USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 34
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The first meeting of the charter members of the corporation was held at the Union House in Littleton, September 16, 1848, and a temporary organization effected. A committee was appointed to procure a survey of the route and raise necessary funds to defray the expenses of the committee. Its report is printed in full in the first annual report of the board of directors, issued in 1849. J. S. Gregg, C. E., of Boston, had charge of the survey. The work was begun at Wells River on the 11th of October, and ended at the Colonel White place in Lancaster on the 25th of November, 1848.3 The distance covered by the survey was 383 miles. The heaviest grade was 471 fect to the mile, while eight miles were level.
Mr. Gregg's estimate of expense for grading, masonry, and super- structure to Littleton was $5,000 per mile, and the entire cost of the road, not including equipment, from Wells River to Lancaster was estimated at $600,000. In no event, according to the report, could it exceed $800,000.
The expense incurred by the committee in the matter of survey was $680, including $200 due Ira Goodall for services and expenses in procuring the charter. This item seems insignificant when com- pared with charges for similar legislative services in recent years. It should be added that Mr. Goodall and the committee received their pay in the stock of the road.
The directors, at this time, entertained a very optimistic view of the situation. They gave a brief review of the business tributary
1 It was then expected that this road would be constructed through Lancaster. Its directors, finally, decided to build through Northumberland. The matter was a subject of controversy for a long time, and was finally compromised by the payment of $20,000 by the railroad company to Lancaster. This fund was subsequently invested in a hotel.
2 The others named in the charter were David G. Goodall, Morris Clark, Presby West, Jr., Nahum I). Day, Leonard Johnson, Richard P. Kent, Royal Joyslin, James W. Weeks, William Burns, William D. Spaulding, 'Thomas Smith, Asa Colby, Thomas Montgomery, John M. Gove, Edward O. Kenney, Greenleaf Cummings, Levi Parker, Daniel Clark, James P. Webster, Jonathan Moulton, Benjamin Paddle- ford, Andrew S. Woods, Ira Goodall, Samuel Ross, William Lang, Abiel Deming, Enos Wells, and Ira Whitcher.
3 The survey was not completed to Lancaster village at this time owing to the severity of the weather.
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to the proposed road, which is of interest at the present time as in- dicating the many changes that have taken place in the character and amount of business during a half century.
Their first item embraces the vast amount of pine, spruce, and hemlock timber along the route. They then state the manufactur- ing establishments in the several villages. At Bath there was a woollen factory, several saw-mills, a grist-mill, and machine shop ; at Lisbon, saw-mills, a starch-mill, and grist-mill, while Littleton was described as having a larger business than any town in the State north of Lebanon. Among its industries were two woollen factories, two saw-mills, a starch-mill, grist-mill, machine shop, iron foundry, and a scythe factory, using a large quantity of iron and coal. This recapitulation of the business of the Ammonoosuc val- ley was deemed sufficient to warrant the statement that " the road would pay good dividends from the moment of its completion."
The corporation was organized at a meeting held in this town February 6, 1849. The first board of directors consisted of Ira Goodall and Andrew Salter Woods, of Bath ; David G. Goodall, Lisbon ; Ebenezer Eastman, Littleton ; Morris Clark, Whitefield ; Levi Sargent, Manchester; and John Pierce, of Bethlehem. This board organized by electing Ira Goodall president, and William J. Bellows clerk. Mr. Bellows is the only survivor of those who were active in securing the charter, raising funds, and in many other ways doing those things that were necessary to accomplish the difficult but important results for which they were organized.
The organization effected and the minimum amount of stock prescribed by the charter having been subscribed, a meeting of thic stockholders was held at Bath in December, 1850, and the direc- tors were " authorized to let the substructure of the road, from the line of the Boston, Concord, and Montreal road to Littleton village and to assess the shares to pay the cash part of the contract, pro- vided that sufficient should, in the best judgment of the directors, be subscribed to do this, so as to leave the corporation free of debt when done."
By virtue of the authority thus vested in the board, the direc- tors in March, 1851, entered into a contract with Messrs. Morse, Chamberlain, & Co. to do the grading, stonework, bridging and laying the superstructure ready for the cars for the sum of $108,750, one half of this amount to be paid in stock and one half in cashı.
At the time the contract was executed, 737 shares of stock had been subscribed for. Of this number eighty-three citizens of this town had taken 270 shares, of whom John Gile was the largest
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History of Littleton.
individual subscriber with 50 shares standing in his name.1 Ira Goodall, the president of the road, held 50 shares.
The contractors at once entered upon the work of construction, making a beginning in Bath. The senior member of this firm, Robert Morse, was of Rumney. He was an enterprising business man who found his stage interests on the Concord route super- seded by the car and iron horse a year before his firm assumed this contract. John E. Chamberlain was the owner of a meadow farm in Newbury, and one of the most prominent men of that town; active, energetic, and far-seeing, he loved business for business' sake, and continued to engage in large enterprises long after he had passed what are generally regarded as the active years of man's life. James L. Hadley, then of Rumney, and later a citizen of this town, was a member of the contracting firm. He was a tall, strong, energetic man, very active in the practical or constructive business of the firm. He was born in Nashua, and about the time the railroad was opened for business came to Littleton. He subsequently removed to Barton, Vt., then the northern terminus of the Passumpsic Railroad, and became agent of that road there. He finally went West, and died at Kansas City in 1895.
In the light of modern methods the construction and equipment of twenty-one miles of railroad through a populous and moderately wealthy valley would not seem a difficult undertaking. But fifty years ago such a work was a hazardous matter, in which all who embarked in the enterprise placed their fortunes in jeopardy. The building of the White Mountains Railroad was a local affair. Its projectors, directors, and stockholders, with a few unimportant exceptions, were residents of the Ammonoosuc valley. They were men of experience, courage, enterprise, and rare devotion to the welfare of the community in which they lived. While they had an abiding faith in the financial success of the road, they knew how great was the risk they assumed when they accepted the responsi- bility of financing the enterprise, yet they did not flinch nor draw back. With few exceptions the stockholders were not men of wealth, while many of them possessed means so moderate that the loss of the sums subscribed to the stock of the road, would cause them serious embarrassment. These men met the first assessment promptly ; when the second became due about twenty-five per cent of the individual holders defaulted, but those holding five or more
1 The remaining shares were distributed as follows : Lisbon, 120 shares ; Bethle- hem, 26; Whitefield, 42 ; Bath, 117; Landaff, 38 ; Lyman, 6; Franconia, 5; Man- chester, 5; all others, 86.
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shares met the demand with currency or its equivalent ; the third assessment narrowed the circle of those who responded to the board of directors and their immediate friends, and it became ap- parent that many of the stockholders had assumed obligations which they were unable to liquidate. Then came a period of litiga- tion extending through several years, involving the stockholders and the contractors, the creditors of both, and rival claimants for the possession of the road.
During the legal turmoil the contractors reached a point border- ing on financial exhaustion. It became a question whether the work should be abandoned, as it seemed a hopeless task to make any further attempt to save anything from the financial wreck. Mr. Morse, however, concluded that a continuance until they reached the end of the little rope left, could not leave them in a worse posi- tion and might possibly improve the situation. This view was acquiesced in by his associates and the struggle was continued with successful results.
The burden of the contractors was shared by the directors. Dur- ing the struggle several members resigned from the board, some through fear of possible financial entanglements and others because of the many discouragements attending a discharge of the duties of the position. John Pierce retired in 1850 and was succeeded by Ezra C. Hutchins, of Bath. Judge Woods and Levi Sargent re- tired in 1851 and Samuel P. Peavey, of Landaff, and George B. Redington were elected to the positions thus vacated.
Through all the storm and stress of these troublous times Ira Goodall and Ebenezer Eastman never faltered nor looked back. They kept with steadfast purpose the course resolved upon at the beginning of the enterprise. To this cause they devoted their time and their great ability, and for it made sacrifices of health and fortune.
Ira Goodall, the youngest son of the Rev. David Goodall, was born at Halifax, Vt., in 1788, and came to Littleton with his parents in 1796. His education was acquired at the school in dis- trict number three supplemented by the instruction of his father in some of the higher branches not taught in the district school. On attaining his majority he entered the office of Moses P. Payson, then among the leaders of the Bar in this section. He was ad- mitted to the Bar in 1814 and began the practice of his profession at Bath. His business was large from the start and in a few years equalled, if it did not exceed that of any other practitioner in the State. For nearly half a century he ranked among the leaders of the Bar. For many years in the early part of the century, land
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History of Littleton.
titles in Lisbon, Landaff and later those in Concord Gore, that part of Bethlehem adjoining Littleton, were in litigation owing to conflicting grants by the Royal Governor. In this class of cases Mr. Goodall was one of the leading counsel and bore the brunt of the legal battle for his clients, and generally his contention was in- dorsed by court and jury. He was employed in nearly every case of importance in his judicial district for many years.
Andrew Salter Woods and Alonzo P. Carpenter, each of whom was subsequently Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, were among those who at different times were students in his office and subse- quently members of his law firm.
In his practice he accumulated a large fortune, which was to a considerable extent invested in mills and other property which was calculated to promote the prosperity of his town.
Mr. Goodall possessed an indomitable will, untiring energy, and a knowledge of human nature that was seldom at fault. His faculty of acquiring knowledge was such that his mind was a storehouse of all sorts of information and it was regarded as among his weak- nesses that in addressing the jury he did not always confine him- sclf to the law and the facts in the case under consideration, but found it easy, if not necessary, to amplify his argument with statements, illustrations and analogies drawn from his abundant stores of miscellaneous information. This was doubtless an in- herited characteristic, as his father's sermons were apt to be embellished in a similar manner. While this method would seem calculated to confuse rather than to convince the jury, there was evident method in the practice. By these digressions he secured the attention of the twelve men, and before he closed had managed to fix in their minds all the points he regarded as essential for them to consider in order to return a verdict for his client. Hc was tireless in the preparation of a case for presentation to court or jury, making a minute investigation not only of the law and the facts, but of the history, habits, and personal characteristics of the panel from which his jury was to be selected and also of the wit- nesses who were to appear against him. None of thesc matters were neglected or postponed for consideration in the court room. It is probable that no member of the bar of this county ever ex- celled him as a winner of verdicts.
When Mr. Goodall embarked in the railroad enterprise he brought to the task all his vast resources of experience, knowledge of the law, and wealth, the accumulations of a lifetime of restless industry. These were his contribution to the creation of this public utility, and the end, for him, was a tragedy, - for health of
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mind and body, as well as fortune, were sacrificed in the consumma- tion of this work. On his retirement he lingered for a time amid the scenes of his former activity, and in 1856 removed to Beloit, Wis., where he continued to reside with his son until his death, which occurred on the 3d of March, 1868, at the advanced age of eighty years.
In the board of directors the member who was most closely iden- tified with Mr. Goodall and shared with him the responsibility of the management of the financial affairs of the corporation was Ebenezer Eastman. These men almost alone carried the burden from the beginning to the time of the death of Mr. Eastman in August, 1853. They pledged their estates to secure funds to keep the contractors at work, and when the final crash came the large estate of one was lost in the ruins, while that of the other was in- volved in litigation with the road, and according to the brief of counsel for the estate,1 the suit of the corporation was an attempt to take " the last pittance that withholds a helpless widow and two orphan children from absolute want and poverty."
Ebenezer Eastman was born in Danville, Vt., June 15, 1804. He received a common school education, and carly in life entered the shop of Samuel Parker to learn the trade of watchmaker and jeweller. Having mastered this trade he purchased the busi- ness of his instructor and continued it with success until 1838, when, with Henry Mattocks, also of Danville, he acquired the in- terest of Ethan Colby in the firm of Colby and Eastman, then in business at the " old yellow store." The new firm assumed the style of Eastman, Mattocks, & Co., the late Col. Cyrus Eastman being the senior partner. During the next fifteen years he was largely identified with the business interests of this section and a prominent factor in the development of the town.
Mr. Eastman's business capacity was of the first order. It was said by one noted in the business world for his great sagacity 2 that " Ebenezer Eastman was the best business man with whom he had ever come in contact." He was not, perhaps, the equal of William Brackett in the mastery of detail, nor of his brother Cyrus in the execution of matured plans. In fact these matters seldom en- gaged his attention. But in breadth of conception, in the capacity to plan a great and complicated business enterprise and guide it through a devious course to a successful conclusion, he had no pre- decessor and has had no successor among our business men. With sound judgment he combined an extensive knowledge of
1 White Mountains Railroad v. Eastman, 34 N. H. Reports, p. 129.
2 E. J. M. Hale.
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History of Littleton.
human nature, and an instinct for management that enabled him to deal with all classes on more than equal terms.
In personal appearance Mr. Eastman was slight, straight, and dignified, somewhat clerical in appearance and dress. His head was massive and crowned with a mass of black hair brushed back from the forehead and hanging nearly to the shoulders. The eyes were black, full, and penetrating, and the forehead broad, high and slightly retreating. He was a silent man much given to reflection, and when the mood was upon him passed hours apparently un- mindful of the busy scenes transpiring about him. When the problem engaging his attention was solved to his satisfaction he would attend to the wants of customers, or join the company about the store in the winter months and discuss with them the political issues of the hour. Here, as in business, his penetrating logical mind enabled him to discern the important features of the political campaign and explain them with convincing clearness. Like all the members of the family, he was a democrat, not merely in a party sense, though he was all the term implies in that respect, but in the broader meaning of the term. He was plain, matter-of-fact, undemonstrative, unassuming. To him a person was a man or thing ; which of these he might be, depended entirely upon his character, and in no way upon his possessions or surroundings.
The trials and anxieties through which he passed during 1852 and the spring and early summer of the following year weakened his constitution. The labor imposed upon him at this time was such as few men could long endure. All his possessions were pledged to the cause to which his efforts were devoted, and while that work was unfinished his energies responded to every demand made upon them. He was present on the occasion of the arrival of the first passenger train, and joined with his townsmen in an informal celebration of that event. He was not well at the time, and complained to a friend of illness. A few days later he was prostrated. The progress of the disease was watched by our citizens with grave concern, and when it was learned that a fatal termination was to be anticipated, a pall of gloom settled over the community and rested there for many months. He closed his earthly journey on the 26th of August, 1853, at the age of forty- nine years.
Owing to his connection with the railroad, his estate was much involved and litigation followed. On a final settlement his heirs received but a small remnant of the possessions he held when he joined with Ira Goodall to build the White Mountains Railroad. Had he lived to direct affairs, doubtless he would have received the
E
EBENEZER EASTMAN.
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benefits of his far-reaching plans. But this was not to be. He planted, and the community gathered the harvest.
Morris Clarke, of Whitefield, was another director who sacrificed much to insure the building of the road. He was a lumber manu- facturer, an intelligent and prominent man. There were large interests in his town to be benefited by the construction of the road, yet Mr. Clarke was about the only citizen to take any con- siderable interest in its building. When the crash came, Mr. Clarke removed to the West and began business life anew among strange surroundings.
The work of constructing the road progressed according to the terms of the contract. Construction trains were run to Bath in the spring of 1853 and to Lisbon in the early summer of that year.1 Cars conveying passengers were run to Lisbon before the opening of the road to Littleton, but they were not regular in the sense of being scheduled or run on a time-table. The first train to this town was run on Monday, August 1, 1853. At that time a station was nearly completed on the site of the present freight depot, but this could not be reached by the train for the reason that the cut along the margin of the Brackett meadow had not been filled, and the train discharged its passengers at a point in the rear of the tenement on South Street, belonging to the estate of the late Col. Cyrus Eastman. This train had not been advertised, but the day before its arrival, the construction crew had laid the iron to the great curve below Bridge Street, and Mr. Hadley announced that the first "regular " passenger train would arrive on the fol- lowing day.
Before noon the iron was laid to the end of the completed grading, the road-bed cleared of its accumulated rubbish, and a set of stairs, made of shingle blocks, built up the steep bank bor- dering Colonel Eastman's field. South Street was then known as Pierce and King Street, and only extended to the present resi- dence of Hon. W. H. Mitchell. A lane, christened E Street, led from the west end of Pierce and King Street to the tenement near the temporary terminus of the railroad, and was used as a way to and from the track.
A large concourse of people thronged the hill above the track and the meadow below to welcome the iron horse. Many of them had never seen a railroad train, and when the " Reindeer," under full headway, rounded the curve into view, spitting fire and smoke,
1 The first passenger train was run to Lisbon, July 1, 1853. The first merchan- dise sent over the road was billed to Wells & Young, merchants, at Sugar Hill, on the 21st of June, 1853.
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History of Littleton.
they sent up a shout of joy that mingled strangely with the shrill whistle of the locomotive, and for a few moments it seemed that pandemonium was let loose in the valley. This train consisted of an engine, the " Reindeer," a combination car for baggage, ex- press, and mail, and a passenger coach. All but the engine, which had been leased by the contractors for construction pur- poses, were borrowed for the trip from connecting roads. Mr. Leavitt, of Meredith, was conductor, and Peter Dunklee of the iron train, was at his post as engineer. The train had been made up at Woodsville, where it received the passengers, baggage, mail, and express, and at Wells River additions were made to this freight, and when it started up the valley of the Ammonoosuc it was heavily loaded, and the " Reindeer " had hard work to " make time " on the trip. She was a small machine designed for freight traffic. This equipment was used but a few times. When the cut was filled and regular trains ran to the completed depot, the directors leased sufficient rolling stock of the lower roads to furnish an equipment.
When in full operation, the service consisted of one passenger and one freight train making a round trip from this station to Wells River each day, except Sunday. The passenger left at 9.15 o'clock A. M., and on the return trip arrived at five in the after- noon. The same locomotive and train crew for some months did double service, operating both trains, being transferred from the passenger service to that of the freight at Woodsville. The freight left Woodsville as soon after the arrival of the passenger train at that station as it could be made up, and the return trip was made in time to take out the north-bound passenger train, about four o'clock in the afternoon. The trainmen consisted of James M. Hadley, conductor ; Henry A. Cummings, engineer ; Walter Farnham, fireman ; and Levi Ward Cobleigh, baggage-master and brakeman. This double-service arrangement was not of long dura- tion. The rough, unballasted condition of the road and the capacity of the engine were such that it was found quite impos- sible to fulfil the conditions prescribed in the published time-table, and an additional set of trainmen was put in service. Richard Wiggin was the first regular freight conductor, and he was soon succeeded by Isaac Edwin Abbott, a son of Capt. Isaac. He had for some years been in company with his brother, Charles Henry, in freighting from Concord, and subsequently keeping pace with the progress of the railroad as it advanced in this direction from that terminus to this town.
After the first year, at the close of summer travel, there was but one train each way during the winter season, and that a mixed
REIN DEER
FIRST LOCOMOTIVE RUN INTO LITTLETON. White Mountains Railroad (now B. & M.).
RAILROAD CROSSING
LOOKOUT .O
MEHR ENGINE.
FIRST RAILROAD DEPOT.
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train. This condition lasted until the road passed into the pos- session of the Montreal Railroad. The conditions that prevailed at such times can be known only to those who have travelled on a mixed passenger and freight train as they were then operated. The freight was of the first consequence and the passengers of secondary importance, and it mattered little whether they made their connections with the lower roads if the freight pulled through.
The road had much difficulty in procuring locomotives, its credit not being of the best. It hired first from one road and then from another. All the lower roads were interested in having this line operated, and each seems to have shared in the risk by furnish- ing an engine for a few months. Under this arrangement the " Granite," the first locomotive in regular service, was loaned by the Boston, Concord, and Montreal ; the " Boy " by the Passump- sic, the " Hillsborough " by the Northern, the " Lamoille" by the Vermont Central, and the "Chicopee " by the Connecticut River Railroad. After the lease of the road to the Boston, Concord, and Montreal the " Rumford " was in service here for a long time. None of these were powerful machines ; the " Boy," in particular, was small and barely adequate to move the trains.
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