History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire, Part 51

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 51

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HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

for passengers to do a little business. Passengers could purchase tickets or pay on the cars, just as they chose. There was no bothering with rebate slips. There were no telegraph orders. The train first arriving waited for the other, except in cases where they were specified on the time card to wait five, ten, or fifteen minutes, and then proceed.

The first annual stockholders' meeting held at Plymouth appears to have been held in 1854, and after that time, with the exception of three or four, at Laconia, Meredith and Plymouth, and the stock was largely distributed along the line of the old Boston, Con- cord and Montreal. Stockholders' day was a day when every one travelled. Every passenger car and engine that could be secured was pressed into service to handle the crowds. Stockholders on that day were allowed to ride all over the road, and they usually availed themselves of the privilege by figuring just how much riding they could get for themselves, their families and their neighbors. They did not mind so much about attending the meeting as they did about the riding. They would start on the first train and ride on every train possible and get home on the last train at night. In consequence of this every train was crowded. It was one of the big days for northern New Hampshire.

The first regular conductor was Jacob Libby who graduated from a coach to run as conductor. After him came "Sid" Russ and Seth Greenleaf. Afterwards "Tom" Robie took charge of the train that was known for years as Robie's train or "Patch's" train. In the early days trains were commonly known by the name of the engineers or conductors. "Patch" Clifford was the engineer and Robie the conductor of the morn- ing train from Plymouth to Concord and the afternoon train from Concord to Plymouth, and that train is known today amongst the old settlers as "Patch's train" or "Robie's train." Seth Greenleaf at one time was worth considerable money, but invested it all in a gold mining scheme at Lisbon, and lost it. Robie ran the Plymouth and Concord train for years. Afterwards he ran the train between Fabyan and the Base and looked after the logging on the Passumpsic Valley winters. He died in Plymouth in 1893.

We must not forget Uncle Webb (Wilbur F.) Stearns. Webb was one of the early stage drivers and afterwards had charge of the staging business of the company when they ran the lines from Plymouth and Littleton to the mountain hotels. In the winter Webb turned his hand to anything. I remember my first lesson in passenger braking came from Webb Stearns. Later on we had as conductors, George Eastman, "Pete" Hines, Dave Fergurson, who came off a freight to run a passenger train, and there was Ed Fisher and Bill Rollins, who ran baggage cars between Boston and Plymouth and were conductors between Plymouth and Littleton. Afterwards came "Ed." Mann and a long string of conductors with whom you are familiar. Many of us here know "Ed." Mann.1 Probably no one knew him better than I did. I ran with him for a number of years on trains. He was baggage master and I was brakeman. I took his place at Con- cord when he was made superintendent at Woodsville, and afterwards came to Woods- ville as his assistant. A better man than "Ed." Mann never lived. His only fault (if he had one) was that he trusted too much to his friends. He could not conceive of any wrong doing in any one toward his fellowmen.

My memory in regard to railroad matters runs back further than my personal con- nection with the road for the reason that my father was in its employ from 1853 to 1871. In 1853 he was second hand on the section at Rumney. When the road was opened to Woodsville he became section foreman between Woodsville and North Haverhill for quite a number of years. His section started in at Woodsville and ended at Hannaford's

1 Edward F. Mann, born in Benton September 7, 1845; entered the employ Boston, Concord and Montreal 1865, in the passenger service; was baggage master, conductor, train despatcher at Concord; assistant superintendent at Woodsville; general superin- tendent Concord and Montreal with office at Concord till his death, August 19, 1892.

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Pass, about three-fourths of a mile below North Haverhill station. At that time it was thought best to go over the road before the early morning train. The last train into Woodsville at night was before dark, and I know that for many years my father would get up one morning and Dan Foley would get up the next morning and walk down to North Haverhill ahead of the freight which left Woodsville about 5 o'clock. My father continued as seetion foreman for a number of years; afterwards ran the construction trains, picked up old ties, etc., leaving the road to go into business in 1871.

My own connection with the road dates back to somewhere about 1865. Mr. Dodge got a notion that it would be safer for some one to go over the Connecticut River bridge after the passage of each train. There were at that time four or five trains each day crossing the bridge, and he arranged with my father to have me go over the bridge after the passage of each train to look for fire, and I was paid for this summer's work eight dollars. In the fall of 1868 I went into the engine house here at Woodsville as watch- man and engine cleaner, and continued for a year when I went to Littleton, and from there as the road advanced to Lancaster, taking care of the engines nights. Mr. Dodge had always told me that just as soon as I got large enough and was old enough, I should be made a brakeman, and he finally put me on the train in the spring of 1871, and I have been around doing something ever since.

At the time I entered the service, one engine the "Peter Clark" was doing all the business between Littleton and Woodsville. As I have before stated, Isaac Sanborn was the engineer, West Lyons, fireman, and Ezra Mann did the shifting in the Woods- ville yard and ran the freight to Littleton and return. On the passenger train, the baggage master ran from Boston to Plymouth. Then he was made conductor from Ply- mouth to Littleton, and the brakeman went ahead as baggage master. The cars that ran between Boston and Woodsville were thought to be entirely too good to run north of Woodsville, so everybody had to change cars here, and we had running north of Woods- ville an old flat top passenger car and a car which served for baggage, mail and express. Everything had to be changed at Woodsville; mails, express and passengers, and the cars that came from Boston were set off here to be washed and cleaned and ready for the next day. I remember this old passenger car as having in the centre of it a wood stove, cast iron base and sheet iron top, similar to the old fashioned parlor stoves, two candles, one on each side of the car. You could barely see your way through the car when they were lighted.

The first ears constructed with monitor top were built in 1868, at Laconia, two com- bination cars and two coaches. These were followed by two more coaches, the next summer with what were known as "French tops." For a long time these good cars were all taken off in the fall, and we ran only the flat roof cars during the winter. The cars were hitched up with pin and link couplers, and of course there were no such things as air brakes. We had bell cord that were used only in cases of emergency. We had a signal that we used to slide out on the end of the car to stop at flag stations, instead of pulling the cord and the engineer looked back to see it. The box cars in freight trains most of them had brakes, but there were no brakes on the flat cars. None of the freight cars had over 20,000 pounds capacity and the longest cars were 28 feet. The caboose had space for freight in each end and the conductor's room in the center. The con- duetor's room was so small you could sit on the seat and put your feet on the small box stove. On each end on top of the caboose there was a recess cut into the top of the car, and a hood to pull over it, so that in stormy weather when the brakeman rode on top of the caboose he could sit down in this recess and pull the hood over him and be protected from the wind and storm. There was no accommodation for sleeping in the cabooses, and I cannot imagine what a freight crew would say today, if started out with the equip- ment given the men of that time, and which was perfectly satisfactory.

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The freight conductors ran through to Boston, and usually one end of the caboose was used as a private conveyance for eggs and butter and that sort of stuff. Some of the freight conductors got up a great reputation in Boston as dealers in butter and eggs, one of them, Farrah, going so far as to have a sign on his caboose door. For locomotives we had the old "McDuffie" and the "Granite State." One of these was stationed at Woodsville as shifter and helper. They were an old style of Hinckley engines. The cylinders were not set level, but at an angle. Then there was the old "Jim Elkins" and the "Crawford," inside connections. These were passenger engines. I remember them particularly well as being the meanest things to clean we had. The "Chocorua" was the pet engine of the road. Henry Little ran her and she had more brass on her than all the engines on the division put together at the present time. Henry was so careful of her that he had a lot of old canvass to cover her up with when she was in the engine house.

The "Peter Clark" as I have said before did all the work north of Woodsville and the "Winnie" and the "Pea" did the freight work. "Patch" Clifford had the "Lady of the Lake" south of Plymouth and he never let her go out of his hands. Everything burned wood. We had woodsheds strung along the line wherever wood was handiest. The principal wooding-up points for passenger trains were Woodsville, East Haverhill, Warren, Plymouth, Lakeport and Northfield. Brakemen and conductors and all hands had to get out and help wood-up every time the train stopped for wood. Freights had to stop at slab and wood piles besides the track between stations.

When I began watching (1868) in the engine house at Woodsville, the railroad build- ings here consisted of the engine house, which was a roundhouse with turn-table under cover, and five pits with blacksmith shop on the rear. The buildings were of brick heated by box stoves burning wood. Back of the engine house was the woodshed some two or three hundred feet long; a stationary engine house in which there was a small engine used to saw the wood and pump the water from the river for the use of locomo- tives, and incidentally for the use of the few people who lived near the engine house, who were permitted to take water whenever they wished. The station, about where the road department offices are now, and about the same kind of a building, was occupied by both freight and passenger departments, two small waiting rooms-an ordinary country station-the ticket office between. There was a tenement for the station agent in the rear, and in the rear of the tenement the freight house.

About opposite the present passenger station was a car house of two tracks holding four cars. The hand-car house was just about opposite Ai Willoughby's, and a little north of that, about opposite Mulliken's Block was a rail shop, where they mended iron rails. Very near where the gate tower for the crossing stands, was a small switch house and this was the junction of the White Mountain Road and the Boston, Concord and Montreal. Standing at this switch house you could look in all directions and see only one set of buildings. These were known as the Tuttle farm buildings and is the place where Robert Parks now lives. There were at that time, outside the railroad buildings less than twenty buildings in the village. The highway went over the tracks where the underpass1 now is. There were some stock yards between the railroad and the highway in front of Ai Willoughby's. There was one track running to the stock yards, and one track running to the freight house, and the long siding running from about where the dry bridge is, down through to the ledge, a little farther down than where the small hose house now stands. The land south of the passenger station was covered with lumber and bark hauled from Groton way. The Montpelier and Wells River Road was being built about this time. On the Wells River side the passenger station was down below the church, and there was only one track between here and Wells River, now known as the south "Y." The bank at that time came close to the south "Y" track.

1 Dry bridge.

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HISTORY OF HAVERHILL

Looking at the Woodsville of today one can hardly conceive that there has been such a change in thirty years. There was little business of any account here at that time. A shovel handle shop and a small sawmill stood on the site of the pumping station, run by C. B. Smith. The Weeks Block, so called, was the only store in the place, and was the centre of a thriving business, taking in large quantities of every kind of farm produce in exchange for goods. There was no coal used in the place. I well remember the first coal I ever saw. The blacksmith at the engine house had been in the habit of using charcoal, or hemlock bark in the forge. They sent up from somewhere down .country, some barrels of what they then called sea coal, the same kind we now burn on the loco- motives. The oil used on the trains for everything except the valves was pure lard oil. In the winter we had to take it out of the barrels and melt it in kettles over the fire. For the valves they used tallow.

At this time there were three engines kept at Woodsville over night, the mail train engine, the freight engine and the helper. When the helper was not gone over the hill it was used as a shifter. Henry Little and "Bogie" Drake ran the mail trains and Charlie Burleigh and George Hutchins were their firemen. Charlie Green and Aaron Ferguson ran the way freights and Orin Bailey was one of the firemen. Bill Clement ran the helper and Charlie Hoit was his fireman. Ezra Mann ran the mountain freight, but I do not remember who his brakeman was, if he had any. He probably did not. Henry Ramsey was station agent and in full charge of everything here in Woodsville. There were no doctors, or lawyers, or ministers in the village. Up to 1882 trains were seldom moved by telegraph orders. Some attempts were made at train despatching, but in rather a loose way. In 1882 W. A. Stowell assumed charge of the train service, opened a despatcher's office at Plymouth, and George Randall was taken from the Central Ver- mont road and made chief despatcher.

The train men of the present day think they are working hard, but in the early 70's when we first opened up to Lancaster a man would leave Lancaster with a three car train, as baggage master and brakeman, making all stops by hand to Plymouth. At Plymouth we took on one car and another brakeman to Boston. All we had to do was to brake two brakes and take care of the baggage. When we reached Boston, we had to shift our train, and sweep out our cars and get our kindling wood ready to build a fire the next morning, then get up in the morning and go down to the car shed and build the fires in season to have the cars warm to leave Boston at 7.30; brake two brakes, take care of the baggage to Plymouth, and then have two or three cars to brake back to Lancaster alone. Generally we had to wood-up two or three times, get in our wood to run the stoves, see that the fire was going all right and a few other things to keep us from getting asleep. At Lancaster they had car cleaners, so we did not have to clean our cars at that end of the trip. We thought we had a good job then. We received at that time the same pay brakemen receive now.

The way freight conductors ran from Woodsville to Boston; Woodsville to Concord the first day, Concord to Boston the next day, back to Concord from Boston the third, and to Woodsville the fourth, taking four days to make the run. They never had but one brakeman on the trains; they would leave Woodsville in the morning at four or five o'clock with a double header; unload meal, grain, etc., and load butter, etc., all the way down at every station, wood-up three or four times, have thirty or forty cars into Plymouth, stop there two or three hours to have everything looked over by the officials and do what shifting was to be done, leave enough cars at Plymouth so that they could get over Ashland hill, change engines and brakeman at Lakeport and get into Con- cord somewhere in the evening. On the run between Concord and Boston there was little to do, and the time in Boston was occupied in selling butter and eggs, so they had, take it all around, a good job.

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The company from the very beginning thought it would be economical to burn old ties, so every fall ties were picked up and put into piles along the track, when some one was got to saw them up; then trains would stop wherever there were piles of ties and wood- up. Later they built three tie sheds, one at Bridgewater, one at Woodsville and the other at Wing Road. A contract was made with O. G. Smith to pick up the ties and saw them at so much a cord. Just as soon as the summer trains were off, we would start out with ten flat cars, about thirty men with boarding cars, and fill up these sheds, living all the time on the train and stopping wherever night overtook us. This took the time till snow came. Then Smith would put his sawing machine into the sheds and saw up the ties during the winter. He was supposed to cut them sixteen inches long, but from the time he cut them to the time they were put into the fire box they generally grew to be any where from 24 to 30 inches in length. A large part of these ties would fall to pieces in handling, and every fall before we filled the shed with a new consignment we would shovel out fifty carloads or so in the form of chips and rotten rubbish.

They had a directors meeting at one time to talk over the matter of using the old ties. Some thought it was not economical, but the management thought we better keep on using them. One director expressed his opinion that although the ties would probably make just as much steam as good hard wood, the steam was undoubtedly of poorer quality. The business of picking up old ties was finally abandoned and cord wood was bought instead, but usually this lay out of doors until it was rotten before it was used. The idea seemed to prevail that wood was not good for anything until it had laid beside the track three or four years. The last year before the lease of the Boston, Concord and Montreal to the Boston and Lowell, I bought some 30,000 cords of wood and this was about our annual consumption. There were no coal burning engines on the Boston, Concord and Montreal up to the time of the lease to the Lowell, except two which had been experi- mented with years before, but the parties who had wood to sell made such expostulations that Mr. Dodge changed them back to wood burners.

Some time about 1874 or 75 Mr. Dodge thought it would be a good thing to have a parlor car run from the boat connection at New London into the mountains, so the Nor- wich and Worcester bought one car and the Boston, Concord and Montreal the other so as to have two cars in the run. I went with Mr. Dodge to Concord when the car arrived and ran extra with the car from Concord to Lancaster to see if it would clear the plat- forms and everything along the line. This was the first parlor car ever run over the road. I do not know what ever became of the Norwich and Worcester car, but the Boston, Con- cord and Montreal car is now running as a passenger coach. The road later bought several parlor cars at the Laconia shops. The first sleeping car over the road came up with General Grant when he made his trip through New Hampshire. We were then building the road between Bethlehem Junction and Twin Mountain and we got the car to Twin Mountain. The Boston, Concord and Montreal was pretty hard up before the lease to the Lowell. It was pretty well run out of everything. I remember in cases of broken rails, trains would sometimes have to stop and go to the nearest siding and get out a rail to put in place of the broken one.

In June 1861, on account of the war, railroad business was very much depressed. Freight trains ran between Concord and Woodsville only three days in the week, that is, a freight would come from Concord to Woodsville one day and return the next. North of Woodsville they ran only two days in the week. The use of flat cars for lumber gradually increased and it became on freight trains a question of getting box cars enough together for brakes to hold the trains down the hills. After a great deal of talk they began to put some brakes on the flat cars. It then became a question to get at the brakes in good shape and put them up. I think the first man who used a wrench of any kind on a flat car was Henry Mann. He used to take a monkey wrench and use that.

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We afterwards found that the rail forks used by section men to lift rails were better than a wrench, and we made raids on hand-car houses as we came across them and took posses- sion of these forks. The progressive spirit of the time would not allow the shop to make us fork wrenches, so we were obliged to confiscate all we had.

After Mr. Lyons died, his mercantile partner in Boston, Mr. Vose, became president of the road. Mr. Vose had no experience whatever, and did not like it. Soon after the death of Mr. Dodge, the Boston and Lowell Road made the directors of the Boston, Concord and Montreal an offer to lease their road which was accepted, and the Boston and Lowell took possession of the Boston, Concord and Montreal in 1884. It was run as the White Mountain Division of the Boston and Lowell until 1889, when the Con- cord Railroad having secured a majority of the Boston, Concord and Montreal stock broke the lease, and brought about a consolidation of the Boston, Concord and Montreal and Concord under the name of Concord and Montreal Railroad. The Concord and Montreal operated the road until 1895, when it was leased to the Boston and Maine, and is now run, as you all know, as the White Mountain Division of the Boston and Maine, it being a part of that great system which controls and operates at the present time 3,260 miles of road, representing a capital investment of something like $204,000,- 000. The annual gross receipts of the combined system are now about $38,000,000 and its operation requires the employment of over 25,000 persons, the annual pay roll being between fourteen and fifteen million dollars. The Boston and Lowell, the Concord and Montreal and afterwards the Boston and Maine made very few changes in the employees of the leased lines. It has always been the policy of the Boston and Maine to retain all the officials and employees of leased lines that were worthy of retention, and President Tuttle has always maintained that the success of the Boston and Maine has been largely owing to the thousands of excellent assistants in all its lines of service. I do not think there exists in the United States a corporation where there is better feeling between the officials and employees than there is on the Boston and Maine road and I know that from the president down the officials of the Boston and Maine have the welfare of the men at heart and do everything they can for the comfort and welfare of the employees.

HAVERHILL BIBLIOGRAPHY

HAVERHILL-Annual Reports of the Auditors and Board of Education for the fiscal years ending February, 1878, '79, '80, '81, '82, '83, '84, '85, '86, '87, '88, '89, '90, '91, '92 and '93, with vital statistics from 1888. Woodsville.

Annual Reports of the town officers of the town of Haverhill for the years ending Feb. 15, with vital statistics, 1894, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 1900, '01, '02, '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15 and '16. Woodsville.

Annual Reports of the officers of the Woodsville Union High School District, 1894, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 1900, '01, '02, '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, '16. Woodsville.

Annual Reports of the Board of Education of the Town of Haverhill, N. H. 1894, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 1900, '01, '02, '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, '16. Woodsville.

Annual Reports of the officers of the Woodsville Fire District, 1889, '90, '91, '92, '93, '94, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 1900, '01, '02, '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, '16. Woodsville.

Annual Reports of the Woodsville Opera Block Association.

Annual Reports of the Woodsville Aqueduct Co., 1887, '88, '89, '90, '91, '92, '93, '94, '95, '96, '97, '98, '99, 1900, '01, '02, '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15, '16. Woodsville.

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History of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire, Part 51

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