USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Canterbury > History of the town of Canterbury, New Hampshire, 1727-1912, v. 1 > Part 42
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Adjoining the Nathaniel Whidden farm in Canterbury was the Marden place in Northfield which was settled by Josiah Marden,1 who was born in Chester in 1764. He came before 1790, as he is recorded in the census of Canterbury that year. His home was so near the boundary line that it is not surprising to find him enumerated in that town. This farm was included in the Hill's Corner school district, as well as the house on the Nathan Clark place, which was just across the line in Northfield.
Immediately south of the farm cleared by Joseph Ham on the right-hand side of the old road leading from Hill's Corner
1 History of Northfield, Part II, page 218.
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
to the Shakers was the house of Archelaus Moore, son of Samuel Moore, who kept the first hotel in Canterbury. He was the nephew of Archelaus Moore, who was town clerk for many years and who removed to Loudon before 1790, when the first United States Census was taken, as he is there enumerated. The nephew is listed among the inhabitants of Canterbury that year, so that his coming to this school district was probably prior to that date. His house stood on a sunny knoll facing the south. In after years it was removed to a lot just above the North Family of the Shakers, and it was used by the converts to Shakerism while they were preparing themselves to join this community. Some of the older inhabitants will recall this building, painted red, which was known as the "Moore house."
The foregoing were the first locations in Hill's Corner school district. These and later sites of homesteads are shown on the accompanying plan of the highways of the district. The figures indicate the sites of the various homesteads. Against these figures on succeeding pages will be found the succession of fami- lies occupying these sites.
No. 1. Archelaus Moore. Afterwards owned by Shakers, who moved the building to a site below the Shaker watering trough on road to Concord.
No. 2. Dea. Joseph Ham, Sr., Daniel Page Ham, John Ham, Frank O. Pickard.
No. 3. John Cogswell, William Moody, Obadiah Kimball, Samuel Morrill, Silas K. Batchelder, Joseph E. Kimball, Mrs. Joseph E. Kimball. Now summer home of Henry G. Noble.
No. 4. Gideon Ham, his nephew, Dea. Joseph Ham, Jr., Joseph Warren Ham, Maria G. Ham, Mrs. Anita Porter (Shaw) Singer. Two houses at this location, the smaller one being occu- pied by E. Weston Dow. Previous tenants were Frank Lawrence, Frank Young and Harry Foster.
No. 5. Moses Cogswell, Amos Cogswell, Samuel Morrill, George Brown, who rebuilt the house and rearranged the other buildings, John S. Moore, Moses C. Lyford, Mrs. Moses C. Lyford, Edwin M. Lyford.
No. 6. Joseph Kimball (the ancestor), John Kimball, Jesse Kimball, George Brown, Cryus Brown and Frank L. Brown.
No. 7. Buildings gone. Site of residence and shop of Joseph Kimball, "Uncle Joe."
No. 8. Joseph S. Kimball, Joseph Kezer, Horace W. Mathes, Silas K. Batchelder, Benjamin C. Osgood, Daniel M. Ingalls, Mrs. Daniel M. Ingalls, Joseph K. Hancock, Ernest W. Snow.
30
56.11
46.
47.
18
19
2%
49.
36
37.
50
24
16
26
53.
23.
5Z.
51.
15.
52.
14.
33.
34.
58.
10
28
32.
60.
29.
61
-
30
.
LOUDON.
449
HILLS CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT NO. 6
HILL'S CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT, NO. 6.
45.
NORTHFIELD.
43.
31. 40.
18.17.
20.
55. 54.
35.
25
27.
31.
ROCKY POND.
450
HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
No. 9. Worsted Church.
No. 10. Sarah Glines, T. Sewall Smith, Enoch E. Bradley, Charles York, Hiram Clifford, William M. Cogswell, Roland Green, John C. Smith.
No. 11. Buildings gone. Charles G. Evans, Frank Keniston, Benjamin C. Osgood. At the junction of the roads immediately north of this site is the Solomon M. Clifford shoe shop used as a store for a brief time about 1884, not indicated on plan.
No. 12. Buildings gone. Jonathan L. Dearborn, Hannah Kimball. Present school house.
No. 13. Augustus Robinson, Samuel Bradley, tenant, Solomon M. Clifford, Nathaniel H. Dow.
No. 14. Hill Tavern. Dudley Hill, Orville and Harrison Messer, Dudley Hill, Mrs. Dudley Hill, Joseph K. Hancock, Henry W. Johnson.
No. 15. Store kept by Thomas Butters, Dudley Hill, Jere- miah Kimball, Kimball & Young, Dudley Hill, Knowlton, Neal & Co., Stephen Dudley Greeley. Building bought by Ben- jamin Atwood and moved to No. 21}.
No. 16. Site of blacksmith shop, moved over cellar where Gardner T. Barker's house stood at No. 17.
No. 17. Gardner T. Barker, a famous school teacher. De- stroyed by fire January 4, 1850, and rebuilt by T. Sewall Smith. Thomas C. Smith, Mrs. Thomas C. Smith.
No. 18. Site of house occupied by Jonathan Irving as tenant. Last owned by Jane and Nancy Whidden. Ground now included in Thomas C. Smith's estate.
No. 19. Site of a store and dwelling built by John Short- ridge about 1840. Soon sold to John L. Young who traded there. David B. Rowe, Silas K. Batchelder, Jane Whidden. Now included in Thomas C. Smith's estate.
4
No. 20. Stephen Dudley Greeley, Solomon M. Clifford, Horace W. Mathes from 1846 to 1850. Later Jonathan Irving, Daniel M. Ingalls, Frank Chase.
No. 21. Samuel Busiel (Buswell), George W. Dearborn, John H. Evans, Alson Reed, Elmer W. Dearborn.
No. 212. Buildings gone. Benjamin Atwood's house removed from No. 15. Benjamin Atwood, John Dalton.
No. 22. Buildings gone. Francis Chaplain who built the house, George Holcomb, John Hayes, John Reynolds, Joseph J. Bartlett. There was for a brief time a blacksmith shop on opposite side of road used by Mr. Holcomb.
No. 23. Buildings burned. Dwelling house and store of Thomas Butters and Abiel Cogswell, Jeremiah Cogswell, George H. Hancock, Bert C. Reed, Byron Ingalls.
No. 24. Samuel Huckins, Mrs. Samuel Huckins, Benjamin Kimball Tilton, Charles York, Roland Green, post office and store. Destroyed by fire and old red school house, No. 25,
451
HILL'S CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT, NO. 6.
was moved to the spot and used as a dwelling. The Uplands' post office was here for a time. The school building was taken down and removed to Belmont in 1908.
No. 25. Site of old red school house. Near this site Nathaniel Colcord located.
No. 26. Site of Samuel Huckins' blacksmith shop. Removed about 1854 or 1855 to No. 48.
No. 27. Buildings gone. Nathaniel Batchelder. The ori- ginal house was back from the road in the field. Rev. William P. Chase, who built near the road, Silas K. Batchelder, R. P. Landy.
No. 28. Buildings burned. Homestead of Capt. Ebenezer Batchelder, Jr. May be Richard Batchelder preceded him. Joseph E. Kimball resided here from about 1855 to 1870. David K. Nudd.
No. 29. Richard Batchelder, Stephen Sutton, William Han- cock, Joseph K. Hancock, Horace W. Hancock, Frank Parent.
No. 30. Buildings gone. Ebenezer Batchelder, Sr., Samuel Albert Ames who abandoned the place in 1848.
No. 31. Buildings gone. House built, but never occupied.
No. 32. Buildings burned. James G. Lyford, John Huntoon, Elijah Huntoon, Benjamin McClary, who built a new house, Moses C. Lyford, Benjamin Osgood, Byron P. Ingalls.
No. 33. Buildings gone. Samuel Huckins' residence from 1803 to 1806.
No. 34. Buildings gone Charles Bean, father of Nehemiah, Stephen Bean and James M. Bean, J. French on map of 1858, James Twombly, Nathan Chesley, William Robinson, a negro.
No. 35. Buildings gone. Dudley Lyford, John Lyford, John H. Lyford.
No. 36. Buildings burned. Capt. Thomas Lyford, Moses C. Lyford, James Lyford (son of Capt. Thomas Lyford), Charles D. Hall, John Small.
No. 37. Buildings gone. Perhaps Asa Heath from 1796 to 1799. James Lyford (son of James G. Lyford) from 1799 to 1803. George Lewis Haines 1803 to 1810. Capt. Thomas Lyford 1810 for one or two years until house at No. 36 was built.
No. 38. Nathaniel Whidden, Nathan C. Huckins, Cheney N. Huckins, John C. Weymouth, Charles Weymouth, Mrs. Charles Weymouth.
No. 39. Buildings gone. Ebenezer Marden, vacant for years, then Mrs. Climenia (Burleigh) Bean and her son Edwin C. Bean, now of Belmont.
No. 40. Josiah Marden, Ebenezer Marden, John B. Marden, John Mitchell.
No. 41. Timothy Frisbee, Moses Worthen, Abiel Eaton, Joseph J. Bartlett, James Clark, Edward Clough, John Finley. This was known successively as Worthen's and Eaton's Corner.
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
No. 42. Buildings gone. Perhaps James Lyford from 1794 to 1799, when he sold to Asa Heath, Edmund Kezer, Nathan Clark. Perhaps Eliphalet Brown in 1831.
No. 43. Buildings gone. Joseph Chaplain.
No. 44. Samuel Dicey, Charles H. Payson and Charles H. Payson, Jr. The latter built a new house when the old one burned a few years since.
No. 45. Buildings gone. Edmund Kezer.
No. 46. Buildings gone. Built by Richard Shaw about 1845. After Richard Shaw, Alpheus W. Chaplain, Enoch Rudolph Marston, Henry Whiting.
No. 47. Built by Marquis D. Chaplain, William H. H. Chap- lain, John Smith, Warren Chaplain. Unoccupied.
No. 48. Made of Samuel Huckins' blacksmith shop by Alpheus W. Chaplain. Roswell Reed, David K. Nudd, Ernest Marston. Original buildings burned Small house moved here by Ernest Marston, now unoccupied.
No. 49. Buildings gone. House built by T. Sewall Smith about 1842. Sold to Ebenezer Currier.
No. 50. Buildings gone. Site of turning mill owned by Jesse Kimball and operated by "Uncle Joe" Kimball. Sold to Ebenezer Currier. The latter cutting out the under part moved the upper story forward to the road and used it as a blacksmith shop.
No. 51. Homestead originated by Edward Chase. Levi Chase, Levi Badger Chase, Charles Heath, Rufus Boynton, William Muzzey.
No. 52. Buildings gone. Site where Ebenezer Cogswell built a small house and barn on the old path.
No. 53. Reuben Page built here for his brother-in-law, Samuel Jackson. Dea. John Mathes from 1817 to 1843, when he removed to his father's house. Horace W. Mathes, John Brown, Rev. William P. Chase, Joseph French, Ebenezer Boyn- ton, George W. Dearborn, Richard Shaw, Enoch Rudolph Marston. Now owned by Harriet F. Spaulding as summer home.
No. 54. John Ham, John Ham, Jr., Mary Polly Ham, who married when past sixty years of age Dea. Samuel Gilman. Unoccupied.
No. 55. Buildings gone. Jeremiah F. Clough, whose two daughters inherited the farm. Sumner A. Dow, Sylvester Sargent. Now owned by John Dodge of Laconia. When both were standing the buildings at Nos. 54 and 55 were connected.
No. 56. Buildings gone. Benjamin Kimball in 1823-24, when his son, John Kimball, of Concord, was a child. Afterwards a Bigelow family. Apparently just across the line in North- field.
453
HILL'S CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT, NO. 6.
No. 57. Nathaniel Foster, George Irving (Arvine), tenant, Dea. David Kent, Benjamin Morrill, Oliver Keniston, James Sanborn, Rev. William P. Chase, Levi Dow, Olwyn W. Dow.
No. 58. Elijah Mathes, Dea. John Mathes, Mrs. John Mathes, Betsey Mathes. Barn taken down. House used as a sap house by Olwyn W. Dow.
No. 59. Thomas Dearborn, Solomon Young, William Y. Sargent.
No. 60. Elder Winthrop Young, Otis Young, Edward P. Dyball, Jeremiah Smith, C. A. Depuy.
No. 61. Stephen Young, Jeremiah Smith. Buildings burned and Mr. Smith moved to No. 60.
The first school house in this district was that authorized by vote of the town in 1794. It stood on a site between Hill's Tavern and where the hay scales were formerly located. The records of the town show that it was destroyed by fire within a year of its erection. In 1795 the town "Voted £10 old tenor towards building a school house in the northeast part of the town where one was lately burned." A new building was probably located on the old site, for there is a tradition that it was afterwards used as a dwelling and perhaps a store. If this was so, it merely served a temporary use for a few years, when it was superseded by a hip-roofed structure, which was located on the Gilmanton road just east of the Corner. About 1843 this building was remodeled and removed a short distance to make room for a driveway around the south side. Little except the frame of the old structure was used in rebuilding and exter- nally the appearance was changed by an alteration of the roof. The pictures of the two school houses drawn from memory by Levi Badger Chase show the changes which took place in the style of architecture. After remodeling, the building was painted red, a color which was not changed during its existence. It is doubtful if it was ever repainted. After the school house ' was built which now stands near the meeting house, the old building was removed to the corner at the junction of the Gilman- ton and Belmont roads. It was for a brief time used as a post office and was finally sold and demolished in 1908.
The hip-roofed school house faced the north. It was heated originally by a fireplace which was probably large enough to take in fuel cord wood length. Later the heating apparatus consisted of a potash kettle, set bottom upward on a circular
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
base of brick about two feet high, with a hole drilled in the apex of the iron dome for a pipe running to the chimney. In the brick work at the front was an iron door which was often red with heat as the attempt was made by crowding in wood to warm the school room. This first apology for a stove stood in the south end of the house. Around it most of the younger children gathered in the severe winter days to keep hands and feet comfortable. The seats were on the two sides of the room, while the teacher's desk was on the side occupied by the girls, a box-like affair with a shelf. Behind this the smaller children nibbled apples while the teacher's back was turned. In this single room were crowded over one hundred scholars ranging from four to twenty-one years of age. It was the days of large families. Capt. Thomas Lyford and his nearest neighbor, Edmund Kezer, made a record one day by sending twenty-four children to school, and the average attendance that winter from these families was twenty.1
The red school house which succeeded the hip-roofed build- ing was slightly more comfortable than its predecessor. There were two entrances on the south. The seats faced the doors and the teacher's desk was between the entrances. The box stove, which took the place of the potash kettle of the old building, stood between the scholars' seats and the teacher's desk. Although the capacity of this stove was large, it frequently happened on very cold days that the rear seats next to the windows were too cold for occupancy. In the early days of its history this school house was crowded, but the attendance gradually dwindled. There were over forty scholars, however, as late as 1866, but before it ceased to be used for school purposes, the number had fallen to ten. Both of these buildings served in their day as halls or meeting places for this locality.
The boys and girls who attended the old red school house and its predecessor for the most part left Canterbury at an early age to seek their fortune elsewhere. In the days of large families it was necessary for the ambitious to find their opportunities away from home. The roll of pupils would be a long one if it could be compiled. Scattering as they did, all trace of many of them is lost beyond recall. There is record of but a few.
1 Recollections of Maria G. Ham.
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HILL'S CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT, NO. 6.
Of the natives of this district, Charles H. Ham became one of the most distinguished. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. Going to Chicago, he was for a few years the law partner of Melville W. Fuller, the late chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Ham became editor successively of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Inter Ocean. He was appointed appraiser of customs at the port of Chicago and held that office under several federal administrations. When the general board of United States appraisers was formed in 1890, he was appointed a member, a position he held until his death. Both as a writer and as an authority on customs law he was preëminent. His book on manual training was published in several different languages and brought him much credit.
Martha A. Clough, daughter of Jeremiah F. Clough and granddaughter of John Ham who settled near Bean Hill, was a gifted writer. While a school girl at Tilton, she contributed a story to the Independent Democrat of Concord which was so good that the editor sent her his personal check for it. With this remittance she bought her graduating dress. Her inspira- tion came from the fact that she would have been obliged to graduate in calico unless she could earn money to buy another gown. Immediately after leaving the seminary, she entered into competition for prizes offered by the New York Ledger for long stories. These prizes ranged from one thousand dollars to fifty dollars. She had then but two weeks before the contest would be closed. With directions to the family that she was not to be disturbed when in a writing mood, she set herself to the task, braiding palm-leaf hats, when not writing, as she said she could think better when her fingers were employed. When her story was completed, she had no time to copy it, and it was the last one to be received by the publishers. Then followed an anxious waiting to hear the result. Hoping that she might possibly secure one of the minor awards, what was Miss Clough's surprise to receive the second prize of five hundred dollars. The title of her story was "Paolina, the Sybil of the Arno:" All but fifty dollars of the amount she gave to her father to pay off the mortgage on his farm. Not long afterwards, she was an associate on the staff of a Boston magazine with John T. Trowbridge and Louise Chandler Moulton. She continued to write until her health failed her. As a scholar, she mastered
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
four languages in addition to her native tongue, Latin, French, Spanish and Italian.
Of the boys who attended school at Hill's Corner from 1866 to 1869, several attained success in business or in the professions. Three of them met as fellow-members of the New Hampshire legislature of 1893, George H. Ingalls representing the town of Belmont, Fred W. Ingalls representing the town of Kingston and James O. Lyford representing Ward 4, Concord. The first two studied medicine and became successful physicians, while the third was eight and a half years chairman of the board of savings bank commissioners of New Hampshire, and later naval officer of customs at the port of Boston. Dr. Fred W. Ingalls, whose outlook was most propitious, died soon after beginning practice.
Edwin C. Bean was another boy of this period who by his own exertions and industry became prominent in state affairs. He represented the town of Belmont, where he settled, in the lower branch of the legislature and his district in the state senate. Prospering in business, he has given freely of his time to civic duties.
The best scholar of the district at any time in its history was Amos Cogswell Lyford, whose education began in the old red school house in the winter of 1867. He worked his way through Dartmouth College, teaching winters, and he graduated at the head of his class in 1885. After graduation he taught in the Holderness School for Boys, in Cheshire, Conn., and in Jarvis Military Academy, Denver, Col., becoming principal of the latter institution. Gifted as a writer, his fugitive contri- butions to magazines gave promise of a successful literary career. His life was shortened by overwork and he died in the thirtieth year of his age.
No native of this district has been more eminently successful than John Kimball of Concord. He was born at what is now the Cyrus Brown place, but his father soon after removed to Boscawen. The greater part of his life has been spent in the capital of the state. Here he early won the confidence of the people, a confidence that has been repeatedly shown in his selection to both public and private positions of trust. Besides holding minor municipal offices, he was mayor of the city four terms in succession. Serving in both branches of the legislature,
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HILL'S CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT, NO. 6.
he became president of the senate in 1881. It needed but his consent to have secured his election as governor a few years later. For the greater part of his active life there was hardly a year that he was not in the public employment of the city, state or nation. In the business world he has been for a long period connected with the Merrimack County Savings Bank as its treasurer and president, besides acting as trustee of many estates. He was identified with this district in his early manhood as a teacher for one term, meeting with remarkable success. Sixty years later he was present at one of the Hill's Corner reunions. No less than ten of his former pupils were present to greet him.
Graduating from a home near the Gilmanton line, with very limited opportunity for education, were two boys, Nehemiah S. and James M. Bean, sons of Charles Bean, who became expert machinists. Nehemiah S. Bean, after employment for a number of years in various machine shops at Farmington, Suncook and Manchester, in 1850 went to Lawrence, where he began the work which gave him reputation and fortune. In company with a fellow-workman, he constructed a steam fire engine which was tested on Boston Common in competition with machines from Cleveland, Cincinnati and Philadelphia. The Bean engine was superior in its boiler and pump, but in general arrangements the Philadelphia engine was the better. While in the employ of the Essex Locomotive Works at Lawrence, Mr. Bean built a locomotive called the Pacific, which was far in advance of anything known at that time and which for many years was used on the Boston and Maine Railroad. In 1859 he was called back to Manchester, and the manufacture of his steam fire engines was begun. With the business of this city he was identified until his death.
Joseph Kimball, son of the first of the early settlers of that name, had a turning mill at the foot of the hill on the road leading from the Corner to the Rufus Boynton farm. He made spinning wheels, linen wheels, chairs, tables, hand rakes and domestic and farming implements. There was a tannery on the same brook prior to 1825. The building was finally moved to the Corner and made into what was a part of Hill's Tavern.
From 1840 to 1860 there was a thriving industry in the making of shoes. This was before the days of large shoe factories. It
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HISTORY OF CANTERBURY.
was called "sales work." The uppers, soles and heels were cut ready to be put together, the delivery and collections being made by "freighters" or agents who traveled a large range of country. The knack of fashioning shoes out of these prepared patterns was easily learned, and a number of people engaged in this employ- ment, as it was remunerative. There were from twenty to twenty- five shoemakers' benches in operation at the height of the industry, some shops employing from three to five workmen.1
The braiding of palm-leaf hats was an occupation even more general and of longer life than the making of shoes. It furnished ready money for the women of the household and at one time there were few families in this school district not engaged in this employment. Many an extra furbelow with which the women ornamented themselves for church on Sunday owed its possession by them to their dexterity in braiding hats. The price paid was seven cents apiece. The braiding of fifteen or sixteen hats was a large day's work.
Marquis D. Chaplain and Charles G. Evans were engaged for several years in making barrels, which they shipped to Boston. Mr. Evans was also a stone mason and made stone sinks, hitch- ing and fence posts, thresholds, gravestone sockets, etc. Dea. John Mathes, in addition to jobbing as carpenter and joiner, had a small industry in the manufacture of chairs, tables, sleds, drags, coffins and cider mill machinery. Franklin Keniston was an expert basket maker, and so fine was his workmanship that the baskets were almost water tight.
"Uncle" John Kimball was a large farmer and wheelwright and in later life he did quite a business in buying wool and sheep and lambs' pelts. Timothy Frisbee, the blacksmith, in addition to shoeing horses and cattle made various farming implements, such as pitch and manure forks and hoes with eyes riveted on the blades.
As has been noted in a previous chapter,2 the licenses issued by the selectmen for the sale of liquor furnished the names of some of the store keepers in this locality. Abiel Cogswell was given a license in 1820 and probably for subsequent years, as he was in trade in the building he occupied as a dwelling for a long period. His son Jeremiah says that there was a store
1 Recollections of William M. Cogswell.
: Chapter VIII.
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HILL'S CORNER SCHOOL DISTRICT, NO. 6.
at the same place when his father was a boy and that the building was erected for business purposes. It is very likely that someone was in trade at Hill's Corner as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Thomas Butters was given a license in 1821 and his store was in the Samuel Huckins' house.1 Richard Greenough, who was also in trade at the Center, had a place of general merchandise in the Huckins' house and he may have succeeded Mr. Butters.
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