History of the city of Nashua, N.H., Part 16

Author: Parker, Edward Everett, 1842- ed; Reinheimer, H., & Co
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 652

USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Nashua > History of the city of Nashua, N.H. > Part 16

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Mr. Chase was a public spirited man who saw the pos- sibilities of a prosperous future for Nashua, and to assist in accomplishing this result was his constant endeavor. Among the things in which he had confidence when others were faint-hearted was the Nashua & Worcester railroad. He subscribed to the original stock and became

a substantial backer of the enterprise. He served for many years on its board of directors; and it is an oft admitted fact that its success was largely due to his energy, capacity and sagacity. One of the locomotives bore the name of "Thomas Chase." Mr. Chase was active in the affairs of the town and one of its first citizens in all things. He served many years as constable, on the board of road commissioners, and on- the board of selectmen, being several times chairman ; he represented the town in the legislature in 1845 and 1846, and after its incorporation

THOMAS CHASE.

as a city was a member of the board of aldermen in 1857. Mr. Chase was the first president of the First National bank and served for many years on its board of direc- tors. He was also a director, and at one time president of the Souhegan National bank at Milford, and dur- ing his long and honorable career filled many other responsible posi- tions. He was a man of democratic instincts, hard common sense and unquestioned pro- bity, a man who lived a useful life and was respected by the community.

Mr. Chase mar- ried Nancy Bow- ers, daughter of Isaac and Mary (Cowin) Bowers of Nashua. Their marriage was the first that was solemnized in the Olive street church. Three sons, none of whom married. were born to them: Charles H., Wil-

liam H., and Thomas E. Chase. Of these sons, two, William H. and Thomas E., are deceased, Thomas E. passing away a few years ago; his memory is yet green in the minds of many of our citizens as a worthy and in- dustrious citizen.

Charles H. is still living, residing in the old homestead on the west side of Main street, near the Worcester & Nashua railroad. He is a worthy descendant and repre- sentative of a man, whose energy, perseverance and pub- lic spiritedness contributed in a very large measure to the elements which established Nashua's prosperity.

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. II.

ISAAC SPALDING.

Hon. Isaac Spalding was the son of Captain Isaac Spald- ing, and was born in New Ipswich, February 1, 1796. The family moved to Wilton in 1800. His father was a man of good education for those times, but his means were moderate. His son, therefore, had a limited education, and was very early thrown upon his own resources.f

In 1809, at the age of thirteen, he went to Amherst, N. II., as the clerk of Robert Reed, Esq., a leading merchant of that place, with whom he contin- ued in that capa- city seven years. In 1816 he became a partner of Mr. Reed, remaining in that situation ten years, being for the most of the time the post mas- ter.

In 1826 Mr. Spalding moved to Nashua, where he soon became the leading dealer in iron, steel and general merchan- dise of the then new and thriving village. After twelve years in business he retired from it to engage in railroad enter- prises, chiefly in the Concord rail- road, with which he was connected for twenty-five years. He was among the first who saw the im- portance of a rail- road connection between the lakes and tide-water and gave his aid to those enterprises.

ISAAC SPALDING.

There was no more systematic and efficient busi- ness man in Hills- borough county than Mr. Spalding, and such was the confidence in his impartiality and so strong was his per- sonality that in the most heated political contests he was many times chosen moderator by unanimous consent. He was several years a representative in the legislature, and, under the city charter, was a member of the board of aldermen. He was a member of the state constitutional convention in 1850 and of the governor's council in 1866-67 and 1867-68.

Mr. Spalding was elected one of the trustees of the State Asylum for the Insane in 1863, and was chosen

president of the board in 1869. He was one of the earliest advocates of the Concord railroad and its first treasurer, and, from its incorporation in 1835 to 1866, served either as treasurer, director or president. He was for more than twenty-five years president of the Nashua bank, a state institution, which closed its business in 1869, having never made a bad debt or lost a dollar. In the War of the Rebellion he was a financial agent of the gov- ernment and assisted in providing the means of our country's success. Mr. Spalding at the time of his death, in May, 1876, was one of the richest men in New Hamp- shire, having ac- quired his prop- erty by industry and economy, united with a wise forecast and untir- ing energy. He left no surviving children. In May, 1828, he married Lucy, daughter of Nathan Kendall of Amherst, who was born December 13, 1796. Two sons were born to them -Edward Francis in 1831 and Isaac Henry in 1840. Both of them died in childhood. After Mr. Spald- ing's death his wife continued to live in the family residence on Main street until her death December 8, 1893, aged 97 years -having survived her husband sev- enteen years. During the sixty- five years of Mrs. Spalding's resi- dence in Nashua, she had an ever increasing interest in its affairs, con- stantly inquiring regarding Nashua and the residents. Her liberality had been manifested many times, notably towards the church of her choice, to which she gave largely. She gave the site for the edifice for the First Congregational society, and made it possible for the society to erect a new church. In many ways Mrs. Spalding found opportunities of exercising the spirit of true charity, with which she was richly endowed, and which, while it prompted her to give generously to such objects as seemed to her to be worthy and deserving, was also tempered with the sterling quality of common sense, which enabled her to give with discrimination.

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HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

WILLIAM DUTTON BEASOM.

William D. Beasom was born at Lyndeboro, April 19, ISI0; died at Nashua, March 20, 1870. He was a son of John and Rebecca (Dutton) Beasom, and on the paternal side a decendent of Philip Beasom, a Huguenot, who was driven from France early in the eighteenth century, by religous persecution. He fled to the Isle of Guernesy, and a little later emigrated to America and settled at Marblehead, Mass. He married Sarah Barbiere in 175I. They were the great grand-par- ents of the subject of this sketch. On the maternal side he was a descend- ant of Rebecca Dutton, daughter William Dutton of Lyndeboro'. Mr. Beasom was edu- cated in the pub- lic schools, and beyond that was a well informed man, and thor- ough in business knowledge by pri- vate study, intui- tion and close ap- plication to what- ever he was en- gaged. He began his career as a peddler, and in 1831 was located permanently in Nashua. A little later he opened a general merchan- Johnson photo- dise store on Chest- nut street. Good management gave prosperity and he moved to Factory street. Then he formed a co-part- nership with El- bridge G. Reed under the firm name of Beasom & Reed and moved into the store at the corner of Main and Factory streets. The firm was well known for many years. Later Mr. Beasom purchased the building of Hon. Isaac Spalding and after that it was known as Beasom's building. It was destroyed by fire in 1882 and the hand- some building erected on its site by his heirs bears the name of Beasom block.

WILLIAM DUTTON BEASOM.

Mr. Beasom retired from mercantile business in 1854 and after that devoted his time to the affairs of the Indian Head National bank in which he was a director, and for many years, and at the time of his death, president. He was also president of the Underhill Edge Tool company

and prominently identified with other enterprises and in- dustries, both local and in other places. Mr. Beasom was conspicuous in the councils of the Democratic party but never aspired to office, nor did he hold one. In religious belief he was a Baptist, a member of the first church of that denomination in the city, energetic in its affairs and a liberal contributor to its support and the missions con- nected with it. He was a man who possessed the courage of his convictions, and who performed his duties from the high standard of fixed principles. He belonged to that class of men of whom it could be truthfully said, "his word is as good as his bond." Active and ener- getic in his habits, progressive and broad in his ideas, he was a always recognized by his fellow-citizens as a potential factor in all enterprises which conduced to the growth and improvements of the city's material interests and the general welfare of its citizens; and, although, as has been said previ- ously, the natural modesty of his disposition kept him out of official positions which he was abundantly able to fill, and to which public sentiment would have gladly elect- ed him, his charac- ter was such as to have left its stamp upon all that ap- pertains to the better part of the city's history of his day and gen- eration. Mr. Beasom was twice married: first. Sept. 18, 1834, with Laura Hobbs, who died in 1857: sec- ond, with Jane N. Boardman, daughter of Col. William Boardman. (For ancestors see sketch of her father.) Two children, now living, were born of his first marriage : Laura A., married Calvin B. Hill of Nashua: Louisa J., married E. B. West of Portsmouth; and three of his second: William H., married Mary F. Stevens of Sloans- ville, N. Y .: Charles B., now residing in New York, married Elizabeth Lord of Newton, Mass .: Jennie F., married C. P. Stevens of Albany, New York. They all inherit the noble qualties of their distinguished father.

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

ALFRED GODFREY.

Alfred Godfrey was born at North Hampton, Oct. 3, 1818; died at Nashua, April 6, 1877. He was a son of Joseph and Sarah (Dearborn) Godfrey.

Mr. Godfrey was educated in the public schools of his native town and at Sanbornton, to which place his parents removed in 1825, and where his father died a few years later. An ambitious lad, not afraid of hard work, he labored on the home farm, and, by prudence and per- severance paid off a mortgage of long standing. At the age of twenty-six he went to Con- cord for the pur- pose of learning the book-binder's trade, but, finding the occupation un- suited to his taste, soon gave it up, and, being with- out money, walked to Nashua. He ob- tained employ- ment in the mills of the Nashua Mfg. Co., where he remained about a year. Meantime, his industrious habits, thrift and honesty attracted the attention of the company's agent, who gave him a lease of the ledge west of the mills and loaned him money with which to purchase teams and estab- lish himself in business. The agent's confidence in him was not dis- placed. He did a large and prosper- ous business as a quarryman, and, as in all the trans- actions of his life, promptly paid every debt he had contracted. In 1855, having sold out his business, he bought a farm on the Dunstable road, near the Massachusetts line, where he remained until 1859. He then returned to the city proper and engaged in the ice business, which, with stone and lumber interests, he followed till 1866, when he purchased the Estey farm on the Lowell road, where he had his home till he died.

Mr. Godfrey was a public spirited citizen who took a decided interest in everything that promised to aid in the growth and prosperity of Nashua. To that end he aided many enterprises and contributed liberally in time and

money. He represented ward eight in the common coun- cil in 1856, and served his district several times as highway surveyor and commissioner. He cared very little, how- ever, for public office, declining an aldermanic nomination and refusing to be a candidate for representative in the legislature. Mr. Godfrey was a prominent member of the Main street M. E. church, and served it several years as a trustee and was on the official board. Moreover, he was a liberal contributor to the support of the church and its missions, as well as private charities. He was open-handed open-hearted, frank and above board in all his dealings and all the affairs of life; a valuable citizen, a true man who contributed, ac- cording to his means and his op- portunity, to the things that add to the well-being of a community, and he left behind him a reputation for probity and straightforward- ness in his busi- ness dealings, for geniality and sun- niness of disposi- tion, as that his friends could re- call his memory with only the most respectful and kindly feelings. In his death the city suffered loss such as all com- munities undergo when an upright, honorable and conscientious man passes away.

ALFRED GODFREY.

Mr. Godfrey was twice married : first, June 7, 1847, with Mary Jane Jones, who died Sept. 28, 1847; second, Oct. 7, 1849, with Cather- ine Wilson, daughter of Stephen and Abigail (Thompson) Wilson, of Tyngsboro.

Mr. Godfrey left no children of his own, but the nat- ural generosity of his disposition, as well as the love and affection for humanity, as exhibited in its young and helpless years, which distinguished both Mr. Godfrey and his wife, led them to supply the lack of children of their own by adoption. His adopted child (Viola) sur- vived them; and at this time lives on the Lowell road, near the old homestead, the (Estey farm). in a house which has been erected since Mr. Godfrey's death.

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

TOPOGRAPHY AND SURFACE GEOLOGY.

BY HENRY B. ATHERTON.

A BROAD band of silver through a carpet of verdure at midsummer, the noble Merrimack flows southward through the heart of the territory which once comprised the ancient township of Dunstable. The present city of Nashua lies on the western side of that river, between Pennichuck brook on the north and the Massachusetts state line on the south. Two considerable streams which furnish all the city's water power, the Nashua river and Salmon brook, enter the town and the state from the south and after a vain and rather up-hill attempt to flow further northward, in imitation of the Contoocook thirty miles away to the west, abandon the futile struggle and discharge their waters into the Merrimack, the one a few rods above Taylor's Falls bridge and the other a mile below at Edgeville. From an eminence, the view eastward toward the Atlantic is cut off by Londonderry high ridge and Barrett's and Bush hills in Hudson and Pelham, but from the north around to the southwest a series of beautiful blue hills and mountain peaks are seen in the dis- tance, beginning with the gracefully rounded outlines of the twin Uncanoonucs in Goffstown eighteen miles distant, and including Joe Eng- lish with its abrupt southern declivity in New Boston, Crotchet mountain, twenty-five miles to the northwest in Francestown, Lyndeborough mountains, the symmetrical peaks of the Pack Monadnock and the broken outline of Temple "A VENERABLE WITNESS." mountain about the same distance off - Grand Monadnock seen between, and twenty miles further away-around to Wachusett at the sources of the Nashua in the distant southwest. From Fairmount heights this panorama of the western hills is beheld and the lovely village of Mont Vernon, on the green hillside fourteen miles distant, its white houses sparkling in the morning sun, is easily distinguished.

To the casual observer this territory lying nearly midway between the mountains and the sea might at first glance appear too flat and unbroken to be interesting. But it is not monotonous, there is much charming scenery, and if the observer begins even a superficial study of the locality, he cannot fail to be interested. The underlying rock is the ordinary granitic gneiss with here and there crystaline schists, quartz and clay slates common in this region with a possible synclinal of porphyritic gneiss beneath. In a few places the rock floor comes to the surface, but for the most part it is covered with hard-pan gravel and sand, varying in depth from only two or three feet on some of the higher hills to seventy-five or eighty feet in the Fairmount plateau.

A series of hills gradually growing less in altitude extends southward from the Uncanoonucs through Bedford, Merrimack and Nashua, the last in the line being Long hill in the southerly part of the town. The rock of which they are composed is of great hardness, which perhaps is the reason why they are hills at all, being able on that account to resist erosion.

I propose to present a study of the phenomena of the surface of this locality, and, so far as possi- ble, write a history of the changes that have taken place upon the rock floor of the region, both in the production and distribution of the so called drift, and especially during the continuance and upon the close of the great ice age.

When one undertakes to write history he first consults the oldest credible witnesses and then examines the most ancient authentic records. A venerable witness of great weight and dimensions. in fact an enormous glacial tramp, was found apparently now very much at home a little distance

HISTORY OF NASIIUA, N. H.

north of Pennichuck brook and within sight of the Manchester road, who expressed a willingness to communicate with his visitors. "Who was mayor of Nashua when you landed here?" inquired our historian, to whom the granite monster replied : "I came here before Nashua was a city, before Old Dunstable was chartered, before the first white man arrived in New England. When Cross and Blanchard were taken prisoners while making turpentine on the north bank of the Nashua in 1724 they were carried by their dusky captors along the Indian trail at my feet ; and when the relieving party under Lieutenant French was ambushed and all but one killed, the report of their guns was within hearing and their dead bodies were carried back by this place. Long before that the Nasha- ways and Penacooks used to hunt their game with bow and arrow where you now stand, and find plenty of salmon in the waters of the Merrimack on the other side of this ridge. Packs of hungry wolves and the solitary bear sometimes found shelter on my flanks, and, high overhead among the branches of the sturdy oak that once kept me company, the stealthy panther often waited for his victim. Hannah Duston passed by me here on the next day after her bloody exploit at the mouth of the Contoocook, going to sleep that night at the house of John Lovewell at the Harbor, a very harbor and place of refuge for her. Rogers and his rangers passed this way and Stark has visited me, as have several generations of his descendants. Matthew Thornton was known to me; Lafayette and Jackson have gone along the highway yonder, and Grant, the peerless captain, has passed through this valley at my feet. Oh yes, I consider myself an old settler on the Merrimack."

"Where did you come from, how did you get here and how long ago did you pre-empt a resting place on this ridge of clay slate ?" asked the mineralogist of our party.

"I came from that granite hill that you see in the distance at the north, and before I left my native place, that rounded hill yonder was a very respectable mountain with dizzy heights, covered with lofty pinnacles of rock and all its sides precipitous and steep. The same thing that ground off the sharp edges of those cliffs and filed the lofty peaks down to that rounded knob of rock brought me here-ice. When I started away all this country from Long Island sound to Labrador was shrouded in slowly moving ice many hundred feet in thickness. I was thousands of years performing this journey of mine, and I should have continued still longer to move southerly had not the increasing heat of the summer sun caused that immense sea of ice to grow thin and shrink back toward the north, so that in passing over this ledge of slate, the ice beneath me could no longer bear my weight, and, crushing through, I became stranded where you see me. If I could only have held myself up for a few rods further and been borne upon the ice current of the Merrimack, which for years after I lodged here continued to flow southerly, you might have looked for my shattered remains along the right bank of that stream of ice, somewhere in Nashua, or perhaps, in Massa- chusetts in its lateral moraines,-those ridges of stones that stretch southwardly from the right bank of the present Merrimack to the ocean. In those days, you know, the broad ice stream of the ancient Merrimack did not, as the river does now, go trickling off to the northeast and out of its true course behind its own moraines, but plowed its way straight through to the sea."

"I came here a good many years ago before the white man or the red man, the wolf or the bear, the shaggy elephant or any other form of organic life, so many years before that it is needless for me to tell you how long, for you might not believe me, and you could not realize it even if you believed. When, toward the end of the great ice age, my head first emerged from its tomb of ice into the free air and welcome sunlight, no green thing was visible in all this region. But year after year as the glacial streams and tongues of ice gradually and irregularly melted, their places were at first occupied by level sheets of water perched at varying heights all over the face of the country, and the ponds and lakes slowly silted up with the detritus, the deep chasms and gashes made by the glacial plow were filled up and smoothed over, and the water having found in many instances an outlet to the sea, the surface of the earth was gradually covered with vegetation and became as you see it to-day."

"When I was first exposed to the sunlight these cracks and crevices that you now see in my sides, these wrinkles of old age that now stretch across my face did not exist; but I stood beneath the sun a comely block of fifty thousand cubic feet of solid granite with a fine rosy flush on my feldspar face and no moss upon my back. In that distant day these friendly birches that now thrive upon my decay would hardly have got a foothold upon my sides nor could the wild foxes, as now, have found a lurking place within the very marrow of my bones. But then, considering my years, I think I have held myself together pretty well."

HISTORY OF NASHUA, N. H.

Our divinity student, who ought to have been at church that morning, began an inquiry about Archbishop Usher's chronology, but the erratic did not seem to hear, or hearing did not understand, and interrupting his interlocutor, he continued :-

"That bowlder that you see to the eastward there among the trees is a kinsman of mine ; we were born in the same locality and have travelled and lived together many years ; you will be glad to make his acquaintance." With these words our audience with His Highness closed and the oracle became dumb.

Of the many witnesses consulted as to the condition of this locality during the ice age and at its close each tells the same story.

The records made by the ice both here and elsewhere are authentic, for nature never lies, and they are so ancient that by comparison the oldest inscriptions found in Egypt or Chaldea seem as recent and modern as yesterday's newspaper. People have only just begun to realize that at some period of the earth's history large areas of its surface have been modified by vast fields of moving ice, thousands of feet in depth and thousands of miles in extent. Yesterday the glacial theory was an ingenious though very improbable hypothesis, to-day it is an accepted fact and furnishes a certain explanation of many phenomena hitherto regarded as hopelessly inexplicable.

The book of nature has never been sealed. The student, if he would, could always open it and read. Its pages have offered infinite variety, excited wonder, piqued curiosity and repaid tenfold every effort to translate the plainly written record; yet for ages nobody found the right alphabet, nobody could construe the meaning of the characters he saw plainly engraved upon the rocks and hills. Like scholars surrounded by manuscripts in an unknown tongue, men of science were baffled, though dimly conscious that the record of the earth's recent geologic history lay engraved upon its crust and was legible could they but obtain a key to the writing. It was Agassiz who found the Rosetta stone that furnished a key to the mystery when he suggested the glacial theory and subse- quently substantiated its correctness ; yet nearly a generation elapsed before scholars were willing to drop their preconceived notions and began to read aright the record made by the ice. The limits of this paper will not allow us to follow Agassiz from his study of the Swiss glaciers to his successful quest for moraines in Scotland, and his finding in New Hampshire a moraine more extensive than any he had ever seen in Europe. Nor have we time with Tyndall, Forbes and Canon Mosely to discuss the formation and movement of the ice, nor with Croll to follow out the astronomical causes of the recurrence of the ice age. But we will give our attention to things to be seen in this vicinity-to the hieroglyphics which many may have noticed but which all have not yet deciphered.

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History of the city of Nashua, N.H., Part 16

Author: Parker, Edward Everett, 1842- ed; Reinheimer, H., & Co Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Publishing Company Number of Pages: 652

Author: Parker, Edward Everett, 1842- ed; Reinheimer, H., & Co
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 652