USA > New Hampshire > Carroll County > Tamworth > The Tamworth narrative (New Hampshire) > Part 7
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In a few years there were four routes, all starting from Concord. The Tamworth route included Plymouth and New Hampton in place of Conway. Later the starting point was changed back to Portsmouth. On this route the rider received ten pounds for the six summer months. Postage was sixpence for every forty miles, which apparently went to the rider too. A few towns were named to "have one person whose duty it shall be to take charge of all matters which are to be con- veyed by the posts, and to receive twopence on each private letter, packett, etc.," but Tamworth was not so selected. The rider's pay was raised the same year to twelve pounds, and during the winter he need come only once a fortnight.
The postrider's life was not soft. He rode in woods by
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trail, varied only by the climbing of steep hills and fording of rocky streams. His head was full of messages, and his horse carried full saddlebags. He could pay little attention to weather. An old drawing shows him under a three-cornered hat, the horse picking its way along a corduroy road which reaches into a far perspective. Another drawing is labeled "Postal Progress," where a locomotive belching smoke from a monster stack passes a platform with a mail sack being swung aboard from a yardarm. In 1957 the four post offices in Tam- worth, small as they are, have long had two mails a day each, coming and going.
Tamworth is fortunate in still possessing the original books of Town Records, calfskin-bound, hand written, particularly detailed and orderly compared with those of some contem- porary towns. This is due without question to the dedicated care and intelligence of the first town clerk, of the name of Timothy Medar, who held his office throughout all but two of the first forty formative years. Timothy was an educated man for his time, his misspellings are relatively slight, his firm fair hand wholly readable. He never ducked any part of his monotonous duties, and his records are admirable in execu- tion, comprehensive and clear. Later town clerks have tried to meet the standard set by him once for all. Medar was one of the avid readers of the ponderous books of the Social Library when it was formed; he came from Durham and had been married four years when he began his career for the town, living first in the Dow house on the Bunker Hill Road, after- ward where the Meader sisters are.
These full records are not the dry-as-dust notes that they may seem to be. They pulse with the problems of the time, and reveal the solutions of the selectmen, who were a group of three strongly endowed people holding the ideal of fair- ness to all, and bent on achieving a good town against what- ever odds there were. Town discussions were on matters basic to communal needs, governed by intelligence and complete freedom to express, not to mention impatience with any who
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failed to cooperate for the general good. An abuse was nailed as soon as felt: "Voted that no swine be allowed to go at large." But such a vote not taking care of the matter, next year they "voted that every person suffering swine to go at large shall be subject to all Damage they may do." A "pound" was an early necessity to put the wandering animals in- fencing being far too expensive for everyone. The pound was fixed in William Eastman's upper tract near the cemetery by the meetinghouse, and necessitated a hog reeve, a serious office enough when Eastman held it. After it became obsolete, it was kept as a jocular wedding present to any young man. Animals were a problem; it was necessary to rule that all bars and gates be removed from roads to permit passing, and every owner of cattle or sheep had to sign in the town book his mark of identification: "The mark I put on my Cattle Sheep and Swine is a Top Cut off the Right Ear & a Slit under the Same. Tamworth August 20th 1777 William Eastman." These state- ments appear along with marriage records, road returns, and family birth dates, among warrants to call meetings: "This is to notifie the Freeholders and Inhabatants of Tamworth to Meet at the Dwelling House of Mr. Eph Hackets in said Tam- worth on Thursday the 17th day of this Instant July at two o'clock on Said day for the following purposes viz. .. . " The record of the meeting follows this in detail.
Some uniformity in traffic behavior was early recognized as wise: All "ox-sleads" were to be 41/2 feet wide, and thirty years later it was thought expedient to alter all one-horse sleighs, for the horse to travel on the left.
The constable's job of keeping everybody in line was a highly important one, filled by an important man. After awhile he acquired a bondsman. William Eastman himself was long constable; his pay which began at 251/2 bushel of corn a year gradually increased to match his labors. Town meetings took place in his house, then in other houses, and after schools were built, in schoolhouses. Later when voters made a good-sized crowd they met at taverns. Only by the
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middle 1800's did a Town House materialize, opposite the present church.
The dependence on animals in the early economy is hard to credit in the machine age. It is recorded of a young couple in 1830 that they went to their new home driving before them their wedding presents, a calf, a sheep, and two geese. The big barns that still sprinkle our countryside should tell us more than we see in them; the horse-trading that was so big among every man's skills and revealed so much of his character is now nearly extinct. And "horse sense": man and boy had to know numberless details, such as how many links to drop in a trace chain, how to keep the whiffletree off the horse's heels downhill. The curiously named town offices had to do with this prevalence of horses and cattle and swine. What else was the field-driver but a man who literally drove cattle out of fields and impounded strays, literally a "hayward," his other name. Hog-reeve the same-loose pigs could have a whole neighborhood at loggerheads. Fence-viewer was an- other aspect of the same problem; he insisted on the owner fencing in his stock if a neighbor said so. Yet no pork for pork- and-beans without a population of pigs. Though the pioneers were often great of stature and strength, no stone-hauling for walls without a yoke of oxen, no riding to market with the surplus eggs without a horse to saddle. Sheep were owned by nearly everyone. How would a man have got his red flan- nels save by taking his own wool to the cloth mill, and having it made up (at thirty-one cents a yard), let alone his home- spun coat and the children's. The universality of cheap mutton to eat is enviable today, which is not to say that it wholly supplanted hunting. "My husband got at one time 1,000 lbs. of moose meat. We salted it down, It was the very best for mince pies," said a diarist.
A leather-sealer was needed in such an economy-he inspected all hides and skins for sale and stamped them as sound. A lumber-sealer the same, he measured saw-logs and cordwood. It was a strange-sounding list of town offices, now
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obsolete, every one of them a holdover from the English town system. And when the rest of the town needs were taken care of there remained the erring humans themselves-a tithingman was elected to keep them to the straight and nar- row. He not only collected the church moneys but was the moral policeman whose battleground was the meetinghouse. He broke up slumbers and kept children quiet, and saw to it that nobody succeeded in staying at home.
The poor as such required new thinking in a new town. The town minutes reveal the struggle. There was the Clough case, early. Clough was an incapacitated war veteran. "Fifthly, to see what method the town will take with Joseph Clough and how he shall be supported in futer." He was "struck off" by "Vandue" to Japhet Allen at "4/6 per week," but every year the thing had to be done over, and Clough and others like him were a thorn in the flesh. "That Joseph Clough shall not have any help from the Town till he gives the Select Men Orders to draw what is due to him for his Service in the Army." Next the same Joseph was "let out to Wm. Vittum at 1/9 per week." Next year he went to Lt. B. Gilman at 1/4 per week!
Mrs. Clough's case had different handling: "Voted, to try by vendue to put out Mrs. Clough's oldest son until he is Twenty one year old." The oldest son of Mrs. Clough "struck off to Sam Gilman Esq. who is to give him a yoak of steers one year old the spring after he is out of his Time a Calf a Sheep and a Lamb." "Capt. George Dodge engag'd to keep Mrs. Clough and her other Child until March Meet- ing and give her nine pence pr week." But even that failed to do for the Cloughs. Joseph's fortunes were still deteriorating. The next year he was "struck off to Benjamin Gilman at eight pence per week." Perhaps he had become stronger and could work more.
The town meeting felt a distinct civic responsibility for its paupers, though all it could think of to do was to auction them off to individual farmers. In 1826 an article in the
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warrant reads "To dispose of town paupers in best manner." The paupers were then "set up at vendue," as: "Jonathan Palmer wife and children Struck of on Joseph Pease jr. $29.00, Widow Sally Mason struck of on Colo. Levi Folsom for $11.50, Daniel Moulton family 4 struck of on Saml Shaw for one year $30." In one case the day's vendues wound up: "Set up at risk all unthought of Paupers and all Paupers except those that are otherwise disposed of allready and Clean the Town for one year. Struck of on John Thrasher for $30.00." It may take a little thinking out.
That the paupers came to have real care, however, emerges from such a bill as this one rendered to the town in 1837:
Town of Tamworth to F. A. Page Dr. [Fisher Page]
Mar. 27 Going after Angeline Folsom 25
28 Making 1 pr. Aprons for Do. 15
Apr. 11 Boarding Angeline Folsom 2/7 weeks at .31 1.07
Finding calico for gown 57s 9d .63
Making ditto 25
Finding woolen cloth in part
for a coat 1/2 Yd 3/ 25
Making same 17
May 4 Paid postage on a letter to the State Treasurer for a blank 10
6 Paid postage on a letter from the Secretary of State with a blank (double) 20
15 Carrying a dead hog to the town farm 25
Notifying jurors to the C. C. Pleas [Court of Common Pleas] each term 50
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The humanitarian impulse is always evident in the town deliberations, rough though they seem. "Voted [1813], that if the spoted fever which has prevailed in other Towns should prevail in this Town the committee are authorized to provide medical aid and Medison at the expense of the Town." The spotted fever did prevail very soon. Individual taxes are often abated for what looks like compassion: "Voted, that the Widow Anna Fowler shall not be rated on the Highways the present year." And when it comes to real trouble: "Voted, to help David Woodman towards Doctoring his Wife," and next "That the town will pay all the Expence for a Doctor to come and cut the cancer out of David Woodman's Wifes breast."
What can have caused the concern reflected in the curious vote of 1841? "All females who in the opinion of the selectmen shall have had just cause for divorce on the first day of April shall be considered as widows" for the purpose of distributing surplus revenue. The females must have been making an outcry, forcing attention to their poverty. The whole state was getting into a turmoil over Prohibition; it was only a few more years to the drastic state law of 1855. Could it be "vet- eran sots," Belknap's polite term, that were considered just cause for divorce?
With welfare cases pricking the selectmen, the question of a proper poor farm obviously came up. But ideas of manag- ing one were very primitive. There was no proper body of tradition in this department. In records of 1807 of a nearby town, full authority was given to the master of the workhouse to punish a fearsome list of misdemeanors, with long sen- tences, "stripes," or any penalty he thought meet. Trivial offenses, even suspicion, was enough for an arrest. The work- house received indigents and criminals all together, all treated the same. Discussion appeared for years in the Tamworth Records before a poor farm was bought, in 1830, the one now known as the Brett farm. Its use as a poor farm was
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abandoned in the seventies. The excellent Carroll County Farm now takes its place.
In the light of modern surgery and the antibiotic drugs the medical ignorance of even fifty years ago, let alone a hun- dred, is hard to credit. That sanitation was related to health was not suspected. Spotted fever which raged in 1813 was typhus, the disease transmitted by lice, gift of filth and over- crowding, and age-old accompaniment of war, famine, and extreme misery. Whole families died, taking so-called medi- cines in vain. Numbers of doctors themselves succumbed. In many burying grounds one sees several little white blocks in a row, all in a wholesale taking off of children who now would never be stricken. There was the case of John M. Page on Page Hill, outstanding citizen and member of the Governor's council. Five of his children were swept away one after the other, kindly Dr. Boyden looking on helpless. The eldest had just graduated from Dartmouth. It was thought sure death to give water to a fever patient, but when the last remaining child kept crying for water and death seemed unavoidable, the father gave the child all it could drink, and that child survived. Then the father himself succumbed, six deaths "all in the space of 8 weeks" as the gravestone records. That on healthy high farms the moral book-reading inhabitants should be subject to epidemics of this sort speaks of the depth of the day's scien- tific unconsciousness. Such prescriptions as these survive :
Cure for the Dropsey. The bark of white wood root from the North side of the tree-one quart. One pint of horse- radish, one pint of mustard seed, and one gallon of hard cider-mix them together, let them stand 24 hours and take a wine glass full twice or thrice a day. This remedy has been repeatedly tried and has never yet been known to fail of curing that terrible disorder.
For Cancer. Take a lump of Roe the bigness of Hen's Egg a lump of hoggs lard of the same bigness, work together to the consistency of a salve. Spread some on a piece of white leather, in three days it will cure it. Yellow dock root made into a poltis is good-the liquor is good for cancer humer.
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There were some admired and venerated doctors none the less. They could always give moral support; sometimes a few homely remedies were all that was necessary. Perhaps Dr. Joseph Boyden, earliest and well-beloved progenitor of the distinguished Boyden family, who was killed by a fall from his horse, was one of the best. In some Gilman daybooks and business account-books we pick out a few more: Dr. Morse had had his fence mended in Thomas Bradbury's accounts, and one yoke of oxen hauled hay from his field for him for sixty-seven cents. There was "an order from Dr. Sargent (John L.)," and Dr. Simeon D. York was indebted for "horse to visit the sick 6 miles, .24," and horse to Holderness occasion- ally, once with chaise; as well as beef or some fulled cloth or quarter cords of wood. Later appears Dr. Ebenezer Wil- kinson whose house is now the Neilsons': "You would know him anywhere as a family doctor. ... No sooner was his gig driven into the yard and the horse tied to a ring in the shed door, the doctor seen entering the door bringing his little trunk with brass-headed nails outlining his initials on the lid, than fevers began to abate and pulses regulate themselves," said a contemporary Mason. He was followed by Dr. Bassett, father of Helen Bassett Hidden, the present librarian, and then by Dr. Edwin Remick, descendant of Enoch and Levi and father of the present Dr. Edwin Crafts Remick.
By 1823 innovations making for comfort were beginning. Where the fireplace had sufficed for all the cooking and heat- ing, now an iron cookstove was introduced, and presently the airtight stove moved in, followed by wood furnaces. The old tinder box gave place to matches-no more running to the neighbors for coals. When a builder raised his house he never suspected that such a thing as plumbing or heating ducts or BX tubing could ever get into his walls or under his floors. As for any but a "dry sink," no woman had yet dreamed of a pipe to a cesspool. The back door was opened and the tin basin emptied into the wind, sauve qui peut.
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The Care of Souls = Temperance
BACK AS FAR AS 1778 when Tamworth was first taking on the shape of a community with as many as one hundred and fifty inhabitants, the drive to "have preaching" was already vigor- ous. Aside from the natural hunger of Puritan stock deprived of its usual sustenance, the town could not be a going con- cern without a church. No church, no self-respect. Religion was, beside his family, every man's first concern. Schools, though desirable, came second.
The first glimmer of this public urge for a preacher is a petition to Colonel Jonathan Moulton:
March 1778
To Colo Jonathan Moulton, Esqr. Proprietor of the Town- ship of Tamworth
The Petition of the Inhabitants of Said Tamworth Humbly sheweth that we your Petitioners ever since our Settlement here have had in View the Settlement of the Gosple Ministry among us whenever our Circumstances and the Situation of the Town would admit of it from our own Inability and Fewness in Number which we impute to the Difficulties of the Times has hitherto prevent our obtain- ing any Regular of the Gospel among us The Same Diffi- culties remaining will Doubtless prevent our immediate Increase that we cannot expect a Settled Ministry at least till the War subsides yet as it is our Duty however small in Number or embarrased with the Cares of Life not to sink into a Supine State in with Respect to the Means of Re- ligion so we have a sincere Desire to make all the Provisions in our Power for hiring of Preaching here for a Season and
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beg Leave to lay our Circumstances before you and beg you'd consider our Peculiar Situation our Incapacity of our selves to provide a Preacher for any Term of Time & pray your kind Help and Donation towards hiring preaching for any Time you may think proper at the same Time Assur- ing you we shall ever be ready to aid and assist in the ac- complishment of the full and Regular Settlement of your Township - And your Petitioners in Duty bound shall ever pray.
Drafted by committee, this is recorded as above in the earliest Town Record book.
The document shows more things than a desire not to sink into a supine state. It is very well written for the period, expressed forcibly, and not even very ungrammatically. There were men of a certain amount of education living in Tam- worth even then.
Jonathan Moulton did not hasten to comply with the Tamworth residents' request. A little money was extended by the so-called Proprietors, but fourteen years passed before the church or the "Gosple Ministry" became a fact. A Rev- erend Joshua Nickerson who had preached here and there in the neighborhood, representing a sect that called itself New Light, asked to be appointed to the post, was considered, but was unanimously rejected. Probably he was not orthodox enough. In the meantime at Tamworth Iron Works a Free- will Baptist Church was started in 1781 which, however, had no building until fifty-four years later.
By 1789, the town had got as far as deciding that "Twenty Pound" would be raised for preaching, to be paid in produce. But not till '92 did they have the man. After a short probation, "It is the unanimous desire of the Inhabitants of Tamworth to settle Mr. Samuel Hidden in the Ministry in this town provided it can be done upon such Terms as they think them- selves abel to comply-" A committee of fifteen persons was to inform him of their minds, these being David Gilman, Esq., Samuel Gilman, Esq., Colonels Stephen Mason, Mark Jewell,
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OA.C.PAGE HORSESHOEINGO.
BLACKSMITH SHOP
Arthur C. Page's shop on Turkey Street, the last remaining example of its kind, has been preserved by the Tamworth Historical Society as a memorial to him from his children.
1
MILL CREW AT HILL AND WADDELL'S Boy at extreme right is Edgar Page. His father Moses Page sits holding his hat. "Granny Mac," mother of Uriah McDaniel and beloved by all, holds child.
The Care of Souls
and Oliver Fowler; Captains George Dodge, Thos. Steven- son, and Israel Gilman; Timothy Medar, Israel Folsom, Enoch Remick, William Eastman, James Mason, William Cheever, and Edward Hayford. These were strong men. We will see them again.
Mr. Hidden's reply is herewith:
May 8, 1792
You have thought it expedient, after mature consideration and earnest prayer to God, as I trust, to give me an invita- tion to settle with you in the Gospel ministry, and have voted certain things for my encouragement and support in that important office. I am conscious of inability rightly to conduct in so important a station. But that God, by whose remarkable Providence I am what I am, I have no reason to distrust; on his mercy I wish to rely for strength to dis- charge what he in his Providence may call me to perform. After serious consideration and earnest prayer to Almighty God for direction, I have thought fit and do hereby accept of your proposals, if there is a church peaceably formed. As I live at considerable distance from my friends, I would reserve four Sabbaths in a year to visit them, if I please. Also if I am taken sick while laboring among you, you must grant me my support until I am again able to discharge the duties of my office. You are sensible, my friends, the duties of a minister are great and important, therefore I hope you will be ready to assist me, by punctuality in payment, advice in difficult cases, and by your constant attendance on God's preached word and ordinances, and your constant, fervent prayer that I may be faithful to God, to myself, to your souls, and those of your children; that we may all appear at God's right hand, in the day when he maketh up his jewels.
Samuel Hidden
With Mr. Hidden's acceptance, a meetinghouse was the next necessity. This was a subject of most towering interest and import. Every man was going to be taxed by law for the support of this ministry and the erection of the meetinghouse. It was not until 1819 that church and government were sepa-
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rated. No wonder the disputes and arguments fill the town minutes. The church was the people's intimate possession and instrument, their resource, their recreation, and their judge.
The town warrant begins to call the issue to order :
To see whether the Town will conclude to put up a Frame for a House of Public Worship this fall or to act on said matter as they shall think best.
Oct 8, 1792
A proposal being made to set a Meeting House on Capt. Dodges Land on the South side of the holler near the Road that leads to Mr. Lows Mill, which being put to a vote passed in the negative.
Voted that the Meeting House shall be set on the North side of the Highway between Capt George Dodge and the place where Mr. Hiddens house is to be set and as nigh to said place as it can convenently be set.
Voted to build a Meeting House forty four feet long and Thirty seven feet and half wide Ten feet post one Story high.
Voted that the Meeting House shall be set on the first convenant nole West of the hollar on the Road between Capt Dodge & Mr. William Eastman's in lieu of the place that we voted at the last meeting. [Eastman's was the present home of Harry Henderson. ]
Voted that the Pew No. Eleven being on the Right hand of the Pulpit as the Minister coms don be Reserved for a pasnage Pew.
Voted to chuse three Men as a Committee to build the Meeting House.
These tremendous questions severely strained the very town-meeting system itself where all men voted on everything. In such times the whole democratic process can be seen as a bark floundering in high seas. Indeed in 1794 there is evi- dence of uneasiness over the infallibility of the voting method. Further deliberations put to vote every detail:
Voted March 12, 1793 - That there shall be but one Porch to the Meeting House and that at the fore side.
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Voted: To sell the four Pews on the floor and the Pews in the Gallery this Day.
Voted: That one Barrel of Rum shall be procured for the fraiming and Raiseing the Meeting House - also two ken- tal of Salt Fish.
Voted: to raise two Shillings on the pound in Money on the Pews for purchasing nails Glass etc.
Voted: That Labour on the Meeting House shall be at 3/sh Day for common labours and Carpenters 4/sh Day finding themselves.
Warrant May 20, 1793
To see if the Town will agree to move the Meeting House from where the timber now lays and agree upon some other spot to set it, and in case the Town after agree- ing to move the House cannot agree upon a spot to set it, then to chuse a Committee of indiferent men from some of the neighboring Towns to pitch on a place to set said House or to act upon the above in any way or manner.
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