USA > New Hampshire > Sullivan County > Newport > Tales from the history of Newport > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9
13
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
Further north up in Grafton County, violent quar- rels arose between towns as to just what belonged to each of them, resulting in long dawn-cut lawsuits.
Newport, however, in all these 200 years has made but one major change, which resulted in the seemingly erratic jig-saw arrangement of our southeast corner, which describes a scalloped sort of line and comes to a point nowhere. This, was no fault of the original sur- vey, but came from the desire of certain folk, living in the township of Goshen, to set up for themselves, which was accomplished in 1790 or thereabouts, with no objec- tion from Newport or from Sunapee, which furnished some of Goshen's territory, and only mild remonstrance from Lempster, which was shorn of the rest.
By great good fortune the comparatively small stream which somehow got to be known as "The Sugar River," came just about in the center of this township and near the junction of the main stream with its two tributaries, the North and South branches. The main river, which forms the outlet of "Great Sunapee Pond," as the early maps have it, makes a rapid descent down the 250-foot fall into Newport, then wanders for two niiles through the Newport meadows, and finally makes its escape toward the Connecticut through a narrow pass at Chandler's near the Claremont line. The river picks up a considerable reinforcemment from its South Branch, then runs a mile or more north to gain a second increment from the Croydon Branch-then hurries on its way westward through the big gap.
The first settlers unerringly picked the wide mea- dows thus formed, for their village. Whether they, or any of them, appreciated the unsurpassed beauty of the spot is an open question. Probably not. For there were too many trees in the way for them to gain a real look at the big mountain which forms the northern limit of the view, and it may well be doubted if they looked be- yond the obvious advantage of good soil for their crops and good water power for their milling, to worry about scenic effects. Not only did the Sugar River form this big cross in the town's center, but the four corners of
14
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
their territory were occupied by high hills and high table lands, which served to round out the diversification of their new domain.
Thus we see, "The Sugar River" as the really cen- tral feature of their region, furnishing water, drainage, fishing, swimming, and a lot of other things, including floods, drownings and other undesirable things, which caused the frugal settlers plenty of unwelcome worry and expense. Town history says that our stream was named owing to the numbers of sugar maples growing along its banks. Maybe so. But the inhabitants further down the river had a different explanation. According to them "sugar" should be spelled something like "Shu- gar," because that was the name of a rascally old Indian, a chief presumably, who ruled these parts before the white man arrived. So the river has two names and it must be owned that reinforced as it is while traversing the town, it may well deserve a longer name when it reaches the fair meadows and considerable falls of the Claremont area. But Newport still calls it the "Sugar River" and has sometimes written poems in its honor, although the railroad people, many years after, trying to snake a railroad through here, called it by other and less poetical names. And it must be admitted that had Dea- con Wilcox and his companions possessed the second sight and had visualized the situation created by the dozen mills and the several thousand people now living and working along here, "Sugar" river might well have given place to some other and less poetic appelation. Maybe they'd have called it "hemlock," which variety of tree seems really to far outnumber the maple; and be- sides makes a brew which the ancient Greeks recognized as anything but sweet and life-giving.
How to sweeten up all these rivers-the Sugar is by no means exceptional-is one of the important prob- lems facing this generation. It can be done all right, but at what looks like prohibitive expense. Perhaps the ans- wer is to be found in state action. Perhaps we must turn to the Federal authority. Or, most likely, a combination
15
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
of these echelons of government. Right now, we are rest- ing on the polite fiction of "no further pollution."
-
8
.
C
.
-
First and last passenger trains through Newport. Concord and Claremont branch of the Boston and Maine Railroad. Embers from old locomotives like this one, puffing through the country- side, started many fires. Note majestic cowcatcher on Old No. 8. At bottom, locomotives no longer necessary, the last train was a Budd Car.
16
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
CHAPTER V How a Country Milliner Became a Great Editor and Lived to the Age of Ninety-four
This is the story of Sarah Jane Buell. You have heard of her under another name-two other names, in fact, one acquired, I suspect, as a literary expedient, the other by marriage. Gordon Buell was her father's name, one of the many Buells who came here from Killing- would be a good place in which to regain it, and clearing worth, Conn. This one, however, didn't come with the others but arrived here after the Revolution, in which he had served as a staff captain under General Gates- a service in which he lost his health. He thought that clearing a 400-acre farm was a good way to do it.
He married Martha Whittlesey after the war and when ready to come to Newport. The date was 1783, and Martha was 32. It appears that the wedding had been postponed until after the hostilities. Sarah was the second of four children. The Whittleseys were them- selves a distinguished family, and it might be suspected that Sarah got much of her talent from her mother and later, some of her preferment. The mother died in 1811 at less than 60 years of age.
Sarah was born in 1788, probably over on the Buell farm, which was in the East end of town on the stage road to Bradford. Gordon Buell came into the village about 1811 and built the Rising Sun Tavern, which still stands near the South Church. Like many superior young women, Sarah appears to have had trouble in finding a suitable husband, and it was not until the ar- rival here of David Hale, a young lawyer, that one was found. Sarah was 25 when she was married-rather late, but still younger than was her mother. The marriage appears to have been a very happy one, David, as Sarah afterward said, "being much my superior in education." They undertook a course of study together, and when he died in 1822, Sarah, an avid student, was ready to follow a literary career. But by that time she had five children, the eldest but eight years old.
17
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
David at the time of his death was Master of the Masonic Lodge, and the Masons, more charitable then than later, contributed money enough to set her up as a milliner in company with her sister-in-law, Hanna Hale. That the millinery venture was not a financial suc- cess is easily understood, for it was only the next year that the young widow published her first book "North- wood," one of the very first novels written by a woman to be published in America. This was in 1823, and the success of this work was so notable that five years later she was appointed editor, or "editoress," to use the language of the day, of the Ladies Magazine published in Boston. She lived in Boston until 1841 when, her children having finished college, she joined the great publisher, Lewis Godey, in Philadelphia, and lived there the rest of her long and active life as the editor of Godey's Ladies Book, most famous of the early women's magazines.
Mrs. Hale's achievements were stupendous. "North- wood" was current reading for 25 years, and was trans- lated into 20 languages. Her "Woman's Record," an ac- count of the life of almost every notable woman through- our the ages, was a book of more than 1,200 pages. She wrote about 30 other books and various poems, aside from her magazine output. Never for one moment did she forget that her chief objective was advancement of
the cause of women. But she was always gentle about it, never obtrusive, never rampant. She was no Carrie Nation. She did not go around smashing salcons, or any- thing else. But she was ever on the job. And the present uninhibited status of women in our civilization was with no exaggeration and no doubt whatever due to her tireless efforts.
But Sarah Hale's current fame doesn't so much hang on her sustained efforts for women, valuable though they were and are, but rather on her authorship of a little poem which captured the imagination of the world, and still holds it. This was the nursery rhyme "Mary and the Lamb." The authenticity of this little poem has been in question now for many years. How-
18
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
ever, a few years ago Henry Ford detailed a man-his antique buyer, to investigate and find out the true facts of the controversy between Sarah Hale and the pro- ponents of one Rollstone, whose claim to the authorship was entwined with the corresponding claims of one Mary Sawyer, of Sterling, Mass., who was said to be the original Mary of the poem. Now listen to the indis- putable facts in the case :
In the year 1823, while Sarah was eking out a living for herself and five small children, being publicity minded, she published a small volume entitled "Poems for Children." One of the poems in this collection was en- titled "Mary and the Lamb." Books for children were scarce in those days, the volume was immensely popular and but three copies of the original edition are known to exist-one in the Boston Public Library, one in the New Hampshire Historical Society, and one more some- where else.
Here is the poem "Mary and the Lamb" staring in the face any who wish to see, appearing at a date years before the Rollstone-Sawyer incident is supposed to have taken place. What would you have for proof ? The poem was and is Sarah Hale's. She has said so herself and Sarah was a great person, whose say-so is not to be disregarded for that of some antique dealer even though he happens to have at his disposal the purse and pres- tige of Henry Ford.
Like to see a copy of this early production "Poems for Children ?" It would be difficult. Newport's Richards Free Library has a copy, but it is not an original. It is a reprint gotten out by Richard Hale of Boston some years ago. Richard Hale was not a relative-only a great admirer of the "authoress." The modest book of chil- dren's poems was an instant success, and ran into sev- eral editions. It is a collector's item now, and literally worth its weight in gold. Every summer collectors drop in at my house asking to see our books. After glancing casually over a number of ancient volumes, they ask if we have anything by Mrs. Hale. So we go into the story of the children's book and say that surely there ought
19
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
to be a copy here, but there is none. Then they exclaim "Oh, you know too much." Maybe you know where there lies a copy that the kids mislaid before it was worn to tatters. Good piece of change for you if you do. Maybe a thousand dollars.
While struggling with millinery, Mrs. Hale next plunged into writing "Northwood," which is a picture of life on the American continent of the early 20th century. And for the most part it is a true picture. Many of the scenes are laid in her native Newport. How could it have been otherwise when we remember that, so far as we know, she had rarely, if ever, travelled out of it? "North- wood" is, even now, fair reading, though I wouldn't recommend it unless one had an interest in its author.
The book was directly responsible for Mrs. Hale's re- moval to Boston and being chosen to conduct "The Ladies Magazine," one of the first publications devoted to the interests of women. Sarah was then 35 years old. Of this venture the late Ruth E. Finley, author of the most careful study of Mrs. Hale's career so far to ap- pear, well says: "Only less remarkable than her accom- plishments is the fact that this woman was 38 years old before she started on her career. All her accomplish- ments took place after she was 40. All her life had been spent in the town where she was born."
During most of the years included in Mrs. Hale's married life in Newport the family lived in a long house on the west side of Main St. on the spot now used for the "Library House," long the residence of John McCrillis, Clerk of Court. The place looks out upon the very end of the Common. It interested me very much when, sev- eral years ago, the high school youngsters undertook as a winter carnival stunt a heroic statue of Sarah Hale. It stood about 12 feet high. That the statue was built directly in front of the author's old residence was prob- ably pure accident, and would have been news to any of the sculptors. Unfortunately, the work was hardly finished when a warm so'wester rolled in and in a few hours the statue's head disappeared. It was remarked that this was the only time on record when Sarah lost
20
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
her head. About the turn of the century the house was moved up Main to Myrtle, where it still stands. It ap- pears at some time to have had a two-room addition built on what was the south end, and one wonders if this were not put on in Sarah's day to take care of an increas- ing family. I know it was there in the 1890's when the Rev. Dockerill of the Methodist Church (right across the Common) lived there.
The departure of the widow Hale and her five chil- dren for Boston must have been an event of community- wide interest. It was unheard of in several respects. "What did she propose to do ?" "Edit a Woman's Maga- zine." Pshaw! "How get a living for herself and fam- ily ?" "Write poems and such." "Rubbish. She'd starve unless ... " Thus thought skeptical and not over-charit- able Newport. Nevertheless, she went. I'm wondering what my own grandfather, and even more his own wife -another Sarah-thought about it. They were young too, at the time, and perhaps hopeful and liberally pro- gressive.
Sarah herself seems to have had no doubts, no hesi- tations. She was new to Boston and found herself vastly disturbed by conditions which were just old hat to the natives. So she plunged into matters with an enthusiasm which afterward was recognized as characteristic. First she had to get The Ladies Magazine on its way, and launching a new publication then took even more of what it takes than now-a large order. But she suc- ceeded and soon built up a circulation second only to Godey's. Then she turned herself loose. Bunker Hill monument had been dedicated on the 50th anniversary of the battle, but 20 years later had progressed upward but 40 feet. LaFayette had wielded the trowel, Daniel Webster had made one of his greatest speeches. It was all to be done by private subscription and tho but $100,- 000 was needed, that was a great deal of money in those days. It was proposed that some money be scraped up, the. monument taken down and the grand project abandoned.
And then came a little woman from Newport, New
21
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
Hampshire, who proposed that The Women take hold. She organized the greatest fair even seen in Boston at that time. More than 4,000 people came to the opening. In seven days, according to Ruth Finley, $75,000 had been cleared, and the rest was easy. Among other things, it appears that Mrs. Hale, in connection with this mat- ter, had invented the first rummage sale. Well, the monument was at length finished and dedicated-Sena- tor Webster again making a great speech. If you go into Boston the right way, you can still see the colorings on the stone work just where the original monument leaves off and Sarah Hale's monument begins. Really a great and lasting triumph.
Somewhere along the line she found time to or- ganize and push to success the Seaman's Aid Society. This effort was in the field of reform-a new venture for her. It seems that seamen were being exploited in the buying of equipment for their voyages, and their fami- lies often left in want for long periods. She enlisted help and corrected all this, not without raising the hostility of those who had profited by the original system. The Sea- man's Aid was a tremendous success. But time and space forbid that we try to relate even a fraction of Sarah's achievements. Mrs. Finley has made a complete sum- mary for us, which we cannot do better than quote:
"She was responsible for Thanksgiving as a na- tional holiday.
"She was the early champion of elementary educa- tion for girls equal to that for boys, and of higher edu- cation for women.
"She was the first to advocate women as teachers in the public schools.
"As the friend and advisor of Matthew Vassar, she helped organize Vassar College.
"She put the term 'domestic science' into the lan- guage.
"She began the fight for the retention of property rights for married women.
22
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
"She founded the first society for the advancement of women's wages - the reduction of child labor.
"She started the first day-nursery, boon to working mothers.
"First to stress the need for physical training for women.
"Among the first to suggest public playgrounds.
"She organized and for many years was President of The Seamen's Aid, and established the first Sailors' Home.
"She sent out the first women medical missionaries.
"She raised the money to finish Bunker Hill Monu- ment.
"She rescued the movement to preserve Mount Ver- non as a national memorial.
"She was the author of some two dozen books and hundreds of poems, including the best know children's rhyme in the English language-'Mary Had a Little Lamb.'
"She was the first woman editor in the country, and for 40 years presided over Godey's Ladies Book, the most widely circulated magazine of her times."
Tremendous. TREMENDOUS. No wonder she died at the comparatively young age of 91, without a grey hair in her head. She never wore glasses in her life.
In all this long and busy story of success one might wonder, as I have, whether she completely forgot her native place and its associations. The town history, in telling about the celebration of 1845, when the town paused a few moments to brag about itself a little, say that "an original poem, written for the occasion by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, was 'deaconed' after the ancient style, and sung by the congregation to the tune of 'Old Hundred'." However, the account make no mention of the writer being here in person. It was with joy, therefore, that
23
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
when fixing up an account of the South Church anni- versary a few years ago I came across evidence that Mrs. Hale was here, but also that she wrote a detailed account of her trip. In it she gives a pleasant account of the town with its three churches, but speaks in especially eloquent terms of the splendid sermon delivered by the Rev. Baron Stowe of Boston (Baptist)-a native of Newport. "It was worth a trip of 400 miles," she said, "to listen to such noble eloquence."
Then she started back to Philadelphia. And of this journey she had plenty to report. In the first place, it was a tremendously hot July day. The roads were rough,and in one place, while the coach stood cul in the broiling sun, the driver was obliged to replace a thole pin, which was the contraption holding the pole in place. The driver got her baggage mixed up and her trunk did not arrive in Nashua, where she was transferring to steam cars, for another two days. She boarded the cars at last, satisfied with stage coach travel for quite a while.
Anyway, it is gratifying to learn that the mighty Sarah was here, and a bit puzzling to understand why, as she was doubtless the lion of the day, the historian failed to make any mention of it save that her hymn was "deaconed." We'd be interested to know where she stayed and how long. But we'd be particularly inter- ested to learn why, when she was here, she appears to have made no effort to visit the graves of her husband and parents, who to this day lie in the old Pine St. ceme- tery unhonored and unsung save for the record inscribed upon the Buell monument, erected some 40 years later by James Buell, a New York banker native to Newport. A DAR marker invariably stands in front of it, in honor of Capt. Gordon Buell, said to lie 16 feet transversely southwest from the monument, and of David Hale, Mas- ter of Corinthian Lodge, A & FM, who was without doubt buried with great ceremony, but where, exactly nobody now knows. Anyway, David Hale, though his grave may be lost, like that of another famous Mason, had the honor of being, for eight years, the husband of the greatest woman ever born in America.
24
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
Through several decades she was the unchallenged arbiter of manners and good taste in America. She was the Emily Post of the mid-century. What she said about good form was law. And she had at her command an unparalleled medium of expression. Godey's had, just before the Civil War, a circulation of 150,000 a month. It had no effective competitors.
Why, then, if this is true-and it is-is Sarah Josepha Hale known today only as the author of a charming nursery jingle? Why does she not stand out among the great women of America ? Unfortunately, when her fame seemed most secure, and her advice on any subject was eagerly sought, an issue arose on which she had no opinion, and that issue was at that time, the ONLY one before the people. It was the Civil War, or, if you must, the War between the States. Sarah Hale was the best equipped woman in the nation to advise the women how to make themselves most effective in the trying days ahead. She said nothing. Nation over, wo- men banded together to scrape lint and sew Haverlocks. They wanted counsel from Sarah. None came. How much of this was chargeable to Lewis Godey we can only guess. But Sarah's attitude was that if we don't talk about this horrid war the war will go away and leave us to our ivory tower undisturbed. Only, it turned out that it wasn't that kind of war. It was a blow from which Sarah Hale's prestige never recovered.
25
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
CHAPTER VI
TURNPIKES
Until very lately the word "turnpike" had pretty much gone out of use in this part of the country, inasmuch as turnpikes themselves had ceased to exist. Curiously enough, the original meaning had not to do so much with a road as with the gate which it controlled. The cus- tomary bar to a private road was a pike which turned, letting people through, but not animals. The word grad- ually came to mean a road - a toll road. And so people came to say "turnpike road" - and finally, "turnpike."
At the beginning of the century there was, in this part of the country, quite a craze for turnpike roads built by private companies. It followed an old English idea that turnpikes built by private companies would save the pub- lic treasury, and be a source of profit. Let those who used the roads pay the bills. Just now (1961) we are in the midst of another phase of the same idea. It didn't work too well in the early eighteen hundreds; it remains to be seen whether in the last half of the twentieth cen- tury the idea, even with some improvements, will work any better.
So, as a phase of this movement there was chartered under the laws of New Hampshire a company to build "a turnpike" from Stony Brook, in Lebanon, down through Grantham, Croydon, Newport, Goshen, etc. to Hillsboro. The road actually was built in 1806. What became so im- portant to Newport was that the engineers in charge of routing the turnpike elected, upon reaching the south Croydon line, to push straight south, thus avoiding New- port village perched upon the western edge of the valley of the Sugar River. In this way they would head straight across the eastern end of the "first division of lots" and cross the Sugar River but once, avoiding two dangerous river crossings. The flimsy bridges they had to build were easily washed out. Expense had to be always avoid- ed. In this way they made a bee line for Goshen, Mill Village; Newport would still be within striking distance.
26
TALES FROM THE HISTORY OF NEWPORT
What happened must have far exceeded their expecta- tions. Newport, slowly expanding its industry, began to abandon its first plan of making a trading center along Pine St., which had been carefully laid out eight rods wide for the purpose, and began with some deliber- ation to move over onto the new turnpike. Water power was also a factor, for to the eastward of the turnpike the river tumbled down over fall upon fall, offering mill- sites all along. Benjamin Giles had been the first to take advantage of this land and had located his saw and grist mills three miles toward Sunapee Lake, the river's source, and the settlers had aided him by building the second road in town so that all could reach his mills.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.