USA > New Hampshire > Cheshire County > Keene > History of the town of Keene, from 1732, when the township was granted by Massachusetts, to 1874, when it became a city > Part 32
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1 Henry Wheeler was from Nelson.
2 Mrs. Deidamia Allen, widow of this Daniel Allen, still lives in Keene (1899), in the small brick house just beyond where Col. Darrington's regiment encamped, and draws her pension from the United States government. She was born in 1800, and when she was married, at the age of seventeen -then living in Surry -she came to Keene and bought all the cotton cloth there was in town -forty yards-and paid forty-two cents a yard. Her bed ticking cost fifty cents a yard. (This from her own lips.) Allen was afterwards a captain in the militia and came to Keene to live.
3 The above are all the names of men from Keene found in the adjutant gen- eral's reports, but David Heaton, Barzillai Wheeler, and several other Keene men are reported by their descendants and others to have been soldiers in that war. Wheeler enlisted at Keene in 1812, under Lieut. Butterfield, was 'made a sergeant and orderly for Gen. Macomb, and served through the war.
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their plan and left this part of the coast.1 In November, 1814, the troops were discharged, without pay, and most of them had to beg their way home; but the Cheshire county men were paid in December, at Sumner's tavern in Keene.
The men from Keene in the regular army were engaged in some of the most important service. At the battles of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane the Eleventh regiment greatly distinguished itself, and Daniel Billings of Keene was killed in the attack on Fort Erie. Lieut. James Wells of that regiment had been promoted to captain. Zenas Lebour- veau, of Keene, of the same regiment, had died at Burling- ton, Vt., the year before. Charles Tolman, of Keene, had enlisted as a private, was promoted to ensign and after- wards to lieutenant in the Sixth regiment, commanded by Col. James Miller. That regiment also greatly distin- . guished itself in the battles above named; and both that regiment and the Fourth, in which were Lieut. Butterfield and his men, and William Vose, afterwards of Keene, were in the fight at Plattsburg.
Those victories closed the war in the North. A treaty of peace was signed at Ghent in December, 1814, but Gen. Jackson had the opportunity to win the battle of New Orleans before the news reached this country. The account of that battle, fought on the 8th of January, 1815, did not reach Keene until the 10th of February.
The war had been an expensive one for the country at that time, and the burden of taxes and debt was exceed- ingly heavy on the people and caused bitter complaint. New Hampshire's proportion of the debt was $3,226,445; that of Keene, $26,908; Alstead, $29,392; Walpole, $36,- 491; Westmoreland, $28,305; Chesterfield, $26,618. Rev- enue taxes were collected on all iron and leather and the manufactures of the same; on paper, beer, tobacco, can- dles and almost every article in use; and to enforce the collection property was often seized and sold by the sheriff. In consequence of those hardships the opposition to
1 After the war a British officer told Col. Walbach of our army that they had made every arrangement to destroy the navy yard and the town; that he went up the Piscataway disguised as a fisherman and found so many troops, so well posted, that upon his report the British commander abandoned the project of attacking.
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the course of the administration was strong and violent. President Madison was denounced as an imbecile, and the Sentinel and other Federalist papers called upon him to resign. At the annual meeting in 1815 Keene cast 273 votes for Gilman, the opposition candidate for governor, to fifty- three for William Plumer, the administration candidate.
During the period covered by this chapter, Keene made a steady growth in population, business and wealth, not- withstanding the adverse effects of the war. In 1811 Capt. Wm. Wyman built the present hospital building- then the finest house in town-for his own residence, but died before it was completed. His brick store was sold the next year to Capt. Isaac Parker; and the firm of Parker & Hough moved into it in the spring of 1813. They were succeeded in the brick store on the west side by Phineas Fiske & Co., who came here from Chesterfield in 1814.
In December, 1812, the town of Roxbury was incorpo- rated, formed of territory taken from the towns of Keene, Packersfield and Marlboro, notwithstanding the earnest protests which were sent to the legislature by the inhabi- tants of those towns. An area of 1,472 acres of land and fifteen or more families were taken from Keene, and the North branch was made the line between the two towns for a considerable part of the distance.
In the fall of 1812, Justus Perry came from Marlboro and the next spring took "the large Store Building oppo- site the meetinghouse"-on the east side of the Square, previously occupied by Sparhawk & Davis, successors to John G. Bond-and carried on a successful business there for many years. In 1814, Aaron Appleton came from Dub- lin to Keene and with John Elliot formed the firm of Apple- ton & Elliot. They bought, of Capt. Josiah Richardson, the present Elliot corner-about twenty-three square rods, "with the store thereon standing," then occupied by Daniel D. Hatch & Co. The consideration was $2,000. They immediately took possession and established a business which was carried on very successfully for a long term of years. In 1815 the old, one-story wooden structure1 was
1 Dea. Adolphus Wright moved the old store to Court street, where Don H. Woodward, Esq., now lives (1900), added another story, and it was occupied by him and others as a dwelling until 1891, when Mr. Woodward built his present house. It was then bought by Mr. John E. Heald and moved to Wood- burn street, No. 37, and is occupied as a dwelling (1899).
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removed, and the firm built the present brick building, then two stories high. The entrance to the printing office and bookstore, which moved into the chambers the year after it was built, was by stairs rising from the northeast corner on the north side of the building. In 1813, John Wood and Capt. Aaron Hall took in Timothy Hall, from Connecticut, a distant relative of Capt. Aaron, forming the noted firm of A. & T. Hall, on the site of Buffum's block, which continued for nearly fifty years. John Wood's name did not appear, but he was "the financial and substantial member of the concern." Their chief business was that of druggists and apothecaries, but they also kept a general assortment of goods.
In addition to the five principal and very substantial firms named above, there was the usual complement of smaller shops-jewelers, hatters, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and others, all of which did a thriving busi- ness in manufacturing by hand and selling their wares! Jesse Corbett was for a long term of years the principal jeweler in Keene, and a noted captain of the Keene Light Infantry. He followed Luther Smith, who still made clocks, in the store next south of A. & T. Hall, sold mili- tary goods, gold and silver lace, plumes, tassels, etc., and tickets in the "Harvard College Lottery." The Keene Bookstore also sold tickets in the "Union Canal Lottery," a scheme to save Boston from deterioration after the war "and make it advance like New York," by utilizing the inland waters of New England by canals running to that city.
In 1812, A. & A. Wilder (Abijah, Jr., and his brother Azel) were in the cabinet and wheelwright business and making chairs, looms, cheese-presses, etc., "at their shop two hundred rods north of the meetinghouse in Keene, on the Turnpike."1 In 1815 they dissolved, Abijah, Jr., con- tinuing the cabinet and sleigh-making business at the old stand, and Azel going with the wheelhead and wheelwright business to his "Factory one hundred rods west of the meeting house, near Faulkner & Colony's mills." Thomas F. Ames resumed the saddlery business at the old stand of
1 Believed to be the building now known as the Old Sun Tavern.
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Willard & Ames. John Towns, who built the brick house next south of the Eagle Hotel and several others in town, and Aaron Davis, who afterward built shops and an iron foundry at South Keene, were blacksmiths together, their shop standing just north of the bank. When James Wells, the hatter, went into the army, he was succeeded by Isaac Wells and Silas Walworth, and they by Thomas Shapley, who for many years carried on a successful wholesale and retail business in the manufacture of "hats and ladies fur bonnets, next door North of the Bank."
Gilbert Mellen had left the old Ralston tavern about 1809 and bought the house next north of the Wyman tavern on Main street and kept public house there for two years. He then exchanged places with William Pierce and took the former Edwards tavern. He was succeeded there for a short time by Nathan Fish, then by Salem Sumner, who came from Brattleboro and kept the house until 1820. Pierce kept the house he had of Mellen a short time, but soon died, at the age of forty-three. That house was after- wards burned. Col. Abraham Wheeler died in 1814, and Josiah Sawyer, of Swanzey, who had married his daugh- ter, succeeded him in what is still known as the Sawyer tavern, two miles west of the Square. In 1815, Ithamar Chase, father of Salmon P. Chase, who had married Jeanette, daughter of Alexander Ralston, and was adminis- trator of the Ralston estate, came here from Cornish with his family and took the tavern and kept it till he died, in 1817. Daniel Day still kept his public house on the Chesh- ire turnpike; Henry Goodnow one on the third New Hamp- shire turnpike, on the former Benjamin Archer place; Stephen Chase one on the same turnpike, where his descend- ants still live; and the Widow Leonard one at the junction of the two turnpikes, as already stated.
During this period a post route was established from Concord through Weare, Deering, Hancock and Packers- field to Keene and return, which continued till after 1830.
In 1814, four-horse coaches were put on which ran from Boston by the Concord and New Ipswich route to Keene, Rutland and Burlington, and return. They arrived in Keene from both directions Monday, Wednesday and
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Friday evenings and left next morning, running through between Keene and Boston in one day. The arrival and departure of those stages, and others at the same time, were the great events of the day, and brought many peo- ple to the stage house. In 1815, an extra coach was added that ran from Keene to Boston every Monday, returning on Saturday, for the benefit of those who wished to spend several days in the city.
Previous to his election to congress, Samuel Dinsmoor had taken as partner Booz Atherton, a young lawyer from Westmoreland, and when Mr. Dinsmoor went to Washing- ton, Atherton took his place as postmaster and held the office until 1813, when Joseph Buffum was appointed and Atherton returned to Westmoreland. In 1813, William Gordon had a law office over A. & T. Hall's store. In 1814, Levi Chamberlain came here, a young lawyer, and had an office where the south wing of the Cheshire House now stands. He and Foster Alexander formed the law firm of Alexander & Chamberlain. Chamberlain afterwards spent several years in practice at Fitzwilliam. In Feb- ruary, 1812, a long, narrow building on the west side of Main street, where the Kingsbury building and Lamson block now stand, owned jointly by Abijah Kingsbury and William Lamson, senior, and occupied by Mr. Kingsbury, with a large shoemaking business, Samuel Wood, baker, and other shops, was destroyed by fire. Each owner rebuilt separately; and Mr. Kingsbury continued his business on the second floor of his building. For more than seventy years he and his sons, Charles and George, and his son-in- law, George Rising, carried on business on that spot, and the property is still owned (1901) by his descendants. William Lawrence took the lower floor of Kingsbury's building with the morocco-dressing business, employing many hands and advertising for 20,000 pounds of sumac and 10,000 sheepskins.
In July, 1813, a remarkable freshet occurred. The streams in this vicinity were swollen to a height never before known, and dams, mills and bridges were carried away. In August of the same year, a destructive hail- storm passed through Cheshire county, with the centre a
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LEVI CHAMBERLAIN.
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little north of Keene. Great damage was done to the growing crops and much glass was broken. "Hailstones an inch and a quarter in diameter fell here in Keene, and the next morning the ground was covered with them three inches deep." (New Hampshire Sentinel.)
For many years, the office of the clerk of the courts had been kept at Walpole, but in 1813, by order of the court it was removed to Keene; and Salma Hale, Esq., the clerk, took up his residence here.
In the spring of 1813, Miss C. Aldrich opened a private school "in the Bank Hall," and taught several terms- sometimes in other buildings.
On the 1st of May, 1814, Miss Catherine Fiske opened her celebrated school in the brick house built by John G. Bond-now the residence of Mrs. E. C. Thayer-which Miss Fiske afterwards bought. To aid in giving assur- ance of the high character of the school Mrs. Daniel New- comb was associated with her at first, but the next year a Miss Reed joined her, followed two years later by Miss Elizabeth, daughter of Hon. Peleg Sprague, and other teachers were employed. Music and French were Miss Sprague's1 especial branches. It was primarily a young ladies' boarding school, and was called a "Female Semi- nary," but pupils of both sexes were admitted from families in town, and it numbered sometimes as high as eighty to one hundred. The school was well equipped and nearly all branches of learning were taught, "including drawing and painting in their various branches, and plain and orna- mental needle work." Miss Fiske advertised that: "Strict attention will be paid to the improvement of young ladies and to their manners and their morals." "A Mantua- maker and Milliner will be provided for those who wish to employ them." Miss Fiske was a remarkably efficient and successful teacher, and her school, which continued for about thirty years, was one of the most celebrated in the country. Pupils came to her from nearly every state in the Union. After the first few years, and until her death, the school was managed solely by Miss Fiske.
1 The piano used was the first brought to Keene and is still in the family of her cousin, George Carpenter of Swanzey. Another of the pianos used in that school is still in the family of the late Mr. George Tilden, whose wife had been a pupil there.
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HISTORY OF KEENE.
Early in 1814, from causes already stated and after the subject had been agitated for several years, a corpora- tion was formed for the manufacture of glass in Keene, called the New Hampshire Glass Factory. The principal stockholders were John Elliot, Daniel Bradford, Daniel Watson, John Hatch, Nathaniel Sprague and other citizens of Keene; and Aaron Appleton and Capt. Timothy Twit- chell came from Dublin about that time and became very active in the business. A building 90x60 feet, with 20-foot posts and 40-foot rafters, was erected where the county jail now stands, and houses were built for the workmen. Col. Lawrence Schoolcraft, a veteran of the Revolution, who had commanded a regiment in the war just then closing, and had been manager of glass works at Albany, N. Y., was appointed superintendent. Cylinder window glass was the principal product at first, the sizes being chiefly 6x8, 7x9 and 8x10, though the latter size was too large for popular use at that time. The business was profitable at first, and furnished a market for large quan- tities of wood, ashes and other farm products, and gave employment of various kinds to a large number of men. The company also carried on a large potash business, the building standing at the top of the rise on Washington street, east of the factory, long known as "Potash hill," when it was longer and steeper than at present.
The successive clerks of the corporation 1 for the first several years were Timothy Twitchell, John Elliot, John Prentiss and Nathaniel Sprague; the treasurers were Tim- othy Twitchell, John Elliot and Nathaniel Sprague; the agents were Col. Schoolcraft, John Hatch, Nathaniel Sprague and Charles Carter. In 1815, Watson, Twitchell and Henry R. Schoolcraft, son of the superintendent, with- drew from the corporation and started the manufacture of flint glass tumblers, decanters, etc., on Marlboro street. The next year Watson withdrew and Twitchell and School- craft continued the business and opened "a store and warehouse at the Red House (the old tavern of Dr. Ziba Hall, and of Aaron and Luther Eames) one door north of
1 The name of the corporation was changed some years afterwards to New Hampshire Glass Co., and later to Keene Window Glass Co. Their advertise- ments sometimes called for 20,000 bushels of ashes.
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Shirtliff's tavern." The firm was afterwards Schoolcraft & Sprague. In 1817, their business passed into the hands of Justus Perry, who put up a large stone building on Marlboro street and did an extensive business in the man- ufacture and sale of bottles and other kinds of flint glass ware.
But the treaty of peace removed the embargo and admitted foreign goods almost free of duty, causing a sad depression of nearly all manufacturing in the country. The property and business of the New Hampshire Glass Company passed into the hands of Appleton & Elliot and years afterwards they and their successors, John Elliot & Co., made it exceedingly profitable.
The demoralization of public sentiment, produced by conflicting opinions concerning the war, corruption in politics, and other deleterious influences, was so great that the good people of Keene and Cheshire county, and of New England generally, were alarmed for the safety of religion and morals; and action was taken very exten- sively to counteract those influences. In November, 1814, a convention of delegates from most of the towns of the county was held at the courthouse, Noah Cooke, presi- dent, and Rev. Gad Newell of Nelson, clerk, to take such action as should arouse the people to greater moral, religious and political integrity. Resolutions were passed recommending the formation of societies in the towns for the promotion of a more strict and general observance of the Sabbath; greater efficiency in the enforcement of the laws; that the towns choose men of the highest character and standing for tythingmen; and resolved that the war was a chastisement of God upon a sinful and rebellious people-particularly for their profanation of the sanctity of the Sabbath. In December, 1814, a convention of dele- gates from twenty-four towns in the county was held at Walpole, Oliver West, president, and Phineas Handerson, secretary, which passed resolutions in opposition to the war and chose Hon. Benjamin West of Charlestown dele- gate to the convention to be held at Hartford,1 to take
1 The celebrated Hartford convention, held later in the same month. West said he would go, because the Southern people threatened to hang every delegate who appeared there, and he was old and would not deprive the state of a more useful citizen.
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further action of the same tenor. Similar action was taken throughout the greater part of New England. In accord- ance with the recommendation of the Keene convention a county society was formed called the General Monadnock Society for the Promotion of Morals. Noah Cooke was president, Col. Joseph Frost of Marlboro, vice president, and Rev. Seth Payson of Rindge, secretary. The tything- men of Keene published the following :-
"NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC!
"We the TYTHINGMEN of Keene, according to our oath, will inform of and prosecute all offenders against the LAWS for the better observance of the SABBATH within our knowledge; and also do request all JUSTICES of the PEACE and SELECTMEN, who are under the same oath, to give their aid and assistance in so laudable an under- taking.
"Abijah Wilder, Samuel Bassett, Abel Blake."
The tythingmen of other towns took similar action and those of Rindge, Jaffrey, New Ipswich, Ashby, Ash- burnham and Winchendon met at Rindge and issued an address to the people calling upon them to "preserve the religion, morals and laws of the country."
The next annual meeting of Keene chose Abijah Wilder, Samuel Bassett, Abel Blake, Elijah Carter, Ebenezer Clark, John Prentiss and Elijah Parker, tythingmen. They and the selectmen held meetings and joined in notifying the public that they had "taken their oaths to execute the laws (for the observance of the Sabbath and morals gen- erally) and were prepared to do so." The notice was signed by all the tythingmen and by Lockhart Willard and Isaac Parker, selectmen of Keene. (The whole number of tythingmen chosen at that annual meeting was fifteen, but only the above took the oath of office.) That office continued until 1830. After that year no tythingmen were chosen.
"In 1814 the Rev. Aaron Hall died on the 12th of August, in the 64th year of his age and the 37th of his ministry. He was much beloved by his people, who mani- fested their attachment, by increasing his salary, at suc- cessive periods, from eighty pounds, ($266.66), to $500; by assistance in various ways, and by constant acts of kindness. The town, a short time before his death, on
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JOSIAH COLONY.
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consultation with him, voted to settle a colleague, and invited Lemuel Capen, afterwards settled at Stirling and South Boston, to preach as a candidate; and at the first town meeting held after his decease, they voted to pay to the widow his salary to the first of March, the anniver- sary of his settlement.
"The intercourse between pastor and people had always been familiar and cordial. The drawing of his wood, from the minister's wood lot, afforded an annual occasion of bringing them together, at which all were happy, and none more so than the pastor. On the day set apart for that purpose, a sufficient number of the par- ishioners assembled at the wood lot, and late in the after- noon, twenty or thirty sleds, in long procession, arrived, heavily laden, at his door, and then, the great pile being built up, baked beans in huge pots, and good cider in quart mugs, were placed before the company, and partaken of with becoming hilarity."
(Annals, page 97.)
The amount of wood brought to the minister's door each year by those "bees" was usually upward of forty cords.
"About the time of the Annual Thanksgiving," Rev. David Oliphant came to preach as a candidate for the position of pastor. He was a graduate of Union college and of the theological seminary at Andover. In February, both the church and the town voted to give Mr. Oliphant a call, at a salary of $700, with a yearly vacation of "three or four Sabbaths;" and he was ordained on the 24th of May, 1815, although a large number of the society remonstrated against his settlement. Rev. Messrs. Dickin- son of Walpole, Hall of New Ipswich, Pratt of Westmore- land, Ainsworth of Jaffrey, Burge of West Brattleboro and Edwards of Andover, Mass., assisted at the ordination.
In the spring of 1815, Francis Faulkner and Josiah Colony bought the mills and privilege on Ashuelot river, and began the very successful business which is still con- tinued by their descendants under the corporate name of Faulkner & Colony Manufacturing Company. They pur- chased the property of John McGuire, who had bought it of Hale & Kise in 1814.
Albe Cady, having been appointed secretary of state and chairman of the committee to build the state house,
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resigned his offices of town clerk, selectman and represen- tative, and removed to Concord. In August, the town elected Elijah Parker town clerk, but both the other offices were left vacant.
Notwithstanding the strong opposition to the war in this part of the country, the military spirit had been roused, and the militia was in excellent condition. In October, the Twentieth regiment mustered near Judge New- comb's residence and made a fine appearance. At the close a lively sham battle was fought. Wm. M. Bond was major of one of the battalions, Isaac Parker was still captain of the Keene Light Infantry and Justus Perry of the Ashuelot Cavalry.
Abijah Metcalf died this year, aged eighty.
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CHAPTER XV. A PEACEFUL DECADE. 1816-1825.
At the annual meeting in 1816, Keene cast 359 votes; Westmoreland, 372; Chesterfield, 380; Walpole, 393; in- dicating a remarkable parity in the number of inhabitants in those towns.
As early as 1771, a small church of Baptists had been established in the eastern part of Westmoreland, and that denomination had gradually spread into the western part of Keene. In 1816 a meetinghouse was built a few rods west of the stores at West Keene and a church of thirteen members gathered there under the ministry of Rev. Charles Cummings. 1 The same year the "old men's seats" in the Congregational meetinghouse were removed and twelve additional pews built in their places. In December pre- vious the town "Voted not to suffer a stove put in the meeting-house provided it could be done without any ex- pense to the town." The new pews sold for from $60 to $80 apiece, and the money was used for repairing and painting the edifice by a committee consisting of John Wood, Aaron Appleton and Isaac Parker. The same com- mittee was directed to procure a new bell, provided they could do so by an exchange of the old one with the addi- tion of any balance of funds that might be left in their hands from the sale of pews. The new bell was procured in 1819.
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