinated theological differ- ences for the larger purpose of keeping alive in the settlement a principle which constituted one of the essential features of the Puritan commonwealth.
In 1793 or 1794 Solomon Mann came from Newbury, and located on the farm now owned by John C. Quimby. During his residence there he purchased in 1797 the mill privilege on the Ammonoosuc, and erected the saw-mill known to the present generation as the old Bowman mill. It thus became his fortune not only to be the pioneer on the hill which still bears his name, but the founder of the village as well. In executing his plans for utilizing the water power, he employed Asa Lewis as millwright, and he subse- quently became owner of the property. Before the close of the century the saw-mill and a grist-mill were in operation. Mr. Mann built a small house near the grist-mill, the first dwelling in the village. At the time there was no road in town east of Parker Mountain. A path debouched from the county road near the Flanders place on the meadows, crossed those meadows to a point near the river and then followed its course, near its banks, to a ford above the falls where the mill-dam had recently been constructed. The ford was mainly used by the pioneers of Bethlehem. They had made it passable by removing rocks and other obstructions at a time when the site of our village was an unbroken wilderness. The population of that town had increased from 40 in 1790 to 71 in 1800, and in the last-named year had received from the Legis- lature its town charter. There had been a large advance in the number of inhabitants in all the surrounding towns in these years. Franconia, the least of any owing to the cloud on its title, showing an increase from 72 to 129; Lisbon, then Concord, from 313 to 663 ; Bath, from 498 to 825; Lyman, from 202 to 534; Landaff, from 292 to 461 ; Lancaster, from 161 to 440, and Littleton from 96 to 381. A marked instance of the jugglery which time plays with communities is found in the fact which these figures disclose, Lyman and Landaff 1 had nearly as large a population one hundred
1 It should be said that both have been divided. Easton was set off from Landaff, and Monroe from Lyman.
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History of Littleton.
years ago as now, while Lancaster and Littleton then lagged behind both in the number of their inhabitants.
The life of the pioneer was one of extreme simplicity, filled with hours of hard, exacting toil. Each member of a family capable of manual labor contributed a share to its maintenance. Each farm produced all the raw material required for household consumption, and each dwelling was workshop and factory for its manufacture into the various articles required for family use. James Williams kept a wayside inn, but his principal business was that of a farmer, and from it he amassed a considerable fortune. Late in life he said that he had intended to produce on his farm all that his family required. His expenditures were confined to the purchase of spices, salt, tea, coffee, and, after the close of the War of 1812, calico for the use of his wife and daughters.
The chief reliance of the early settlers was upon the products of the forests and streams. Bear, moose, and deer were suffi- ciently abundant to supply the table with meat, while the rivers and streams teemed with fish. Both the Connecticut and Ammo- noosuc rivers were crowded with salmon in their season, which were taken in great quantities and salted for winter use. For many years the salmon barrel was as indispensable an article in every family as the pork barrel. Trout, too, were sometimes treated in the same manner, though the settlers thought, as these were always to be with them, it was a waste of such a scarce article as salt to use it in curing this fish. Wild fowl were plentiful, especially duck and partridge, which were staple articles of food.
When the first crop had been taken from the soil, the pioneers found their larder supplied with the comforts of life, if not with its luxuries. The virgin soil yielded an abundant harvest. Wheat, Indian corn, rye, barley, and oats were never afterward wanting. Great hardship was imposed upon the early settlers by the want of facilities for grinding wheat. The old Bailey mill had but one run of stone, that for grinding Indian corn, until 1797, when a run for manufacturing flour was put in. Going to mill was an arduous undertaking in those days. Captain Caswell and the Hop- kinsons journeyed to Haverhill with their grists, and at a later period to Bath. A daughter of Jonas Nurse 1 relates that her father went to the grist-mill at Bath, taking two bushels of wheat on his back. He would start with it in two bags and carry it until his shoulders would ache; then he would drop one bag, carry the other until he was sufficiently rested, drop that, and re- turn for the one left behind. By this method he made the trip to
1 Mrs. Samuel Goodwin.
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The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century.
Bath and return in a day, -thirty-two miles over perhaps as rough a highway as man ever travelled in New England.
In the eighties each settler had a mill of his own, for use in an emergency, when a day or two could not be spared for a jour- ney to the distant mill. It was in the form of a huge mortar. The stump of a large birch or maple was selected, chopped, and burned out until it was sufficiently hollowed. The pestle was a block of hard wood shaped to fit the mortar. This was attached, by a rope of hide, to the top of a sapling which served as a spring to lift it from the mortar. This rude contrivance pounded out meal, hominy, and samp. When taken from the mortar, the grist was placed in a fine sieve and the meal shaken through. Next a coarser sieve was used, and the hominy and samp separated. These three articles were the basis of the food of the early settlers.
Pumpkins and squash, native vegetables bearing Indian names, were raised in considerable quantities, as were potatoes, carrots, peas, and beans. Apple orchards were planted as soon as ground could be cleared for them ; and wild strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries sprang into existence wherever fire had prepared a way, and yielded a prolific harvest. The first cow was driven from Orford in 1775, and two years after was killed by a bear, during the absence of Captain Caswell at the fort in Northumberland. Two years elapsed before another was ob- tained. Maple sugar and honey were used for sweetening. Tea and coffee were luxuries seldom indulged by the pioneers. Vari- ous herbs were used as substitutes for tea, and parched rye for coffee.
When the first fireplaces built of logs and chinked with clay were in use, baking was done in Dutch ovens. When frame dwellings were permissible, the huge brick or stone fireplace was flanked with an oven built of like material. The cooking outfit of these ancient fireplaces varied according to the means of the owner. Some were furnished with brass pots and kettles which were quite expensive, costing from one to two hundred dollars a set. Generally, however, this outfit was of iron, some of the huge kettles holding from twelve to fifteen gallons. These were suspended from the crane by chains, the distance from the fire being regulated by hooks resembling the letter S. Iron skillets, brasiers, and broilers were also common cooking utensils. The stone or brick oven was connected with the chimney of the fire- place. This oven was heated with wood especially prepared for the purpose, split fine and thoroughly dried. A good supply was kept in stock in every well-regulated household. The oven was
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History of Littleton.
prepared for use by keeping a roaring fire burning in it for hours, heating its walls "red hot." When a satisfactory degree of heat was obtained, coals and ashes were removed, the chimney connection closed, and the week's baking of bread, beans, pies, and sometimes cake, placed within, and the iron door of the oven shut. The result was a " baking" which the inventive genius and skill of man has not been able to excel. In winter the thrifty housewife would bake a season's supply of pies, pack them in crocks, and store them in a cold room to freeze, and when wanted for the table, they were thawed by placing them before the open fire- place. Meats and fish were preserved through the winter in the same way.
Table furnishings were mostly of pewter. Knives and forks were made of steel, spoons of horn and wood, and utensils for handling water were much like the primitive sap buckets still in use in some sugar-places, and gourds were used as dippers.
Early retiring was the rule with the pioneers, necessitated both by the hard labor of the day and the difficulty of procuring an evening light of sufficient power to enable the housewife to con- tinue her work. The first lights in use were pitch-pine splits fastened to a block of wood or in chinks in the fireplace. These are said to have burned with a clear flame, but the quantity of smoke produced by them did much to render their use undesirable except in cases of emergency. Then came the period of candle- light. Dipping candles was as much a part of the work of the women of the household as the preparation of the family meals. In the course of time candle moulds came into use which made a more symmetrical article and produced a more even burning flame than the old dip. Snuffers and trays were indispensable articles in the olden time.
Household manufacture of cloths occupied much of the time of women and girls. The raw material, flax and wool, was produced on the farm, and the machinery for its manufacture filled out-of- the-way corners in nearly every room in the house. For the mak- ing of linen there was the flax-brake, the swingling block and swingling knives, the spinning-wheel, the hand or the clock reel, and the loom. For wool, cards for hand carding, spinning-wheel, Swift's hand reel, and the cumbersome loom, which sometimes had a room by itself, but was more frequently in portable form and set up and taken down, as occasion required, in the kitchen or best room. Flax seed was sown broadcast like grass seed. When the young and tender plant was well up, the children weeded the ground. In August the crop was ready for the har-
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The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century.
vest. Having been dried it was " rippled," or drawn between the iron teeth of the rippling comb, for the purpose of breaking off the seed bolls. The next process was to clear the stalks of leaves by rotting in water. When dried it was broken and swingled by the men and then transferred to the women. They hackled, - that is, separated the different qualities of fibre according to fineness, bleached, spun, and wove it into cloth, and made the cloth into bed and table linen and various articles of wearing apparel.
The production of wool, and the cloths manufactured from it, required less skill and manipulation than did flax and linen, and while the different processes are more familiar to the present gen- eration, the time is not far distant when the manufacture of homespun will be numbered with the lost arts. The fleeces were carefully sorted by the women, and tossed and otherwise prepared for the dye. The dyes used for the different colors were indigo for blues (and the pot was always ready for use), madder and log- wood for reds, indigo with the juice of goldenrod and alum for green, smartweed or the bark of the sassafras for yellow and orange, and the flowers and bark of many plants and shrubs for the production of other colors. When colored the wool was carded with large hand cards and made into rolls. Then came spinning and weaving. The spinning was often done by young girls. Mrs. Samuel Goodwin was taught to spin when she was so young and small that a platform was used to enable her to manage the wheel. The loom was a heavy, cumbersome piece of machinery, worked by the hands and feet of the weaver. The cloth it produced was very durable, but rough and without nap or finish. The only fulling it received was made in the process of extracting the grease. When something extra fine was wanted for a beau, the goods were subjected to a heavy ironing, which gave them a finish that the average pioneer regarded as useless, and a waste of the valuable time expended in their production.
The clothing was usually made in the family, as were boots and shoes. Itinerant tailors and shoemakers would sometimes go from house to house and make up the year's supply for the family. Captain Caswell was a tailor, and Captain Peleg Wil- liams a shoemaker. The former seldom did work for other than members of his household ; but the latter made the rounds from family to family once each year.
The amusements of the early settlers were few and of a homely character. Corn huskings and " bees " were the most common. Dancing was not in favor, as it was regarded by the leading per- sonages with puritanical austerity, as a device of Satan to lure the
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History of Littleton.
young to destruction. Women found their principal diversion in spending the day with a neighbor. Sometimes this pleasure took them several miles from home, and was attended with serious consequences. Deacon Thomas Miner in the winter of 1791-92 desired to give his daughters a day out. They journeyed on an ox-sled to visit friends in Lyman. During the day the snow fell fast and furious, and when the time came to set out on the return, it was not deemed prudent to start, as the road was rendered im- passable by the great depth of snow. The party was detained several days, and finally reached their home by making their way on foot with the aid of snowshoes. The oxen remained in Lyman during the remainder of the winter, the Deacon or his sons drawing the hay which fed them from Littleton to Lyman on a hand-sled. Quiltings and sewing-circles, common feminine diver- sions a few years subsequently, were unknown at that period in this settlement.
Farming tools and implements were rude and heavy in construc- tion. The first ploughs were made from small trees with the stumps of their projecting limbs for handles, and another plated and braced with iron for tearing up the soil. A later plough was made of wood with wrought-iron shares and a moulding board plated with scrap iron. Shovels, hoes, scythes, and pitchforks were made by the local blacksmith, and the handles wrought from a sapling or piece of ash by the farmer who was to use them. So, too, the farmer made his own scythe-snaths from wood that was straight or had a natural bend to suit his fancy. Carts and sleds were of home manufacture, and the only iron used in the structure of either was the iron tire which bound the cart wheels, and some- times even this was wanting.
In 1800 there was not a wagon or gig in town. In winter the ox-sled was frequently used for purposes of travel, but usually those who could not or would not go on foot rode on horseback. Dr. White of Newbury and Dr. Moore of Bath travelled the en- tire north country on horseback, with their outfit of medicines and surgical instruments encased in their saddle-bags.
At this early period of the history of our town, every cabin was an inn, in the sense that it furnished entertainment for " man and beast." The fare was homely, but the welcome sincere and cor- dial. As time passed on, a custom so universal gave way to regular places of entertainment. The road between the Upper and Lower Cohos, then much travelled, had its tavern at a distance of every four or five miles. The first of these, both in point of time and territorially, was the cabin of Captain Caswell, on the Farr place.
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The Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century.
At least two of the Captain's successors, Ephraim Bailey and Elkanah Hoskins, kept tavern at the old stand. When the prop- erty passed into the possession of David Hoskins, the old swing- ing sign was taken down and erected at the Flanders place, where Columbus George presided as landlord.
Jonas Nurse kept the first tavern, on what is known to us as the Fitch place. The first stand was built well up on the hill, opposite the present residence of Frank Fitch. It was a large log cabin with six rooms, and a loft reached by a ladder. Sometimes guests were so numerous that the entire floor was given over for their accommodation, and the large family of the landlord slept in the loft. Many of the early town meetings were held within its hospitable walls.
For a time Samuel Learned, Jr., furnished entertainment for travellers at his house, but when James Williams built, the busi- ness was willingly relinquished to the new establishment. The Williams tavern was famous, in its day, for a generous hos- pitality. Henry Bemis, a short distance up the county road, also ran a tavern for many years. There was no place of enter- tainment, such as has been described at the west end, until after 1800.
These places all had the same general characteristics. They were log cabins, larger than those erected solely for private use, equipped with immense stone fireplaces and ovens with a stone hearth large enough to cover half the floor of a modern kitchen. This kitchen was, in the most instances, also dining, bar, and living room. The Williams cabin was the only exception to this rule. The bar was generously supplied with foreign and domestic spirits. The domestic liquors were New England rum and potato whiskey, - the latter not much in vogue, while the former in various concoctions was well-nigh a universal beverage. Rum and molasses was regarded as a sovereign remedy for colds, and hot flip was esteemed a sure preventive against the dangers of this rigorous climate. It was so essential, not only for quenching thirst, but for preventing or curing every ill, that in all well-regulated taverns the poker was kept red-hot for its manufacture. Such a poker, thrust into a mug of liquor, made it seethe and bubble, and in this fiery condition the pioneer poured it down his thirsty throat.
This summary of life in the olden time is simply suggestive. A more detailed description would add to its interest; but the curious reader will find full and accurate accounts in works de- voted to the subject. The daily life of the pioneers of Littleton
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History of Littleton.
differed in no essential particular from that of those who were fast penetrating the forests east and west, and laying the founda- tions of future states.
A hundred years have wrought a mighty change in the face of this territory, and in the mode of life of its people. Gloomy forests have given place to sunny fields ; the haunts of the wolf and bear are now tenanted by peaceful flocks and herds ; dank cabins have been replaced with light and healthful dwellings ; the eager river flowing to the sea, free and clear as the sunshine that rested on its waves, has become burdened with human in- dustries and polluted by the arts of man. Whether the change has brought a larger degree of happiness and freedom is a question concerning which philosophers differ, and it is not likely they will agree until the great problem is solved in eternity.
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The First Decade of the Nineteenth Century.
XV.
THE FIRST DECADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
S HORTLY before the organization of the town in 1787, Moses Little conveyed to John C. Jones, a merchant of Boston, a tract of land, described as containing eighteen hundred acres, in the southeast corner of the town, bordering on Bethlehem and Concord.1 This embraced nearly all the territory now consti- tuting the village precinct, and that lying along the Franconia and Mt. Eustis roads. It could not have been regarded by Mr. Jones as valuable, for he neglected it, and permitted the title to pass from his possession through the medium of a tax collector's deed.
Under license from Colonel Little, Solomon Mann, in 1797, be- gan the erection of a saw-mill and grist-mill at the falls of the Ammonoosuc. The saw-mill, long known as the Bowman mill, was in operation the following year, and the grist-mill was grinding wheat, corn, and rye in 1799. Mr. Mann built a small frame house on the high ground where the Dunn shop now stands. This was the foundation of the village. Its growth has been con- stant from the start.
In 1800 Timothy Kitteridge came to town and built a store west of Mr. Mann's house, nearly on the site of the Coburn house.2 He kept a small stock of groceries, some dry-goods, and such small wares as were in vogue at the time, and a liberal supply of " ardent spirits." The business was not prosperous, owing partly to the fact that the proprietor was a large consumer of the liquid portion of his stock in trade. He was tax collector and con- stable in 1804, and the responsibilities and misfortunes attending his method of discharging the duties of the twin positions involved
1 Now Lisbon.
2 Rear of Lynch & Richardson's store.
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History of Littleton.
him in lawsuits, and ended in his financial ruin. He left town in 1806.
Peter Bonney became a resident in 1798, and in 1799 built the tannery. The property is now owned by John A. Fogg. The business affairs of Timothy Kitteridge, long involved, were finally closed up by Mr. Bonney. The two had been friends in Charlestown, and among their boyhood companions in that impor- tant frontier town was another, Ephraim Curtis by name, who followed them to this town and embarked in a mercantile career. He had served an apprenticeship in trade, and by temperament as well as experience was well equipped for a successful adventure under the conditions which then existed in this section. The capital for the establishment of his enterprise was furnished by his brother-in-law, Dr. Joseph Robie, who became a partner in the business, which was conducted under the firm name of Robie & Curtis. Dr. Robie practised his profession until Dr. Burns came in 1806. The firm built a store, long known as the " Old Red Store," on the lot where the Methodist Church now stands. All undoubted authority has affirmed that the amount of " grog " mixed and sold in the " Old Red Store " would baffle computa- tion. The law of compensation seems to have prevailed in this instance, and Bacchus has been supplanted by an institution that teaches the most rigid adherence to the doctrine of total abstinence.
In 1801 Penuel Leavens built a fulling-mill between the grist- mill and tannery, on the site at present occupied by Richardson's grist-mill. In the earliest map of the village, the so-called West- gate map, executed in 1802 or 1803, the position of the mills are placed the reverse of their actual location. It is quite likely that the error was caused by the surveyor sketching in the mills from memory some time after the actual survey was made.
Thus the first years of the century found at the village the nucleus of a prosperous settlement. Here were a saw-mill, grist- mill, tannery, store, and a fulling-mill. Church and school-house were wanting, but this corner of the town was more devoted to the material than the æsthetic advantages of life, and years were to elapse before the busy settlers turned their attention to the great agencies of civilization. All that was wanting, from a business point of view, to complete the village equipment were a tavern and blacksmith's shop. As the hamlet was remote from the main thoroughfare, and as Timothy Kitteridge was licensed " to mix and sell all kinds of foreign distilled spirits at retail," there would seem not to have been a very urgent demand
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The First Decade of the Nineteenth Century.
for the tavern ; and as a blacksmith, Josiah Newhall, lived and had a forge over the hill, east of the residence of Samuel King,1 this useful artisan was not far distant. Beside being our first blacksmith, Mr. Newhall also enjoyed the distinction of having been the first Methodist to locate in Littleton. He came from Lynn, Mass. He and his wife were devoted Christians, abound- ing in good works. They had no children, but their hearts went out in melting charity to all who were poor and needy. Their home was for many years the temporary abiding-place of the Methodist itinerant who rode the circuit, in the old days, preach- ing the gospel and planting churches in the wilderness. The old house long since tumbled to decay, and nature, as if to rescue the scene of so much charity from the semblance of the common de- cay, has clothed the spot where it stood with a luxuriant growth of wild rosebushes, which each season put forth their blossoms, clothing the site with beauty, and filling the air with fragrance in memory of this saintly pair.
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