USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Antrim > History of the town of Antrim, N.H. for a period of one century from 1744 to 1844 > Part 4
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Of the organization of the Presbyterian church, 1788, at the re- quest of the town in legal town meeting-the only church existing
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
here for a period of thirty-nine years-the details will be given in the chapter of ecclesiastical history. Of the original members, about sixty in number, the last survivor, Widow Abagail Moor, daughter of John Duncan, Esq., died 1848, at an advanced age.
For many years the people procured the few goods they were able to buy, at Londonderry and Amherst. At length a store was opened at New Boston, and another, somewhat later, at Francestown, by Hon. Peter Woodbury. There being but little competition in trade, large profits were realized by the traders of that day. The first store in Antrim was opened, it is believed, 1789, perhaps a year or two sooner, by Ebenezer Kimball, in a building which once stood on or near the site of the dwelling house of the late George Duncan, Esq. Mr. Kimball afterwards removed to Hill, where he transacted a large business, and died several years ago.
The census of 1790 gave Antrim a population of 528; the num- ber of families was about 90, having been doubled during the pre- ceding five years. This is a greater ratio of increase than is given by any subsequent period in our annals. Next year the meeting- house was entirely finished, by the construction of the gallery pews, and the pews on both floors were sold. The prices of the gallery pews ranged from seventeen to twenty-five dollars; of the pews on the lower floor, from twenty-two to forty dollars.
It may amuse the present generation to learn that in 1793 the town chose three persons, (men who sat in the meeting-house near the doors,) to be dog-pelters ; their office being to cane the dogs which presumed to enter the house. The records of a few subsequent years exhibit votes " continuing the old dog-pelters." It is questionable whether they did not create more disturbance than they prevented,
In those days it was customory for the town to elect, at the March meeting, a chorister, or leader of the church music, Arthur Nes- mith was elected to this office in 1794, and annually reelected for a period of twenty years. He had probably officiated in the office, without a formal choice, some years previous to the first recorded election.
What was long called the great frost occurred June 17, 1794, On water standing in tubs in the open air, ice was formed an inch thick. The fruit chiefly perished.
The first store in the north part of the town was opened not far from 1790, by James Wallace, on the Stacy farm, who sold a few goods for some years. Another store was opened in 1796, by Jacob Tuttle, Esq., from Littleton, Mass., who transacted a large business, not only with his townsmen, but with citizens of Hillsborough, Wind- sor, and the east part of Stoddard. In those days the traders pur- chased and drove to market the fat cattle; they bought up the farm produce also of the citizens in general, with the exception of some of the largest farmers, who had so much produce to dispose of as made it an object to transport it to market themselves. The markets then, resorted to were Boston and Salem. Mr. Tuttle's store was kept for many years in a small building now connected with the dwelling. house of James M. Tuttle.
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
The question of a turnpike road from Cornish to Amherst being before the public in 1799, and proposed to the consideration of the towns through which it was to pass, the town of Antrim voted that they had no objection to its construction.
The census of 1800 showed a population of 1059; the number of inhabitants having been doubled in the preceding ten years. This period was marked by a happy progress in relation to buildings, fences, roads, cultivation, and the increase of the comforts of life. Nearly all the log houses of former days gave place to more commodious framed buildings. The rude household furniture of the first settlers began to be succeeded by articles more convenient and ornamental. The bean porridge, the hasty-pudding, the brown bread and milk, the staple articles of former diet, yielded the field, quite generally, to tea and coffee. The era, however, of chaises and pleasure waggons, of carpets and sofas, did not arrive till almost a quarter of a century later.
A malignant dysentery, in the summer of 1800, made the town a scene of distress and mourning. From July 23d, to Sept. 23d, oc- curred sixty-five deaths-all, save three, of the epidemic-the greater part children; an average of more than one death per day for two months. Most of the people were clad in mourning, and a few fam- ilies buried all their children. The season being dry and hot, the physical as well as mental sufferings of the people were great. The whole number of deaths during the year was 69, about one fifteenth part of the entire population. In Hancock the disease raged with an almost equal violence. It was during the prevalence of this epidemic, that the Rev. Walter Little, the first settled minister, was ordained. There was not perfect unanimity of feeling in the invi- tation from the town; but such was their distress at the time, and so urgent their need of the services of a minister, that those who felt some objections to the ordination, forebore to press them, and there was no visible opposition.
The opening of the present century, in 1801, disclosed a decisive change of political opinion in the town. Before this date, a large majority of the citizens had sustained the nominations of the Federal party ; but some unpopular measures of the Federal administration of John Adams, together with the success of the Republicans in the election of Jefferson to the Presidency, suddenly turned the scale. At the March meeting, quite a majority of the citizens were found arrayed with the Democratic party ; a change was made of most of the incumbents of town offices; Jacob Tuttle, the Democratic candidate, was elected representative, and annually reelected for many succeeding years. Ever since, by large and decisive majorities, has the Democratic party retained the ascendency in this place.
About this time the second New-Hampshire turnpike, from Cor- nish to Amherst, passing through the north-east portion of the town, was completed, and a line of stages put on it; the first that visited Antrim. For near thirty years, a vast amount of travel from Canada, Vermont, and western New-Hampshire, passed over this road to
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
Boston ; great quantities of merchandise were transported on it. It was not very judiciously located, passing over too many hard hills for the accommodation of persons who aided in its construction. The tolls were high and burdensome to the travelling public; at the same time, the benefits derived from it were undeniable. A large, three- story tavern house was built on the road in Antrim, by Wm. Barnes, from Hillsboro'; it was occupied by different inn-keepers, and was a place of public resort for many years, till it was burnt, and a two- story brick house, now Elijah Gould's, took its place. As other and easier roads to market were constructed, the travel on the old turn- pike diminished ; some years ago the gates were taken down, and the road became free, being relinquished by the corporation and left to the care of the respective towns through which it passed.
Oct. 4th, 1804, is the date of the dismission, at his own request, by the Presbytery of Londonderry, of Rev. Walter Fullerton ; (his name having been changed from Little to Fullerton, by act of the Legislature.) Happily the event excited no division among the people, as it accorded with their wishes. Mr. Fullerton possessed respectable talents, but his manners were not the most conciliatory, and he hence became unpopular.
A snow storm of remarkable severity happened this year, Oct. 7, and covered the earth to the depth of almost a foot. The greater part of the potatoes and apples were buried under the snow. In the open fields it gradually melted and disappeared, but in some cold spots, secluded from the sun, the drifts lay till the next spring.
The particulars of the ordination, in 1808, as the town's minister, of the writer of this sketch, and the present Pastor of the Presbyte- rian Church, will be given in another place. Ministers were then considered as settled for life, unless some special reason should re- quire a dissolution of the relation. Ordinations were then rare oc- currences, and drew from neighboring towns crowds of people. It was customary for the people of the place to provide for the gratui- tous entertainment of all the strangers in attendance, however nu- merous. On this occasion the people of Antrim displayed a hospi- tality almost unbounded ; making a provision far exceeding the de- mands of the guests, though hundreds of strangers were in town. Times are since changed.
Near the close of the year, John Moor, a respectable citizen, was mortally wounded in the woods by the fall of a limb of a tree, which fractured the skull.
Jan. 19th, 1810, is memorable for severity of cold, rendered al- most intolerable by a driving wind, and was long referred to as the cold Friday ; the two succeeding days were memorably cold. No snow was on the ground, and none fell till about the 20th of February. On the cold Friday, several persons in New-Hampshire perished. The population of the town by the census of this year was 1277; giving an increase of about twenty per cent for the preceding ten years. The summer following, an unusual number of children died, some of dysentery, and some of whooping cough.
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
The winter of 1811-12 was rigorous, and its snow-falls numerous and heavy. William McClary was frozen to death, on the evening of Christmas, 1811, and found dead next day by a great rock. In January, 1812, the dwelling house of Hon. John Duncan was burnt in the day time. He was alone in the house, reading, and the flames had made such progress before he discovered them, that he barely escaped. The citizens contributed generously to repair his losses.
This year, Feb. 7, that singular and fatal epidemic, the spotted fever, appeared in Antrim, and spread with such rapidity that in the course of two months there were two hundred' cases and forty deaths. Many cases were mild; others very malignant, terminating in death sometimes in a single day ; the victims being of all ages from five to sixty years. No persons over sixty were attacked. One of the vic- tims was Daniel Nichols, Esq:, one of the most respectable citizens of the town. The physicians were at first at a loss as to the proper treatment ; there was a popular impression that warm steam and co -- pious sweating were essential parts of the curative process. To such. an extreme, in the alarm of the time, was this treatment carried by steam and hot blocks of wood, that some sufferers were doubtless hurried to the grave by well-meant, but ill-judged efforts for their relief. Families in health at bed-time, dared not retire to rest with- out all the preparations in their power to commence the sweating process, should the disease attack them in the night. Experience soon dispelled this illusion, and introduced a more rational treatment. It was often difficult to find well persons enough to minister to the sick, and break roads through the deep snows for the burial of the dead. There were instances of three funerals in a day, one instance of four ; the dead being brought to the meeting-house, March 26, for the funeral service, at an appointed hour. The late Gov. Pierce once remarked that he passed through the town in this time of dis- tress at the midnight hour, and saw lights gleaming from many of the houses ; making on his mind an impression not pleasant and cheerful, but sad and gloomy, as an indication of sickness and anxiety, if not of death, within !
The declaration of war against Great Britain, in June, was ap- proved and sustained by a large majority of the citizens of the town. James Aiken, Jun., Jonathan Hayward, John Witherspoon, Theo- dore Wallace, James Day, Robert Holmes, Moses P. Wier, and Swallow Wilson, enlisted into a United States regiment of regulars, and served on the Canadian frontier. The following persons joined a regiment of volunteers commanded by Col. McCobb, of Maine : Daniel Gregg,Lieutenant ; Dexter Fairbanks, Serjeant; James Brown, Musician ; Charles Gates, Ziba Curtice, John Stuart, Joseph White, Charles Fairbanks, John Boyd, Silas Rhodes, privates. At the ex- piration of their one year's service as volunteers, Lieut. Gregg, Fair- banks, Brown, Stuart and White, enlisted into the regular service, in which Gregg was promoted to a captaincy. No one of the number was killed in battle. Hayward, after receiving his discharge, set out on his return home, and was never more heard of. Witherspoon
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
adjacent pine lands in Bennington. Seventy years ago these lands were thought to be of very trifling value; the late Mark Woodbury, Esq., bought some hundred acres, about 1800, for almost a song; they might have been purchased in 1808 for five dollars per acre; at the present time, if well timbered with full grown pines, they would command per acre from $100 to $200. The stock of timber is fast being exhausted.
Hyde & Breed commenced the manufacture of cassimeres and other woolens, near the lower end of South Village, 1841, and prosecuted the business in company five years. Breed continued it three years longer. This factory has been burnt. Hyde erected two other woolen factories in the village, higher up the Great Brook ; the upper one was operative for a brief period only, but now stands unoccupied ; the middle one never went into operation, but has been removed a few rods and applied to other uses.
White & Eaton introduced the manufacture of powder-kegs, 1843, and prosecuted it not quite two years. The business was transferred by them to Moore & Stearns; by the last named persons to J. S. Burnham, who relinquished it, 1850. The shop has passed into the hands of J. E. Temple, who uses it for the manufacture of furniture, including looking-glass frames. White & Eaton commenced the manufacture of cast-steel hoes, 1845, in a new location, and have done a business amounting, for the last four years, to ten or twelve thousand dollars annually. For three years they have manufactured a patented hoe of improved construction, called the "premium cast- steel concave hoe," which has been introduced extensively and highly approved. They employ many hands. They are also the patentees of a hay-cutter, of ingenious construction and approved efficiency.
Imla Wright erected, 1845, another cotton factory on a small scale, in Clinton Village, where he manufactures cotton yarn, twine, and batting. Hill & Fletcher built, 1848, in the same village, a factory, now owned by John Johnson, Jun., and used for the manufacture of chairs and powder kegs. S. C. & J. L. Kendall have lately put in operation, below Clinton Village, a manufactory of doors, window- sashes, and window-blinds, and where is done every kind of joiner's work.
Little manufacturing business was done at the Branch Village till 1839, when Clark & Buss began the manufacture of bobbins. The business was continued by Isaac Boyd, and afterwards by A. Putnam, -about six years in all. Dunkley & Co. commenced, 1849, the manufacture of raw imported silk-subjecting it to the successive op- erations of winding, spinning, doubling and twisting, cleansing, col- oring, and packing,-to an amount exceeding $5,000 annually. Isaac C. Tuttle introduced the manufacture of shoe-pegs in large quantities, 1850 ; has recently sold out. The next year S. W. & J. G. Flint began and still continue the same manufacture.
To return to chronological order and resume the broken thread of narration : The controversy relative to meeting-houses led to an effort, in 1828, by citizens in certain sections of Antrim, Deering, and
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
Society Land, to procure the incorporation of a new town, to be com- posed of the eastern part of Antrim, the western part of Deering, and Society Land. The town of Antrim voted to oppose the petition for a division, and chose Isaac Baldwin their agent for this purpose, with authority to employ counsel and take all proper steps to render their opposition effective. At the next session of the Legislature the committee on the incorporation of towns reported adversely to the petitioners for a division, and they had leave to withdraw their petition.
Not discouraged by a single failure, they renewed the effort in 1829, and obtained on petition the appointment by the Legislature of a viewing committee, of three persons, to visit the place, hear the respective parties, and report on the expediency of creating a new town. The committee, of which C. F. Gove, of Nashville, was chairman, came here on this business, May, 1830. Antrim and Society Land, by special agents, and Deering by their selectmen, opposed the grant- ing of the petition. After viewing the location, examining witnesses, and hearing counsel, the committee reported in favor of the creation of a new town; but, at the June session, the House of Representa- tives, by a great majority, decided adversely to the report. No ef- fort for a division has been made since this period, and these unpleas- ant agitations gradually subsided.
That portion of the road from Stoddard to Hancock, passing through the southwest corner of Antrim, a rough, uninhabited tract, on the west side of Bald Mountain, had been for many years kept in tolerable repair by this town, at no small expense, and not without some complainings ; as the citizens scarce ever used the road, and had no access to it except by passing through other towns. Gladly would they have rid themselves of that angle of the town, but no neighboring town would accept it. At this period, the Forest Road, passing from Charlestown, N. H., through Stoddard, Hancock, and Greenfield, toward Nashua, attracted public attention-constructed in many places on new ground, and designed as a new avenue to mar- ket. Thoroughly to repair the portion of it lying in this uninhabited corner of Antrim, subjected the town to a heavy expenditure, which, however unpalatable, must be submitted to. A line of stages soon ran over this road. About the same time another market road was constructed from Newport to Amherst. These two roads attracted from the old turnpike a large portion of the travel, which had ren- dered it for many past years a busy and lively thoroughfare.
A Court's committee laid out, 1831, what was called the new Keene Road, from Hillsborough Bridge by the Branch Village to Stoddard line, and thence, by the Box tavern and North Nelson, to Keene. The town of Antrim made all possible opposition to this road, but were at last compelled to construct the portion of it within their limits, at the expense of not less than $4,000. About the same time another Court's committee laid out a new road, a part of the way on new ground, from Hillsborough Bridge by the South Village to Hancock Factory Village; the cost of which, to the town of Antrim, was not far from $2,000. Both roads were built, 1834.
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
From 1826 to 1832, the old meeting-house had stood unoccupied, except as a place for town-meetings. In accordance with a vote of the town, it was taken down the latter year, reduced in its dimen- sions, and reconstructed into the present town-house. The contractor for the removal and reconstruction was Charles Gates. Its loca- tion was fixed by a disinterested committee from abroad, consisting of Solomon McNeil, of Hillsboro', Russell Tubbs, of Deering, and Thatcher Bradford, of Hancock, Esquires.
Prior to 1836, the salary of the minister had been granted by the town in its corporate capacity ; assessed and collected by the proper town officers. This year the town ceased to act as a religious organi- zation, and the support of a Presbyterian minister was assumed by a society, not incorporated, yet effective to accomplish the object on the pure voluntary principle. So long as the town, as a corporation, sus- tained the ministry of the Gospel, it is believed that in no instance, where persons protested against paying a minister's tax, or declined to pay, was the payment ever enforced; at least no such instance is known to the writer. The thing was done under the forms of law : it was, nevertheless, in the proper sense, a free-will offering.
At this period town taxes were, and had been for two or three preceding years, excessively high. Two expensive roads and several minor roads had been built, a town farm for the support of the poor had been purchased, at a cost, including repairs and stock, well nigh $2,500. The amount of town indebtedness was at one time about
$9,000. The citizens did not attempt to liquidate the debt at once, but resorted to a gradual process of extrication ; a thing easily done, as on the credit of the town, money could be easily borrowed. Fortu- nately, the distribution of the surplus revenues of the United States, on deposit with the respective States, came to the aid of Antrim in a time of need. From the sum deposited with New-Hampshire, the town, by its agent, Samuel Fletcher, Esq., received, in 1837, as its proportionate share, about $3,000 on deposit. There being no ap- prehension that the deposit would ever be reclaimed, it was applied to the payment of town debts ; an important relief to the burdened tax-payers, which helped them " to see their way out of the swamp."
Early in 1840, the existence of small pox in an adjoining town created alarm here, and led to the call of a special town-meeting, for the adoption of preventives to the spread of the infection. The town appointed the physicians, Doctors Stickney and Burnham, agents to vaccinate, at the expense of the town, all the inhabitants who should apply to them. As the alarm subsided, the work of vaccina- tion soon languished, and the results of the meeting were unimpor- tant.
The formation of one town after another, out of the large tract constituting the original Society Land, as it was prior to 1772, has been noticed in preceding pages. After the incorporation of Antrim and Hancock, all that retained the name of Society Land lay on the east side of the Contoocook. A large slice was separated from it in 1791 to aid in forming Greenfield, of which town it constitutes the
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HISTORY OF ANTRIM.
western section. The remaining Society Land, inhabited in 1830 by about twenty-five or thirty families, retained the ancient name till 1842, when, together with some contiguous portions of Hancock, Greenfield, Francestown and Deering, it was formed into the present town of Bennington. The old name of Society Land is now extinct ; the territory to which it was applied in early times forms six towns, or parts of towns; contains between five and six thousand inhabi- tants, and ranks high among the flourishing agricultural districts of New-Hampshire.
In compliance with a town vote, the whole territory of the town- ship was divided by the selectmen, 1843, by metes and bounds, into thirteen school districts, very nearly as now constituted.
As an index of the sentiments of the people of Antrim, 1844, on some subjects then attracting public attention, it may interest the next generation to know that on the question of the abolition of capital punishment, the votes in town-meeting were, yeas 27; nays, 175. On the question of the revision of the Constitution of New- Hampshire, yeas 23 ; nays, 137.
The year last named brings us to the close of our proposed histor- ical period, one century from the first settlement. It is hoped some one will be found, at the end of another century, to take up the broken thread of the narrative, and detail the events and changes of another hundred years ! What they will be is known only to the Omniscient. May the year 1944 find Antrim inhabited by an in- dustrious, well educated, christian population ; fearing God, honor- ing religion, seeking truth and righteousness. Long ere that day comes, time will have leveled the graves and obliterated the mem- ory of the present actors on the stage of life !
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF ANTRIM,
FROM 1744 TO 1844.
THE fact that for almost sixty years the town acted both as a civil and ecclesiastical corporation, occasions in the early records a remark- able blending of the two departments, and renders now and then a repetition necessary, to preserve the connection of the series of events. The reader must pardon it as unavoidable.
From the settlement of the place, almost to the close of the last century, the town was destitute of a stated ministry; not from the want of anxious desire and effort to obtain a pastor, but from obsta- cles to the attainment of their wishes. During Riley's first residence here, his fifteen years' absence, and the first fourteen years of his second residence, it is not known that there was a religious meeting holden in town. In 1772, the Rev. Mr. Barnes, the first minister who was settled in any adjoining town, was ordained in Hillsboro'. For many succeeding years, the people of Antrim, when destitute of a supply, applied to him to solemnize marriages and attend funerals. He performed here, cheerfully and gratuitously, many fatiguing ser- vices, which merited and received the gratitude of the people.
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