USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Claremont > History of the town of Claremont, New Hampshire, for a period of one hundred and thirty years from 1764 to 1894 > Part 15
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lies comfortably and educating their children in good schools. This by mixed agriculture - the production of the various kinds of grain, potatoes, the dairy, and cattle and wool. There are but very few farmers in town who are not making a good living, with moderate industry and economy.
2. This is a complicated question, and an intelligent answer to it is difficult to give. It is known that almost all farmers, who have their farms nearly clear from debt, are improving their fields and buildings, supporting their families better, dress them better, ride in good carriages, and are saving more money than the average of mechanics and men engaged in mercantile pursuits who have an equal amount invested in their business and houses. Yet farmers generally feel that they have a license to complain at the high price of labor and the low rates of some kinds of produce as compared with ten years ago. Almost without exception farmers are more intelligent, take more papers, read more, live in better buildings, and have more conveniences and luxuries than formerly. Most of them have more money at interest, work less hours, and are gener- erally not more economical, if so much so, as before the war. There is no class in the community that lives so well, has so much leisure, is so independent, or complains so much of hard times, as the farmer. He does not stop to consider that if a mechanic or professional man has an income of from eight to twelve hundred dollars per year, he has to pay high rents, buy his fuel and every- thing he eats, and if he has much family, finds himself at the last about where he was the first end of the year; whereas the average farmer, with a less capital invested, has supported his family more respectably and better, his children have had more means of im- provement, he has added something to the value of his farm by way of improvements, and his deposit in the savings bank has increased.
3. It is safe to say that from two thirds to three quarters of farm- ers' sons leave the farm for other pursuits. But very few farms - not ten per cent-have been abandoned to wood or pasturing, or been united with other farms in the last ten years.
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4. There is no more disposition this spring than formerly to abandon farming for other pursuits.
5. It is the general opinion that farms and farm property are ap- praised nearer to their real value than village residences, manufac- turing property, or stocks in trade, though selectmen have generally tried to get as nearly as possible at the true cost value of all pro- ductive property in making up their tax lists. There has prob- ably been no discrimination in favor of any one class of property to the prejudice of others.
6. There are some pure-blooded cattle in town of several differ- ent breeds, principally, however, Durhams, Devons, and Jerseys ; and farmers, as they become informed upon the subject, are giving more attention to breeds of cattle, and are breeding from better animals than formerly ; consequently they are considerably increased in value, probably twenty-five per cent in ten years. There has been no cattle disease in town the past year. The number of neat cattle has not varied much in the last few years.
7. There are but two valuable stock horses owned in town, and none that are thoroughbred. Last fall almost all the livery, stage, team, and driving horses in the village were more or less affected by the prevailing horse disease, while farm horses, and those that had run out during the summer, suffered but little comparatively. But very few - not a quarter of one per cent - died, while all are apparently well now, and their value has not been perceptibly diminished by the disease.
8. Col. Russell Jarvis, Dr. S. G. Jarvis, J. P. Upham, Elijah Whitmore, Mighill Dustin, and Dr. S. A. Sabine are among the largest sheep breeders in town. Mr. Dustin has quite a flock of Cotswolds, while the others are Merinos. Sheep, at the present price of wool, are thought to pay quite as large a profit as any other kind of farm stock. There has been no prevailing disease amongst them during the past year. Dogs destroyed two hundred and forty- two dollars' worth of sheep, and the dog tax was one hundred and ninety-seven dollars, and this is about an average for the last five years.
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9. Probably from a fifth to an eighth of the area of the town is covered with growing timber, more than half of which is what would be called old growth. It is not now diminishing in amount. All of the timber cut in town is manufactured here, mostly hem- lock and spruce, into building materials. A large share of the wood consumed comes from adjoining towns.
10. The leading crops on the river and valley farms are corn and the smaller grains and hay, while the hill farms produce the smaller grains, hay, and potatoes. A few farmers have raised tobacco suc- cessfully, and on what is known as the " Cupola Farm," owned by Hon. Benj. H. Steele, of Vermont, special attention is being given to the dairy ; from thirty to forty cows are kept, and their milk is made into butter and cheese, which finds a ready market in the village. Most farmers are using considerable quantities of com- mercial fertilizers, plaster, and ashes.
11. There is a growing interest in the production of apples, pears, and grapes, but none of our farmers are making a specialty of this branch of husbandry; and any estimate of the value of the crop for any given year, or an average for the last ten years, would be wide of the true mark.
12. The labor question has become a very important one, since labor is at the foundation of all productive industry, and will always command its full value. The supply and demand for farm and farmhouse labor keep pretty even pace with each other. Many, and indeed most, farmers in the vicinity have introduced the latest improved machines for saving manual labor, such as planters, cul- tivators, mowers, and horse-rakes.
If there is any one mistake more fatal to the success of the farmer than others, it is for him to attempt to produce upon his lands what they are not calculated to grow in profusion and per- fection. Almost all New Hampshire farmers think they must grow a little of nearly every kind of grain, vegetable and fruit; keep a few sheep; make a little butter and cheese; raise a few cattle, and a colt or two, and indeed do a little of everything. This is about as sensible as it would be for a mechanic- because he is a me chanic -to attempt to make his own shoes, clothes, wagons, and
12
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do his blacksmithing and carpenter work; or for a professional man to do his own doctoring, law business, and preaching. No one man can do a great variety of work and do it economically and well, nor can a farmer possibly understand thoroughly every con- ceivable branch of husbandry, and pursue them all, and expect the best results; nor is every farm capable of producing equally well horses, cattle, sheep, and other farm stock, and every kind of cereal and vegetable and hay, with the best profit. If our farmers would study the character and capacity of their farms and then turn them to the production of such crops or stock only as they are able to produce in the greatest abundance and perfection, and then learn to do these few things to the best advantage and in the most per- fect manner, the results would be much more satisfactory than to do such a great variety, all indifferently well and to but small profit. Artisans, in their wisdom, have so divided up their work that each has a particular part assigned to him - one man makes but one of the many parts of a watch, another makes another part, and so on until all parts are made, when another man puts them together and makes the watch tick and keep the time by which the day is divided ; one man makes the spokes, another the felloes, another the hub, while another puts them together and completes the whole of a car- riage. The same general system is pursued in every considerable mechanical establishment, and in this way each part of the work in hand is done rapidly and well; and establishments pursuing a different system cannot compete with them either in price or quality of work.
It would require a much longer article than you can spare room for in your report to make this matter clear to a majority of men who are and have been all their lives practicing differently, but the subject is most certainly worthy of serious consideration by the farmers of New Hampshire. This is but a hint for such as choose to take it.
FARMS.
There are many farms in Claremont which might be especially noticed, while there are a few that imperatively demand it in this history.
CUPOLA FARM .- POMEROY M. ROSSITER.
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THE CUPOLA FARM
Is situated about four miles northwest of Claremont village, on the road to Windsor, Vt .; it is bounded on the west by Connecticut river, and through it runs Sugar river. If not the best it is one of the best two farms in New Hampshire -the Peirce farm in Green- land being the other. The Cupola farm has been owned by Pom- roy M. Rossiter, a native of the town, since 1879. It contains five hundred acres, two hundred of which are under cultivation, the rest pasture and woodland. One hundred or more acres of the meadow bottom is flowed about every spring by the high water of Connecticut and Sugar rivers, keeping the land constantly in con- dition for the production of large crops of hay of excellent quality.
This farm was owned for near a hundred years by Dr. William Sumner and his direct descendants by that name. A tavern, known as the Cupola Tavern, was kept there many years preceding 1851. The farm was carried on and the tavern kept by Horace Dean for about twenty years immediately prior to that date. After Mr. Ros- siter purchased the property he completely remodeled, enlarged, and repaired the buildings. The main house is now forty-two feet square, two stories, with French roof, and a back or kitchen part . sixteen by forty-six feet, two stories, finely finished in every part, and covered with slate. The barns, as made over and enlarged, are now in L shape-one wing is forty by one hundred, the other thirty-two by one hundred and forty feet, with cellar under the whole, clapboarded and painted, and covered with slate roof The floors in which hay and other fodder, corn to be husked, and' grain to be threshed, are unloaded, are above the stables. In the stable ninety-five cattle can be tied up and there are stalls for eight horses. In the cellar or basement there is a place for keeping sheep. In every part of the barn and yards where it is needed there is an abundant supply of running water. At the south side of Sugar river, reached by a substantial iron bridge more than a hundred feet long, are two barns, thirty by forty, and thirty-two by forty feet, with cellars, capable of storing one hundred tons of hay, and tie-ups for thirty-two cattle. At the John Sumner place,
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so called, opposite the Cupola buildings, and a part of the Cupola farm, is a two-story house and an L barn, one wing twenty by sixty, and the other twenty by thirty feet, that holds forty tons of hay, where young cattle and sheep are kept. Mr. Rossiter, with the assistance of his only son and only child, Charles P. Rossiter, has greatly increased the productiveness of this farm. He has in good years cut 400 tons of hay, raised 3,000 baskets of corn, 1,000 bushels of oats, 500 bushels of turnips, besides other smaller crops. The farm is supplied with all the latest improved and best im- plements and tools. Before Mr. Rossiter bought this farm it had been rented, on shares and otherwise, for fifty years, and as a con- sequence the buildings were in poor repair, and the land was considerably run down. The last tenant claimed that in some seasons he had cut two hundred tons of hay.
THE HORACE DEAN FARM.
This is one of the many good farms in town. It is located on the Charlestown road, two and a half miles south of the village. It consists of three hundred acres of upland, most of it with a southern slope. It was bought by Horace Dean in 1851, and car- ried on by him, until within a few years of his death, in December, 1884. Mr. Dean was succeeded in the ownership of the farm by his son-in-law, John F. Jones, who now owns it. It was owned from the early times by Maj. Ezra Jones, who died in August, 1841. He was succeeded by his son, Roys Jones, of whom Mr. Dean pur- chased it. It is noted for the row of fine maple trees on either side of the highway running through it, fully three quarters of a mile long, which were set out by Major Jones, more than sixty years ago. The soil is naturally productive and has been made more so by generous feeding and careful cultivation. Any kind of grain or root crop can be grown upon it in abundance, while it is an excellent grass farm. Being induced thereto by the urging of his friends and neighbors, in 1857 Mr. Dean entered his farm for one of the premiums - first, second, or third - offered by the New Hampshire State Agricultural Society. Twelve farms - presum-
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POMROY M. ROSSITER.
DR. J. BAXTER UPHAM.
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ably the best -in different sections of the state, were entered as competitors. After a thorough and careful examination of the farms entered, their condition and productiveness, together with the income and expense of carrying them on and the improve- ments made upon the land and buildings in the last year, by the committee, they awarded the first premium of fifty dollars to Mr. Dean's farm.
In their report to the society the committee say : "Mr. Dean purchased this farm, of three hundred acres, six years ago. Price paid, $7,000; mows seventy-five acres; nine acres of corn, one of potatoes ; keeps thirty-five head of cattle, four horses, one hundred and twenty-five sheep; fats ten hogs; spreads twenty loads manure per acre on his corn land; has built four hundred rods of wall; set out two hundred and fifty fruit trees, grafted; thirty acres of woodland kept fenced. When he came into possession of the farm there were twenty-five acres of waste land, or nearly so, yielding about six bushels of rye per acre. It is now in a high state of culti- vation, capable of producing twenty-six bushels of wheat per acre." " When Mr. D. came into possession of the place, its former owner mowed thirty-five acres more than is now mowed, and cut forty tons less hay."
Few farms anywhere can show so much care and thorough cultiva- tion; and the buildings- house and barns slated - have been much improved by the present owner, and are of the very best.
THE HUBBARD FARM.
This is a farm of considerable historic interest. When Benning Wentworth, provincial governor of New Hampshire, in 1764, granted this township, it was divided into seventy-five equal shares of two hundred and fifty acres each. The governor's reservation of two shares of five hundred acres was located in the southwest corner of the town, with three islands in Connecticut river, oppo- site, and marked "B. W." In 1766 Governor Wentworth granted his reservation in Claremont to Joseph Waite, in consideration of his services in the French and Indian war. In 1776 Joseph Waite
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was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of Col. Timothy Bedell's regi- ment, raised in New Hampshire, and sent in command of it to the defense of Canada; was wounded in the head by a splinter from a gun carriage, in an engagement near Lake Champlain, and died in Clarendon, Vt., when on his way to his home in Claremont, Sep- tember 28, 1776. In some way Lieut. George Hubbard acquired a title to the Governor Wentworth shares - supposed from the widow and heirs of Lieutenant Colonel Waite. Afterward a controversy as to the validity of Governor Wentworth's title to his reservations in this and other townships arose, but by compromise or in some other way Lieutenant Hubbard continued in possession of this five hundred acres until his death, April 16, 1818. He was succeeded on this farm by his son, known for many years as Isaac Hubbard, Esq., who died January 29, 1861. This was an exceptionally fine tract of land, and Isaac Hubbard an excellent farmer, as was his father before him. He was interested in choice farm stock, espe- cially neat cattle, and had some of the best in this section. He raised an ox of the short-horn Durham breed, which was remark- able for its great size, beauty of proportions, and color.
This ox was called " Olympus," and the following were his weights at different periods : January 4, 1833, when just one year old, 874 pounds ; December 23, 1833, 1,280 ; January 5, 1835, 1,800 ; December 26, 1835, 2,350; February 15, 1837, 2,190 ; April 4, 1838, 3,370. In the fall of 1838 Olympus was taken to England for exhibition, by a Mr. Niles of Boston, and given the name of "Brother Jonathan." The following is the way in which he was advertised on the other side of the Atlantic :
The American Mammoth Ox, Brother Jonathan, weighing 4,000 pounds or 500 stone, of beautiful proportions. This astonishing animal was seven years old on the 4th of Jan. 1839; color dapple bay; was bred by the Hon. Isaac Hubbard, in the Town of Claremont, State of New Hampshire, New England, and imported to England under a heavy bond to her Majesty's customs to re-ship Brother Jonathan to America in six months. This beautiful creature was exhib- ited at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, London, seven weeks, during which time 22,368 persons visited him, including most every branch of the Royal Family and the leading Agricultural noblemen and gentlemen. He has been purchased
VIEW IN BROAD STREET.
1869
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT,
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by some gentlemen for the purpose of exhibiting him through the agricultural dis- tricts, to show the laudable rivalry in our Transatlantic Brethren. Her Maj- esty's Government have been pleased to extend the bond.
PROPORTIONS.
Measuring in length from nose to rump, 11 ft. 10 in .; height over fore shoulder, 5 ft. 11 in .; girth, 10 ft. 6 in .; loins, 9 ft. 11 in .; breadth of hips, 3 ft. 1 in .; breadth shoulders, 2 ft. 11 in .; girth of fore arm, 2 ft. 6 in .; height of breast from ground, 1 ft. 11 in.
This ox was afterward taken to France for exhibition, and re- turned to England, where he was slaughtered for beef. After the death of Isaac Hubbard, Esq., the farm was divided, his son, the late Rev. Dr. Isaac G. Hubbard, taking a portion, which is still owned by his heirs, and his grandson, Isaac Hubbard Long, the rest, which he has since occupied.
HIGHLAND VIEW FARM.
In 1877, William H. H. Moody, a native of the town, by reason of impaired health, caused by too close application to business as the head of the shoe manufacturing firm of Moody, Estabrook & Andersons of Nashua, and having acquired a considerable fortune, retired temporarily from the firm and turned his attention to the res- toration of his health by out-door exercise. He returned to Claremont, bought what had long been known as the Mann farm of eighty-seven acres on the Charlestown road, a little more than a mile south of the village, and immediately began the erection of fine buildings, upon high ground, overlooking the village, commanding a view of a large extent of surrounding country, and improving his land by ditching and other means employed by good farmers with ample means. The house is large, substantial, and elegant -two stories with Mansard roof, wide piazzas and verandas on three sides, and elaborately finished and decorated inside. Near to it is a neat cot- tage for the superintendent of the farm and stables. The build- ings, about a hundred rods west of the Charlestown road, are reached by a winding avenue on either side of which is a row of
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rock maple trees. The grounds in front of the house are orna- mented by evergreen and other trees and shrubs, giving the place a picturesque appearance.
Having a liking for good horses, Mr. Moody turned his attention to breeding blooded stock for trotters and gentlemen's driving horses, and erected barns, sheds, and other buildings for that pur- pose. There are three barns, one hundred by fifty feet, and one hundred by thirty, and forty by eighty, and twenty-five box stalls, under the same roof, each twelve by fifteen fect, well lighted and aired, for brood mares. At the south side of the road to Claremont Junction, two miles from the village, he has a park of thirty acres, with a tight board fence, eight feet high on the highway; stables for the accommodation of thirty horses, with running water at convenient points, and a track on which the horses are exercised by careful and experienced drivers. It is named Highland View Park. The track is sixty-five feet wide, the ends thrown up one inch to the foot; twenty thousand cart loads of earth were moved in the grading of it, and it is as level, hard, and perfect as money and skillful engineering could make it.
Mr. Moody's stock horses are among the best blooded animals in the country, with undoubted pedigrees. In 1893 he had in all - stock horses, brood mares, and colts of all ages- one hundred and fifty head. His ambition is to have not only the most complete and best equipped horse breeding establishment in New England, but the best blooded stock in the country. He is at work with this end constantly in view, and is not far from its accomplishment.
From time to time Mr. Moody has added to his original purchase several different tracts, some of which have good buildings upon them, and has now six hundred acres, all connected. This land has been vastly improved by blind ditching and tile draining, re- moving all loose stones, great and small, and generous fertilizing. A notable thing about the place is a wall on the west side of the Charlestown road, extending from his south line to his north line, at Draper Corner, made with stones taken from the land. Many of the bowlders were too large to be removed'by ordinary means without being broken up or split. This being done they made good face wall, which was skillfully laid. It is four feet wide on the top,
HIGHLAND VIEW -W. H. H. MOODY'S PLACE.
WILLIAM H. H. MOODY.
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is sunk into the ground two or three feet, and six feet high above the surface.
To supply his buildings with an abundance of pure water, with head sufficient to carry it forcibly to desired points, in 1892 Mr. Moody sunk into a ledge back of and higher than the top of his house, an artesian well six inches in diameter and one hundred feet deep. The water is forced into a large reservoir by means of a pump attached to a Gem wheel, operated by a wind-mill, and from this reservoir it is taken in pipes to places where it is desired.
After a few years Mr. Moody almost wholly recovered the health and vigor of his early days, and resumed his former place in the shoe firm, from the profits of which he derives an income sufficient to enable him to carry forward his Claremont projects. The most of his time winters he spends in Boston, where the firm has an office and warehouse, and the summers he spends upon his farm, going occasionally to Boston. He has an effi- cient and trusty superintendent here who attends to everything in his absence.
THE BRECK FARM.
This farm is situated on the road to Windsor, Vt., four miles from Claremont village, north of and adjoining the Cupola farm. It contains one hundred and thirty acres, about seventy of which is Connecticut river meadow, in a high state of cultivation. In 1792 William Breck bought and settled on this farm, and he and his descendants have owned and occupied it continuously to the present time. He died November 22, 1819, and was suc- ceeded by his son, William, who had been a sea captain. The latter died April 13, 1848, when his brother, Henry, took the farm, and continued upon it until his death, July 10, 1872, at the age of eighty-six years, then his youngest son, Charles P. Breck, came into possession of the farm and owns it still. In many ways this is a very desirable farm, where location, fertility of the soil, and the ease with which it is worked are considered. Under the pres-
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ent owner the farm has been greatly improved in productiveness, buildings, and surroundings, adding to its value and attractiveness. Upon it in 1892 one hundred tons of hay were cut; twelve hun- dred baskets of sound corn and other grains and root crops raised ; two hundred sheep, fifty neat cattle, and eight horses were kept. Mr. Breck, being a cattle fancier, gives attention to good breeds, and has some fine animals. The buildings on the place are ample, and kept in a good state of repair.
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