History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and representative citizens, Part 21

Author: Hazlett, Charles A
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold
Number of Pages: 1390

USA > New Hampshire > Rockingham County > History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and representative citizens > Part 21

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FAMOUS INHABITANTS

Every town in New England stands by its claim to honorable mention ; points to its roll of good and useful sons-men of much repute in their day and generation. One may be pardoned if he smile at the terms used by the orator of an occasion, who boasts that the particular spot where he is speak- ing has greater claim to honor than almost any other part of the country. The truth is, the same thrift, the same force of character united to a strong feeling of local attachment, is seen in all these New Englanders, so that the merits of no town or village are suffered to go unheralded. All honor to this genuine, wholesome, local pride!

Should any son of Portsmouth find himself in the least degree uncertain as to events, or men who participated in them, that have surely done honor to his birthplace, let us call the roll as did Rev. Dr. Burroughs at the recep- tion of the Sons of Portsmouth resident abroad, who returned to their old home July 4, 1853.

In the ministry, Joshua Moody, Dr. Stiles, afterward President of Yale; Emerson, Fitch, Doctor Haven, Timothy Alden, Arthur Brown, of Trinity College, Dublin; Dr. Samuel Langdon, afterward President of Harvard College; Dr. Buckminister, Doctor Parker, Ballou, Stow, Burroughs him- self, Davies, afterward Bishop of Michigan; Doctors Peabody, Lamson, De Normandie and Starr King.

Of the eminent physicians we have the Jacksons, the Cutters, Brackett, Pierrepont and Cheever.

At the bar were Pickering, Sherburne, Parker, Livermore, Mason, Cutts, Webster. Woodbury, Bartlett, Hatch, Hackett and Frink.

Of our merchants and bankers, besides the Cutts, the Wibirds, and the Wentworths, there may be named Rindge Long, Atkinson, the Penhallows, Sherburne, the two Langdons, the Jaffreys, the Sheafes, Moffat, Warner, Manning, Goddard, Gaines, the Peirces, Marsh, the Parrotts, the Rices, the Ladds, the Havens, Goodwin, Toppan, the Tredicks, the brothers Jones, Samuel Lord. Jenness, Pickerings, Capt. William Ladd, the "Apostle of Peace" and Frank Jones, mayor, congressman, hotel proprietor and success- ful brewer.

It can never be forgotten that at Portsmouth was displayed the first open defiance of the king in the trying hours just preceding the Revolution. I refer to the daring incursion made upon Fort William and Mary, the seizure of powder under the leadership of Pickering and of Sullivan. (See New- castle.) The name of Gov. John Langdon is indissolubly connected with Portsmouth. So is that of Paul Jones, who sailed out of this port in the Ranger, built and manned by Portsmouth men. Here too was launched the first war ship ever built on this side of the Atlantic.

Among the many Revolutionary incidents of this town, it may be noted that one winter morning in the dark days of the struggle a ship came to. anchor in our harbor, having on board a man whose heart beat warm in the cause of American liberty. He landed at Portsmouth, and went straight -. way to his task of creating out of our army an efficient soldiery. He was. Baron Steuben.

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The War of 1812 saw many a busy scene along our wharves. When the war for the Union came Portsmouth did her duty. We point to our war Governor, Ichabod Goodwin, who personally raised the money to fit out the First and Second N. H. regiments, to the many officers and soldiers who marched from here, and to the gallant sailors that Portsmouth contributed to our navy. Fitz John Porter was born here; so was Craven, the Sidney of the navy, whose last words are imperishable-"After you, Pilot." From here sailed the ship, built here and manned by men of this neighborhood that gained lasting honor, the Kearsage. Farragut died at the Navy Yard, and Admiral Dewey married here a daughter of Governor Goodwin. Nowhere, in the land do the associations of Memorial Day take on a deeper pathos than upon this spot where were found plenty of strong and willing hands in time of peril.

If we have a lasting record of what has been done here, we have no reason to be ashamed of our rank in the field of literature. One of our early poets is the author of the line "No pent up Utica, etc."-Jonathan Mitchell Sewall. "Penhallow's Indian Wars" is a standard history. Of ser- mons and essays few surpass the writings of Buckminster. It was when he was a young lawyer of Portsmouth that Daniel Webster addressed that memorable paper to President Madison in 1812. Dr. Samuel Haven wrote the finest tribute ever paid to Washington. When there was some discus- sion as to the terms with which the president should be addressed, upon the occasion of his visit to Portsmouth, Doctor Haven wrote the following impromptu lines :

"Fame spread her wings, and with her trumpet blew- "Great Washington is near! What praise is dite ? "What title shall he have? She paused and said : Not one,

"His name alone strikes every title dead."

In later days, not to mention Fields or Celia Thaxter, there are one or two names whose place in American literature is secured. Thomas Bailey Aldrich-who is more gratefully associated with Portsmouth, all over the English speaking world, than he? Of the minor poets, no one can read the verses of Albert Laighton or of Harriet McEwen Kimball and not be per- vaded by a sense of the Divine goodness as interpreted in their song- pure, sweet, yet well sustained-of life and its vicissitudes.

Sam Walter Foss wrote the class poem when he graduated at our high school in 1877 and in after years came to address the graduates and read his famous verses.

Then there is B. P. Shillaber, James T. Fields, Mrs. Whiton-Stone and a score of others.

Of three Portsmouth authors Professor Barrett Wendell of Harvard College, a native of Portsmouth, in his address on July 4, 1910, said :

When one asks where any place in this round world belongs in the history of literature, one is brought to pause. There is hardly a spot anywhere where human beings have not attempted expression ; there are few, one grows to feel, where some expression has not been made true enough, sweet enough,

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to give lasting pleasure to those who sympathetically know or discover it. There must be not a few of us, who have pleasant memories of that whole- some volume, The Poets of Portsmouth, which will still assure whoever possesses it that Portsmouth folk, in those days when literature in New England was alive, were moved to sing and sing melodiously. The America of the mid-nineteenth century, and particularly New England between 1830 and 1880, produced literature recognized all over the English speaking world. Of its comparative importance, in the full record of European expression, this is not the time to reason. We should all agree that it beautifully and purely expresses the traditional spirit of our native land, and that the records of English speaking humanity would be the poorer without the names of Emerson, of Longfellow, of Lowell, of Whittier, of Holmes and of Haw- thorne. Not of Portsmouth, any of these chief worthies in our American literary history, though all of them, I think knew the old town, and some of them have left verses which help keep alive its own sturdy traditions.

It is hardly too much, however, to say that no one of them could possibly have been all he was and all he is but for the presence, beside them, among them, of that son of Portsmouth, who seven and thirty years ago today spoke in some such manner as that we are now concerned with.

The active life of Mr. Fields was passed not in Portsmouth, but in Boston. In Boston, the while he never let them forget what he himself always remembered that, he came from here, and that here grew towards its maturity his wonderful power of friendly sympathy with literature and men of letters which made his friendship so profoundly stimulating an influence in the literary of nineteenth century New England. He was himself a man of let- ters. His unique power was that, when New England was ready for its best expression, it found in him at once the most faithful of publishers and the most whole-hearted of friends. He knew how to evoke from others what they could best accomplish. Had Portsmouth given to the literature of New England no other figure than his, the place of Portsmouth in our literary record would be happily secured. Yet Fields is so far from alone here that his is hardly the name which would first come to one in search of our literary worthies. We should rather think first, I take it, of the poet and story teller who is commemorated in Court Street, in the literary monument which is now the most interesting in all New England. For the house where Aldrich passed his "Bad boyhood" is not only restored to the state in which he knew it almost seventy years ago, and thus stands today as the best example any- where of the pleasant, simple gracious life of an old New England town- ship; but the museum beside the garden, containing the records and collections of his long eager life is among the few real treasures of literary traditions anywhere in this continent.

As one by one they passed, however, nothing grew more clear than that, in the generation which followed them, Aldrich was easily the first. In grace, in delicacy, he sometimes surpassed them all. In purity of spirit, in wholesomeness of nature, he was the equal of any. It is a happy chance that what seems his most familiarly enduring work preserved his memories of boy life in his old town where he was his own bad boy, and where his career is so beautifully commemorated. He lived here but little, but spent many

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summers here, indeed the greater part of the story of a Bad Boy was written here. Like Fields, however, he never forgot, and never suffered any of us to forget, that here was where he came from.

So just as Portsmouth contributed a great stimulating force to the chief days of New England literature, so it contributed the one persistent and de- lightful artist of the days when New England literature gently declined. There is a third name, too, belonging to both periods friendly to both until one hardly knows with which to place it.

Celia Thaxter, more than either of the others, she lived here or here- abouts through so much of her brave, beautiful life that one hardly thinks of her as ever elsewhere. It is not quite the old town which gathers about the memory of her. The lingering traditions of its vanished vice-regal grace, deeply characteristic as they are, seem somehow foreign to her immense wholesome human nature. One thinks of her as the true child of the rocks, and the seas, and the bright flowers of the Isles of Shoals as the Isles of Shoals used to be. No utterance of New England ever came straighter than hers from the heart of New England nature; none was more instinct with the courageous, aspiring purity of spirit which animates the free breezes we somehow know to be peculiarly our own.

MAYORS OF THE CITY OF PORTSMOUTH

(The original Charter of the City was adopted by the inhabitants August, 21, 1849.)

Abner Greenleaf, 1850; John Laighton, 1851 ; Christopher Toppan, 1852; Horton D. Walker, 1853-54-55; Richard Jenness, 1856; Robert Morrisson, 1857-58-59; John R. Reding, 1860; William Simes, 1861 ; Jonathan Dearborn, 1862-63 ; John H. Bailey, 1864-65-66; Jonathan Dearborn, 1867; Frank Jones, 1868-69; Joseph B. Adams, 1870-71; Horton D. Walker, 1872; Thomas E. O. Marvin, 1873; Frank Miller, 1874; Moses H. Goodrich, 1874-75; John H. Broughton, 1876-77; William H. Sise, 1878-81; John S. Treat, 1882-83; Calvin Page, 1884; Marcellus Eldredge, 1885-86; George E. Hodgdon, 1887- 88; Edmund S. Fay, 1889-90; John J. Laskey, 1891-92; Charles P. Berry, 1893-94 ; William O. Junkins, 1895-96; John W. Emery, 1897; John S. Tilton, 1898; Calvin Page, 1899; Edward E. McIntire, 1900-01 ; John Pender, 1902; George D. Marcy, 1903-04; William E. Marvin, 1905-06; Wallace Hackett, 1907-08; Edward H. Adams, 1909-10; Daniel W. Badger, 1911-12-13; Harry B. Yeaton, 1914.

CITY CLERKS

John Bennett, 1850-1862; Marcellus Bufford, 1862-1876; Mercer Good- rich, 1876-1878; Daniel J. Vaughan, 1878-1884 ; Mercer Goodrich, 1884-1892; Samuel R. Gardner, 1892-1895; C. Dwight Hanscom, 1895; William H. Moore, 1896-1899; George D. Marcy, 1899; William H. Moore, 1900; William E. Peirce, 1901-1905; W. E. Underhill, 1905; William H. Moran, 1906; Lamont Hilton, 1907-1911; Guy E. Corey, 1911-1913; Frederic E. Drew, 1913-1914. 11

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PORTSMOUTH PHYSICIANS

J. J. Berry, J. D. Carty, E. S. Cowles, J. H. Dixon, E. B. Eastman, C. W. Hannaford, A. C. Heffenger, M. A. Higgins, C. E. Johnston, W. O. Junkins, S. T. Ladd, A. J. Lance, T. W. Luce, J. H: Neal, G. E. Pender, F. W. Pike, A. B. Sherburne, H. L. Taylor, F. S. Towle, W. D. Walker, B. C. Woodbury.

LAWYERS

C. Page, S. W. Emery, Jr., Wallace Hackett, Ernest L. Guptil, W. E. Marvin, J. H. Bartlett, T. H. Simes, E. H. Adams, Charles H. Batchelder, John L. Mitchell, H. W. Peyser, H. K. Torrey, N. O. Foust, A. R. Hatch, A. W. Rundlett.

Joseph P. Conner, Postmaster.

I. H. Washburn, Asst. Postmaster.

Sherman Newton, Collector of Customs.

Seth W. Jones, Collector of Internal Revenue.

Silas H. Harding, Superintendent First District U. S. Life Saving Service. Keepers: E. S. Hall, Harbor Station; S. F. Wells, Wallis Sands ; A. L. Remick, Straws Point; B. F. Smart, Hampton Beach.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The schools of the city are maintained at a high degree of efficiency, and the schoolhouses will, as a rule, compare favorably with those of most other cities of its size. The first town schoolhouse was built in conformity with a vote of the town meeting of 1709, and was opened in 1713. It was a wooden structure of one story, and stood nearly where the present Haven schoolhouse stands, on South School Street.

There had previously been a town school, however, Thomas Phipps having been appointed town schoolmaster in 1697, and taught a number of years in a wooden building on what is now State Street, which was rented from Ebenezer Wentworth, and in 1735 became the property of the town. The "sellectt men" engaged him to teach the "readers, sypherers and Latterners."

The first school in the town to which girls were admitted was opened in 1780 by Benjamin Dearborn, on Market Street. In 1700 Mrs. Graffort gave to the town the highway, now called Daniel Street, but which for more than half a century after it was opened was called Graffort's Lane, and also "one lot of land in my great field for erecting a schoolhouse," there being then no schoolhouse owned by the town.

The Haven School .- On South School Street, at its junction with South Street, was built in 1846, and has recently been extensively remodeled and improved.

The Farragut School .- On School and High streets was built in 1889.

The Whipple School .- On State Street, near the top of Mason's Hill, was built in the same year as the Farragut.

Cabot Street School .- The two-story wooden schoolhouse fronting on Cabot Street, at its junction with State Street, was built in 1860, on the site

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of an old two-story schoolhouse of brick, with a pitch roof, built previous to 1815.

The Franklin School .- On Maplewood Avenue, popularly known as Christian Shore, was built in 1847.

The High School is on Islington Street. The city issuing $100,000 bond to pay for same in 1893. The school opened September 4, 1905.

There are three suburban schools, namely, the Plains School at the Plains, the Lafayette School on Lafayette Road, and the Spalding School on Wood- bury Avenue. A training school, kindergarten schools, evening school and vacation school are maintained.

The total enrollment in the public schools in 1913 was 2,052, which with the pupils enrolled in the parochial school and under private instruction make a total over 2,400 or about twenty-one per cent of the entire population as reported by the 1910 census.

The expenditures for schools in 1913 were $54,400. The valuation of school buildings and equipments $253,000.

Superintendents .- Charles H. Morss, 1886-1892; J. Clifford Simpson, 1892-1899; Henry C. Morrison, 1899-1904; Ernest L. Silver, 1905-1909; James A. MacDougall, 1909-1912; James N. Pringle, 1912.

Portsmouth Training School was established in 1887. Twenty-five of the sixty-two teachers now employed in the Portsmouth elementary schools are graduates of the trainng school.

Kindergartens .- (Haven and Cabot streets) were established in January, 1895. Manual training was established September, 1908. Sewing was in- troduced into some of the schools in 1856 and has been continuously taught since 1865.

PARKS AND PLAYGROUND

Langdon Park .- In 1867 John Langdon Elwyn gave about five acres of land, lying on the south side of the South Mill Pond, to trustees for a public park, to be laid out as such any time they deemed most expedient. The Lang- don Park Association was formed in 1875 and reorganized in 1876 with Frank W. Miller as chairman, who was energetic in securing and planting over six hundred trees. The Park was opened May 25, 1876, with addresses by Rev. James DeNormandie, Ichabod Goodwin, Daniel Austin, Charles Levi Woodbury, and Alfred Langdon Elwyn, a full account of which appears in a pamphlet published by the chairman. The park was improved in 1907 by Woodbury Langdon, Esq.

Haven Park .- Rev. Dr. Samuel Haven house formerly stood on the south side of Pleasant Street, midway between Edward and Livermore streets. It was built in 1751 by Dr. Samuel Haven, who, from 1752 to 1806, was pastor of the South Parish. He died March 3, 1806, and his wife the following day, and both were deposited at the same time in the tomb under the pulpit. Under a provision of the will of the descendants of Doctor Haven, upon the death of the last member of the family, the mansion was taken down. and the grounds, with the land of the Parry and Hatch estates adjoining. were purchased and given to the city, in 1898, to be known as the "Haven Park";

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$18,000 were left for the purchase of land and buildings; $2,000 to put the park in order, and $5,000 as a park fund. The Fitz John Porter monument in the park was erected in accordance with the will of R. H. Eddy of Boston, who left the sum of $30,000 for an equestrian statue.

Goodwin Park .- In 1887 the heirs of the late Ichabod Goodwin sold the Goodwin field at a nominal price, conditional that it should always be kept as a public park. It was purchased by the Eldredge family and presented to the city. The Soldiers and Sailors' Monument was erected in 1888, by popu- lar subscription, the dedication taking place on July 4th of that year, the orator of the occasion being the Hon. Charles Levi Woodbury.

The Hovey Fountain .- The marble and bronze drinking fountain on the lawn south of the post office is inscribed as follows: "In Memory of Charles Emerson Hovey, United States Navy, born in Portsmouth, N. H., January IO, 1885; killed in action, Phillipine Islands, September 23, 19II; son of Rev. Henry Hovey and Louise Folsom Hovey."

Ensign Hovey graduated from U. S. Naval Academy, 1907; ordered to Phillipines, 1910; was commanding expedition against outlaw Moros when he met his death. His last words were: "Get on the job, McGuire."

The Playground .- In May, 1907, an ordinance was passed creating a park commission, and Mayor Hackett appointed C. A. Hazlett and Dr. F. S. Towle, park commissioners. The marsh on the west side of the park had been used as a dumping ground for ashes and refuse. The land surrounding the marsh was secured mainly through the efforts of Councilman H. E. Boynton. The volunteer receipts from base ball audiences have supplied seats and improved the grounds. A shelter building has been erected and the city and citizens have been liberal in maintaining the grounds, the outdoor gymnasium, tennis courts and children's playground.

THE COUNTY FARM, BRENTWOOD, N. H.

MONUMENT SQUARE, CHESTER, N. H.

WIGGIN MEMORIAL LIBRARY, STRATHAM, N. H.

STONE BRIDGE, FREMONT, N. HI.

CHAPTER XVI PORTSMOUTH-(Continued)

Public Library-Cottage Hospital-Societies, Etc .- Corporations-Ports- mouth Navy Yard-The Treaty of Portsmouth

The Public Library .- In 1869, Hon. Frank Jones placed in the hands of trustees, the sum of $500, the amount of his salary as mayor, to be avail- able, for a public library when the citizens should raise the sum to $5,000 for the same purpose.

In 1871 Rev. James DeNormandie, in an address to the South Parish, warmly advocated the establishment of a Young People's Union in Ports- mouth as a place wherein young men and women might pass the evening more profitably than in idly walking the streets. The Unitarian and Universalist societies together secured three rooms on the corner of Congress and Vaughan streets. Contributions of books came in liberally from people of the two named parishes mainly, until there were, with purchases of current literature, about one thousand volumes. The Young People's Union survived until some time in 1874, when the rooms were closed, and the books stored in the basement of the Unitarian Chapel on Court Street, where they remained until 1880, when Miss Mary A. Foster asked Mr. Rich, who had been librarian of the old Union, to arrange and catalogue these books, with the object of loan- ing them to the people of the city. The late Mrs. Anna B. Wilson, enthusiastic and able, worked with Miss Foster, Miss Frances A. Mathes, and others in preparing and covering the books. One small room in the upper west corner of the custom-house was offered and accepted for temporary use. On Jan- uary I, 1881, the Public Library began the issue of books. In the following April, 1881, what was then an anteroom of Congress Hall was rented, and the library moved thence. Removal was again made the following spring to three rooms in Franklin Building, south of the entrance, where a reading room was made part of the institution. While located there, in April, 1884, the Portsmouth Mercantile Library Association through the efforts of Wil- liam H. Sise, C. A. Hazlett, and W. G. Billings, presented to the library their collection of 2,000 books that had been accumulating for thirty-three years. The association continues to be represented on the board of trustees, by two representatives. At this period many new and valuable books were purchased from the Jones Fund, which had accumulated to $5,000.

Among the large contributors to the fund were William H. Hill, William Simes, Daniel H. Pierce, John H. Bailey, W. H. Y. Hackett, and Ichabod

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Goodwin. Numerous public entertainments were given to complete the bal- ance of the fund. This money was expended by its trustees, until all the rooms, from the entrance to Vaughan Street, were filled with book-stacks, compelling the removal of the library to the main Congress Hall. In March, 1896, the city leased the "Academy," with the privilege of purchasing the land and building in 1906. After an expenditure of $8,000 in remodeling, the library began again the issue of books December 5, 1896. This building was erected in 1809 from designs drawn by Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House.

The city purchased the building in 1906 for $10,000. The library now contains over 22,000 volumes and 1,000 pamphlets, classified by the Dewey decimal system. It also maintains a reading-room, in which all the principal magazines are open to the public daily from 10 A. M. to 9 P. M. and Sunday afternoons; the city council making a liberal appropriation each year for maintaining the library. The invested funds given by citizens and friends amount to $20,000, the income from same is restricted to the purchase of new books. The public has had access to the shelves since 1909. A children's room was opened in 191I.

Especial attention has been made to obtain books and newspapers relating to Portsmouth. E. P. Kimball was the first treasurer and served to 1889 and was succeeded by C. A. Hazlett, who is completing his twenty-fifth year as treasurer. Robert E. Rich was librarian until 1908, when Miss Hannah G. Fernald, a trained librarian, was elected and continues to serve with three assistants. The circulation is 80,000 yearly.

Cottage Hospital .- On the 23d of January, 1884, in a small house at the lower end of Court Street, the Cottage Hospital was first opened. Created in the hearts and fostered by the efforts of the ever-charitable ladies of the St. John's Parish, it began its work under their immediate care. Then with its first patient comfortably cared for, its beneficent work fairly inaugurated, they turned to the public for sympathy and help. Nor were they disappointed ; the city oppropriated $500 a year, individuals and such parishes as wert able aided liberally. In five years the house had become too small for the demands made upon it. In 1889 the directors decided to appeal again to their charitable friends for money either to enlarge the hospital or to build a new one which would be better adapted to their needs. The public interest again aroused, money, in small amounts and large, flowed into the treasury, until the sum of $30,798.43 had been received, and the new building was assured. It is not altogether, or even in large part, a free hospital, although there are several beds, supported by endowments and churches, available for the very poor ; and the city, by its $500 yearly appropriation, has the use of two. But charitable it is in a broad sense, since the usual charges for many of the patients do not by any means cover the cost of their maintenance. In 1913 the invested funds amounted to $86,000.

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History of Rockingham County, New Hampshire and representative citizens, Part 21

Author: Hazlett, Charles A Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold Number of Pages: 1390

Author: Hazlett, Charles A
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond-Arnold
Number of Pages: 1390