USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Warren > The history of Warren; a mountain hamlet, located among the White hills of New Hampshire > Part 40
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Accordingly at a meeting called and held Nov. 22, 1843, the following vote was passed: "That the agent chosen to carry on the case between Warren and Wentworth, have it tried where they think proper; that the agent ascertain whether the review destroys the decision of the former trial, if it does destroy it, then the agents are to settle with Wentworth, by that town paying the legal cost the town of Warren would recover by law, and they also support Sarah Weeks; if they will not settle upon these conditions, then the agent is to proceed with the case."
The facts and the action of the town came to the ears of the agent of Wentworth. At first he was incredulous, then he made inquiries, then went to the old men of Warren and learned how they would testify, and finally after the winter and spring passed, and the summer was far along, he came to Warren, backed down, and paid up. Thus ended Warren's greatest lawsuit; all the citi- zens felt good and the victory must be celebrated. This was not done by firing cannon after the manner of Wentworth; but par- ties, junketings, and apple bees were rife, and the people that autumn had a most hilarious time of it.
The young friends of your humble historian, who was a boy then, went with him to two paring bees that fall, according to his recollection. Once we came down by the Forks school-house, where Hurricane brook, a silver stream, falls into Patch brook,
465
CELEBRATING THE VICTORY.
after leaping and laughing its way from the summit of Mount Carr, 3,000 feet above us, to Mr. William Clough's. What a pile of apples was worked up that night. Four brave young men were mounted on four old fashioned paring machines, all of different patterns, and with what a buzz they took the skins off the beauti- ful and many hued apples. A lot of us small boys did nothing but quarter the peeled fruit; the beautiful young ladies and the careful mothers cored them ever so nicely, and a bevy of girls and old Mr. Clough strung hundreds of " strings " and hung them in wreaths and wavy festoons, ornaments like, on pegs about the room to dry.
Ten o'clock in the evening, and the work was done. What a supper we had, fit for a king, and enough for a small regiment. How good it tasted. And the games after supper was over! " Blind man's buff" was glorious, " Button, button," was nice, and " Turn the plate " was so fine. And then the pawns paid and the kisses given. How rosy the lips that gave them. How I envied the boys that got them. A little of superstition must come in; apple peelings were thrown over fine heads to make initial letters of their lovers' names, and several went down cellar backwards holding a mirror in their hands to see their future husband's or wife's face. Then we played " Chase the squirrel," and "Pass the handkerchief," and " Simon says thumbs up," and sombody sang songs ever so beautiful, and it was after midnight when we were going home again by the "Forks school-house," in Patchbreuck- land.
We had never been out so late before, and there was a grave- yard with white tombstones by the "Forks school-house." But we went bravely past it, and going up by the Patch place where Jonathan Eaton lived, the stars shone above us, and the crescent moon was hurrying down the western sky. Just then there was a strange cry. We listened - heard it again. The older boys said it was a wild hound dog on the eastern . mountains. Some said he belonged in Woodstock. How plain I heard him myself on that moonlight night in autumn. Baying at intervals, his three almost unearthly yells would come ringing out through the darkness. What was he pursuing? Was it the bounding deer, the black fox, running straight away for miles, or a shadowy ghost leading will- D*
466
HISTORY OF WARREN.
o'-the-wisp like through dark ravines and wild gorges. Others said they had heard the old hound in the storm when his baying mingled with the voice of the wind and the roar of the mountain streams.
There were dozens of paring bees that fall, and the numerous parties and festivities provoked by the great lawsuit victory only ended, if we remember right, by a grand ball, where Jim Clement danced his flat-footed double-shuffle so remarkably, and a turkey supper, that came off about Christmas time, at the present Moosil- auke house, one of the neat hotels of the hamlet.
May Warren never be perplexed by another lawsuit like the one about Mrs. Sarah Weeks or any other kind; but if she should, may it have a like successful and happy termination.
CHAPTER IV.
A CHAPTER ON FIRES.
WE introduce it here, because the greatest happened about this time, and all the others seem to centre around it. It is worthy of record that they had grand ones when the farms were cleared; but the first dwelling house burned in Warren, as we all well remember, was James Aiken's cabin that stood half a mile east of the depot. Then Joseph Patch's buildings were fired by a brave sojer boy journeying home from the wars, and for more than half a century after not a house was burned in Warren.
Then about the year 1830, Richard Whiteman's house on the Summit.went down, followed by the Pine hill school-house, which burned up in the daytime, and shortly after that, the village school- house flashed bright one night and was gone. This was the prelude.
One bright spring day in 1845, the old homestead of Amos Little, on Becch hill, accidentally took fire. All the male mem- bers of the family had gone away, while Mrs. Kimball Little, who was unwell, had retired to her chamber. There was a barrel standing in the shed adjoining the house, in which some meat had been placed to smoke, and as the family had smoked their meat here the preceding spring, and no accident having occurred, it was considered safe.
From this the fire took. It was a beautiful day, no wind. An individual standing near the church on the common, happening to look in the direction of the house, saw curling slowly up a thin
468
HISTORY OF WARREN.
column of blue smoke. One moment more and the cry of fire rung out rousing every neighbor. The inmates of the school- house near by were dismissed, and the young urchins dispatched in all directions to give the alarm.
When the first individual, a peddler, arrived at the house, with another person to assist him he could have stopped the fire; but in five minutes the roof of the shed was in flames.
Mrs. Little awakened, almost swooned in fright, then with the rest commenced to carry the furniture from the house. In a very short time nearly all the villagers arrived. Some tried to tear down the shed connecting the house with the three large barns; but before it was half demolished the flames and blinding smoke drove them from the undertaking. Every one now worked to save what they could from the burning buildings. But as is cus- tomary at all fires, where they seldom occur, people generally lost their wits, and haste, hurry, and excitement prevailed; windows were thrown from the second story to the ground; looking-glasses and other furniture easily demolished, shared the same fate, and there was a delightful scene of confusion.
The fire advanced rapidly, and it was soon evident the build- ing must be abandoned; but one man, Mr. Miranda Whitcher, wishing to save some article of furniture which was in a room on the east side of the house, went thither. He had scarcely entered it before the flames sprung up behind, and firing an unplastered wall made a retreat almost impossible. A dense volume of smoke now filled the room, choking and blinding him; but Mr. Whitcher with a bound shot through the fire, trod quickly along the totter -. ing floor and made for a distant window. The people below saw him and loudly shouted to him to jump out upon the ground; but he seemed possessed of a strange fatality, and did not notice them. The flames creeping rapidly along the floor behind, scorched the poor man, when grasping the window sill he slowly let himself down, but did not relinquish his hold. The fire at that instant bursting from the window below circled up and around him. In- dividuals entreated him to let go; but he heeded them not, until at last exhausted, his hands slowly relaxed, and he fell. Two per- sons enveloped in wet blankets succeeded in reaching him, and he was removed to the little field on the west side of the road.
469
BURNED TO DEATH.
The large buildings were now completely enveloped in fire crowned by an immense column of black smoke. Nearly every person had gathered about the dying man, whose groans mingling with the crackling flames and the roar of the burning buildings, made an impressive scene. In a few moments more, after one convulsive quiver, the fine old house fell a mass of burning ruins. Mr. Whitcher was then conveyed to his home, suffered for an hour and died.
A whole generation had lived in Warren without a fire of any magnitude, and now such a conflagration, with Whitcher's death, following so close upon the heels of " the terrible Parker murder," which had filled the whole State with horror, made a profound impression upon the minds of the people and hardly anything else was talked of for a whole month. The citizens of Warren did what was customary in olden times in New Hampshire ; they made a " bee;" a hundred men or so went into the woods with broad axes and narrow axes, and squares, and chalk-lines, and in a week's time almost a frame was raised over the old ruins. Before autumn Kimball Little, youngest son of Amos Little, had moved into the new house and was upon the old farm again.
For the benefit of our readers who are interested in casualties of this kind, we will state that the next fire occurred early in the · summer of 1849. Vowell Leathers' house was burned, and in it . burned his wife. It was a beautiful summer Sabbath. Mr. Leath- ers was away at Romney,* attending meeting. His son John,- many yet remember him,-was in the woods listening to the songs of birds and gathering broom-stuff, while Mrs. Leathers, who was old and blind, but an excellent woman for all that, could not help herself in any manner.
About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, Isaac Sawtelle, who lived by Sawtelle school-house, three miles away, saw the smoke curling up from the dwelling, high up on the side of Sentinel mountain. Ile came to the village on the run, rushed into the meeting-house, and without ceremony gave the alarm, and with the whole congregation hurried away up Beech hill. The house was all in flames when Sawtelle arrived there, and a thin smoke
* It is said that the Hon. Josiah Quincy knows how to spell Romney correctly ; that instead of R-u-m rum, otherwise "rot-gut," he spells the word, R-o-m-n-e-y Romney, a noble name from a royal English house, that of the Earl of Romney.
470
HISTORY OF WARREN.
was curling through the roof of the barn. Hurrying in and on to the hay-mow, he found it proceeded from a slow match made with great care, and that the hay was not yet burning. He removed the match and the barn was saved. Hardly anything was taken out of the house, and Mrs. Leathers was burned to death.
' The next day Dr. Little climbed Beech hill, picked up the, charred remains of the poor woman, placed them in a rude box and carrying them to the grave-yard, on Pine-hill road, they were buried.
There was a terrible suspicion in the minds of people. Who set the fire? No one has ever told, and it will probably forever remain a mystery. Still Uncle Leathers, as he is familiarly called, never was considered a bad man, though he descended from the Gipsy race and has many eccentricities, among which is the erect- ing of tomb-stones with names thereon, for himself and some of his family before their death, and his fondness for perfumes; he being the man, as we have before stated, who persisted in killing, cooking, and eating such sweet smelling animals as skunks, at the town farm, much to the delight of the lady paupers and other per- sons living there. It is said that he once put a skunk, fresh smell- · ing from the dewy fields, under Mrs. Brown's bed, thereby filling the soul of that chaste and pious lady with great happiness. Uncle Leathers at the close of Warren's first century is still living, a hale and hearty old man.
During the winter of 1854, the buildings of Mr. Amos Clement, together with nearly all their contents, including thirty-three val- uable sheep which they could not drive from the fire, a hog and a . yearling steer, were destroyed.
Since then a tavern stand built by Mr. Ephraim Clement near the depot, together with Mr. Isaac Merrill's buildings near by, have burned. Moses Ellsworth's little red house on Warren Sum- mit burned up one night. Hazen Clement's house and barn on the side of Mount Carr was consumed one day when all the family were away. Ephraim Clement's house on Pine hill, where Isaiah Batchelder once lived, went down in a night. John Marston's wheel-wright shop blazed like a rocket and was gone; and last, Daniel Marston's house, at the foot of the Height-o'-land, burned up. We had almost forgot to state that George W. Jackson was
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471
FIRES UPON THE MOUNTAINS.
moving a house from the top of the Height-o'-land one summer. It got stuck in the road and stood there a fortnight. One night some bad person touched a match to it, and the old house never came down to Warren village .*
But the grandest fires we have ever seen, were the fires upon Warren's mountains. Webster slide has blazed like a volcano. Owl's head has burned for months, lighting up the heavens at night; Moosehillock has been wrapped in sheets of flame com- pletely enveloping its twin peaks, and Mount Carr, twice within the memory of the present generation, has flashed from base to summit. It was in the summer of 1854 that the fire roared on Mount Carr. Then a million trees burned to the wind. Then a sound came like the rushing of a tempest; like the mighty voice of the ocean. Its roaring was heard six miles away, and ene could see to read fine print at midnight. It was a sight never to be forgotten.
* Friday, Sept. 16, 1870, there was a great fire in Warren. Russell Merrill's hotel, the old Joseph Merrill inn, and Henry W. Week's house burned. The fire occurred about two o'clock in the morning. Loss $15,000, insured for $10,000.
CHAPTER V.
&
HOW AND WHEN THE RAILROAD WAS BUILT, WHICH WILL BE A WONDER TO FUTURE GENERATIONS, BUT IS QUITE A COMMON THING NOW.
THE first railroad steam engine and railway, if we remem- ber right, were built in England. The first railroad in this country was the short line from the stone quarries in Quincy, Mass., to the wharf " down by the sea," to transport stone. Then in New Eng- land, the Boston and Providence, the Boston and Worcester, and the Boston and Lowell railroads followed in quick succession, and after these were built, railroads began to multiply wonderfully all through the country.
From Lowell the iron horse crept up the Merrimack gradually to Concord, N. H. Here it paused a short time, but not long. The Northern railroad from Concord to Lebanon, was soon com- menced, and then after the most fierce opposition from the North- ern and Pasumpsic railroads at the June session of the Legislature in 1844, the Boston, Concord and Montreal was chartered.
The company immediately organized, Josiah Quincy,* of
* OFFICERS OF THE BOSTON, CONCORD AND MONTREAL RAILROAD.
Presidents :-
Josiah Quincy, elected April 8, 1845.
John E. Lyon, elected May 29, 1860, still in office. . Superintendents :-
Peter Clark, chosen May 15, 1846.
James N. Elkins, chosen Dec. 2, 1847. Died June 20, 1853.
James M. Whiton, chosen June 20, 1853. Died June 20, 1857. John T. Coffin, chosen June, 1857, as agent of Trustees.
473
A RAILROAD OPENED TO WARREN.
Romney, being President, and the people along the route freely paid their money for a survey, which was made this season by Mr. Crocker, throughout the whole line. Stock books were also imme- diately opened, a considerable amount was subscribed, the grading of the road was commenced upon its lower sections, and in about one year was completed eighteen miles, from Concord to Tilton.
Then a year more and the cars ran to Laconia, and another year and they got up to Meredith village. Here they stopped a while, for the route by the beautiful ponds of Centre Harbor and over New Hampton summit was a hard one; but late in the autumn of 1849 the cars ran into Plymouth.
But the road was not to stop here; it had already been com- menced above on the banks of the Asquamchumauke, and Thomas Piersons was set stoutly to work to find a feasible route over Warren Summit. The first line surveyed by Crocker, came up the west bank of the Asquamchumauke, up Black brook, the Mikaseota, the same side to the Blue ridge, thence crossing the valley at the outlet of Runaway. pond it passed up the east shore of the latter basin, up Black brook, over the Summit and down the Oliverian. Thos. Piersons took the east side of the valley through Warren, crossed the Asquamchumauke, with a " fill " for half a mile seventy-five feet deep, to the side of Knight hill, and thence up Berry brook to the Summit. Then he tried up the road to Noyes Bridge, kept under the bank on the east side of the lower village, thence across the plain by the place where James Aiken got burned out, and up his old route by Berry brook. He made his report and " the directors considered."
Two years they considered; and then another engineer was procured, T. J. Carter, and he surveyed and located the present railroad route through Warren. He did his work best of all, for
Joseph A. Dodge, chosen Aug. 9, 1858, still in office.
Clerk :-
Charles Lane, chosen April 8, 1845, still in office.
Station Agents at Warren :-
David Atwood and Mr. Chase.
Richard Wiggin.
Marcus M. Lawrence.
Edwin C Wentworth.
Morrill J. Sanborn.
J. M. Parks, at Summit.
-Col. Charles Lane's statement.
474
HISTORY OF WARREN.
no where else in town could the depot have been so satisfactorily located.
The road was already nearly graded to the south line of War- ren, and a contract was made in the summer of 1850 with Warren H. Smith, an enterprising gentleman residing at Tilton, to com- plete it to Warren village. Mr. Smith commenced work the ensu- ing October, and then Warren glowed with life.
As many men as possible were put into the Clifford cut on the southern boundary, and there were a lot of shanties built at the east end of the bridge over the river near by, for the Irish shovelers to live in. Well do we remember the pleasant little anecdote told of these transient residents here. One of the shanty families sent to Ireland for a friend of theirs. He landed in Bos- ton and then came immediately to Warren. The next Sabbath as alone he was walking out for his health and a little pious medita- tion, he chanced to find as he thought a spotted cat by the wall. Catching it up in his arms he began to stroke its back saying, " Poor pussy," when suddenly dropping it he grasped his nose and ex- claimed, " Howly Mither, what has the crathure been aiten !" Not being particularly fond of sweet perfumes, he quickly returned to the shanty and with religious fervor related his adventures with the cat, much to the delight of all his friends.
The Redington boys, brothers, finished the Clifford cut. Mr. Gipson was " boss " in the " side-hill cut," near the old Nathaniel Clough place. It took all winter to dig this out. William Clem- ent, of Warren, son of Col. Ben., oversaw a gang of Irishmen near the long covered railroad bridge, making the fill above the bridge and the cut through the Jolm Mills burying-ground, down by the Patch place to Patch brook. Old "St. Bowen " graded up about the depot, running his " dump carts " all winter down through the village over the Noyes bridge to the mound just below on the east side of the road. Pity he hauled sand from there, for he left an unsightly cut. All of Clement's and Mr. Bowen's men lived in shanties over by Patch brook where it leaps down Rocky falls. Batchelder of Lake village made the rock cut just west of the Moosilauke house, and the butments, and the great bridge, were built during the winter.
Before the first of April, 1851, the grading and bridges on the
475
THE GREAT EVENT CELEBRATED.
whole line from Plymouth to Warren village were nearly com- pleted. As soon as the ground was sufficiently settled, Mr. Smith commenced to lay the track, and on the 24th of May the first steam engine ran into Warren, and on the 25th its bell was rung at Warren depot.
May 25, 1851, was a great day for Warren. It should not be forgotten. With that day came a new life. The great teams and covered wagons, the pungs of winter, driven by the Vermont farmers; the stages, the mighty droves of beef cattle tramping along the road; the flocks of sheep, thousands together; herds of swine more numerous than the one the devils of Mary Magdalene drove into the sea, going to market,-all these shall now disappear from the highways of Warren forever. In their place shall come thundering cars, the iron horse with ribs of steel and heart of fire, screaming with its steam whistle loud enough to be heard far away beyond Glen ponds and Woodstock, passenger trains and freight trains, and telegraph.
The people of Warren did appreciate the day and celebrated it. Mr. Smith gave a bountiful and excellent supper at the Moosilauke house, then kept by Levi C. Whitcher, and mirth, hilarity, music, and dancing prevailed.
On the first Monday in June, 1851, the cars began to run regu- larly from Warren, no longer a quiet, pleasant hamlet, but now a smart, bustling little town among the mountains .*
At the railroad company's annual meeting, held at Wentworth on the last Tuesday of May, it was voted to prefer six hundred thousand dollars of stock, with which to construct the road from Warren to Woodsville; and early in the fall the grading was con- tracted for by Mr. Warren H. Smith, and rapidly commenced. Owen McCarthy made the great fill across the plain from Mt. Helen down to the common. Mr. Dolloff cut the ledge near the basin of Runaway pond, called the Dolloff cut; "St. Bowen " made great cuts and fills around Pine hill, and the Redington boys had the deep excavation near Kelly pond. But the cutting through
* When they were surveying the railroad, Mr. Nathaniel Clough, 86 years old, who was incredulous about the enterprise, said that he did not want to live any longer than to see the cars run into Warren. He was sick at the time the first reg- ular train passed his house and they sat him up in bed to look at it. Two weeks after he was dead.
476
HISTORY OF WARREN.
the ledge on Warren Summit was the great work, and it involved an immense amount of labor. For a year and a half a hundred and fifty men, superintended by two brothers by the name of Keyes, from Romney, seventeen horses, with a number of yokes of cattle, were employed. Tons of powder were burned, a man was killed, and more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars expended before a steam engine ran over the Summit .*
The cut at this, the highest point of our railroad, is nearly three-fourths of a mile in length, and in some places sixty feet deep. Near the north end a little rill of pure, clear water comes dashing down over the huge rocks, and at the bottom, divides itself into two streams; the waters of the one running north emp- tying themselves into the Connecticut eventually find their way into the ocean, through Long Island Sound; while those running south unite with the Merrimack river which discharges itself into the ocean nearly two hundred miles from the mouth of the Con- necticut.
The cars commenced running over this last section in the fall of 1852, as far as East Haverhill, and early the ensuing spring the road was finished to Woodsville, where it connects with the Pas- sumpsic railroad and the White mountain railroad.
Green were the hills of Warren. The mighty spruces and hemlocks still stood untouched upon the mountains, and amongst them the wood-chopper's axe had not as yet been heard. The rea- son of all this was the inconvenience of getting the timber to market, and the consequent unprofitableness of the business. But now, through the medium which the railroad afforded, a rapid and convenient communication was opened with the large towns down the Merrimack, and thereby the business of lumbering was much more profitable.
Wood also became an object of importance, and the once . heavy forests fast began to disappear. Upon the side of Mount Carr, high up in the valley of Patch brook, a large company of French Canadians, honest men every one, made a rural settlement and chopped wood, under the superintendence of Col. Charles Lane. This individual, more easily to facilitate its transportation
* C. H. Latham had charge of the engineering. Jonathan Little kept the hotel on the Summit, and made money while the railroad was building; but the tavern was good for nothing after the cars began to run.
477
OTHER IMPORTANT ENTERPRISES.
from the mountain side, constructed a sluice nearly two and one- fourth miles in length, extending to the valley near the railroad. The sluice was twenty inches in width and sixteen inches in height. In it he turned the waters of Patch brook, the wild mountain stream, and placing the wood in this, it rapidly descended in its serpentine course, now crossing some deep gully, then span- ning the torrent, and then creeping rapidly along on the side of some steep bank till at last it reached the valley, falling over a thousand feet.
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