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 52
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JOHN ELLIOT.
John Elliot, a descendant of Lieut. Andrew Elliot (who came from Somersetshire, Eng., to Beverly, Mass., in 1669) was a son of David, a Revolutionary soldier; was born in 1783; lived in his boyhood with his maternal uncle, Major Benj. Adams, in New Ipswich; began business as a mer- chant in Chesterfield in 1804, with Capt. Benj. Cooke; came to Keene in 1809 and began business with Shubael Butterfield, on the east side of Main street, below Pierce's tavern; married, in 1809, Deborah, daughter of Nathan Bixby, then of Dublin; in 1814 joined Aaron Appleton, Timothy Twitchell and others in the manufacture of glass; joined Aaron Appleton in general mercantile business in 1814 and that firm (Appleton & Elliot) built the store on "Elliot's corner," two stories high, in 1815; in 1826, with his sons, formed the firm of John Elliot & Co. and con- tinued in business on the corner for many years; one of the early stockholders of Cheshire bank, and for many
JOHN ELLIOT.
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years its president. He was a liberal subscriber to the building of the Cheshire railroad, and to the first Unita- rian meetinghouse, for which he gave a town clock; and did much for the prosperity of the town. He owned a large tract of land west of the Ashuelot river, was a pioneer in the sheep raising industry-then exceedingly profitable-and his barns used for that purpose are still standing near the old tannery at West Keene. He first lived on the Walpole road (School street), then on the south corner of Cross and Prison streets. In 1814, in connection with Nathan Bixby he bought of Elijah Dun- bar the house Dunbar had built, on Main street, now the residence of his grandson, William H. Elliot, and lived there until his death in 1865, at the age of eighty-two. Previous to this purchase he had owned and lived in the house on Washington street afterwards the homestead of Phineas Handerson.
Mr. and Mrs. Elliot celebrated their golden wedding, Dec. 5, 1859. Their children were: Deborah Maria, born 1811 and died, unmarried, in 1862; John Henry, born in 1813; James Bixby, born in 1815. Mrs. Elliot died in 1880, aged ninety-four.
JOHN HENRY ELLIOT.
John Henry Elliot, son of John and Deborah (Bixby) Elliot, was born in Keene in 1813; graduated at Harvard in 1835; spent some years in Europe; married in 1848, Emily Ann, daughter of Lynds Wheelock; treasurer and trustee of Ashuelot railroad; secretary and director of Cheshire railroad; member of the executive council of New Hampshire in 1865-8; chosen president of the Cheshire bank in 1861 and held that office through life. In 1892 he gave to the city of Keene the land and buildings for the present city hospital. He was a man of fine literary taste and of wide reading, and was remarkable for his originality; and many of his witty mots were repeated about town. He died in 1895, leaving three children : William Henry, married Mary, daughter of Thomas M. Edwards; John Wheelock, a physician in Boston; Emily Jane, married Tucker Daland, of Boston.
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HENRY ELLIS.
Deacon Henry Ellis was born in 1746; married, in 1771, Melatiah Thayer, of Mendon, Mass .; came from Lancaster, Mass., to Keene soon after marriage, and was the first settler on the farm in the west part, afterwards the "Baker farm," now Prof. Bracq's. Mrs. Ellis sold her wedding shoes to buy young apple trees. Bears roamed the forests then, and Mr. Ellis caught one in his trap and killed it with an axe. Six children were born to them be- tween 1772 and 1783, Keziah, Pamela, one who died young, Archelaus, Samuel and Milly. Mr. Ellis sold that farm to Capt. Joshua Durant, bought one at the north end of the village, and lived seven years near the site of the "old Sun tavern" on Court street. He then bought a large tract of land on the Surry road, west of the river, three miles from the village, cleared it, and "built the large house thereon," still standing, though much altered. It was one of the best farms in the county, and his son, Samuel, married and settled on the place with him, and he was succeeded by his son, Samuel P. Ellis. Mr. Ellis was an industrious, even-tempered man, and so devoutly pious as to be called "deacon," but it does not appear that he ever held that office in any church. In July, 1776, he joined Capt. William Humphrey's company, Col. Win- gate's regiment, sent to reinforce the northern army on its retreat from Canada, and served till the regiment was discharged - a short term.
Mrs. Ellis was an energetic woman, a good house- keeper and excellent helpmate. She used the large, unfin- ished chambers of the house for her wheels and looms, and spun and wove both wool and flax. She wove the cloth for Susanna Baker's wedding gown (1790), white linen, crossed both ways with lines of blue. (The groom was Daniel Watson, and they were the grandparents of Dr. George B. Twitchell). One day her husband broke his plough point, and was much discouraged, for he could not replace it in Cheshire county. Mrs. Ellis mounted a horse and rode through the woods to Mendon, fifty miles, and returned with a new point. When the first train of cars came to Keene she was shown through it by Dr. Amos
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Twitchell. "What do you think of it?" asked the doctor. "It beats everything I've ever attended, balls, quiltin's, weddin's and ordinations," was her droll reply. She lived to be ninety-eight years old-known through the town as Grandma'am Ellis-and died in 1850. Dea. Ellis died in 1838, aged ninety-two. Both were buried in the north burying ground.
TIMOTHY ELLIS.
Col. Timothy Ellis, was born in Dedham, Mass., Sept. 14, 1724, and came to Keene in 1765, or earlier; lived on the hills four miles from the village, on what was then called the new, now the old, Westmoreland road; died in 1817, aged ninety-three.
In 1755 he was a sergeant from Dedham in the com- pany of Capt. Eliphalet Fales, in the expedition to Crown Point, and served from May to November. He was a lieutenant in Capt. Simon Slocum's company, Col. Frye's regiment, at Fort Cumberland in Nova Scotia, from March, 1759, to April, 1760-a part of the time second lieutenant in Lieut. Benj. Holden's company. (Massachu- setts Archives.)
His name first appears on the records of Keene, in 1765, as "Lieut. Timothy Ellis." He was a major in the Sixth regiment of New Hampshire militia in 1777, marched with the volunteers from that regiment to Ticonderoga in May of that year, and again in July; was appointed major of Nichols' regiment, under Stark, and commanded his battalion in the battle of Bennington; continued to hold his commission as major of the Sixth militia; was muster- master of the Continental troops from Cheshire county; rose to colonel of the Sixth regiment, and resigned Feb. 24, 1783.
He was selectman in 1770, '74, '77, '79 and '83; dele- gate from Keene to the Provincial congress at Exeter, in April, 1775; representative to the legislature in 1776-7-8, serving on several important committees; was one of a committee of three in 1778 to take possession of the con- fiscated estates of tories in Cheshire county; and held many other important positions. He left a large num- ber of descendants, some of whom still reside in town.
His wife was named Elizabeth. She died in 1810.
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EDWARD FARRAR.
Edward Farrar, son of Daniel W. and Betsey (Griffin) Farrar, was born in Troy, N. H., in 1822; studied at Hancock academy and entered Dartmouth college, but left on account of ill health; read law with Levi Chamberlain of Keene, and graduated at Harvard Law school; was admitted to the bar in 1848; appointed clerk of the courts in Cheshire county in 1857, and justice of the city police court in Keene in 1874, holding both positions at the time of his death in 1888; represented Keene in the legislature in 1871 and '72; and was the second mayor of the city of Keene, holding that office two terms. In 1858, he mar- ried Caroline, daughter of C. H. Brainard, of Keene, and had two daughters.
In 1848, having a taste for music, Mr. Farrar had a piano in his office, north of the Square, and he discovered that sounds from that instrument were conveyed over long distances by wires. He then stretched wires from his piano to the town hall, used the same kind of electrical trans- mitters that are now used in telephoning, and caused the musical tones of the instrument to be heard in all parts of the hall. Musicians and others went to the hall and heard the sounds; but the wiseacres sneered and ridiculed, the telegraph company refused to allow him to attach his con- trivance to their wires for experiment, and Mr. Farrar, being a quiet, unassuming man, without means to push the enterprise, gave it up. He was well informed concern- ing electricity and corresponded with Harvard professors in relation to it, but gained no new ideas. This was twenty-five years before Reis of Berlin made the same dis- covery.
FRANCIS FAULKNER.
Francis Faulkner (in the records of Southampton county, England, the name is spelled Fawkner, Fawconer, Falconer, Fawknor, Faulkner), son of Francis, a clothier at Watertown and Billerica, Mass., was born in 1788, at Watertown. His grandfather was Major Francis Faulk- ner, who, with the Middlesex regiment of militia, at Lex- ington and Concord, April 19, 1775, harassed the British
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FRANCIS A. FAULKNER.
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on their retreat; was a lieutenant colonel at the battle of White Plains in 1776; and also at the surrender of Bur- goyne in 1777, and conducted the prisoners to Cambridge, Mass. Since 1735 the Faulkners have been millers, cloth- iers and manufacturers at Acton, Mass .; and in every case -at Acton, Billerica and Keene-the Faulkner descendants are owners of, or have large interests in the mills of their ancestors.
Young Francis learned the clothier's trade at his grandfather's mills in Acton; came to Keene at the age of twenty-one, and worked in the clothiers' mills on the Ashuelot river. In 1815, with Josiah Colony, he formed the firm of Faulkner & Colony, bought of John Maguire (who had purchased of Hale & Kise) all the mills and water privileges on the Ashuelot in Keene-except those owned by Azel Wilder, west of the sawmill-and began that very successful business which their descendants still continue on greatly extended lines.
He married Eliza Stearns, of Lancaster, Mass. They had six children: Charles Stearns, Elizabeth Jones, Francis Augustus, William Frederic, and two who died in infancy. Mr. Faulkner was essentially a man of business, with clear perceptions and sound principles, and never sought politi- cal office or public notoriety. He died in 1842, aged fifty- four.
CHARLES S. FAULKNER.
Charles S. Faulkner, son of the above, was born in Keene in 1819; married Sallie Eliza Eames, of Bath, N. H. Upon the death of his father, when he was only twenty- three years old, Mr. Faulkner upheld the family name in the firm, and accumulated a large property. He died in 1879, leaving a widow, five sons and one daughter.
FRANCIS A. FAULKNER.
Francis A. Faulkner, son of Francis and Eliza (Stearns) Faulkner, was born in Keene in 1825; prepared for col- lege at Phillips Exeter academy; graduated at Harvard in 1846; read law with Phineas Handerson and William P. Wheeler at Keene, and studied at Harvard Law school; married, 1849, Caroline, daughter of Phineas Handerson;
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joined William P. Wheeler in 1849 as junior member of the law firm of Wheeler & Faulkner, which continued for twenty-six years. He was county solicitor, 1855-1860; moderator of fourteen annual town meetings; representa- tive to the legislature four terms; was appointed a justice of the supreme court of New Hampshire in 1874, but de- clined to serve; was member of the state constitutional convention of 1876; was a director in both the Ashuelot and Cheshire National banks, and president of the Chesh- ire Provident Institution for Savings at the time of his decease. During the last two years of the Civil war he was United States commissioner of enrollment for the Third New Hampshire congressional district. "He was deeply interested in political affairs, and no man in his section wielded more influence." When the town of Keene became a city he was a member of the first board of aldermen; and he held many other positions of honor and responsi- bility. He died in 1879, leaving a widow and three sons.
CATHERINE FISKE.
Miss Catherine Fiske was born in Worcester, Mass .; began teaching in Dover, Windham county, Vt., at the age of fifteen; opened her boarding school in Keene (Seminary for Young Ladies) in 1814 under the patronage of Mrs. Daniel Newcomb, on the east side of Main street near Elijah Dunbar's house. After the first year a Miss Reed (or Read) was associated with her for two years, then Miss Elizabeth Sprague was with her for two years, and then, in 1819, she assumed the enterprise herself and employed assistants. She was an ideal teacher and manager, and her school had a national reputation and was one of the best in the country. The number of pupils sometimes reached one hundred at a term, and many were turned away for want of accommodations. In the thirty-one years of its existence more than 2,500 girls received the rare training and culture of that celebrated school. In addition to the common and higher academic branches of learning, she employed specialists to teach music, drawing, painting, botany, languages and needlework; and she paid particular attention to the manners and morals of the
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young ladies, and to their study and proper use of the English language. She also kept special milliners and "mantua-makers" for their accommodation. The first pianos brought to town were for use in her school (see Miss Elizabeth Sprague's sketch); and the first pipe organ used in town was made by William Willson of Keene and placed in this school.1
In 1824 she bought the house that had been built by John G. Bond, on Main street, which then had with it a farm of twenty acres. To that she added twenty acres of intervale, and a pasture on Beech hill, next north of the Luther Nurse farm, where she kept ten cows in summer and had the milk and butter-which was under the care of Mrs. Isaac Nurse-brought to the school each day, and a supply of butter made for the winter. She kept a pair of horses and a carriage for the use of the school, and her handsome carryall, with the long procession of girls in charge of their teachers-dividing to reach the churches of their respective denominations, the Congregational and Unitarian-was a marked feature of a Sunday morning in Keene.
In addition to the teaching and management of the school, she superintended the farm,2 the stables of cows and horses, and the housekeeping-even her bread making was done on the scientific principles of chemistry -and did it all with the same serenity and coolness. She died May 20, 1837. "Her funeral was attended by a large con- course, stores were closed, bells tolled, and a long proces- sion followed to her grave."
She left her property, after providing for her mother, to the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane, now called the state hospital, one of the first and largest contribu- tions.
The school was continued for ten years after her de- cease by her teachers, under the management of Miss With- ington, but the Keene academy drew from it, the teachers married,8 and it was finally given up.
1 The same organ is now in the Jehiel Wilson house at South Keene.
2 In one year she raised 700 bushels of potatoes. (John L. Davis, her farmer.)
8 Miss Withington married Dea. Stewart Hastings, and Miss Abby Barnes, an assistant, married Thomas H. Leverett, both of Keenc.
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PHINEAS FISKE.
Phineas Fiske came from Middlesex county, Mass., to Chesterfield early in the nineteenth century; married, in 1812, Mary, daughter of Col. Hart, and grandniece of Gen. Joseph Warren, who was killed at Bunker Hill; came to Keene in 1814 and took the brick store on the west side of Main street, now the north end of City Hotel; went to Boston for a few years, in the firm of Francis Skinner & Co .; returned to Keene with a fortune and built a house on the corner of Winchester and Main streets, which was afterwards removed to the corner of Madison street to. give place to the present house on that site, built by Gov. Dinsmoor, the younger. His children were: Mary H., who married Thomas M. Edwards in 1840; Julia Anne, who married William Dinsmoor in 1835; Samuel W. and Phineas S.
In 1824, Mr. Fiske married, second, Miss Isabella B. Reddington of Walpole, N. H. Francis S., now of Boston, was the only child by this marriage.
Mr. Fiske was one of those enterprising men of high character and energy, of whom Keene could boast so many in the early days.
ABIJAH FOSTER.
Abijah Foster was born in 1763; came from Salem, Mass .; married, in 1797, Artimisia, daughter of Dr. Oba- diah Blake of Keene; had a son, Abijah, who was born in 1798, and a daughter, Nabby, born in 1799. From about 1785 to 1809, or later, he kept a store at old West Keene, on the west side of the road north of the Ingersoll house; carried on a large business and became one of the wealthiest men in town. He built the Deacon Hastings house (burned a few years ago) which stood north of the present house of Sidney C. Ellis. He died in 1822, aged fifty-nine.
AMOS FOSTER.
Amos Foster, son of Timothy of Boxford, Mass., was born in Boxford in 1713; married Mary Dorman of Box- ford (cousin of Capt. Ephraim); was one of the early pro- prietors and settlers of Upper Ashuelot, in 1736; left a
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legacy of half his property to the town; died of small pox, March 2, 1761, aged forty-nine. His wife had died on the 5th of February of the same year, of the same disease. He left no children.
DAVID FOSTER.
Deacon David Foster, son of Timothy of Boxford, Mass., was born in Boxford in 1704; was one of the early pro- prietors and settlers of Upper Ashuelot, in 1736; scribe for the proprietors in 1738 and their clerk for more than twenty years; one of the original members and first dea- con of the church in 1738, and remained in those positions for the rest of his life, more than forty years; a soldier in the French and Indian war of 1748-9; married Mrs. Han- nah Sessions, of Andover, Mass .; was a surveyor of land in Keene, 1757-63; town clerk and treasurer, 1760; select- man four years; on the alarm list in Keene in 1773; on town committee of safety in 1776; died 1779, aged seven- ty-five. His children were: Hannah, born 1751; Rebecca, born 1753; David, born 1755.
THOMAS FRINK.
Dr. Thomas Frink, physician, surgeon, magistrate and innkeeper, married Abigail - and had seven children. His name first appears on the records in 1760, when he bought the "Original House-lotts lying on ye West side of the Town street * * No's 49 and 50, with the Housing Fences and Orcharding standing on said Lotts." (Old records in state library.) He kept a noted public house there in 1761-5, and later one on Pleasant street. He was the magistrate who organized some of the sur- rounding towns under their New Hampshire charters. In 1777, he was physician to Gen. James Reed, then of Fitz- william, and, June 29 to July 11, was surgeon of Col. Ash- ley's regiment in the campaign for the relief of Ticonderoga. He died in 1786. His brother, Dr. Calvin Frink, of Swan- zey, married Sarah, daughter of Col. Isaac Wyman.
His eldest son, Dr. Willard Frink, born in 1762, mar- ried Thankful, daughter of Jonathan Pond, of Keene, in her seventeenth year. His daughter Polly is still remembered
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by the more elderly people of Keene as one of those queer, bright, interesting "characters". with which every New England town was formerly blessed, but which modern society, with its compulsory education and machine-like schools, seldom produces.
Dr. Frink was somewhat noted for his convivial habits. An amusing story was told of him to Dr. Whitney Bar- stow in 1856, by Rev. Laban Ainsworth of Jaffrey, with all the vivacity and gusto of youth, although he was then 104 years old. When Ainsworth was about seventeen years old-just after the opening of the college at Hanover - his father furnished him with a horse, saddle and bridle and sent him to Dartmouth. His first stop on the way was at Keene. At the tavern he met Dr. Frink, who was trading horses and drinking flip. After some haggling a trade was concluded, and the doctor sat down to write a note and bill of sale. But that last mug was one too many, and his right hand had forgotten its cunning. After several failures in his attempt to put the note in shape, he looked about the tap-room and saw the intelligent face of the bright and sober young freshman. "Here, young man," said he, "wont you just sit down and write this 'ere note for me? I guess I'm a leetle drunk." "Oh yes," said Ains- worth, "I'll write it," and sat down and quickly wrote the note. The doctor was pleased, but was wise enough to say but little. Ainsworth proceeded on his journey and entered the college. That same autumn an epidemic of fever, common in those days, broke out among the students and young Ainsworth was one of those attacked. Presi- dent Wheelock was alarmed and sent for all the best phy- sicians within reach, among them Dr. Frink of Keene- which shows that he stood high in his profession, not- withstanding his habits. The doctor appeared on the scene, thoroughly sober and responsible, and visited every sick student, young Ainsworth with the rest. When the doctor had attended carefully to his case, Ainsworth asked for his bill. "No! young man," said Frink, "I'll not take a cent. I know you. You're the nice boy who once wrote a note for me in Keene, when I was so blamed drunk !"
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JOHN H. FULLER.
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JOHN H. FULLER.
John H. Fuller came from Lunenburg, Mass., to Wal- pole, N. H., with his father's family, towards the close of the eighteenth century; spent his boyhood in Walpole; studied medicine, but gave it up and went into business, first in a store in Chesterfield, then in Winchester, N. H .; married Pamela, daughter of Rev. Ezra Conant of the latter place; was adjutant of the Second regiment of New Hamp- shire militia commanded by Lt. Col. John Steele of Peter- boro, detached and organized for the defence of Portsmouth when the British threatened an attack on that place in 1814; came to Keene in 1823 and took the store previously occupied by Mr. Lynds Wheelock, next south of the Phoenix Hotel; became a noted wool buyer and accumulated a large property. About the time the Cheshire railroad was built, he bought a tract of swamp lying above Cross and between Court and Washington streets; drained it at great expense into Beaver brook; sold building lots to railroad employees and other laboring men, loaning them money and encouraging them to build homes, which many did; and the neat, well-kept homesteads on that tract, estab- lished by those means, attest the thrift and high character of Keene's laboring population.
Few men have done as much for Keene as did Mr. Fuller, in this and other ways. It was almost wholly through his exertions that the Ashuelot railroad was built, and he was its first president. To prove his sincerity in the project he invested $50,000 in the stock, which proved nearly a total loss. He was active in the organization of the Keene Five Cents Savings bank, and became its first president; and he was the originator and first president of the Winchester National bank. He was remarkable for activity, genialty, integrity and fairness in all his dealings. He lived at one time in the stone house on Washington street, at another time in the brick house on the same street, now Mrs. Wm. P. Wheeler's, and at still another in one-half of the old wooden courthouse, then on Wash- ington street, cutting the building in twain, and using the other half for a wool house, on Railroad square, where it still stands, occupied by J. Cushing & Co. as a
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grain house. He died in 1869, aged seventy-seven. His children were: Quincy; Lucy, married Lucius D. Pierce; a daughter who died young; Sophia, married Fred K. Bart- lett; James and Reuben.
SAMUEL A. GEROULD.
Samuel A. Gerould-early family name Jerauld, wealthy silk manufacturers in the south of France, Huguenots, one of whom came to this country about 1700 and settled in Medfield, Mass. - was born in Wrentham in 1794; brought up on a farm; an industrious student and reader; bought his time of his father at seventeen; taught school; attained the rank of lieutenant in the militia; came to Keene in 1819 and engaged in trade where E. F. Lane's upper block now stands; married, 1820, Deborah, daughter of Hon. Samuel H. Dean, of Dedham; built his brick store, west side of Square, in 1825; extended it to the south in 1835 for George Tilden's store; and took in his son, Samuel A., Jr., as partner in 1844 (S. A. Gerould & Son). In 1857, the firm bought and the next season rebuilt the south half of the old brick courthouse, adjoining his block on the north. His brick house on West street was built in 1861, under the direction of the son. Mr. Gerould was chairman of the committee in 1867 to establish town water works, which were finally laid in accordance with the plan sug- gested by him, and he was active in all projects for the benefit of the community. He was in business nearly fifty years. Besides his son, Samuel A., he had one daughter, Deborah. He died in 1887, in his ninety-fourth year.
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