USA > New Hampshire > Carroll County > Sandwich > Sandwich, New Hampshire, 1763-1963 : bi-centennial observance, August 18 through August 24. > Part 4
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البدائيات البارككم دير الملاك
Baptist Church
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tween 1792 and 1800, while the White Church was not erected until 1825). There was an early decline in membership in the North Sandwich Church, possibly due largely to the westward migration. The next report follow- ing the above on membership showed 132 at the White Church, 161 in the Center. Thereafter we have only the Center Sandwich church membership: 219 in 1865; 171 in 1889; 58 in 1919, and 39 in 1939.
The Baptist Church in the Center was not built by any society, but by the people, and the pewholders were the proprietors. Hence, they could vote the use of the building or changes as they wished.
The first Sunday School was established in this church in 1826 with forty-six scholars and six teachers. Sandwich is, also, said to have been the first to support the ministry, altho the amount was pitifully small- between two and three hundred dollars a year plus "donations," meaning food. This must have been after Joseph Quimby's time, for he worked on his farm for his maintenance all the years of his ministry, and his daughter Sarah wrote in 1857 that he had not received as much as fifty dollars for preaching in all his life.
Elder Joseph Colby was considered a leader in the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting. He was an eloquent preacher, and could hold his own with the best of that time. The Sandwich Quarterly Meeting had its begin- nings around 1812 with a membership of ten churches. After eighty years, 1892, the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting was geographically "the largest constituent body of the N. H. Yearly Meeting." Its membership was then made up of nineteen churches but they were so widely scattered that full attendance at the Quarterlies was difficult.
In 1847 the church in the Center was so largely remodeled that it was practically rebuilt. It was turned around-it had originally faced east and it was lowered four feet. This was done, they say, by chopping off each post little by little until the desired height was reached. Inside the galleries were taken out, and the square pews gave way to the present ones.
Thirty-five years later there were more changes. The sounding board over the pulpit was removed, and the organ and choir were located as they are today. The pews were painted green which greatly distressed some of the older members. The large box stove was removed, the outside chimney built, and a heating plant installed. Just before the Civil War money was raised to build the steeple and a bell was at that time put in the belfry. At the time of the Civil War the Common before the church, like so many other open areas in town, was used as a drill field. The clock in the steeple of the Baptist Church was given by Frank Silver Hunt of Lowell, Massachusetts in memory of his mother, Lucy Ann Silver Hunt, who was born in the red summer cottage of Mr. and Mrs. Richard N. Ford on Squam Lake Road. Her father was Hill Silver, one of the town's early millwrights. Mr. Frank Hunt, a graduate of the Boston Conservatory of Music and a pianist of distinction, spent many summers at the Hanson House in Center Sandwich between 1914 and 1940.
During these years the choir was a fine one. It was led by James
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M. Smith, the widely-known singing school teacher, and there was instru- mental music as well. Daniel M. Skinner played the violin, and Oliver Ambrose the bass viol as he had since he was a boy of eleven.
In September 1913, union services were held on Sunday and Friday evenings with the Methodists. Apparently, this was done only thru the winter, when it was difficult to heat the Baptist Church. The lessening congregation was doubtless another factcr. It seems to have been No- vember, 1918, that union services of the two churches were first held, alternating in the two meetinghouses. While permanent federation between the churches, Baptist and Methodist, was ratified and adopted by the Free Will Baptist Church on July 20, 1933, it was a decade and more before the Methodist Church came to a like decision.
Meanwhile the Baptist church has been re-decorated in soft pastel tones, the pews in natural wood; and it is used for winter services because it is now the warmer of the two churches.
THE WHITE CHURCH
While Freewill Baptist services had doubtless been held in private homes and schoolhouses in North Sandwich for many years following 1779 when settling was in full swing, it was not until 1825 that the North built a house of worship, the "White Meetinghouse". For about forty years the North Sandwich church maintained a high level of religious activity and prosperity in spite of some loss in membership. By 1854 extensive repairs had to be made and new pews were installed to seat two hundred fifty persons. The rededication sermon was preached a year later by Elder Jonathan Woodman, who spoke from a platform near one of the windows to a congregation, within and without the building, of some five hundred people. The Sunday School, opened in 1853, had 150 enrolled in the 80's.
The last resident preacher was Ansel E. Lee in 1900; then Rev. E. B. Stiles from the Center filled the pulpit Sunday afternoons for over five years. Other preachers from the Center who continued the practice of regular services included the well-loved Dr. T. H. Stacy. Rev. Paul Hallett and Rev. A. G. Reinelt conducted services in the White Church from time to time.
In 1940, through the generosity of townsfolk and interested friends, repairs were again made on the 114-year-old building which, by now, was being used only once each summer for a memorial service. However, time takes its toll, and in 1961 the building was declared unsafe for use. The summer service has been held since on the lawn of October Farm, home of Mrs. H. Wadsworth Hight, who, with the late Mr. Hight, made a really serious effort to save the old building, but in vain.
THE METHODIST CHURCH
In 1805 The Methodist Tuftonboro Circuit formed and came to include a class meeting in Sandwich. Methodist preachers had passed through here previously, and continued to do so until 1810 when this town became a regular station. In a spirit of brotherhood, the pewholders of the
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The Methodist Church
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Baptist Church voted that the Methodists should have the use of their church building on alternate Sundays since they did not have a church of their own, and there they met until 1825 when they built their own meeting house on Skinner Street. The records say it was built thru the zealous efforts and personal labor of Elijah Skinner, a prominent leader of the Society. After being used nearly twenty-three years it caught fire and was damaged seriously. A new building, the present church, was started in April 1848 and completed by November; but soon, thereafter nearly fifty members of the church were included in a western migration that robbed Sandwich of some of its most enterprising citizens.
The Methodist Church has always had the best of care. The mem- bership continued large and loyal, the Ladies Aid active. A new bell was added in 1870; all new furnishings, carpet, pulpit and church furni- ture in 1880. In 1893, Moulton H. Marston, a lifelong benefactor of the church, offered to install a new pipe organ at a cost of $1620 if other members would raise a similar sum for a proposed program of rehab- ilitation. Within a month $1560 had been subscribed, and $800 more at the re-opening service in December, thus wiping out all debt. The organ that was installed at this time was selected by that fine organist, Dr. Hamilton C. Macdougall of Wellesley College.
The Methodists, like the Baptists, were generous with their building. and after the Friends' second meeting house was burned in '53 in the Abolition riots, they were offered the use of the Methodist Church, which they thankfully accepted.
THE EAST SANDWICH CHAPEL
This is the last of the old meetinghouses still standing in Sandwich. It was built in 1879 thru community effort, and was known as the Union Church. Most of its members were Adventists. In 1880 a vigorous tem- perance campaign was conducted in the church by two men from Meredith, resulting in the formation of the East Sandwich Temperance Society. The members held meetings Sunday evenings for more than twenty years. In 1912 church membership had dwindled to the point that it was voted by Union Church members to discontinue meetings and transfer membership to the Methodist Episcopal Church at Center Sandwich. However, the building continued to be used, and its influence carried on. In 1918 the ladies who met at the Chapel to sew for the Red Cross organized the East Sandwich Community Club thru which they raised money to repair the building. In 1938 the club members voted to turn over their funds to the East Sandwich Meeting House and Cemetery Association, $60 for a chapel fund, and $150 for the cemetery. The organization has flourished, the chapel kept in excellent repair, and is opened the last Sunday in July each year for a service. The collection at this meeting is used for the maintenance of the chapel. In the spring of 1957 the late Mrs. May Belle K. Vittum, secretary and organist for many years, gave to the association the isolated triangle of land in front of the building. No cemetery in all of Sandwich looks better than the Vittum Hill Cemetery, all because of the thoughtfully laid-out plan of some ladies back in the time of the first World War, and the continuing interest of their successors.
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THE FRIENDS
The Quakers were in Sandwich in considerable numbers in the earliest days of its history as a township. There were at least forty here in 1777, and the number had so increased that by 1802 the Sandwich Monthly Meeting was recognized as one of the branches of the Salem (Mass.) Quarterly Meeting. To the year 1833 not less than seven hundred were included in the Sandwich Meeting. Decline began when families started emigrating west during the middle of the 1800's. Regular services were discontinued in the late 80's, but are still maintained during the summer months in the Quaker Meeting House near Durgin Bridge, North Sandwich.
After their first meeting house had become too small and was moved to Tamworth to serve a similar purpose there, the Quakers erected about 1812 a two-story building 30 by 50 feet on Wentworth Hill, a little below the Quaker Cemetery. It continued in use until 1862 when it was burned during the tense period of the Draft Riots, when there was bitter resent- ment against the Quakers. Soon after they built again in the Center, but as the number of Friends grew less each year, in the early 90's the meeting house was sold to the Sandwich Grange, which has used it as its Grange Hall ever since.
In North Sandwich the first Quaker Church built in 1814 served its people until 1884, when it fell into disrepair. The Society, too, had for some years been facing defeat, its membership decreasing "by reason of removal and otherwise." Then came John B. Cartland to the Quaker Neighborhood with his family, a man of the highest character. A wide- spread religious interest was created; new members were added to the Society and a new house became necessary. So the present Friends Meeting house was built in 1881. In 1888 this North Meeting united with Liming- ton Monthly Meeting to form Parsonsfield Quarterly Meeting; and in 1938 Falmouth Quarterly Meeting was added.
The Friends were a strict people. A rigid inquiry was made into the fitness of persons who wished to join the Society. The conduct of all members was scrutinized and complaints made of any breaches of disci- pline. Their meetings were held in silence unless someone was "moved" to speak. They lived and dressed quietly, without ostentation. They worked for the freedom of the slaves, yet they opposed war. They settled their own affairs without recourse to law, they cared for their own poor without burdening the community. They were interested in education, and wherever they went, there were those among them who set up beacon lights for progress. (These were the thoughts expressed by a fine Sand- wich Quaker, John B. Hoag, in a paper read at the 125th anniversary of the erection of the first Friends Meetinghouse in North Sandwich.)
THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
The Congregationalists were organized here in 1814 (which seems to have been a great year of religious fervor !) They had two churches; the first one in 1824 built on a knoll near Little's Pond; the second in 1856 next to the brick store at Lower Corner. There were then 51 resident members. The house adjoining was used as the parsonage. Preaching ceased here in 1880, and for three years more the building continued to
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be used for prayer meetings and Sunday School. Eventually it was sold and torn down. The church bell in now used by the church in Melvin Village.
The North Sandwich Congregational Church was organized in 1832. Its membership included families that for forty years had been traveling the eight miles to Tamworth on foot or on horse, to hear the Rev. Samuel Hidden preach. The church to house this new assembly was made of brick from the McCrillis kiln. For seven years the minister at the Lower Corner church, Rev. Giles Leach, served this parish also; later it had the services for a time of the Baptist minister from the Center. The Rev. Otis Holmes was a favorite preacher, serving first from 1844 to '49 and recalled in 1865 to devote one-half his time to the church. People flocked again to the church (which meanwhile had been repaired) and there were many new members and many children baptized. The last entry in the available church records is of two new members being admitted in 1867. All subsequent records have been lost. The building was standing on Whiteface Intervale in August, 1923, when the fourth Historical Society Excursion went by it. It is noted then that in the 90's it was occupied for some years by the Good Templars, an organization which was credited with much good. In less than ten years, when the Historical Society re-visited Whiteface, we read: "Practically all the old brick have been removed and used elsewhere." So passed the Congre- gationalists from the Sandwich scene.
OTHER CHURCHES
The "Messiah Church" of North Sandwich was built around 1899 on the road leading to Weed's Mills. Its building followed a series of Baptist evangelical services in the vicinity, led by a preacher named Krumreig. It was used no more than three years, was thereafter neglected and fell into utter ruin. It was burned the night of July 4, 1940.
The West Side Chapel came about thru an association of women in 1913 who worked together under the name of the West Side Sewing Circle. Needing a building for conducting neighborhood activities, a house and lot were obtained and the building re-modeled to form an assembly hall. Here families came for community meetings, suppers and entertain- ments; for religious meetings, too, such as Sunday School, hymn singing and preaching by a minister from the Center. The attendance was large enough to necessitate the building of sheds for the horses of those coming from a distance. In 1931 the Circle disbanded and sold its properties, defeated, as so many other good things were, by the coming of the automobile and the moving away of some of the workers. ..
In "The Religious Life of Sandwich," published in three pamphlets by the Sandwich Historical Society, a chapter is devoted to "The Women's Organizations of Center Sandwich," dating from the first one about 1855 to about 1871 when "The Ladies' Church Aid Society of the M. E. Church of Sandwich" was organized. The objects were cited as "the cultivation of social Christianity and the promotion of the financial interests of the church." Then there is reference to "The Centenary Society" as follows: "At the meeting of the Trustees of the M. E. Church on March 8, 1866,
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(mark that date!) five resolutions were presented by a so-called Centen- ary Committee relative to a proposal 'That the ladies of the Centenary Society of Center Sandwich do proceed to build a hall for public use to be called Centenary Hall and to be under the supervision of said Society.' In the second resolution: 'The ladies of said Society request the Trustees of the M. E. Society to grant them permission to build said hall in the base- ment of their church, on condition that the Centenary Society build a good hall, keep it in order, and grant free use of it to the Methodist Society for vestry purposes.' The remaining resolutions concern the appointment of committees for the execution of the plan. A week later at an adjourned meeting of the trustees a committee consisting of Col. Joseph Wentworth and Moulton H. Marston, was appointed to make an estimate of the probable expense of building such a hall. Shortly thereafter they reported the necessary amount to be about $1000, including $200 for raising the Meeting House. Next information comes from the records of the Fourth Quarterly Conference of the same year, where it is stated the Pastor, Rev. A. B. Hatch, was appointed "to consult with the ladies of the Cen- tenary Society with regard to the best method of raising money for finish- ing a hall under the church. " Here all sources of information stop, but details as to extensive renovations made in '68 upstairs indicate that the basement plan was discarded without further ado.
But isn't it exciting to read about this Centenary Society at a time when we are about to celebrate the Bicentennial of Sandwich? And what would the ladies have thought had they known their "hall built in the basement of the Methodist Church" would become a reality in the 1960's- almost a hundred years later? There is no further mention anywhere of The Centenary Society, nor of what they did to celebrate the town's one hundredth birthday.
SCHOOLS
The first mention of schools in Sandwich town records is in the war- rant for the March meeting of 1782 "to be held at the dwelling house of Daniel Beede, Esq." (Lower Corner). The article reads: "To see if the voters would raise any money for schools, or other town use." Votes were taken on tythingmen and hay wards, on hiring soldiers for the government, and on the width of ox sleds traveling over snow paths - but no money was raised for schools. However, this was not a typical town reaction to education, for three years later 90 pounds sterling was raised for schools. This might have been part of a plan voted the year before, "to sell rights in the school lands, the interest on the money to be used for schooling and nothing else." After that the State stepped in and set a minimum rate of tax for schools, and required examination of teachers by ministers or persons competently educated. For the next twenty years the town voted school money in addition to the amount set by law. Schoolhouses were ordered built, and by 1800 Sandwich was spending $300 a year on public education ! At this time it is said Sandwich Lower Corner was the center of town influence, culture and wealth.
The town's decision in 1794 to establish school districts was made
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eleven years before a state law was passed empowering towns to do so. Previously, a school in many New Hampshire places was "an itinerant institution, finding local habitation as best it could: in private homes, in workshops, even in barns." This was the case even at the time of the founding of Dartmouth College, 1769, with Phillips Exeter Academy fol- lowing in 1791. Sandwich was well in advance in educational thought and planning, and in its early schools, crude as they were, many important men and women in the nation's history got their start in politics and government, in the ministry and missionary fields, in legal, medical, and business circles. "Long John Wentworth," friend of Lincoln, obtained his early schooling in the little Potash School on Little's Pond.
As of 1847 there were 25 district schools and a map shows them scattered from Birch Interval at the northernmost corner to Red Hill; with Monroe and Langdon at the west and southwest, and Washington (later the Weed School) on the southeast. This was a considerable increase over the eight districts originally laid out in 1805, and shows how an increasing population had pushed into all parts of the Sandwich grant. In fact, so little was known of the terrain in such areas as the Notch, that the selectmen, in a report of 1849, stated that "for want of a good and sufficient map of the town, we found it difficult and laborious to as- certain and define the limits of the several districts."
An interesting fact brought to light in the school study was the number of pupils attending schools in fifteen districts in 1825 - 790. The total population of Sandwich in 1940, the year of the study, was 742. The districts were given numbers instead of names in 1839, and from then on numbers and names were changed so often the historian is frequently at a loss to tell one from the other.
While the schools were flourishing in attendance and learning, and the teachers were being paid an average of $12.50 and $5.00 a month respectively for men and women, (with their boarding given to the lowest bidder), Sandwich had become an important township in the 1840's and only eight in the state had more inhabitants. Maple sugar, apples and livestock were the principle articles of trade, but the mills, hat and shoe shops were "exporting," too. So the husky, uncouth boys of even twenty- one went to school rather willingly during the winter terr when work was slack, on the principle that "they'll cheat you if you don't know arith- metic!" They were often unruly, damaged and even burnt some of the schoolhouses, and in some districts only a man could handle them. There were two terms, one from May usually to September and a winter term from December thru February, varying in the districts according to con- ditions of work and roads. The teachers had the extremes of huge classes or barely enough scholars to keep them busy. For example: District 7 (on Burleigh Hill, formerly called Harmony) : "Rev. L. B. Tasker, teacher, did all that could be expected with 70, mostly small children crowded into rather close quarters ... Keeping in order 50 to 70 twitching, squirming, rollicking, wide-awake specimens of humanity scarcely ever known to be still at home, and hearing a recitation on the average of every ten minutes, the teacher did keep fair order and secured quite respectable recitations." (Quoted from 1858 School Report). In 1868 Angelia Smith taught 22 pupils the four-week summer school term - ages ranging from thirteen down
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to three years and eight months. This was at No. 15, Bennett Street. Folsom's, at Durgin Bridge was in 1852 the most populous school with the majority of the scholars Quakers. Eighty-one scholars attended a six- teen-week summer term and a twelve-week winter term. In 1855 Susan E. Moore kept the summer term and (Judge) David H. Hill the winter one- seventy-two pupils. Miss Moore received $9 per month while Mr. Hill was paid $20. Daniel G. Beede taught here one winter, and Charles R. Fellows attended this school in 1866-7.
Considering the other extreme of attendance, Mrs. Emma Gilman taught one pupil in No. 21, Harrison, (at the end of Bennett Street, Whiteface) from 1884 thru 1886, and school was held for two pupils in No. 14, (Mount Delight in the Notch), in 1884 and '85. The last year the East Sandwich School was kept, there were only five pupils taught by Miss Marion Clark of North Woodstock. Two of these graduated in June, two moved away during the summer, and Dorothy Graves (now Mrs. Dexter Remick, a teacher in Tamworth) went to another school to finish her grades.
The seventeen pupils in one of the Notch schools were said to be "mainly members of the (Moses) Hall family." The North Sandwich School had fifteen Quimby's out of twenty-four students. In the book "Vittum Folks" we read about the East Sandwich school: "At one time nearly a hundred boys and girls attended this school and at least seventy of them were Vittums."
A director was the only school official up to 1827, and "visitors" paid by the town were the only check on whether or not he was attending to his duties. A Superintending School Committee was required by state law after 1827, appointed annually by the selectmen. He was expected to examine and approve candidates for teaching; visit and inspect all schools twice each year; choose textbooks; make yearly reports, and at its dis- cretion dismiss incompetent teachers and expel unruly scholars. After 1829 there was a Prudential Committee, chosen by the voters in their own district. Its duties were limited to matters outside the schoolroom -
meetings, hiring and paying teachers who had been approved by the Superintending Committee - a sort of secretary to the latter to take care of detail and keep that body informed. From 1887 on matters of education were in the hands of a school board of three members, elected annually, performing all the functions of the two committees described above; a system which has prevailed up to now.
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