USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Newport > Newport, New Hampshire, 1761-1961 : bicentennial celebration, Aug. 14-20, 1961 > Part 5
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effect would be pallid compared to our feeling for Lyman Howe ; »
Even mishaps in the showing did not faze us in the least as when "the opera- tor was having trouble." One year, when there was only a piano for accom- paniment, the pianist suddenly stopped playing, started to shout, mounted the stage and began to preach a sermon. The movie stopped, the house lights came on and everyone stared wide- eyed at this man who, siezed by a re- ligious fanaticism, had yanked us ruthlessly from the calm moonlight of the Taj Mahal to the baleful glare of our Town Hall stage.
Our local constable, Liberty Kemp- ton (are there any men named Liberty any more?), walked quietly up onto the stage, engaged the man in conversation, calmed him and escorted him back to the piano where he resumed his accom- paniment. Thus with the aid of Con- stable Liberty standing beside the pianist, the lights were put out, the film rolled, and we went back to the Taj Mahal as though nothing had happened.
But wonderful as the Lyman Howe Pictures were, we soon encountered that tremendously exciting historical picture which made history of its own, The Birth of a Nation. Soon the inovies began to take root here, at first in Ransom's Furniture Store on Belknap Avenue and then in the Empire Theatre, a building which had previously been a jail, thoroughly re- modeled and boasting an inclined floor. Then, after a few years, a Mr.
Fisher acquired the old Phoenix Hotel and made it into the Coniston Theatre, the magnificence of which staggered us.
We lived in the delicious suspense of cliff hanging serials, with The Iron Claw, The Perils of Pauline, and others; breathed the violence of the Wild West with William S. Hart, Dustin Farnum, and Bronco Billy; laughed and cried at Charlie Chaplin; and thrilled to the adventures of Douglas Fairbanks and the romances of Mary Pickford.
Another invention that came along to amaze us was the radio. The first one I ever heard and I believe about the first one in town was put together by Ellsworth Lovell under the guid- ance of the radio pioneer, Bill Graves, of Sunapee. I shall never forget the awe with which I heard band music coming out of those ear phones - the announcer said he was located at Sta- tion KDKA in Pittsurgh, Pennsylvania!
Just living in Newport of those days (population between 4000 and 5000) was pleasant and enjoyable for a growing boy. The general atmos- phere of a small town, the emotional climate, was good.
The town was a real democracy for one thing. No social caste system ex- isted. Of course some families were richer. older, better educated, but this did not matter much. Contrary to the myth of Yankee taciturnity, almost everyone greeted their fellow towns- men cheerfully on the street - in fact, everyone either knew or was somewhat acquainted with everyone else. You would be just as likely to have a bar- ber, a mill hand, or a house painter on the Board of Selectmen, the School Board, or the Board of Deacons or Trustees of the churches, as you would to have a mill owner, doctor or lawyer. And this was done naturally, without conscious thought, and not from such
HURD'S DRUGSTORE
From Collection of C. D. Johnson
Page 35
A PAST ANNUAL SUMMER EVENT - CHAUTAUQUA
SWARTHMORE
THATAI
1987395 Courtesy of Jesse R. Rowell and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Darling
sociological preachment as "to have all classes represented." There were no classes, that was the point.
Perhaps this was largely due to the fact that we all went to public schools and had for generations. There were no private schools or parochial schools to divide us up into categories of money and religion. There was only a minimum of friction between Prot- estants and Catholics. In fact. a prom- inent Catholic layman, John Condon, was the mainstay of the YMCA here through thick and thin, and other Catholics were our strong supporters.
As there were three textile mills and a large shoe shop here we had a considerable influx of immigrants, most of whom were Finnish and Polish with a large number of Greeks and the always colorful French Canadians. The town made a good melting pot. It was only a few years before these people fitted right in - their English considerably broken but serviceable. And as to their children you would not be able to distinguish them from Mayflower Yankees. In fact, the best Yankee accent I ever heard was that of a Polish boy, Walter Sichol. He picked it up by clerking in Camp- bell & Shepard's grocery store run by those two old-time Yankees, Harold Campbell and Amos Shepard.
Even our form of government was a democracy as indeed it still is. We
have an annual Town Meeting at which all voters can have their say, bawl out the powers that be and lay- down the things to be done for the en- suing year. Whenever we boys could get out of school for Town Meeting we would go. The hall, jammed with peo- ple and blue with tobacco smoke, was an arena for many a hot debate - some of which were won by slashing witty remarks more than by a logical marshalling of facts. We boys sat up in the balcony for these Great Debates and found them as good as any planned entertainment we ever saw.
I recall one such incident which is still part of our lore. Major Edes, vet- eran of two wars, ex-editor of our newspaper, local historian, whose an- cestors have been fighting on our side since the French and Indian Wars, was engaged in explaining a complicated subject to the Meeting. This was a project involving new boilers for the heating system of the Town Hall and Primary School. Hav- ing made a long study of the matter, he delivered a careful, prolonged (and tedious) analysis, and showed in de- tail why pressure could not be main- tained in the old boilers.
When he sat down. an eccentric and ragged old woman who dearly loved these meetings, enjoying her role of a constantly outraged critic, arose.
"Mr. Moderator! Mr. Moderator!" she called in her nasal cracked voice.
The Chair recognized her. She waited till the crowd grew still and all eyes were upon her. She had had much experience in dramatic timing. "Mr. Modertor," she cried, "I think Mr. Edes could blow those boilers up himself!"
A tidal wave of laughter swept the heating plant proposal and all its care- ful preparation out of the hall.
On another occasion someone tried to yank the rug out from under her by asking that dread question, "Are you a native of this town?"
She arose, sputtering. "A native!" she cried. "I've lived in this town forty years, but I wasn't born here, thank God!"
The meeting was hers from then on.
The moderator of our town meeting for some twenty-five years was George E. Lewis. As he was only about five feet five, but quite stocky, we boys from the balcony thought of him as a kind of Napoleon, for he was a quick and decisive presiding officer, always in full charge of the meetings, some of which could have easily turned into a riot.
George was also Treasurer of the Newport Savings Bank and Chief of the volunteer fire department for some fifty years. It was something of a treat to watch Banker Lewis, at the sound of the fire alarm. transform himself into Chief Lewis and dash out of the
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bank, swing aboard the "chemical" and go sirening off down the street in a crescendo of noise and excitement.
Chief Lewis himself told me how our town happened to acquire a nice new brick railroad station through the community spirit of his depart- ment. The previous station was a ramshackle eyesore which the rail- road company refused to replace. When it caught fire one night, the fire department responded with its usual speed and in full force. The hoses were hitched to the hydrants in record time, and the water pressure was good.
One stream was directed through a window on the near side of the build- ing, but an unprejudiced observer would have noticed that it went un- erringly out of a window on the opposite side. Two streams shot over the roof in a beautiful display of power, but somehow the shingles didn't seem to even get wet. For some reason, in spite of all this activ- ity, the fire gained headway, and be- fore this phenomenon could be ana- lyzed and corrected the old station burned down.
In any event the new brick station was there when I was a boy. A rail- road station in a small town in those days was a vital place, and train time was an event. We would go down there some evenings instead of going to the movies. A few people would be roam- ing restlessly about on the din plat- form. We would go into the station - the place was quiet except for the clicking of the telegraph key. If any- one spoke, his voice would trail off into oblivion. The bare benches, the penny scales, the ancient gum machine. the dismal posters, were all illumined by the sort of electric lights probably used on the descent to Avernus. De- pressed (we probably didn't know why), we would wander out to the platform and gaze at the red and green lights of the switches spangling the darkness along the tracks.
Then we'd hear the train! It was like curtain time in the theatre. The headlight of the locomotive brought the whole scene to life. The train made an amazing amount of noise for its three cars and an engine. Suddenly there were more people about than you thought. Passengers were alighting and more could be seen in the cars looking out through the dirty win- dows, on their faces a faint gleam of hope for their own eventual arrival.
Dick Donovan, clerk at Lovell's Drug Store collected the evening
COMMON FROM TOP OF OLD TOWN HALL
Courtesy of Samuel H. Edes
newspapers in his little green hand- cart; T. I. Farmer loaded the mail sacks onto his truck; the conductor raised his hand for the highball signal as impressively as if this were the Twentieth Century Limited, and the train with a blast from its whistle would resume its adventurous safari into the dark hills.
We were luckier, even, than Robert Frost's birch-swinging youngster who lived too far from town to learn base- ball. We played baseball and swung birches. too. In fact we were always on a hike somewhere. We explored the caves of Bald Mountain often, climbed Mt. Sunapee and Ascutney regularly, and even camped overnight in twenty- below weather at Lake Solitude. We always took with us on these hikes a skillet and some home-cured ham which we fried over our campfire. We did this so much that at one period we must have reeked of ham and woodsmoke beyond the power of water to dissipate.
We were always doing odds and ends of things, Time never hung heavy on our hands for long. Even our quieter pursuits were fun and rather typical
of those days. When we had a few moments to spare we would drop in on Harry Purmort, the town weigher, who had his scales and shack in Depot Square. Harry was also a cobbler. Crippled from birth, he loved children. We would sit around and listen to his philosophical talk as he tapped shoes on the last between his knees, and he would draw us out as to our future plans. Or we might "hang out" at Mike Hourihan's men's store or visit Karl Waldron, an ingenious Yankee photographer. All these men could talk with boys understandingly (a trait not too common in adults) and they had the faculty of making the life ahead of us seem challenging and important.
On lazy summer days we would go swimming in the South Branch near the White Barn. Although this swim- ming hole was quite near the main highway to Keene there was hardly any traffic on it in those days so bathing suits were never used. And, of course, swimming without the en- cumbrance of cloth is liquid freedom. Sometimes we swam at Pollard's Mills, a picturesque forest pool where the South Branch was held back by a
Page 37
decrepit wooden dam. the banks being smooth slanting ledges, and all shiekl- ed from the glare of the sun by over- hanging hemlocks, making this a cool dusky place on a hot day. This pool is fed by tumbling water falls, one of which we could get under and watch the water pour over our heads.
During the long winter evenings we read a lot - we had no school home- work to speak of. We borrowed books from the Richards Free Library and often we walked down to the Library to read. Sleet and snow would hiss against the Library windows and the steam radiators would hiss back.
Perhaps one of the best aspects of life in our town was the cast of charac- ters constantly moving about our stage. Even as boys we could appreciate then. Consider Bela (pronounced Beelee) Cutting. a cattle dealer, who figured in our local U-2 incident long before President Eisenhower encountered his.
Across the front of Bela's barn was painted the name CUTTING and beneath it the date 1892. During a severe thunderstorm a bolt of light- ing hit the barn and scorched a line which ran precisely through the U in Cutting and the 2 in 1892. Now Bela was a superstitious man, and to him this dread event clearly foretold his doom with the message "You, too!" thunderstorm after that would frighten him into a paníc.
Then there was slightly balmy Walt Lincoln at Sunapee, the farmer who got mixed up in dates and drove into town with a load of Christmas trees for sale the day after Christmas, an economic blunder of rather classic pro- portions. Walt was very kind to ani- mals. One day someone saw him driv- ing his wagon holding a heavy sack of grain on his lap. Asked the reason. Walt replied. "Thought I'd kind of help out the hoss and give her a lift. She ain't been feelin' too well."
Then there was the memorable re- mark of Cad Lowe about the Phoenix Hotel. Old Cal never went to the Phoenix unless he had been drinking to excess. The proprietor. a precise, prim man, enamored of the profits in the liquor business but averse to some of its by-products. became in- creasingly disturbed.
Finally when Cad showed up. drunk again, and took his customary brooding position at a corner table, the proprie- tor addressed him formally.
"Mr. Lowe." he said. "how does it happen that you never patronize my establishment unless you are intoxi- cated?"
TRADE IN NEWPORT SIGN AT HIURD'S DRUGSTORE
RADE IN
NEWPORT
MELO THE TOWN GROW
IF YOU TRADE OUT OF TOWN and I TRADE OUT TOWN WHERE DOES OUR TOWN GET OFF
AND T.ELLAM
ASQUARE DEAL EVERY T ME nT
110
IF YOUR
G.W.MORSE
90
WATCHMAKER and
EJEWELER
80
E.E.TROW LUNCH ROOM HOT COLD
70
STEAM LAUNDRY -
80
RTBATCHELDER SEND US YOUR LAUNDRY WE NEED THE MONEY NO BUNDLE UNDER
The OUT SOFTDRINKS + CIGARS
FIVE CENTS Tel. Conn-
ELIABLE FOOT WEAR
30
H.D.WOLK CUSTOM
20
TAILPR
10
CLEANING PRESSING
0
ENEL SAMPLES HOW READY De WOLF BLOCK
10
G.H. HOLDEN
20
OPTICAL SHOP
SUBWAY TONSORIAL PARLORS
30
ACCURATE WORK PROMPT SERVICE
40
EDMONDS OPTOMETRIST E WOLF BLOCK
YOUR FRIENDS
CAN BUY ÂN / THIN · YOU CANGIVE THEM
EXCEPT YOUR
PHOTOGRAPH
Ross
Au KINC.
J.W. JOHNSON &. SON VARIETY STORE GOODS SOLD ON EASY TERMS KODAKS PHONOGRAPHS SPORTING GOODS
From Collection of C. D. Johnson
()ld Cad looked up at him, very solemn and sad, with tears in his eyes. and replied. "I'm ashamed to any other time."
Of course during part of this period World War I was going on. But it didn't really touch us mentally except to furnish an atmosphere of general excitement, particularly at the armis- tice. We sold Liberty bonds as Boy Scouts: we drilled with rifles as a high school cadet corps: we bought thrift stamps; and we walked down to Depot Square to see the drafted men depart on the train. But Europe and the war were an awfully long way off.
We boys always had chores to do. mowing lawns. weeding gardens. filling the woodbox and doing other odd jobs. I had to get cows in from pasture after school afternoons and take them out to pasture before school in the morning. My stepfather, Judge Jesse M. Barton. loved farm things. and even though we lived in town, in fact right on Park Street. we kept two cows. It was not uncommon for people in town to do that, for many houses still had the large barns of an earlier era.
We kept our cows on the Pinnacle. a hill pasture about a mile from our home. and several other families kept their cows there too. Another "cow- boy," Ralph Jameson. son of Town Clerk, Harry E. Jameson. and I took this hike before and after school as a matter of course. Quite often the perverse "critters" would not be at the pasture bars for the return trip but would be lurking in the woods up the steep and rather distant hill. In that event there was nothing to do but search them out.
This had its compensations. for we would get such a wonderful view from the summit. where you could see the town. not in its details, but in perspec- tive. As we climbed, either up the old wood road or on a pasture path, we saw the valley with its roads and farms off to our left gradually dropping away from us.
We would pause half way up to drink from a spring which flowed into moss covered tubs. (Senator George H. Moses used to say that not to drink at a New Hampshire woodland spring was like refusing to say "Good Morning" to a friend.) Then we would resume our ascent. calling. "Cuh. Boss, Cuh. Boss!'
Finally, reaching the summit, we would throw ourselves down on an open breezy place of flat ledges in- terspersed with grass and gaze at the suddenly spread-out valley so far be-
5
ADVERTISEMENT WAS HERE DONT YOU THINK IT WOULD BE READ ?
NEWPORT
40
JOHN THE SHOE THAN
F.E.NEWCOMB STEAM FITTING PLUMBING SHEET METAL WORK Supplies
Page 38
PHOENIX HOTEL - CENTER FOREGROUND
Courtesy of F. P. Hutchinson
low us. Rising sharply up on all sides from the valley floor, the wooded hills and mountains shouldered their way into the sky. We could see tiny cars crawling along the ribbon of the Lake Sunapee Road, and sometimes a miniature train creeping silently through the woods and fields, the white puffs of steam from its silent whistle appearing above the locomo- tive like plumes.
We would sit a while to catch our breath and look at our hometown - the houses, streets, trees, cemeteries, ball park, town hall, school buildings, all reduced in scale to that of a toy model. There was something about it that looked stable and secure. After all, it had been there longer than the United States had been a nation. The hills looked permanent too. We agreed it was a good place to call our home. After we had found our cows and started down the hill in the gathering twilight we felt it was a good place to have our home call us.
Now that youth is long past we can see that Newport has not changed much physically in all those years - not as much as a town in the boom- ing South or West might change in a
few months - but that age, that spirit, that outlook, has gone with the wind.
The railroad station is a coin-op- erated laundry now because passenger trains have disappeared. But what boy would go down to watch a train come
in if there was one? Circuses and Chautauquas do not come here any more because not enough people would go to see them, which is why they have disappeared almost everywhere else too. Where we had two movie theatres for a long time, now we have but one and that is usually empty.
The adults we knew are mostly gone. As you read their familiar names on the gravestones you think of the Spoon River Anthology. Probably everyone who has ever grown older has lamented the passing of the "good old days." But there is this difference, I think, with us: the world has moved so much faster in these past years than it ever moved before and has changed so much more than the mind can really grasp, that the days of our youth have slipped back into a time that seems fantastical- ly remote. It is such a long way back from Man in Space to a sleigh ride beneath the stars!
Looking backward now through two world wars, the Korean war, a cold war, and a grim depression, back to those days when our rural isolation was ending and the modern age just beginning with all of its tremendous inventions, back to an age which was so much slower in tempo, back to a life so much more secure, back to a time when the earth was not a launch- ing pad for the Space Age but seemed made for love and laughter - looking back to all that, does it not become apparent that such an age was an ideal time for youth? I think it was; at least it was for me.
COVERED BRIDGE - ON ROAD TO NORTH NEWPORT
Photo by Ollie Turpeinen
Page 39
Former Newporters At Work - Know Them?
LILI
L
Remember this man? Remember the cart? Note the bells on the horse collars which announced the arrival of the icc wagon. Did they cut ice in the Lily Pond or where the children's fish pond was - or in both places?
A G
.
18.
ED GUY MARKET
MEAT & PRIN
56.10.
Plus
Inflation hadn't hit Newport when this picture was taken. The very best potatoes - 14c a peck.
E C T I 0 N O F
..
The Dorr Woolen Mill in Guild many, many years ago. The view is a good one of Guild village too.
CHANDLER & TURNERA
DRY ENCY
SUITS
Chandler & Turner where Aubuchon's now is. One of the leading stores, and from appearances, well staffed.
N
Another picture of the Main Street bridge. The Town Hall and the Baptist Church appear in the background.
D. A. Newton, the father of Dixi C. Newton, who many remember, did business for many years at this site now Television Specialists. S. G. Whitmore had a livery stable in the rear.
N T H I S P
U
M
C
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OUR HOSPITAL
-
Courtesy of Mildred J. Holmes
OLD
AND
NEW
L. R. Whitney Photo
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OUR HOSPITAL Serves Us Well
By MRS. RUTH NASON. Administrator
In 1910. William Henry Wright bequeathed his home on Maple Street, along with a small endow- ment, for the purpose of establish- ing and maintaining a hospital to be known as the "Carrie F. Wright Hospital." in memory of his be- loved wife. He also named Dr. J. Leavitt Cain. Frank O. Chellis. Dr. Fred P. Claggett. George A. Fair- banks and Robert T. Martin as trustees.
The necessary alterations were made, and the hospital opened with Miss Julia B. Spinney as superin- tendent. and the first patient ad- mitted was a boy named Winn. A school of nursing was established and Mrs. Carrie L. Brennan, who is still with the hospital, was one of its first graduates.
An addition, including an X-Ray room and nursery. was added in 1930.
Around 1950. it became apparent that a new hospital in a new loca- tion was needed. The necessary funds were raised and on January 25. 1952, the patients were trans- ferred from the old building to the present hospital on Summer Street.
With a new building and better facilities for better patient care. the first thought was to seek accredita- tion. and in June 1952 the hospital was surveyed by the Joint Commis- sion on Accreditation of Hospitals and received full accreditation. which has been maintained through the years.
MEDICAL STAFF
Luther A. Weigle, Jr., M.D. Warren L. Franz, M.D. John H. Munro, M.D. Donald C. Moriarty, M.D. Robert G. Maxfield, M.D.
Alfred C. Hanscom, M.D. John A. Walker, M.D. Francis H. Nolin, M.D. Strother B. Marshall, M.D. James A. Littlefield, M.D. Denis Maryn, M.D. CONSULTING STAFF
John H. Ohler, M.D.
Bulent Jajuli, M.D.
Berger H. Carlson, M.D.
Horace S. Blood, M.D.
Lloyd L. Wells, M.D.
HONORARY STAFF
Burton D. Thorpe, M.D. (Ret'd.) Frederick W. Roberts, M.D.
DENTAL STAFF
Raymond W. Libby, D.M.D.
Costas Poulious, D.M.D.
Chris T. Armen, D.D.S.
Gerald A. Berube, D.D.S.
HOSPITAL CORPORATION MEMBERS
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Mrs. Goldina Sibley Mr. Richard C. Duncan
Mrs. Ruth Paul Johnson
Mr. Carroll D. Johnson
Mr. Remington Woodhull
Mr. Austin B. Corbett
Mr. Frank McIntosh Mr. Leslie M. Pike Mr. John Wirkkala
Mr. Sam Saggiotes
Rev. Joseph Shields
Rev. William C. Blair
Mrs. Virginia Krauss
OTHER CORPORATE MEMBERS
Miss Elsie Bailey
Mr. Maurice J. Downing
Mr. Louis E. Willett
Mr. Jacob Shulins
Mr. Raymond Barrett
Mr. Jesse R. Rowell
Mr. Harold H. Campbell Mr. William Sullivan
Mrs. Eulalia Krans Mr. Roscoe Scranton Mr. George Dorr, Jr.
In February 1958, the name "Newport Hospital" was appro- priately substituted for "Carrie F. Wright Hospital."
Today the Newport Hospital is a modern. well-equipped 28-bed hospital, governed by a Corpora- tion of twenty-three members from which a twelve-member Board of Trustees. is elected. The Medical Staff of Twenty-two members is comprised of eleven active members, five consulting members, two hon- orary members and a Dental Staff of four.
In this short history. it is impos- sible to mention the names of all the people who. through their serv- ices, bequests, endowments and con- tributions, have helped build and maintain the hospital. However, there are a few groups, whose close connection with the hospital, war- rant special recognition: The Hos- pital Aid Association. which has done so much through the years in providing needed equipment and supplies for the care and comfort of the patients: the Trustees, who give so much of their time, some for many years, in planning and man- aging the affairs of the hospital: and the Medical Staff. on whose shoulders rests the health of our community.
The Newport Hospital is ready, night and day, to carry out the same basic principals William Wright envisioned in his early be- quest: the best care available for the sick.
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