History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire, Part 127

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1520

USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire > Part 127
USA > New Hampshire > Belknap County > History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire > Part 127

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The tract of land selected was, by nature, well adapted to the use to which he has applied it. It is peculiar in its topographical conformation, there being a deep basin in the centre, with level-topped ridges surrounding it on three sides, with a slight de- pression or hollow leading off on the third. It is a beautifully wooded tract, not dense, but nicely dis- tributed over almost the entire surface. This tract, consisting of about six acres, Mr. Moore has fenced in with split granite posts, set about eighteen inches apart, around three sides of the inclosure and a part of the fourth. The posts stand about three feet and half above ground and about eighteen inches under the surface. This fence is to be completed by an iron rod traversing the top of the posts and fastened to each, the holes being already drilled for the purpose.

In the valley, in the centre of the cemetery, Mr. Moore has leveled off the land and walled the edges of the basin with split granite. In the centre of this beautiful little plot is a miniature lake, with water clear as crystal, to which there is no visible inlet or outlet; and in the centre of this lake Mr. Moore has

constructed a little island and planted it with flowers. He has also constructed a beautiful drive around tlie park or basin, and built a receiving vanlt in the hill- side, near the entrance to the valley. He has cleared the underbrush from most of the tract, and contem- plates laying out drives around and through it. In doing this work, Mr. Moore has built to himself a monument that will not only serve to keep imperish- able his own memory, but he has prepared a resting- place for the generations that will succeed him, credit- able to himself, ornamental to the town and of service to the community at large.

Mr. Moore took an active part in building the Con- gregational Church in Loudon village and in supply- ing the same with a bell. He is a member of the Congregational Society.

He has never been an office-seeker, but has preferred the quiet walk of the private citizen. In militia days, before the war, however, he took an interest in mili- tary matters and held the rank of captain.

Through a long life he has been an earnest, honest, industrious, hard-working and successful man. Pos- sessed of a strong physique, he still bids fair to survive many years. He began life prior to the present cen- tury, being born June 29, 1799. He has outlived all of his immediate family, and most, if not all, of his schoolmates and boyhood companions. His hearing is defective, but with that exception, his senses are remarkably well preserved, and his general health exceptionally good.

HISTORY OF NORTHFIELD.

BY LUCIAN HUNT, A.M ..

CHAPTER I.

Geography .- Northfield, in Merrimack County, was so named, it is said, because lying north of Can- terbury, from which it was set off by the act of incor- poration in 1780.

It contains about twenty-seven square miles, or seventeen thousand acres, and is bonnded on the north by the Winnipisaukee 1 River, east by Gilman- ton and Canterbury, south by Canterbury and west by Franklin and the Merrimack River. Once North- field was bounded by the Merrimack along its whole western border, but its northwest corner, embracing what is now Franklin Falls, sloped so lovingly towards Franklin, and Franklin looked so longingly towards the corner, that they became united in the year 1858 by act of Legislature.

Northfield, like many other New Hampshire towns, has a diversified aspect. It has hill and vale, npland and low plain, waving woods, smooth, rolling fields, rich intervale, and beyond question belongs to the Granite State, as that mineral abonnds in all its varied forms-sands, pebbles, bowlders, ledges and the bare mountain peak.

The general appearance of the town, however, is that of a trough-like valley running north and south, with a parallel ridge of hills on each side,-the west- ern called Oak Hill, and the northeastern Bay, which, extending sonthward, culminates in the mountain peak of Bean Hill.

Of the three, Oak Hill is more smooth and regular, and presents a longer succession of excellent farms,

and Bay Hill, with equally good farms, though less in number, has more charming scenery-indeed, few places in New England can surpass it in that respect- and is nearer the privileges of the flourishing village of Tilton, while Bean Hill is by far the most con- spicuous, being, in fact, the highest elevation between this part of the Merrimack Valley and the Atlantic ; but the many goodly farms on its broad shoulders, though well rewarding the true farmer, are not, on the whole, considered so attractive as those of her sister hills, being too much lifted np and too near the primitive rock of the summit.

Bay Hill derived its name from the fine view it affords of Sanbornton Bay, so called, which is, in reality, the lower part of the lake, with a slight inter- vening fall. We challenge New Hampshire, south of Red Hill, to produce a scene of quiet, rural beauty, with a touch of the grand, equal to the pros- pect from Bay Hill, looking north.

Before you is spread the valley of the Winnipisau- kee, with its lake of that name; and flowing from it, with its succession of bays and rapids, comes the river, dancing onward to bathe Northfield's northern boundary, and to blend with her sister, Pemigewasset, on its western border. The valley is oval, and look- ing over its largest diameter, yon see it encircled by Gunstock, Belknap, Blue Mountain, Ossipee, Red Hill and others, keeping watch and ward, as it were, over the beautiful valley they inclose; while over their heads, in the far distance, we espy Chocorua, Cardi- gan, Mount Washington and his brothers, while di- rectly west, on our left, like a pyramid, rises Kear- sarge, and nestled below, amid green foliage and sparkling waters, within a mile's distance, lies the bustling, romantic, growing village of Tilton, with its river, its fairy isle, its busy factories, pleasant residences, Roman arch, college buildings and Til- ton mansion, and surrounding these on all sides stretch away, mile npon mile, substantial upland farms. Oak Hill also has a fine view of Tilton on the one side and Franklinward down into the valley of the Merrimack on the other.

Bean Hill owes its name, presumably, not to that esculent prized so highly as a dish indispensable to a

1 We propose that this spelling he adopted. The common method misleads as regards the pronunciation. Were the g pronounced hard, giving the Indian guttural, as the original spellers intended, thus-" Wiu- nipissoggy "-it might do ; but g followed by e is expected to be pro- nounced soft, which here would be "sodgy," of course wrong. Spelled with a k does not exactly give the proper sound, but approximates ; it is much better than the ordinary spelling. And k is very frequently sub- stituted for g in Indian names ; for instance, Nantucket for Nantugget, though the latter gives more correctly the Indian guttural. So, Paw- tucket, not Pawtugget. Our two brooks give the true Indian gutturals -Sondogardy aud Skenduggardy-not dodgeardy or dudgerdy. Wioni- pisankee, so spelled, looks more like an Indian name, sounds more like an Indian name ; it is an Indian name. Also, let there be a double e at the end ; otherwise a stranger would be sure to pronounce the last two syllables, sawk.

516

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NORTHFIELD.

New England Sunday dinner, but to a man of that name; but how, when or where, we have been able to find no record. It throws forward a broad spur to the north and another to the east into Canterbury, and on these are its most valuable farms. Its summit is divided into three peaks, and corresponding to these are two narrow parallel valleys on the southern slope, shedding their waters into a pond just beyond the line in Canterbury. The view from the summit is far more widely extended than elsewhere in town, but loses much of the scenic beauty of the Bay Hill pros- pect, which latter is literally picturesque,-a picture set in a mountain frame.

Besides these, two smaller elevations claim a moment's attention.

One is the bold bluff opposite the Tilton bridge, on which the granite areh is erected, sometimes called Mount Griswold, from a legend I dimly remember to have heard many years since, to the effect that Fort Griswold once stood on its summit, as a defense against the Indians. How much truth there is in the tradition we cannot say, but we think now would be a good time to christen it with some permanent appella- tion. What say, Northfielders, shall it be Mount Gris- wold, or Monument Mount, or Arch Hill, or River Ridge, or Bridge Bluff, or Tiltonberg ?

Mount Tugg, as the other elevation is called, stands not far from the highway, as you approach Bean Hill. There is some doubt about the origin of the name, but it might have come from the following incident, to which the writer was a witness, at just about the year when he was entering his teens :

One glorious Fourth in that long-ago time, several boys from the Bridge took it into their heads to eele- brate the day by taking a quiet stroll through the woods and pastures. About the noontide hour they halted on the summit of the hill in question for rest and to enjoy the prospect. At the foot of the hill was a fence, and beyond the fence a beautiful field of grain, with the owner's house close by. Now it happened, as mischief would have it, that a large howlder was standing at that time near the edge of the summit, only waiting apparently for a little friendly help to make a gymnastic journey below. This was the glorious Fourth-a day gotten up to honor the Revolution ! Why not have a revolution of their own? Agreed ; they would revolutionize that bowlder! So with sticks and stakes and hands they pushed and pried and tugged,-especially the latter. They tugged above, and they tugged below, and they tugged till the sweat streamed from their faces, and finally giving a huge tug, and a tug altogether, it top- pled, and was soon making as satisfactory revolu- tions as they could desire. These young revolutionists had calculated that on reaching the fence it would stop, as a well-behaved bowlder ought,-but, alas, for youthful calculations ! for they were now to learn that revolutions of masses, whether of men or stones, when once set well in motion, are to be guided or checked

by no fence, whether feuce of field, or the defence of society ; for, crashing through the obstacle, as though it were made of straw, it rushed revolving along till it had ploughed a road through the grain nearly to the farther side. At this juncture, as was proper, from the house appeared the owner. And then and there, we will venture to say, was delivered the most impassioned Fourth of July oration ever heard within the hounds of Northfield. It was impromptu -without notes, without circumlocution, direct, to the point, in choicest Saxon, and the man evidently meant business, for the word gun occurred in it several times, and the name of a place hotter than where they were,-by the way, it was a very hot day,-and closed by expressing the wish that they were obliged to roll that stone up the hill again with the stimulus of the lash on their bare baeks. On being kindly reminded by the boys that revolutions never went backwards, he responded emphatically that they would speedily be transferred to another locality by a shot-gun conveyance if they ever started an- other revolution on his grounds. The audience then dispersed. And whether the patriotism of those boys was the more firmly fixed in after-years by the eloquence then poured forth I know not; but this ] know,-that ever since that day the hill has been called Mount Tugg. The revolution is ended, the grain cut, the reaper gone; but the bowlder lies there still,-a stubborn witness to the truth of my words.

Rivers .- The principal rivers, I believe, wholly within the limits of the town are two, of which one is the Skenduggardy,-remember, that is the correct name, for it was always so called by the older inhabi- tants and by the younger generation till an ill-in- formed Gazetteer gave it another title. Sondogardy belongs by right to the brook that flows from Sondo- gardy Pond, a mile or two away, which now goes by the name of Cross Brook. Call things by their right names, Gentlemen Gazetteermen, and let us, fellow- Northfielders, lead back with due honor the beauti- ful and original Indian titles to our two little rivers.

The first-named is formed by the union of a branch flowing from Chestnut Pond with another from the heights of Bean Hill, and empties into the Winnipi- saukee. It was once something of a manufacturing stream, as it carried two saw-mills, and more anciently by flowage, and with the assistance of those primitive dam-builders, the beavers, manufactured the valuable Smith and Thurston meadows; but of late it has given up the sawing and flowage business, and seems to have enough to do to work its way to the Winni- pisaukee, to afford drink to a thirsty beast or bird now and then, and to give sustenance at long inter- vals to a lilliputian trout.

Its sister-river flows into the Merrimack and was onee noted for manufactures. Indeed, the first man- ufacturing in town was done on the Cross, or, as we ought to call it, the Sondogardy Brook. Here, and near the Intervale and Oak llill, were made earthen

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HISTORY OF MERRIMACK COUNTY, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

and wooden-ware, lumber, jewelry, and especially the old-fashioned gold beads. They had there a grist- mill, a fulling-mill and carding-machine,-the first in use,-a grocery, jeweler's shop and tailor's shop. The father of Mr. William G. Hannaford had a shoe- shop, and some one had a blacksmith, or, as it was then called, a shoeing-shop. In fact, almost every branch of industry was carried on there in the very first decade of the town's history.

The Winnipisaukee River, which bathes North- field's northern border, is said to fall two hundred and thirty-two feet before meeting the Pemigewasset. At the confluence of the two, in Franklin, the united streams take the name of Merrimack, a river believed to give employment to a greater number of operatives than any other on the face of the globe. Authorities say the name of the latter river-an Indian word- signifies a sturgeon.

Marvelous tales were told by the fathers concern- ing the fish in the Merrimack and its two head- branches. Not the degenerate specimens of dace, chubs, perch, minnows, with now and then a solitary pickerel, which we now get a peep of at long intervals, but shad and salmon-fat, luscions and huge-and moving up-stream in such vast numbers in spring or spawning-time, as to blacken the river with their backs. And what was singular in their habits was, that though they migrated from the ocean, through the whole length of the Merrimack, in company, yet, on reaching the fork of the two rivers, in Franklin, they invariably separated-the shad passing up the Winnipisaukee to deposit their spawn in the lake, and the salmon up the Pemigewasset. Thus the in- habitants of one valley feasted on salmon, those of the other on shad. Now the story runs, or did run, that each kind of fish gave its own peculiarly charac- teristic expression to its eaters, so that you could tell, as far as you could see a man, whether he were a shad eater or a salmon consumer, and that this line of demarkation between the Pemigewasseters and the Winnipisaukeeites has flowed in the blood of their descendants down to the present day, so that seldom or never does an intermarriage take place between Tilton and Franklin. I care not to hold myself re- sponsible for the truth of this legend-it may be false; but folks will talk. It is certain, however, that the two villages have been somewhat exclusive as regards each other in past years, each having its own river, its own fish, its own railroad, its own politics. We trust all barriers will be removed when the new railroad crosses from Franklin to Tilton.

The favorers of the theory that fish is a brain-food and an intellectual stimulant may find comfort in the fact that the immortal Webster was born and passed his boyhood near the confluence of the two rivers, and the two varieties of fish, and shad and salmon combined, must have formed his sustenance mainly during the period of his growth; and in mature life, we know what an unequaled piscator and mighty

ichthyophagist he became, and a big brain was the physiological result-perhaps.

Ponds .- There are but two ponds worthy of men- tion, Sondogardy and Chestnut, each containing fifty or sixty acres; so say their nearest neighbors, Mr. Winslow and Mr. Knowles. The former is situated on the level plain, within sight of the railroad, and contains the fish usually found in such ponds-pick- erel, suckers, pouts, eels, perch, shiners, etc., and of late years a great quantity of chubs, coming, it is thought, from the river. The outlet at the southern part is the Cross or Sondogardy Brook, running in a southwesterly direction into the Merrimack. Of the several mills once working on the banks of this stream, one solitary shingle-mill alone remains.

Chestnut Pond-we regret it didn't retain its Indian name-lies down deep in the bottom of a cavity, like the crater of a volcano. In some places it is sixty feet deep, water cold, no inlet visible, supposed to be fed by springs at the bottom. Its ontlet-an unfailing one-is the north branch of the Skenduggardy Brook, which it meets about two miles from the pond. A pond like this would seem to be exactly fitted for land-locked salmon, and so the commissioners seemed to think; for Mr. Wesley Knowles writes that they placed several thousand there in 1879. Again he writes "that not one of those fish has been heard of from that time to this (1885), to his knowledge." Why is this? All the conditions seemed favorable, cold, pure, spring water, great depth, a continual outlet; let some naturalist study the problem. Our own private opinion is that the pickerel devoured them.

Remarks .-- The whole Winnipisaukee Valley prob- ably was once filled by the waters of the lake, Bay Hill reaching over to and connecting with a similar elevation on the Sanbornton side, till worn down by the river which drained the valley. Dividing, one branch passed on to Franklin and the other through the middle of Northfield, making Oak Hill an island. Possibly a branch passed still farther east, converting Bean Hill into another island much larger. Thus Northdeld at one time probably consisted merely of two island hill-tops; and later, by the addition of Mount Griswold, of three.

Plains are scarce in Northfield, as the whole town almost appears to be tilted in one direction or another. There is some level land in the southwestern part, and near Tilton is a tract of about a half-mile in extent, anciently called the Colony, where for a long series of years seemed to be gathered the dregs of the town, noted for drunkenness and other bad deeds, and many a wild tale might be told of their lawlessness in days of old. But this gypsy-like race has passed away, and the most level portion of the tract is being prepared for the purposes of a beautiful trotting course by the Hon. Charles E. Tilton, to whom both the towns of Northfield and Tilton are already indebted for many improvements of usefulness and beauty.

519

NORTHFIELD.

History .-- Benjamin Blanchard is generally credited as being the founder of Northfield, though two years earlier Jonathan Heath is said to have built a log hut on the Gerrish intervale, which was once included within the limits of old Northfield, but now belongs to Franklin. However that may be, by common consent, Blanchard was the first settler within the present limits of the town.

"He was a lineal descendant of the English family which very early emigrated to New England. Colonel Joseph Blanchard, so distinguished as an officer in the early French and Indian Wars of New England, and who, in 1754, marched at the head of his regiment of six hundred men up the Merrimack to the Salisbury fort, at what is now the orphan asylum, in Franklin, and thence through the unbroken wilderness to Crown Point and Canada, belonged to the same lineage. The annals of Charlestown and Boston show the Blanchard name in their earliest emigration. The name of Joseph Blanchard appears in the death records of Boston for 1637."

Benjamin Blanchard, iu company with his father and mother, emigrated to Canterbury perhaps about the year 1736 or 1737, from Hamstead, N.H., it is supposed, where he found his wife, Tuba Keizer, represented as a most excellent wife and mother. Benjamin's father was killed by the Indians soon after their settlement in Canterbury, or twenty-two years before the son took up his march for Northfield, and in 1752 his mother, who was a lady of Scotch-Irish descent, by the name of Bridget, was captured by the Indians while out from the Canterbury fort at night driving up the cows, according to one account; another tradition has it that she escaped from the Indians by fleetness of foot, and, rousing the garrison, saved the fort from capture. Both accounts, however, agree that "she was a very corpulent woman, and in her attempt to escape capture by running she amused the Indians, who shook their sides with laughter, and cried out, ' poochuck, poochuck !' which is the Indian name for hog."

She possessed great courage, tradition says, and in other respects was a very superior woman. For most of the above facts in regard to the Blanchard family we are indebted to Mr. M. B. Goodwin, of Franklin, and to the Merrimack Journal of date July 14, 1882.

From what little I can gather, I should judge that his mother died before he left Canterbury ; and then Benjamin, feeling, perhaps, that the only ties that bound him to the old fort were broken, his father having been killed twenty-two years before, and whether his worldly prospects looked too discourag- ing for him to remain where he was, the first coniers having selected the best lands and places, or whether a certain restlessness incident to the times, or ambi- tion, or desire of change impelled him, whatever the motive, Benjamin now determined to strike ont a new path, and found a new settlement for himself. He was forty-two years of age, in the prime of his

manhood. His oldest boys must have grown to man's estate, especially Edward, who was destined in after- years to surpass his father in enterprise, capacity for business and worldly success; and it is not unlikely, when he bade adieu to the old fort one fine summer's morn, to seek his fortune further north, leaving Tuba in charge of the home department, including the younger children, that he went forth accompanied by one at least, Edward, and probably by several, of his older boys. In 1760, says the account, he cut his way through an unbroken wilderness from an old fort in Canterbury, and settled on what is now known as Bay Hill. How interesting to read now, could we have a diary of that exploring tour. Of course, there were good luck and mishap, complaining and glee, tumbles, thirst, hot and wet days and much else intermingled. Perhaps to-day a bear is killed or a wolf shot; to-morrow, a catamount or a rattle- snake, with fearful suspicions of Indians lurking around. Very likely one of the boys carried the guns while the others "cut." And he wouldn't be a boy, at least of the modern style, if, towards evening, he didn't complain of his unwieldy burden, such as two or three guns would be sure to become in the after-part of the day.

We wish it were in our power to follow step by step the course taken by our pioneers. We cannot. The track has been obliterated forever by nature and for- getfulness. We can only surmise that Blanchard would be likely to take a direct course north or nearly so, and in that case he probably came over the western spur of Bean Hill, perhaps by Mount Tugg-moun- tain then unnamed-over the Rogers farm ; but more likely over what is now the Gardner S. Abbott farm, and the farm once owned by Mills Glidden, and later by Anthony C. Hunt; then skirting by the great Smith meadow, which meadow was then a pond- thanks to the beavers-then over the Smith farm it- self, till they finally reached what proved to be their destined point, which point was on the modern farm of Ephraim S. Wadleigh, just back of his orchard.

Nor are we to suppose that this spot was instantly selected the moment they arrived. No doubt, many long and anxious deliberations were held over the subject ; and there might have been much difference of opinions. It would not be strange if the boys pre- ferred to settle near the river, where they could fish and swim and paddle the canoe. It would be natural for them to explore Bay Hill in all directions before the final selection of that location. What influenced the decision it were hard to guess. Perhaps the slope riverward in those days was too wet or marshy ; farther up on the summit of the hill they might think too bleak, while lower down in the valley the trees would show a poorer soil-in part marshy. But their choice was a happy medium-neither too high, nor too low; and, doubtless owing to a favorable soil, the trees there were higher, larger and consequently farther apart, with less underbrush.

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History of Merrimack and Belknap counties, New Hampshire, Part 127

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1885 Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1520

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: Philadelphia [Pa.] J. W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1520