History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire, Part 2

Author: Whitcher, William F. (William Frederick), 1845-1918
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Concord, N.H. : Rumford press]
Number of Pages: 838

USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Haverhill > History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire > Part 2

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The remainder of the way to French Pond, is comparatively level, being at first a plain of stratified, coarse-grained sand, which extends north one half mile to the brook; thence for a mile and a half further, sand or coarse rounded gravel extends along the road on its east side as far north as French Pond. Immediately about this pond the modi- fying action of the water is not apparent, but the surface is composed of heaped and ridged morainic drift, over which the road passes. This material is, however, in the main, level with irregular hollows and depressions of over 10 to 20 feet. Its rock frag- ments are angular, but small in size, seldom exceeding two feet. A coarse morainic ridge extends more than a mile on the east side of this level alluvial valley, with a height of about 125 feet above it, while on the west rises the precipitious face of Brier Hill. Three miles southeast are the serrated mountains which extend north from Owl's Head; and nine miles southeast is the high massive ridge of Moosilauke.

By estimate French Pond is about 770 feet above the level of the sea, and the water- shed on the road northwest is from 40 to 50 feet higher. This hollow, bounded on both sides by high hills, seems to have been for a time the outlet of the melting ice at the north, before the way was opened westward for the Lower Ammonoosuc River. The glacier which covered the mountains at the southeast also contributed to these deposits of modi- fied drift, as is shown by the high moraine mentioned, and by others, three fourths of a mile from the town house, at the mouth of a gap in the first high range of hills. The highest of these last has been modified by a current of water. It presents on the west side a steep escarpment of clear sand, reaching from 980 to 12,00 feet above the sea. The rest are at the east against the hillside. On the northwest nothing intervenes to

1 "Geology of New Hampshire," Vol. 3, pp. 29, 30.

2 The old town house which was located at Centre Haverhill.

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

the town house and North Haverhill, 300 and 550 feet below, where we find the sand and clay which were brought down by these glacial streams.

At Haverhill there are only scanty remains of modified drift above the interval, which is nearly a mile wide. The highest terrace, best shown on the Vermont side, is 80 feet above the river; enough of it is left on the east side to indicate that it was once contin- uous across the valley. Hall's Brook and Oliverian Brook, which have their mouths here opposite to each other, have brought down large amounts of modified drift, which is deposited along the lower portion of their course. On the former this slopes in one mile to 125 feet above the upper terrace of the Connecticut. On the east side only slight vestiges of this terrace are found, and we have a direct rise of 220 feet from the interval to the modified drift of Oliverian Brook, which thus commences at a greater height than is reached in the first mile on Hall's Brook. In two miles this slopes upward 100 feet, or to 340 feet above the river, being well shown all the way, and at one place nearly a mile wide. These streams are both of large size, but the deposits along their source cannot be attributed to their ordinary action, any more than the modified drift east of North Haverhill is due to the brooks there. All these deposits are plainly of the same date and from one cause-the melting of the ice sheet.

The glacial period was generous to Haverhill. It gave the town its fertile soil, interval, terrace or plain and hills, a diversified and some- what irregular surface, but with hardly an acre useless and valueless. Unlike the neighboring towns Haverhill has no elevations which can be dignified with the name of mountains. Black Hill on the east, a part of which is in the town of Benton, is the highest of Haverhill's hills, and this, perhaps as well as Catamount Hill and Iron Ore Hill in the southern part of the town, would be regarded as mountains if located in the southern sections of the state, but they are only near mountains in the northern region. There is a range of hills in the northwest part of the town lying to the east of Horse Meadow and running northerly to the Bath line, and another quite well defined range, of which Brier Hill is the highest elevation, traverses the central part from north to south.

Haverhill, unlike many of its neighbors, does not abound in lakes or ponds. Woods Pond in the southern part and French Pond in the northern part are the only bodies of still water, and these are each com- paratively small.

Equally unimportant are its streams aside from the Connecticut which has so slight a fall within the town limits that it furnishes no power which can be utilized. For a few rods above its mouth the Ammonoosuc flows through Haverhill, and its excellent power is utilized at the present time in supplying the village of Woodsville with water, electric lighting and other service.

There are two brooks emptying into the Connecticut: Poole Brook, the mouth of which is a little to the south of the village of North Haver- hill, is formed on the union of two brooks, the Clark having its rise in the northeast part of the town near Benton line and forming a junction near the centre of the town with another flowing out of French Pond and thence

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

to the south of Brier Hill through North Haverhill Village to the Con- necticut. This brook in former years furnished power for sawmills and potato-starch mills, but these no longer exist, and its power is now utilized only by a sawmill and gristmill at North Haverhill. The Oliverian has its rise on the western slope of Moosilauke in Benton, flows through the Benton meadows and enters Haverhill near its southeast corner. It is joined at East Haverhill by a tributary known as the North Branch, which also has its rise in Benton near Sugar Loaf. The Oliverian flows through a valley containing excellent farms falls precipitously between Ladd Street and Haverhill Corner to the Meadows and enters the Con- necticut near Bedel's bridge. In the past the power of this stream has been utilized both on the North Branch and the main stream for sawmills, tannery, paper-mill and other manufactures now extinct. It is still util- ized in connection with steam at Pike, and also in a comparatively small way at what is known as "The Brook" at the southerly end of Ladd Street. The power furnished by these streams is variable, there being a full volume in the spring and rainy seasons while in the summer it is of little account. It is believed, however, that both streams would give steady power of great value by the construction of reservoirs, the cost of which would be small as compared with the electric power which could be generated. It is safe to predict that such utilization will yet be made.

As is seen from Professor Hitchcock's description, the soil is varied. Along the Connecticut it is alluvial, as it is in some sections of the Olive- rian Valley. On the North Haverhill terrace or plain it is a clayey loam, while the remainder possesses the qualities of the ordinary uplands of New Hampshire. The general rock area is what is known as Bethlehem gneiss, but other varieties are granite, common gneiss, hornblende schist, limestone and soapstone. Granite of fine quality has been quarried, and the French Pond granite, both pink and gray, is of fine quality, as is also that in the southern part of the town near Haverhill Corner. It is quite extensively used in monumental work. A fine quality of limestone is found along the north branch of the Oliverian and, previous to the con- struction of the railroad, lime of the best quality was preserved in large quantities. There is a vein of soapstone in the northern part of the town, but an attempt to quarry and market it, made nearly half a century ago, was not found to be practicable or profitable. The whetstone quarries on Cutting Hill near Pike, in Haverhill and Piermont, have been worked successfully for half a century or so, with large profit, and the immense beds of this stone show no signs of exhaustion.

The town, however, can hardly be called rich in ores and minerals. Native arsenic is found in small quantities on the Frank Kimball farm, and iron from Iron Ore Hill, near Haverhill Corner, was at one time hauled to a smelting furnace on the Vermont side of the river. What-

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

ever the future may reveal, Haverhill is today as it has been from its beginning, essentially a farming town, and has just reason to be proud of her rank among the agricultural towns of the state.

The town has an excellent system of roads. The three principal ones are the River road from Haverhill Corner through Ladd Street, North Haverhill and Horse Meadow to Woodsville, now a part of the state boulevard system, the County road from Ladd Street through the centre of the town to what is known as the Union Meeting House, where turning to the right it continues to Benton, to the left to North Haverhill, and over Brier Hill to near the Bath line, and in the same direction changing its name to the Pond road to Swiftwater. Then there is the Brook road up the Oliverian Valley to Benton Flats; the Limekiln road running irregularly over the hills and joining the County road at two different points; then "over the Hill" road from Woodsville to Swiftwater; the Brushwood road from Pike to the County road and North Haverhill, and several short roads intersecting into these named. A liberal policy has been pursued in their maintenance.

Local names have been applied to different sections of the town. "The Corner" is, indeed, the corner at the southwest. "The Brook" desig- nates the smaller village in the valley on the north of the corner and formerly the location of various manufactures. A little further up the river is "Ladd Street," among the first localities to be settled. Then "Dow Plain," now the residence of Governor Keyes, opposite Newbury Village, and so called because long owned by Gen. Moses Dow. Still further, "Swasey's Mills," "Slab City," now North Haverhill. North- erly and still along the river "Horse Meadow," early settled, and at its northerly end the county farm, almshouse and jail. "Cobleigh's Land- ing," where the Cottage Hospital now stands, was the starting point of the lumber rafts down the river in the ante-railroad days, and in the northwest corner is Woodsville, once a dense forest of big pines, now a railroad centre, county seat and the most important village in the town. Following up the Oliverian from "the Brook" is Pike, seat of the famous whetstone industry, and further up towards the east, East Haverhill. Northerly from East Haverhill are the "Jeffers Neighborhood," "Morse Hill" and "Lime Kiln," to the east from North Haverhill is the "Centre," with its Union Meeting House, now Advent Church, some times known in former days as "Bangstown," and to the northeast, beautiful for situ- ation, "Brier Hill." These are names which will more or less often occur in the following pages, and this word of explanation may not be amiss at the beginning.

CHAPTER II

INDIANS, AND FIRST VISIT OF WHITES

LITTLE KNOWN OF INDIANS-"THE SWIFT DEER HUNTING COOSUCKS"-HERD DE- CREASED-PENHALLEN TELLS US IN 1704 OF CORN PLANTED HIGH UP THE RIVER AT COOS-CAPT. JOHN STULK-CAPT. PETER POWERS IN 1754-MAJ. ROBERT ROGERS IN 1759-SURVEY MADE BY THOMAS BLANCHARD.

Bur little is definitely known of the Indian dwellers in the Upper Val- ley of the Connecticut, known to the people of the Massachusetts and Connecticut towns in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century as Coös, or the Coös country. There were Indians, however, and the name given to the section is of Indian origin, and has various spellings: Corvass, Cohass, Cohos, Coös, the latter being the more mod- ern. Upper Coos embraced the broad intervals near the present town of Lancaster and the territory to the northward, and Lower Coos embraced that portion of the Connecticut Valley extending from the Narrows above Woodsville as far south as Lyme and Thetford, Vt. The name, according to tradition, signifies "a place of deer," "a place of tall pines," "wide valley," "crooked river," but tradition is not very trustworthy.

Relics of Indian occupation of various kinds have been found in Haver- hill. Certain mounds along the meadows have been regarded by experts as the work of Indian hands. Stone arrow and spear heads, stone mortars and pestles, as well as other implements and utensils used by Indians have been found on the meadow and upland farms bordering on the river. About a mile north of the Haverhill railroad station and but a short dis- tance from the track is a smooth ledge of rock on which is drilled a hole about two feet in diameter and two and a half feet deep, which it is claimed was used by Indians as a mortar in which was pounded the corn raised on the Oxbow meadows. The first white man visiting Coos found a cleared space on these meadows, on both sides the river, which had been used by Indians as a planting ground and there were numerous other indications that this locality had at some time been quite extensively occupied before its settlement by whites.

It is not probable, however, that Haverhill, or for that matter, Coös, either upper or lower, was ever the permanent home of any Indian tribe. The Indians of the interior of New England were of the great Algonquin race, and were called by the seashore tribes of the race, Nipmucks, or fresh water Indians, and the places they occupied were always in the

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

vicinity of ponds, lakes and rivers. There were twelve tribes or families of these Nipmucks. The Pemigewassets occupied the valley now bear- ing that name; the Nashuas, one of the most powerful of the tribes, were found in the southern part of New Hampshire; the Amoskeags were at the falls on the Merrimac, now bearing that tribal name; the Souhegans were on the Souhegan River; the Penacooks on the Merrimac intervals above and below Concord; the Swamscotts near Exeter; the Piscata- quakes on the Piscataqua; the Ossipees had a wigwam city at Ossipee lake; "the beautiful Winnepissaukies" were found by the great lake; the Pequakces had villages in the fertile valley of Pequaket; "the death- dealing Androscoggins " had lodges on the banks and at the sources of the Androscoggin, while "the swift deer hunting Coösucks" were those who hunted their game on the hills and cultivated in their rude way the Con- necticut intervals of the Coos County. It is not believed that these Nipmuck tribes or families dwelt for any considerable length of time in one place, but were nomadic in their mode of life. It is also believed that previous to the settlement of Coös, the numbers of the Coösucks had been greatly decreased by disease. In any event the few degenerates who lingered in the valley when settlement by the whites began soon disappeared.

The first visits of white men to the Coos meadows were involuntary. When the village of Deerfield, in Massachusetts, was destroyed by French and Indians February 29, 1704, among the one hundred and twelve captives, men, women and children, carried to Canada, was the Deerfield minister, the Rev. John Williams. He lived to return, and under the title of "A Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion," published an account of his captivity and sufferings. He says that at the mouth of the White River, the company divided, a part of the captors and captives going up that stream, while the others ascended the Connecticut and spent some time at the Coös meadows, where their provisions giving out, they only escaped starvation by hunting and fishing, and where two of the captives, Daniel Hix and Jacob Holt actually died of hunger. The significance of his narrative lies in the fact that he mentions Coös as if the region were well enough known, even at that time, to need no other description than the mere name. Penhallow also in this same year, 1704, mentions a French Indian fort, and corn planted high up on the Connec- ticut River at Coös. Just how and when the section had previously become known to the whites is still unexplained.

In February, 1709, five years after the burning of Deerfield, the town was again attacked by Indians, and one Thomas Baker was taken cap- tive, and was carried up the Connecticut through Coös to Canada. Ran- somed the next year, he returned by the same route to his home, and thus gained some knowledge of the route, and of the different families of Indians

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

in the sections through which he passed. In 1712, with the purpose of destroying a body of Indians having their encampment somewhere in the Pemigewasset Valley, he raised a company of thirty-four men and with a friendly Indian for a guide started northward on his expedition. He proceeded directly to the Coos meadows, in what is now Haverhill and Newbury. Then following the lead of his Indian guide, he passed up the Oliverian, thence over the height of land south of and in plain sight of Moosilauke and then down the Indian Asquamchumauke, in Warren- now bearing the name of Baker's River-through Wentworth, Rumney and Plymouth. In Rumney he surprised an encampment of Indians, some of whom he killed while others escaped. He destroyed their wig- wams and secured a large amount of furs. He departed hastily south- ward pursued by the Indians, but by strategy suggested by his Indian guide he evaded his pursuers and arrived in Dunstable without the loss of a single man. Whiton, in his history of New Hampshire, gives the date of Baker's expedition as 1724, but he is manifestly in error since the journal of the Massachusetts Annual Court shows that the claim of Lieut. Thomas Baker, as "commander of a company in a late expedition to Coos and over to Merrimack River and so to Dunstable," for Indian scalps brought in was allowed and paid in 1712, and an additional allow- ance for the same was made in June of that year, with the promotion of Lieutenant Baker to the rank of Captain. This fixes the time of Baker's visit to Coös beyond question.

It may be asked why no steps were taken in the direction of the settle- ment of what was thus early known to be a desirable country. The answer is not far to seek. From about the year 1665 to 1760 there was almost unbroken warfare between France and England, with consequent hostilities between the French colonists and their Indian allies, and the English colonists in America. The danger of pushing onward the Eng- lish frontier settlements was too great to be undertaken. But there were brief periods of respite. One of these followed the treaty of peace between France and England signed at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Tak- ing advantage of the comparative quiet the New Hampshire government began to prepare for the settlement of the Connecticut Valley. Settle- ment had been made at Charlestown-known as Number Four-and had become established after repeated assaults upon it and after having been once abandoned. The question of the settlement of Coös began to be agitated.

In the summer of 1751, several hunters went up the river from Number Four as far as the mouth of the Ammonoosuc, making somewhat careful examination of the country on both sides the river. In 1752 Governor Wentworth began making township grants in the valley, and Captain Symes of North Hampton made application for charters for townships

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

six miles square at Coös, these charters to be granted to four hundred men who proposed to become actual settlers. In his petition he said that several of the three hundred and forty men already engaged in the project had been to Coös and were favorably impressed with the possi- bility of settlement. The would-be settlers were for the most part from the towns of Newmarket, North Hampton, East Hampton, Rye and South Hampton. It was proposed to cut a road from Number Four to Coös, to lay four townships, two on each side the river, opposite to each other, where the towns of Haverhill and Piermont on the east side and Newbury and Bradford on the west now are. The settlers were to have courts of judicatory and other civil privileges of their own and were to be under strict military discipline. The French authorities in Canada learned of this plan, and a deputation of French and Indians appeared at Number Four, remonstrating in threatening terms against it and in the interest of safety it was for the time being abandoned. Other plans came into being. In the spring of 1752 John Stark,-the General John Stark of the Revolution,-William Stark, Amos Eastman of Hollis and David Stimson of Londonderry, while on a hunting expedition in the Baker's River country were surprised by a party of Indians in what is now the town of Rumney. William Stark escaped by flight, Stimson was killed, and John Stark and Eastman were taken prisoners, and were carried to Canada captives. They were led up over the height of land from the Baker's River valley, down the Oliverian and directly through the already much talked of Oxbow meadows. They returned home the same summer over practically the same route. The account they gave of the country increased the desire to explore and settle it. But the renewal of hostilities between France and England was inevitable, and plans of settlement were postponed. Fearing, however, the establish- ment of a French garrison at Coös, Governor Wentworth determined to send a company to explore the region, not this time by way of Number Four, but over the trail by which Stark and Eastman had been taken when captured the year before. Accordingly on the tenth of March, 1753, a company of sixteen men officered by Col. Zaccheus Lovewell and Maj. John Talford, with Capt. Caleb Page as surveyor and John Stark as guide left Concord-then called Rumford-proceeded up the Merrimac, the Pemigewasset and Baker's rivers, marking out a road and cutting out the fallen trees, and, after crossing the height of land at what is now Warren Summit, proceeded westerly reaching the Con- necticut at Moose meadow in Piermont March 17. They remained but one night there, for fearing an attack from Indians, they returned hastily over the same route reaching Concord after an absence of thirteen days. The Lovewell expedition was a failure except for the fact that it had marked out a route from Concord to Coös.

HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

The next year, 1745, Capt. Peter Powers of Hollis, Lieut. James Stevens and Ensign Ephraim Hale, both of Townsend, Mass., led another company for the exploration of Coös. A somewhat detailed account of this expedition was recorded in a journal kept by Captain Powers, which is now in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society, and from which the Rev. Grant Powers in his "History of the Coos County" makes liberal quotation. The company rendezvoused at Concord and left for their expedition June 15. They went by way of Contoocook up the Mer- rimac to the mouth of the Pemigewasset, and thence up that river follow- ing the path marked out the previous year by Colonel Lovewell, reaching the Connecticut at Moose Meadow in Piermont, June 25. Proceeding thence northward through the wide intervals of the river, they "encamped on the banks of a large stream which came out of the east," and which is described as "furnishing the best of falls and conveniences for all sorts of mills." This stream was the Oliverian, and the place of encampment was undoubtedly at "the Brook," and very likely on the plot near the Gen. John Montgomery house. The next day they proceeded up the river, Captain Powers making note of the clear intervals on both sides the river later known as the Great Oxbow in Newbury and the Little. Oxbow in Haverhill. (In these pages the term Oxbow will be used for convenience sake as meaning the latter, the Haverhill tract.) On reach- ing the Ammonoosuc just north of what is now Woodsville, they found it too wide and deep for fording, and they were obliged to build a canoe before they could cross. They continued their journey northward through the highlands lying between the Connecticut and the Ammonoo- suc, on through the present towns of Bath, Monroe, Littleton, Dalton, over the intervals below and above Lancaster as far as Northumberland where they arrived July 2. Their stock of provisions had become much reduced and Captain Powers made his preparations to return. They had met no Indians on their march, but a little to the north of their Northumberland encampment they found a place where Indians had been making canoes and which had been abandoned but a little before. The fifth of July found them on their return just below the mouth of Wells River on the west side of the Connecticut when they camped for the night. July 6, they went down through the cleared interval crossing into Haverhill below the Newbury Oxbow at what is now the Keyes farm. Thence they marched south by east about three miles and camped on high ground near the Oliverian, on what Captain Powers called "the best of upland covered by some quantities of large white pine." This place of encampment was probably at what later became Haverhill Corner, since Captain Powers description answers to that given the Corner by its first settlers. The remainder of their march to Concord was over the route they had previously taken on their journey northward.

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History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire, Part 2

Author: Whitcher, William F. (William Frederick), 1845-1918 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Concord, N.H. : Rumford press] Number of Pages: 838

Author: Whitcher, William F. (William Frederick), 1845-1918
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Concord, N.H. : Rumford press]
Number of Pages: 838