USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Littleton > History of Littleton, New Hampshire, Vol. I > Part 54
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At that time this was the largest tax ever levied in the town. The poll tax of that year, assessed in April, was $1.20, under this levy it was $11.50, while the largest tax assessed amounted to $769.60, paid by E. J. M. Hale & Co.
The stress of the times is further indicated hy the fact that it was judged expedient to bring to the aid of the Selectmen the services of a committee, consisting of James J. Barrett, Henry L. Tilton, R. D. Rounsevel, Silas Hibbard, John M. Charlton, Curtis Carter, and Thaddeus E. Sanger. Through the combined ac- tion of the Selectmen and the committee the quota was promptly filled, and most of the men thus enlisted entered the Heavy Artil- lery regiment.
This was the last special meeting warned to raise money to pro- vide soldiers for the Union Army. An article was inserted in the warrant for the annual March meeting for 1865, " to see if the town will vote to authorize the Selectmen to hire money to procure
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volunteers or substitutes for the service of the United States in anticipation of future calls for soldiers from this town." When this article was reached in the meeting, a motion was made and unanimously adopted " that it be passed over." Thus the curtain fell on the local scene. The most destructive tragedy of modern times was still being enacted before Petersburg, but there too it was nearing its end.
The sums appropriated by the town aggregated $125,000. Some of this was expended for the maintenance of the families of en- listed men. The Legislature, however, soon passed an act by which the expense of such maintenance was assumed by the State, and no direct appropriations were thereafter required for this purpose. The matter of bounties absorbed quite all of this considerable sum. The first bounties paid by the town were $100 to each volunteer, and were voted August 16, 1862 ; the last, those paid in the autumn of 1864, varied from $550 to $1,250. The ex- pense incurred by officers and agents of the town is not included in this computation, as by far the larger share of this sum was paid from money raised to defray " town charges." Altogether a fair estimate of the cost of this item of procuring enlistments to the tax-payers of the town, not counting their share of State and county taxes, would be $130,000.
When President Lincoln issued the proclamation of October 7, 1863, calling for 300,000 men, to be furnished by the 5th of the following January, enlistments were sluggish, the size of bounties had constantly grown, and men whose patriotism was quickened and stimulated by the " greenback," were slow to enter the ser- vice, being withheld by the hope of still larger bounties. To facilitate enlistments under this call Governor Gilmore obtained permission of the War Department to advance the United States bounty of $300. No conditions were imposed, and it was as- sumed that the funds so advanced would be repaid on presen- tation of the assignments of the individual recruits. But the characteristics of some of the men who entered the service at this time and under these conditions were not as well known as they subsequently were, when the War Department arbitrarily established a rule that this bounty should be paid, $60 at the time of mustering in and the balance in semi-annual instalments of $40 each. This town advanced the full amount of $300 to each of its recruits, and when it came to settle with the State, which alone dealt with the Federal Government, it found that the War Department had a generous supply of credits to the account of the town. In some instances army paymasters had paid to the soldier
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one or more instalments of the bounty, the auditor of the treasury for the War Department had paid to the heirs of deceased soldiers the unpaid balance due at the time of death, and the entire sum advanced to the large number of men who deserted was treated as forfeited. The aggregate of these sums claimed by the town was nearly $4,000. It had been advanced in good faith, but the decree of the department was conclusive, and the town bore the loss for which it was in no way at fault. It seems that the responsibility lay at the door of the executive department of the State. The understanding with the United States in the first in- stance was reached through the brief and illusive medium of the telegraph, and it does not appear that any efforts were subsequently made to render the understanding more definite until after the rules for the protection of the department at Washington had been established.
In the town all the burdens imposed by the perils of the hour were carried without complaint. The cost of the public service, town charges and disbursements, all escaped that judicious criti- cism which safeguards public expenditures, and while irregularities occurred it is surprising that the finances of the town, under the conditions then prevalent, were as accurately conducted as they were. More than a quarter of a century passed before this great liability was fully discharged. The men who fought the battles, as well as those who bore their share in this conflict, bequeathed no legacy of debt to an unborn generation, but discharged every obligation, both of blood and treasure, which the perils of their day imposed upon them.
War and its concomitants engrossed the energies of the people during the first half of the decade. When peace came it was not with healing in her wings. Political strife succeeded that of arms, and delayed the processes with which kindly nature strives to cover the ravages of war. Years passed before these engrossing questions were settled, and business, social, and public interests were adjusted to normal conditions.
The industries of the town flourished as never before or since. The woollen factory and the saw-mills for many months were operated over hours ; wages were advanced frequently, seemingly in a race to overtake the constant increase in the price of the necessaries of life. During these years there were no additions to the industrial interests of the town. Notwithstanding the seem- ing prosperity capitalists were cautious, and would not invest in new enterprises. They were wise. As inflation sent prices up like a feather, the reaction that soon followed brought them down
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like lead. Wool was selling at a dollar a pound, and when the first waves of the coming depression struck, speculators, who believed there could be no return to the business conditions that prevailed previous to the war, purchased the entire available stock in this section, and held it for an advance that never came. This staple has gradually declined from that day to the present, and has recently sold in this market for one-sixth what it brought the producers at the close of the war.1 The change brought with it few failures, yet it swept away, in many instances, the large accumulations of the years of prosperity.
The advent of peace gave our citizens an opportunity to turn their attention to municipal and private business improvements. The most important of the first class was the consolidation of the three village school districts into Union District, and the erection of the high-school building in 1867 ; of the second class, the build- ing of Union Block, in 1865, occupies the first place. The want of the educational advantages furnished by the old-time academy or the modern high-school had long been a serious impediment to the welfare of the town. Not only had we failed to attract many persons to our citizenship, but we lost not a few of that most valuable class in every community who desired these educational advantages for their children. Several times the union of these districts was canvassed, and once, in 1865, several ladies, among them Mrs. Charles W. Rand, Mrs. C. W. Brackett, Mrs. Charles Hartshorn, Mrs. Asa Sinclair, and others made a considerable effort to accomplish this object, but without results otherwise than to emphasize the want of such an institution and add to the number of its advocates. In the closing months of 1865 George A. Bingham and William J. Bellows led a successful movement for the establishment of a village high-school. Prior to 1840 the entire village was embraced in School District No. 8. In that year the territory west of the residence of Dr. William Burns, and lying between it and the boundaries of the meadow district, was set off and constituted District No. 15. In 1853 the south side of the river was organized as No. 17. In the winter or spring of 1866 these districts, at the close of a severe contest, voted to unite in one district under the Somersworth Act, so called, and form Union School District. The accomplishment of the task was no easy matter. The opposition was led by Franklin J. Eastman, a
1 Some of the necessaries of life sold in 1864 at the following prices : flour, $21 per bbl .; sugar, 25 cents per lb .; pork, 25 cents per lb .; molasses, $1 per gal .; tea, $2 per lb .; butter, 50 cents per lb .; meal, $2.20 per bag; calico, 45 cents per yard ; sheetings, 60 cents per yard.
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business man and politician of approved ability, who organized his forces in cach district, and fought the union at every stage of its progress, and when that part of the programme had been achieved continued the fight within the new district against the erection of the present high-school building. The meeting which voted the building was held in Rounsevel's Hall, and nearly every voter in the new district was in attendance. The formal motion to build was advocated by George A. Bingham, Rev. Charles E. Milliken, John Farr, and others, and opposed by Mr. Eastman, who declared that the proposition, if adopted, would bankrupt the village and paralyze its industries; that rather than continue his residence here and see the accumulations of a busy life swept away by this folly, he would dispose of his property and move to a community that was governed by sane men. Mr. Bellows closed the case for the friends of the building in an eloquent and impassioned argument which insured its success.
Mr. Eastman sincerely believed the action of the meeting was destined to end in disaster. He was among the first and most enterprising of the business men of the town, and had long been associated with his brothers Cyrus and Ebenezer and Franklin and Henry L. Tilton under the various firm names by which these part- ners had transacted business ; was active in the politics of the town, and noted as a public-spirited citizen. When the purposes of the friends of the union had been accomplished, Mr. Eastman at once made good his declared purpose to remove from town. He sold his real estate, his stock in trade, and much of his personal prop- erty, and went to Tilton, where he engaged in trade. His home was on the Northfield side of the river. In his new home lie threw himself into business and political affairs with his accus- tomed energy, but failed to reach the financial success that at- tended his previous mercantile career. He retired from active business some years before his death, and lived a life of ease irk- some to one possessing his great mental and physical energies. He employed much of his time in those days in local journalism with marked success. His address at the Centennial celebration in this town was replete with information couched in an attractive rhetorical dress. He lived to see all his dire prophecies in regard to the school building confounded, - the last dollar of its debt paid, and the school the most beneficent enterprise ever estab- lished in the town. He died at Tilton, April 8, 1893, at the age of seventy-five years.
The building of Union Block was considered a hazardous finan- cial enterprise. If it can be regarded as a money-making project,
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it certainly was for some years a failure. Primarily, however, the question of profit did not enter into the scheme of its building. The Masonic Lodge was then housed in contracted quarters directly under the roof of the building put up and occupied by Hiram B. Smith as a tin-shop. It was too small for the purposes of the lodge, and efforts had been made, without success, to induce some individual member of the fraternity to erect a block which would furnish the required room. Nothing daunted, a few of the younger members conceived the plan of accomplishing this purpose through the medium of a corporation. To this end they drew up and cir- culated a paper for subscriptions to the stock of a company to be organized for the erection of a building that would furnish the desired lodge room. The undertaking was aided by the passage of a vote by the town at the March meeting in 1865, not to repair the old town house, but to hold town meetings in the village. This vote induced Philip H. Paddleford, Charles Hartshorn, and James J. Barrett to increase their subscriptions to the stock, and they were subsequently chosen a building committee by the subscribers with full powers. The committee at once purchased the vacant lot known as the Bowman mill-yard, and the present substantial block was erected and occupied by tenants in 1866. The first town meeting held in the village was that of March, 1867, when Union Hall was occupied for that purpose.1 The Masonic Hall was then regarded as too large, but the members of the fraternity at the present time are perplexed by the same problem that con- fronted their predecessors in 1865, and are considering plans for more commodious quarters. The building committee that had charge of building the block intrusted the selection of a design and other architectural work to Mr. Paddleford, one of their number, who was a millwright, and more familiar with the construction of saw-mills than of business structures in the busy heart of a village. The result was a substantial building calculated to withstand the assaults of centuries, but utterly devoid of beauty, and pre- senting the outward appearance of a barn rather that what would be expected in a block that was destined for a score of years to be the most important business structure in town. Its outward appearance has been greatly changed and improved since the property passed into the possession of Henry L. Tilton and Charles F. Eastman, its present owners.
The new public hall was given the name of Union Hall. It was
1 The old meeting house, or town house as it was then called, was abandoned to the ravages of the weather ; town meetings had been held within its walls for fifty years.
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sufficiently capacious to meet the requirements of all ordinary occasions, having a seating capacity for the accommodation of more than a thousand. For nearly twenty years prior to the completion of this building the only public hall in the village was the Granite,1 with a seating capacity of less than five hundred. Under this hall and fronting the street was a shed for carriages, an unsightly object as seen from the street. The building was purchased by R. D. Rounsevel in the late fifties, and turned with its gable fronting the street, and the lower section furnished and occupied by him as a general store. The entrance to the hall was at the rear of the building by tortuous stairs, which were a menace to life and limb. In this hall political meetings were held in those strenuous days as well as travelling shows and local theatri- cals. Here, ;too, the early meetings of Union District to which allusion has been made were held. Mr. Rounsevel was succeeded in business at this point by Nelson C. Farr, who conducted a large business here until his death. The property is now connected, on its front, with the Northern Hotel. Soon after Union Hall was opened, the old hall was converted into a tenement.
A glance back ward discloses the fact that after the passing of a generation not one of the men who were then active factors in the business life of the town is thus engaged at the present time. The survivors of that active group who gave renown to the town for business enterprise are Royal D. Rounsevel, who is still in harness as a mountain landlord ; Benjamin W. Kilburn, the man- ufacturer of stereoscopic views ; Noalı W. Ranlett, manufacturer of carriages; William J. Bellows, and Henry L. Tilton, who have but recently retired from business to the enjoyments of an old age free from the perplexities and cares of mercantile affairs.2
In June, 1861, John Bowman, the most extensive holder of real estate in town, while walking near the brink of the river bank near his residence, fell over the embankment, and received injuries which resulted in his death a few days after the accident.
1 Rounsevel's Hall.
2 The men who were leaders in business in the years from 1860 to 1870 were Cyrus and Franklin J. Eastman, Franklin and Henry L. Tilton, George Band, Henry C. Redington, William Bailey, E. S. Woolson, Nelson C. Farr, Daniel E. Thayer, Hartwell H. Southworth, Capt. George Farr, John Hale, Curtis C. Bowman, Marquis L. Goold, among merchants. Charles Eaton, who is the present postmaster, joined the group in 1868. Capt. Isaac Abbott, Benjamin and Calvin F. Cate, Philip H. Paddleford, Rufus B. Hale, Josiah Kilburn, and Joseph Warren Hale, and Isaac Calhoun from 1868, among manufacturers; Charles W. Rand, Harry and George A. Bingham, John and Evarts W. Farr, John Ancrum Winslow and Edward Woods, and Edmund Carleton among the lawyers ; Henry L. Thayer and C. C. Knapp, landlords ; and many others of less prominence have passed away.
ROYAL D. ROUNSEVEL.
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Jonas Bowman, of Henniker, was a Lieutenant with Stark at Bennington, and a Captain the next year in General Whipple's Brigade in the Rhode Island campaign ; two of his sons, Jonathan and Walter, came to this town in 1802, and settled on farms at the west end. John, the second son of Jonathan, born in Henni- ker, was a lad of twelve when his father's family came here. In due time he married Lovisa, eldest child of John Gile, who was born in Bethlehem, December 9, 1800, and died in Littleton, September 6, 1877, having survived her husband sixteen years. In accordance with a custom of those days, now obsolete, this couple reared a large family consisting of six sons and eight daughters, all but one of whom lived to a marriageable age. At the time of the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Bowman, November 4, 1816, they settled on the farm recently owned by Leslie F. Bean, near the tavern kept by the wife's father, now the Fitch place. In the course of time John Bowman purchased the village tavern, which was for many subsequent years known as the old Bowman place. After the death of Mrs. Bowman this property was sold by Major Bow- man, her administrator, to Henry L. Tilton, who organized a cor- poration of which he and his wife and son George H. were the sole stockholders, and the old tavern was torn from its founda- tions and moved to the rear of what was once the family garden, where it has been permitted to prolong its life of usefulness as a tenement. After the lapse of more than a century it still pre- serves its ancient form. It was the first frame building erected in the village, and at that time there were not more than four framed houses within the town limits. Mr. Bowman continued to keep tavern here for a few years, but the more pretentious Union House gradually rendered its business unprofitable and it became a private residence. The original site of the old house was near the centre of Opera Block. A long shed with six or eight-arched entrances to the front side extended from the east end of the house nearly to the bridge. Within the shed near the house a perennial stream of pure mountain water through all these years poured its silver volume into an old-fashioned trough, in which two compartments had been cut from an ancient pine butt, the first receiving the stream from the penstock to quench the thirst of man, while the surplus trickled into the other, from whence horse and ox and cow drank their fill of its crystal waters.
The barns stood on the lot where now is the residence of Mrs. J. M. Ladd, and partly in the street, as now laid. It was long neglected, and became so dilapidated as to sorely disfigure the landscape. Nothing would induce the owner to make it more
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presentable, so one night " the boys " assembled in force and witli bar and tackle levelled the structure to the ground. In the morn- ing the owner gazed upon the scene, but said not a word.
In more than one respect Jolin Bowman was the counterpart of John Gile, his father-in-law. He had the same thrifty business habits, love of work, and perseverance ; the same sound judgment of values, inflexible honesty, and a like carelessness as to his per- sonal appearance. To the end he walked our streets clad in honest homespun, his bowed form supported by a generous staff of un- trimmed edging snatched from the waste of his saw-mill, in dress, form, and habits a type of generations that have gone before.
He was exacting in business matters, demanding the last penny his due, and equally insistent in the payment of his obligations. An instance illustrative of this habit is related that occurred while he kept tavern. It was the custom, up to the time the cars reached Wells River, for drovers from northern Vermont to drive their herds through this town and the Franconia Notch to Brighton market. On one of his trips a drover paid twice for a long six cigar. Wlien Mr. Bowman discovered the error, he at once mounted his horse and followed the vanished herd until it was overtaken on Gilmanton Hill, where the three cents was restored to its careless owner. He accumulated a valuable property. After his death nearly two thousand dollars in specie was found in the old hair-covered trunk that was used as his " safe deposit vault," where it lay awaiting an opportunity for profitable investment in lands.
Mr. Bowman was a sturdy Democrat, who never sought nor would accept office. Mucli to his regret he saw his sons, then coming to man's estate, swept into the Whig party by the log- cabin and hard-cider campaign of 1840. The youngest son, born that memorable year, alone followed in the father's political footsteps.
Two other citizens who had been important factors in busi- ness finished their race in these years, Timothy Gile and Franklin Tilton. Mr. Gile was born in Enfield, married Dolly Stevens, of Wentworth, and thenceforth lived in Bethlehem and Wentworth until he came to Littleton in 1833, and bought of David Hoskins the meadow farm on which Captain Caswell made the first settle- ment. This farm then comprised those now occupied by Noah Farr and John Tunney. It was, and doubtless is, one of the best farms in the town. He possessed a handsome property when he came here, and became a large investor in unimproved real estate, which increased in value until he was regarded as the second wealthiest resident of the town some years before his death, in
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1864. He was a shrewd, intelligent man, in whom a keen sense of humor had developed through his intercourse with some of the sharpest business men in the county. Before coming to Little- ton he had sold to Timothy Morse, a brother of Robert, who was one of the contractors who built the railroad, a tract of pine tim- ber land in the Baker's River valley, for which he received in part payment from Mr. Morse a note for $3,000. Mr. Morse was a man with a reputation of being over-sharp, tricky in fact, but who met his notes promptly. When the note held by Mr. Gile became due, he called with one of his partners, with a large bundle of bank notes, which he handed to Mr. Gile, saying that there was the exact amount of the note, which he would like to take and be off, as his business was urgent. Mr. Gile took the bills, and wetting the end of his finger, deliberately began to count the pile. Mr. Morse again assured him that it was exactly right, and remarked that he would not cheat Brother Gile, as he liad lately " experienced religion " and had joined the church. Mr. Gile continued to count the money with great deliberation, remark- ing, as he did so, that he knew Brother Morse had been converted, but he thought he might still be a little Morsey ; and Mr. Morse had to wait until the count was finished.
The tract on the south side of the river from Colonel Eastman's line to the west end of South Street was one of his possessions. It was heavily timbered with primeval forest. The timber was sold in 1868 to A. L. and Warren G. Brown, who built a mill near the mouth of the Curtis brook, and in a few years had stripped the land of the last vestige of wood and timber, leaving it utterly denuded. For this timber, for which something more than a score of years before Mr. Gile paid $1,200 his heirs received as many thousands.
Mr. Gile was an unassuming Christian man, noted for minding his own business and doing it well. All the family characteristics - sound judgment, prudence, and economy - were his. He was a member of tlie Congregational Church before coming to Littleton, was admitted to membership in the church here, and was a liberal contributor to its support during his life. A steadfast Whig, and possessing in a high degree those qualities that are necessary to a successful administration of public affairs, it is some- what strange that his fellow-citizens passed him by when selecting their public servants. He may have been averse to holding office, and desired all his time for the transaction of his own affairs, but more likely he was thrust aside by the smaller men who were clamorous for an opportunity to pose in public stations. He was
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