USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Hollis > History of the town of Hollis, New Hampshire, from its first settlement to the year 1879 > Part 25
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According to the same census there were then in the town seven saw-mills, with a capital of $13,000, employing thirteen hands, with a pay-roll of $3,000, and sawing 1,400,000 feet of lumber, of the valu- of $21,000; also one grain mill. The whole amount of capital then invested in manufactures of different kinds was $28,000, employing thirty-four men, with a pay-roll of $12,000, and with a product for the year of the value of $43.000. In 1820, as stated in Farmer's New Hampshire Gazetteer, there were in Hollis five grain mills, six saw mills, one clothing mill, one card- ing machine, one tannery, two taverns and four stores. In 1878 (as appears) but one grain mill, no clothing mill, carding machine, tannery or tavern, and but one store.
RIVERS, PONDS AND BROOKS.
As has been said already, the town, in all parts of it, is well watered. Its south-east part is crossed by the Nashua river, and its south-west by the Nissitissit. Besides several smaller ponds, there are in the town four large ones, viz., Flint's pond in the east, Rocky in the north-west, Pennichuck in the north-east, and Long pond north of the centre, varying in area from fifty to one hundred acres. Brooks of considerable size form the outlet of each of these ponds, viz., Flint's brook, flowing into the Nashua, of Flint's pond ; Pen- nichuck, emptying into the Merrimack, of the pond of the same name. and also of Long pond, and Rocky Pond brook, flowing into tl.e Nissitissit, of Rocky pond. Many other smaller brooks flow
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POPULATION.
into these ponds and rivers, some of which, as well as the rivers and the other brooks, furnish eligible sites for saw and other mills.
FOREST TREES, LUMBER AND COOPERING.
Since its first settlement, the forests of Hollis have abounded in a large variety of the most valuable forest trees, including white and other species of Oak, Pine, Chestnut, Walnut, White and Sugar Maple and many other kinds. The great abundance and good quality of its oak and chestnut timber, early in the present century, led many of the citizens of the town to engage in the manufacture of barrels and other casks for the Boston market, very many of the farmers having a cooper's shop near the farm house. This busi- ness for many years was carried on to such extent that it was some- times said by their neighbors of other towns, "that all the Hollis folks were coopers, except their minister, and that he hooped his own cider barrels !" The manufacture of casks of different kinds is still carried on to considerable extent, but by a less number of persons than formerly, pine lumber being now mainly used for this purpose, in place of oak and chestnut.
POPULATION.
No off cial provincial census of Hollis, taken prior to 1767, has come down to us. The best means now available for approximat- ing to the number of its inhabitants before that year, are furnished by the names of the tax payers, on the annual tax lists. The num- ber of names on the tax lists in West Dunstable, in 1740, was twenty-nine,-in 1745, seventy-seven ; on the Hollis tax list in 1746, the year of its incorporation, fifty-three. The number of names found on these lists from 1746 to 1783, was as below.
1745, 53. 1755, 107. 1765, 131. 1775, (at the beginning of the war,) 279. 1750, 77- . 1760, 117. 1771, 231. 1783, (at the end of the war,) 393-
One Pine Hill was annexed in 1763, and the south part of Mon- son in 1770, which accounts in part for the increase of names on the tax lists in 1765 and 1771. The whole population in 1767 was 809, including one male and one female slave. In 1775, whole population 1,255, of which four were slaves. According to the sev- eral censuses taken in different years since, the population was as presented below.
1783, 1392. ISco, 1557. IS20, 1543- IS40, 1333- 1860, 1317.
1790, 1441. IS10, 1529. IS30, 1501. IS50. 1293. ISTO, 1079.
The whole population of New Hampshire in 1767 was 52, SSo ; in 1775, 82,200.
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POSTOFFICE AND POSTMASTERS.
BIRTHS AND DEATHS FROM 1794 TO 1818.
It appears from the Hollis church records, as kept by Rev. Eli Smith from 1794 to ISIS, that it was his custom to enter in those records, the yearly number of births in the town, with the name of the father of the several children born. It is shown by this re- cord, that for the twenty-five years from 1794 to ISIS. the number of births in the town annually was as follows :
1794, 41. 1799, 30. 1804, 45. 1809, 32. IS14, 27. 1795, 45. 1800, 29. 1805, 40.
ISI0, 33- IS15, 25. 1795, 50. 1801, 55. 1806, 37. ISII, 32. 1816, 23. 1797, 57. 1803, 55. IS07, 40. 1812, 25. ISIT, IS. 1798, 41. ISO3, 51. ISOS, 37. ISI3, 25. ISIS, 11.
Making in all 907 births in the twenty-five years. It is shown in Farmer's New Hampshire Gazetteer, published in 1823, that the number of deaths in Hollis for the same twenty-five years was 557. being an excess of births over deaths of 340.
POSTOFFICE AND POSTMASTERS.
The first postmaster appointed in Hollis was Major Ambrose Gould in the year ISIS. Prior to that year, there had been no post- office in Hollis, and letters and other matters sent by mail, ad- dressed o Hollis people, were sent to the postoffice at Amherst. The following list, copied mainly from the New Hampshire Annual Registers, exhibits the names of the Hollis postmasters from ISIS to 1879, with the years in which they severally held the office.
Ambrose Gould, from :SiS to 1$30.
William N. Tenney, " 1956 ". 1558.
Benoni G. Cutter, .. IS30 " 1835.
David. W. Sawtell, 1855 " 1862.
Moses Proctor, IS35 " 1836. Ebenezer T. Wheeler," 1862 " IS67. William Butterfield. " 1836 " IS40. William A. Trow, 1867 " 18,5. Edward Emerson, 1845 " 1854- George A. Burge, .. 1877 ' IS79. Franklin Wright, IS40 " 1845. Henry N. Smith, 1875 " IST7. Reuben Baldwin, = IS54 " 1856.
In the year 1794, with a population in the State of 141,885, the number of postoffices in the State was but five. In 1802-pop- ulation of the State, IS3,85S. Number of postoffices, twenty-cight. In ISIS-population, 214.460. Number of postoffices. sixty-eight. In 1860 - population 326,073. Number of postoffices three hun- dred and seventy-two. Since 1860 the number of postoffices in the State is supposed to have considerably increased.
TAVERN KEEPERS FROM 1792 TO IS21.
With but one or two exceptions, I have been unable to learn the names of the Tavern Keepers in Hollis previously to 1792. In
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JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. 269
that year the New Hampshire General Court passed an Act au- thorizing the Selectmen of towns to grant licenses to keep tavern to " suitable persons." having " accommodations" who might make application, with the right to sell by retail rum, brandy, wine, gin and other spirituous liquors-such license, unless renewed, to con- tinue but one year. It appears from a record of their doings kept by the Selectmen, that between the years 1792 and 1821, licenses , to keep tavern in Hollis were granted to the several persons named below, and to most of them in several different years. In 1793, to William W. Pool and to widow Sarah Eastman : 1794 to Capt. Leonard Whiting : 1795 to Leonard Whiting, Jun. : 1796 to Capt. B. Woods Parker, and John Smith ; 1806 to Daniel Emerson, Esq., Benjamin Pool, Daniel Merrill and Ambrose Gould; 1812 to Ben- jamin Farley, Peleg Lawrence and Nehemiah Woods: ISIS to Charles Farley, Luther Parker and Joseph Patch; IS21 to Miss Mary Woods, Dr. Noah Hardy, and Samuel G. Jewett.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
The Justices of the Peace in Hollis, prior to the war of the Rev- olution, have been spoken of in a former chapter. During the war, (in the year 1777) Noah Worcester was appointed to this office and continued to had it afterwards till his death in ISI7. Also during the war, or soon after it, Dea. Daniel Emerson was commissioned a Justice of the Peace and Quorum, which office he continued to hold till his decease in 1820. From the close of the war till ISos, a period of near thirty years, with a population in Hollis averaging near 1500, Messrs. Emerson and Worcester were the only Justices of the Peace in the town. For the next twenty-two years, from ISOS to IS30. but seven other citizens of Hollis were appointed to that office, viz., in ISOS, Benjamin Pool, Amos Eastman and Wil- liam Ames ; in 1813, Benjamin Farley ; in 1816. Benjamin M. Farley ; in 1822, Nathan Thayer, and in 1830, Christopher P. Farley.
In the early civil history of our State, this office of Justice of the Peace involved responsible and very important public duties and also implied capacity on the part of such magistrates to discharge those duties intelligently and acceptably. But in view of the num- bers and frequency of such appointments for the last thirty years or more, with the supposed reasons for many of them, one may be permitted to doubt whether the office. in all cases, is now looked
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BURIAL GROUNDS.
upon as involving such duties to the public, or competency for their performance. In many, not to say in a majority of instances, the commission of Justice with the title conferred by it, seem to be looked upon as a matter of cheap fashionable ornament, intended for per- sonal gratification and distinction, rather than as of any important practical use to the public. Such commissions, as is understood, add one dollar each to the revenues of the State, and the New Hamp- shire Governors and Council have become exceedingly obliging and liberal in the issue of official compliments of this sort to their fel- low citizens in all parts of the State-especially to such of them as were known to be of like politics with themselves. There is no evidence that the good people of Hollis have been more bountifully favored with these complimentary commissions than the citizens of most towns in other parts of the State, yet it appears from the sta- tistics to be found in the New Hampshire Annual Registers, that since the year 1830, no less than fifty of the worthy citizens of Hollis have been so favored, (an average of more than one a year), and that no less than twelve of them held such commissions in 187S. Of this last number, four, as appears, were Justices of the Peace for the State at large, having jurisdiction in all parts of it-and one, of the quorum, all ex-oficio, having the right to be addressed by the title of "} squire,"-also to issue writs both in civil and criminal cases-hold courts-and try causes-and in all proper cases to join in wedlock, and read the riot act -- the number of these officials in the town, each with all these powers and duties, being equal to one for each ninety of the whole of the present population.
BURIAL GROUNDS.
There are now in the town, in all, five of those sacred reposito. ries of the remains of the dead, the most ancient of them near the meeting-house, older in fact than the town charter; the next oldest on the road to Amherst, in the north part of the town, within the limits of the extinct town of Monson ; one at Pine Hill in the east part ; a fourth about a mile south of the meeting-house, on the road to Pepperell, laid out about fifty years ago ; the fifth near a mile east of the meeting-house, which has been in use about sixteen years. All of these grounds are of moderate extent, no one of them containing more than two or three acres. It may be that all of these sacred repositories are kept in as good condition, and the graves. mon iments and gravestones in them as well preserved and cared for
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THE PUBLIC ROADS.
as in most like public burial grounds in this part of the State, which is saying but very little in their favor. Stili no one of these ceme- teries in Hollis is now fenced, cared for and ornamented in a way to do justice to the feelings and sentiments which the descendants of its early inhabitants entertain of the moral worth of the many excel- lent and patriotic men, and exemplary and virtuous women, whose mortal dust reposes in them. If the attention of the people of Hollis is once properly called to this subject, no doubt should be indulged that in this matter, better justice would soon be done alike to themselves and to the memories of an ancestry of which they feel justly proud.
THE PUBLIC ROADS.
The public roads in Hollis, now leading to Amherst, Pepperell, Nashua, Merrimack and Brookline, were originally laid out three rods wide, most of them substantially on the lines where they still run. Previous to or at the time the town was incorporated in 1746, it was divided into five road districts, and that number of Surveyors of Highways was chosen at the first town election. Between that date and the end of the war of the Revolution, the number of road districts was increased to twelve, with the like number of Surveyors of Highw ty's. At that time it was the custom to determine by vote at the annual meeting, the amount of the yearly tax "for making and mending the highways" (all to be paid in labor on the roads) and also to fix by the like vote, the sum to be allowed for a day's work both of men and oxen. The amount of the road tax, as also the wages allowed for labor, varied in different years, according to the state of the currency. From 1746 to 1765, the money in circulation was mainly what was afterwards known, as the "Old Tenor" paper money. This currency fluctuated in value from year to year, and the amount of the road tax, and wages, varied with the value of the currency. For example, in 1752 the road tax was £400 O. T .- allowed for a day's work for a man 30 shillings-for a pair of oxen 10 shillings. In 1760, the road tax was £1ooo-allowed for a day's work for a man &5, do. for oxen, 30 shillings. In 1768, after the Old Tenor paper had gone out of use, and "lawful" or silver money had taken its place, the annual tax for "making and mending the highways," was £35-allowed for a man's days work, 2 shillings and 5 pence, or about 40 cents, in Federal money-for a pair of oxen 12 1-2 pence, or about 18 cents.
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HOLLIS INSURANCE COMPANY.
During the war of the Revolution, when the taxes were assessed and paid in the old Continental paper money, the amount of the road tax, and the wages for a day's work, fluctuated from year to year in like manner as from 1746 to 1765. The public roads in Hollis, as is evident from the town records, were an object of much attention, and appear to have been uniformly well cared for from its first settle- ment, and during the present century, at least, they have been kept well graded, smooth and safe, and now afford pleasant drives, whether for business or pleasure, in all parts of the town.
THE HOLLIS MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.
Some more than thirty years since, many of the citizens of Hollis believing that they might secure themselves from losses by fire at less expense than through the joint stock, or other fire insurance companies then existing, resolved to try the experiment of a town organization for their mutual protection from such losses. . With this purpose in view, a public meeting was held April 7, 1846, at the hall of Truman Hardy, of which Dr. Oliver Scripture was chairman, and resolutions (then reported upon the subject), adopted and signed by fifty-three of their number. At the same meeting, a committee, of six of them, consisting of William P. Saunderson, Jose; h 1 .. Smith, Leonard Farley, David J. Wright, Joel Hardy and i'dward Emerson, was appointed to draft a constitution and by-laws, and also to take the proper steps to obtain a charter for the association. These proceedings resulted in the procuring for the association an act of incorporation at the June session of the General Court of the same year, by the name of the " Hollis Mutual Fire Insurance Company."
The company was organized August 3, 1846, with the following officers then chosen, viz. : President, Ebenezer Fox ; Secretary and Treasurer, Edward Emerson ; Directors, Leonard Farley. David J. Wright, David W. Sawtell, William P. Saunderson. Joel Hardy and Ambrose H. Wood.
The losses of this company for the thirty-two years of its existence to December 1, IS78, have been $3,081.74 ; amount of property insured $216,202 ; amount of premium notes now held by the company, $13,174.95. The officers of the company the present year (1879) are, President, Edward Hardy ; Secretary and Treasurer, Ebenezer T. Wheeler ; Directors, Edward Hardy, Jefferson Farley, Silas M. Spaulding, Ira H. Proctor, Timothy E. Flagg, Joseph Gates and Isaac Vandyke.
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EDUCATIONAL HISTORY.
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CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. - SCHOOL LAWS AND TAXES. - SCHOOL DISTRICTS .- STATE LITERARY FUND .- SCHOOL COMMITTEES .-- TEACHERS, THEIR QUALIFICATIONS TO TEACH, AND EXAMINA- TION. - THE HIGH SCHOOL. - MISS MARY S. FARLEY. - HOLLIS LIBRARY. - LYCEUMS AND PUBLIC LECTURES. - GRADUATES OF COLLEGES.
In a former chapter I have spoken of the school law in force it New Hampshire prior to, and for some years after the Revolution. and somewhat of the public schools in Hollis under that law. It was shown by that law, that each New Hampshire town having fifty fan. "es was required to support a public school for teaching children n the town to " read and write," and towns having one hundred families or more, to maintain a Grammar school in which the "tongues" or dead languages should be taught. These schools. as has been seen, were sustained by an annual tax. voted at the yearly March meeting, and were wholly under the charge and control of the Selectmen. This school law remained in force without material change till 1789.
The following exhibit presents the yearly amount of the school tax voted at the annual town meetings in Hollis, from 1750 for the following thirty-nine years. From 1750 to 1767, this tax wasassessed in the "Old Tenor" paper currency ; from 1767 inclusive. to 1776 in "Lawful Money" or silver ; during the war, in Continental paper money or New Hampshire bills of credit : after the war. again in lawful money or silver.
SCHOOL TAXES FROM 1750 TO 1789.
In 1751, £50, O. T. In 1752, 1753 and 1754, no school tax : 1755, £100, O. T. In 1756, no school tax. In 1757, £200, O. T. : 1758, £300 In 1759. 1760, 1761. 1762 and 1763, 2400, yearly. In (18)
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SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
1764 and 1765, £800, each year ; 1766, £600. In 1767, £35, lawful money or silver. In 1768, 1769 and 1770, £30, lawful money each year. In 1771, 1772 and 1773, £30 lawful money, yearly. In 1774 and 1775, £50 lawful money, each year. In 1776 and 1777, £50; 1778, £80 ; 1779, ' £200; 1780, £4000, all in Continental paper money. In 1781 and 1782, £50 each year, lawful money, and in 1783, £65; 1784, £50, all in lawful money. In 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788 and 1789, £75, lawful money, yearly.
THE SCHOOL LAW OF 1789.
An Act of the General Court passed in 1789, for the maintaining and regulating the New Hampshire public schools, repealed the school laws till that time in force, and made it the duty of the Se- lectmen, yearly to assess upon the inhabitants of each town £45 upon each 20 shillings of the town's proportion of the public taxes, for the teaching the children and youth of the town " reading, writing and arithmetic." It may be seen that by the law of 1789 that "arithmetic " was required to be taught in the public schools, in addition to " reading and writing." "Shire towns and half shire towns," by the same law, were required to maintain a Grammar chool, for teaching "Latin and Greck." This Act of 1789 is supposed to have continued in force till 1805.
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SCHOOL TAXES ASSESSED UNDER THE SCHOOL LAW OF ITS9.
In 1790, £90. In 1791, ES5. In 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, £90 yearly. In 1796, $400. From 1797 to ISO3, inclusive, $150 yearly. In 1804 and 1805, $500 each year. In 1806, 1807 and ISOS. $7co yearly.
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SCHOOL DISTRICTS. .
I find no statute school law, in New Hampshire passed, previous to the year 1805, requiring or seeming in its terms to contemplate the division of towns, for school purposes into school districts. In that year an Act was passed by the General Court, conferring authority upon towns, at a legal meeting called for the purpose, to organize school districts (should the inhabitants so choose). and define their boundaries. This Act, a few years later, was so amended as to make this subdivision of the towns into school dis- trict . imperative upon the town authorities.
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SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
Still, as has been before stated, it appears from the town records that some years before the Revolution Hollis was, in fact, divided + into local subdistricts for the support of its public schools. These divisions appear to have been wholly voluntary on the part of such of the inhabitants as were affected by them, and as we have seen were called in the records, school " classes," school " societies," or "squadrons," but I have not been able to find any record in respect to their location or the manner in which they were organized. How many of these school "classes " or " squadrons" there may have been at the time the law was passed requiring towns to be divided into school districts, with fixed boundaries, cannot now be ascer- tained with certainty, but probably there were not less than eight or ten of them. It is shown by the town records that as early as the year 1774 the town voted, " that the Grammar school should be kept the whole year in the four southern squadrons, the other squadrons to school out their money as usual, except their propor- tion of the Grammar school." As the part of the town north of the meeting-house was quite as large in extent as that south of it, and probably quite as populous, there can be but little doubt that before the Revolution there were as many as eight or nine of these school "" squad. ons."
Afte, the passage of the law requiring towns to be divided into school districts, with fixed boundaries, we find that as early as the year ISIS there were in Hollis as many as twelve of these districts, and this number, by subdivision, was afterwards increased to fourteen. These districts were designated numerically, from No. I to No. 14, and were also familiarly known and called by the fol- lowing names : No. 1, Middle, or Centre; No. 2, Pool; No. 3, Pine Hill; No. 4, Corner; No. 5, White; No. 6, Southwest ; No. 7, Red; No. S, North; No. 9, Beaver Brook; No. 10, Northwest, or Bailey; No. 11, Willoughby; No. 12, East; No. 13, Brick ; No. 14, Hardy.
This number of districts continued till 1874, when Nos. 1, 5, 9, 13 and 14, known as the "Middle," "White,""" Beaver Brook," " Brick" and " Hardy," were united and consolidated into a single district, since known as the Union School District, thus reducing the whole number of districts in the town to ten. Upon the union of these districts being consummated, the old school buildings in all of those five districts were abandoned for school purposes and sold, and the new Union district at once proceeded to purchase a beautiful and sightly school-house lot on Main street, near the centre of the
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SCHOOL DISTRICTS.
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town, and to erect upon it for the use of its schools, a spacious. commodious, well-finished and furnished two-story school-house. with convenient and suitable out-buildings and fixtures at the cost of about $10,000, in which its schools have since been kept. In the year 1876, the " Pine Hill" and " East" districts were united into one, thus reducing the whole number of school districts in the town to nine, the present number.
With perhaps the exception of the school in the first or middle district, I am aware of no special facts of general interest, which in any marked degree would distinguish the public schools in Hollis from the like country schools in most other New Hampshire country towns. For the first twenty-five years of the present cen- tury, all these schools, generally, if not uniformly, were kept by male teachers in winter, and by school mistresses in summer, and from well ascertained facts which have come to my knowledge, I am led to the belief that the average attendance of pupils upon them fifty years ago was more than double of what it has been for the last twenty-five years. During the period last named, many and it may be most of these schools have been taught by female teachers both winter and summer.
The following somewhat curious and unique facts pertaining to ti e "middle" school district in Hollis are below presented, substan- tially as published in the Nashua Weekly Telegraph about two years since. I am indebted for them to my brother, John N. Worcester. who has spent his life in Hollis, and has kept himself well posted in its local history, and who, with myself, in our boyhood, was a member of the school in that district. With but slight changes the article, as it appeared in the Telegraph, was as follows :
" HOLLIS SIXTY YEARS AGO."
"In the year 1812, there were in the First or Middle school dis- trict in Hollis forty-two dwelling-houses, at that time occupied by forty-eight families, including widowed mothers whose husbands. then deceased, had been residents of the district. Three of these forty-eight families had no children; the remaining forty-five of them had had, in all, three hundred and eighty-four, averaging eight and eight-fifteenths to each family. Nine of the forty-five families had six children each ; seven of them, seven each ; four of them eight each ; eight of them nine each; four, ten each ; two, eleven each ; three, twelve cach ; two, thirteen each ; one fourteen. one fifteen, and one sixteen.
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