USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 25
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Once arrived at their destination, the load of produce was ex- changed for salt and such groceries and dry-goods as were deemed essential for future comfort and an occasional luxury. The list was quite sure to include a generous supply of " good old New England rum," and possibly a keg of gin or brandy, - honest liquors all, not the wild tanglefoot of these degenerate days. The return journey ended, other trips were made for the merchant, loading each way with his freight. An average load would con- tain about eighteen hundred pounds, and the transportation rate was one dollar per hundred.
In the early years of the century the inhabitants of this region purchased many of their dry-goods and small wares from a ped- ler's cart. Isaac Frye and Washington Williams, sons of Captain James, began their successful mercantile careers as pedlers through northern New Hampshire and Vermont. Subsequently the elder located at Concord and the younger at Portsmouth, where they engaged in trade, and both amassed fortunes. One of the obscure passages in our town records relates to a William Jenness, who for
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three or four years paid the largest tax of any citizen of the town. His history is unknown, but this much may be affirmed concern- ing him: He came here from New York City in June, 1817, and bought of Hector T. George and the widow of David George the farm on the meadows that to the present generation is known as the Flanders Place. He also purchased about that time lot 5 in the 7 range of Snow's survey on Farr Hill, and the pasture oppo- site the late residence of James W. Place. He was largely engaged in farming, but his principal business was that of a pedler of dry- goods. He was not successful in his ventures, and soon began to part with his real estate. He sold the farm to Rev. Drury Fairbank in 1820. In 1818 he was taxed for $4000 money at interest, $1000 stock in trade, the farm and a large stock of cattle, 198 acres of wild land, and a carriage valued at $250. The last item is likely to have been his pedler's cart. The total tax was about $45, some ten dollars larger than was paid by John Gile, who had for some years previously stood at the head of the tax list. The money at interest had diminished to $1600 the following year, and the stock in trade to $200. The curious might conclude that in one short year he had mastered the arts of the tax-dodger, but the sequel shows that his troubles were the result of misfortune rather than of dishonesty. In 1822 he made an assignment of his possessions in this town to Thatcher Goddard, a Boston merchant, and his name does not again appear in our town records.
The death of Asa Lewis, in May, 1815, was a severe loss to the town. He was a man of much enterprise in all matters that engaged his attention. It was mainly through his efforts that the first meeting-house was built, and he was equally interested in the advancement of the cause of education, and any good that tended to elevate the tone of the community. He was a millwright by trade, and came here in 1799 to put the village mills built by Solomon Mann in order. Luther Thompson, his brother-in-law, soon followed him, and bought the lower farm on the meadows ; and this event influenced him to make this town his permanent home. He was among the first deacons of the Congregational Church, was several years a member of the Board of Selectmen, and held other positions of responsibility, frequently serving on committees and filling minor town offices. He built the house known to the present generation as the old Bowman House, which stood on the present site of Opera Block, and is still in service as a tenement in the rear of its original location. After his death the house became the first tavern in the village. Mr. Lewis mar-
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ried Mary Thompson of Francestown. They had no children, but adopted Solomon and Hiram Hughes, twins, who were subse- quently interested in the mills, - one at the grist-mill, the other as manager of the saw-mill.
About a year after the death of Mr. Lewis, the mills were pur- chased by Noah and Joseph Farr, who about the close of this period sold to John Gile, who retained the proprietorship many years. Noah Farr bought two acres of land, now the site of the residence of Dr. Sanger, paying for the lot with a load of potatoes. He built the Truman Stevens house, which was moved to its present location, next beyond the residence of Royal P. White, and was converted into a tenement when Dr. Sanger built his present residence.
An event of these years which left a memory of horror to every resident of the town at that time was the destruction by fire of the carding-mill in December, 1816, and the death in the flames of Truman Palmer and David Richardson. This property was then owned by Luther Knight, who was the employer of Palmer and Richardson. For some reason the men were in the habit of lodg- ing at this season in the mill and making a bed of the bundles of wool. The night was extremely cold, and the fires were kept in full blast. About midnight Mr. Knight was awakened to find the mill filled with blinding smoke. He at once aroused his com- panions and made his escape by dashing out a window. When he recovered from his somewhat dazed condition, he discovered that Palmer and Richardson had not followed, and as the build- ing was then wrapped with fire it was impossible to rescue the unfortunate men and they perished in the flames. The following spring the site of the mill was purchased by Ebenezer Cushman,1 who rebuilt the carding and fulling mill.
The story of the " frozen year," as 1816 has been termed, is familiar to all interested in the details of New England history. It caused much inconvenience and some suffering. The winter in this section had been unusually mild, and an early spring gave promise of an abundant harvest. The farmers sowed and planted two or three weeks earlier than had been their custom; but a " black frost" the first week in June cut down wheat, oats, and rye, and destroyed corn that had not sent its blades through the ground. Resowing and planting followed once or twice, only to meet a similar fate. Snow fell in June, and July was so frosty as to destroy all hope of a grain harvest. The
1 He was the father of Hon. Francis A. Cushman, formerly of Lebanon, and now of Plymouth, some years since a member of the Executive Council of this State. VOL. I. - 17
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hay crop was materially injured, and potatoes and other vegetables were grown only in small quantities in sheltered localities. The surplus stock of farm products was used before a planting season returned, and the husbandmen of the north country were without seed, and their neighbors to the south were in a like situation. Fortunately Otis Warren, on the Capt. Peleg Williams place, had raised large crops in 1814 and 1815, and was able in a large meas- ure to supply the demand for seed, corn, and oats ; and his farm on the Connecticut meadows became known as Egypt, from the fact that men journeyed from afar to purchase corn from his granaries.
The death of John Bemis in 1811 was caused by exposure and exhaustion on the occasion of the bear hunt of September, 1806. The story has been told many times, and is still a theme of con- versation among those who had the tale from participants in that event. Bears were numerous in those days, and their ravages among the flocks and cornfields of the farmers were a constant source of annoyance and some danger. They were often hunted, but few possessed the necessary outfit of guns and dogs trained for the service to engage very often in such an enterprise. The summer and autumn of 1806 were memorable for their devasta- tions and the numerous hunts that were organized for the exter- mination of these animals.
John Bemis and Jonathan Wheeler then lived on the Luther B. Town farm, and their cornfield was in danger of being stripped by a bear which found the milky ears just to his taste. With the assistance of Levi Hildreth and Noah Farr, they started on a hunt early on the morning of the 9th of September, 1806.1 They found Bruin busy with his breakfast in the cornfield, and when interrupted started to cross Black Mountain into Dalton. The hunters followed him rapidly ; and Bemis, who had a deformed foot, could not make the pace, and as his companions supposed, had returned home. The others continued the chase, and when over the mountain, the dogs headed the bear and drove him back among the three hunters, who were so surprised at the turn of affairs that they failed to terminate the hunt then and there by the slaughter of Bruin. It would seem that his bearship also lost his head, for he made a dash for liberty by rushing past Noah Farr, passing so near him that it is said he brushed Farr's legs. The hunter was armed with an axe only, but in the confusion of the moment made no attempt to strike the bear. Wheeler and Hildreth had discharged their guns, but with- out effect then. While Wheeler was reloading, Hildreth set upon
1 The year is uncertain, one authority stating it to have been in 1808.
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the bear with empty gun, and succeeded in bending the barrel and doing much damage to the stock. Before Wheeler had finished reloading, the bear made his escape.
A severe snowstorm came on early in the forenoon, and during the day some six or eight inches fell, but the hunters continued their search until nearly nightfall, when they found themselves on the banks of the Ammonoosuc, some little distance below the mouth of Alder Brook. They concluded to return by the way of the village, and started down the river. In getting over a fallen log, Hildreth had injured his ankle, and, being unable to keep up with his com- panions, fell behind, and did not reach the village until a late hour the following day. The others remained at the village over night and journeyed home the next day. There they learned that Bemis liad not returned. All were alarmed for liis safety, and a rescuing party was at once organized, and started to search for the missing man. Before night they found traces of his presence which in- dicated that he had become bewildered and lost his way. He had attempted to start a fire by discharging his gun into a dead tree, and they soon came to the place where he had passed the night on a scant bed of boughs beside a prostrate pine-tree. Here they also found the mutilated remains of his faithful dog, which hunger had compelled him to slay. The following day the party, which had been reinforced by men from the village, found Bemis on the Cole farm, about a mile beyond Alder Brook. IIe was in a perishing condition, and unable to tell the story of his wanderings. Tucked securely within the ample folds of his blue frock was found a part of one of the hindquarters of his dog. He had made his supper on the night before from the uncooked tongue of that animal. A hasty litter was constructed, and he was borne by relays to the village, and the succeeding day he reached his home. The journey from the village was made under the direction of Joseph W. Morse, and was organized with military precision.
Mr. Bemis never recovered from the effects of this hunt. Con- fined to the house during the winter, he sold his farm in the spring and passed the remaining years of his life an inmate of his father's family.
During the decade the farmers had improved their possessions by increasing their acreage of tillage, mowing, and pasturage, and their live stock.1 But to the general view the scene was still one
1 In 1820 there were 186 polls in town, and the inventory showed the following live stock : Horses 135, oxen 113, cows 373, and a proportionally large amount of young stock. There were 88 acres of tillage, 371} of mowing, and 351} of pastur- age. Each farmer had a flock of sheep from which the clothing of the family was made, but the number is not included in the inventory.
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of exceeding roughness. Fields were still cumbered with stumps and rocks, and fences were rare. Probably the most prosperous farmers were those who resided on the Ammonoosuc meadows, and there a long line of pine stump fence bordered each side of the highway from Isaac Parker's to Luther Thompson's. The long serpentine roots interlaced or shot into the air, and made a fence which might have endured for a century, and some parts of it actually remained in place for more than eighty years, but as the land increased in value and was wanted for cultivation, this made way for the less substantial but more symmetrical board fence.
Live stock continued to roam at large, and the question of the discontinuance of the custom was frequently considered in town meeting. The article in the warrant covering this matter was quickly "passed over." In the course of time extensive and thrifty farmers like John Gile undertook to protect their property from the estrays by impounding and advertising the animals and com- pelling their owners to pay charges and damage before their re- lease. This method of dealing with the subject proved to be more effective than its consideration in a town meeting where the fence- less farmers constituted a large majority, and estrays soon became as rare as they had formerly been numerous.
In these years, as subsequently, the town was frequently called into court to answer to complaints for not keeping the highway known as the county road in passable form. This road, like most others of the period, built along ridges and over high land, was very crooked, and its path only sufficient in width for the pas- sage of a team. It was the main thoroughfare between Haverhill and Lancaster, and much travelled. It was rocky, full of roots, and in places unbridged. Many hundreds of dollars had been expended upon it, though labor was cheap, - eight cents an hour for a man and four shillings and sixpence a day for a yoke of oxen. But the method did not differ essentially from that so long in vogue in modern days, and was shiftless and extravagant to the last de- gree of wastefulness. Citizens of other towns, both from above and below, frequently united to secure an indictment against the town and to compel it to raise large sums to be expended in what proved to be temporary repairs. In these ten years more than two thousand dollars, besides the large sum taken from the annual ap- propriation, was raised to repair the county road, - a very con- siderable sum when the value of money at the time is taken into account.
There has been preserved in durable form, but not widely cir-
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culated, a beautiful description of an important part of the town as it was in 1809. It was written in 1869, by David Goodall, son of David, Jr. Those parts which give his recollections of his jour- ney to mill are here given, together with two or three anecdotes of incidents which occurred nearly a century ago : -
"Some sixty years ago, on a bright, balmy June morning, at the age of five, I was started off on horseback, on a long and perilous journey of four miles to Littleton village to mill. The grist, a bushel each of wheat and rye, was tied with the stirrup strap, and I lifted on to the top. The woods and fields were all briglit in their green robes, and the deep pine-clad valley of the Connecticut in plain view, winding away among the hills until lost."
" A magnificent forest of pine and hardwood - unbroken except by the little cleavings on Bethlehem hills, and showing the outlines of the long bending reaches of the Ammonoosuc - stretched far away to tlie base of the White Mountains, whose snow-clad peaks stood up boldly and grandly in the vast deep-blue sky. A profound stillness, broken only now and then by the drumming of the partridge and woodpecker, and the gushing, jingling, joyous song of the bobolink. It was one of nature's most majestic and grand temples, where solitude whispered the name of God and of Eternity. To all it was so beautiful and charming that little I heeded time or space as the old horse plodded on past stumpy, rocky fields and woods, half a mile to Grandsire Robins', and through woods again to the Nourse Tavern (afterwards the Gile stand), and thence into dense woods another half-mile to the guide-board on the birch-tree, with a hand and thumb and forefinger pointing south, by Mr. Clay's brickyard, and one west and one east, and thence to the left into the dark shadow of the tall, thick pines along the narrow, muddy, crooked road, a weary way to Mr. Fitche's and another guide- board ; thence by a narrow clearing on the left and thick wood on the right, to the top of the hill ; and there was the village, consisting of one store, one tavern, a blacksmith's shop, schoolhouse, tannery, and a grist and saw and carding and fulling mills, and six dwelling-houses ; the dark woods crowding close into it all around, and the frogs piping and bellowing in the marsh where the buildings on the south side of Main Street now stand."
"Some years earlier,1 Ira Goodall being seven years old, the men being all gone one day, a troublesome hawk, that had previously de- clined being shot, seized a hen, and lighting near by on a tree, com- menced his feast. Ira got out the old 'Queen's Arm' with an inch bore, and having heard the men say that a hand was the charge for a hawk, and supposing that it meant a hand of each, and that the hand was to be measured lengthwise, put six inches of powder and the same of shot, creeping up within fair range, standing up rested his gun on a
1 1795.
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limb, and getting good aim, fired. The next he knew he was on the bed in the house, and all the women around him, caring for him and crying, and he covered with blood, his nose and face sadly bruised, and his collar-bone broken. The men found the gun a rod in rear of where he stood, with the ramrod thrown out, the lock knocked off, the hawk dead, holding the hen in a death grip."
" Capt. Benjamin Kellogg was exercising his company at June train- ing in the manual. Private Miller had previously loaded his gun heavily, intending to blow the captain's Bonaparte hat off; and when the order was given 'Make ready, take aim, fire,' he did fire, and knocked the hat ten feet. The heavy wad struck the captain on the forehead, cut through the skin, and, glancing, passed around under the skin, lodging in the back side. In passing it ruptured the arteries at the temple, and the blood spurted out in a large stream all over the captain's ruffled shirt, white vest, buff pants, and red-faced blue coat.1 Some bystanders caught the captain as he was falling, and Dr. Ains- worth stopped the flow of blood with a compress. The captain had a furlough of ninety days, and Private Miller was fined seventy-five dol- lars, and paid it, boasting that it was cheap."
"Peter Fuller was six feet high, weighing one hundred and eighty pounds, and was a very powerful man. From much practice he threw a stone with great precision and force. In passing along an old road where the water had left a mass of smooth round stones of all sizes, at a turn of the road he came suddenly upon a bear and two cubs about as large as a cat. Mrs. Bruin, growling and with open mouth, charged upon him furiously. He caught up a stone weighing about a pound, and threw it with all his vim smack into her mouth, and while she was spitting it out, he threw another which struck her fairly on the head. She faced about and retreated at a fast gait. The cubs followed her, and Fuller chased them closely some twenty rods into the woods. When the bear passed around a tree-top (felled) and one cub followed it, Fuller jumped quickly, seized the cub by the hind legs, and swung it up on his breast, and turned and ran some ten rods, when he came to a down tree that lay across his path, some five feet high. He jumped over it, but threw his feet so far forward that when he struck he lost his balance and fell back against a log. At that time the bear struck him with a paw upon the shoulder, and turned down a strip of the vest-back and shirt four inches wide, nearly a foot in length, each claw cutting a clean, deep furrow the same length in the skin. Fuller pitched cubby over his shoulder, broke away, and ran from the bear back to the stones, but saw no more of the bear."
Twelve years after the events narrated by Mr. Goodall, another lad,2 who still lives to relate the story, journeyed with his father from his home at North Littleton to the same mill. It was his
1 Officers only were uniformed.
2 Luther B. Town.
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first visit to the village, and his remarkable memory enables him to describe the visit with literal exactness. Amos Town came from Keene in 1801, and bought the improvements made by Wil- liam Wallace on the farm,1 where he continued to live during the remainder of his life. These betterments consisted of a log house and barn and three acres of cleared land. He paid Wallace sixty dollars for his interest in the place. Wallace held a bond for a deed which he assigned to Town, who purchased the lot of Moses Little. On this farm all his children were born.
In the summer of 1823 Luther accompanied his father to the village. They travelled in an ox-cart with a wooden axletree drawn by a yoke of oxen with a horse on the lead. It was sum- mer, and the road was in what was then called excellent condition ; but it was rough, and " holding on " kept the young lad of nine years busy. The landscape of hill and valley and the winding Connecticut was good to look upon. All the farms now under cultivation were then in their early stages of development, a few acres under cultivation on each, but the primeval forest robed nearly all in living green.
On the first place west of his father's farm lived John and David Wallace. To the right, in the valley of Cow Brook, lived Joel Wilder, and farther on they passed the home of Aaron Palmer, now the property of Jolin G. Elliott. As they drove on down the hill, they passed by the place then occupied by Barney Palmer, now the house of the widow of the late William C. Nourse. The last place on this road, the Mann's Hill and North Littleton highway, was owned by Zenas L. Bemis. At the corner where they turned into the county road, stood the Williams Tavern, then kept by Edmund Pickett, the son-in-law of the old Captain who had but recently died. On the Larned place lived Naboth Lewis, an old Revolutionary soldier. This farm was but recently owned by James W. Merrill. The Richardson farm was then owned by Anson and George W. Wheeler, who had separate dwellings, - one on the site of the present barn, the other where Mr. Richard- son's house stands. All the farms from this to that now owned by William Bowman were owned by Wheelers, or their brother-in- law, Samuel F. Hammond. Tillotson dwelt where the river road debouches from the county road. His father, Silas Wheeler, re- sided with him. Vespatian Wheeler lived where Milo Harris now resides. The next, or Gilman Wheeler, farm was originally a part of the Vespatian Wheeler place. Upon the death of that gentleman the place was divided between liis sons Dana and Gil-
1 Now owned by John Lyster.
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man ; the last named built the stone house. From this place the road, which had formerly run to the left and passed the house and shop of Josiah Newhall, but had been changed to run directly to the meeting-house, traversed a dense wood, most of it being the property of Jolin Gile. Passing the meeting-house, the route travelled to the village was the same described by Mr. Goodall ; but many changes had taken place in the ownership of the homes along its line. Thomas Fuller then owned the brickyard, and his house was on the site of Mr. Kilburn's farmhouse. Then came the limekiln lot, where Peter Fuller, the hero of Mr. Good- all's bear story, lived and manufactured lime. From this point to the junction of Main and Meadow streets the road was through the forest. Very nearly on the site of the late Isaac Calhoun's residence stood a small one-story house occupied by Solomon Fitch, who had moved there from the north part of the town. Mr. Fitch was a useful citizen, and while not a jack-at-all-trades, he could do many things well. He was a butcher, farmer, sur- veyor, and shingle-maker. From this house the road passed through another stretch of woods to the present meeting-house hill. On the Silsby place Freeman Palmer lived in a wooden house ; he had a blacksmith's shop in what is now a part of Mr. Silsby's garden. Col. Timothy A. Edson had bought out Noah Farr on the Sanger place. As they jogged down the hill they passed James Webster at work by the roadside hewing timber for the " old yellow store " soon to be erected by George Little, a son of the Moses who at that time owned more than ten thousand acres in the town. On the Charles F. Eastman place Capt. Isaac Abbott lived in what was subsequently, for many years, the law office of Henry A. Bellows. Thayer's Hotel croquet ground was occupied by the shoe-shop of Webster B. Merrill. The only other changes in the village between 1809 and 1823 were on the north side of the street, where Dr. Burns and Major Aaron Brackett had built substantial residences.
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