USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Plymouth > Twenty decades in Plymouth, New Hampsire : 1763-1963 > Part 7
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ROSE LAWN
Col. David Webster's acres were unoccupied on the hill above Main street until 1854 when a grandson, David Clough Webster, erected the large house with the pillard portico known as Rose Lawn. The name was attached because a rose garden was cultivated about the lawn that attracted visitors who frequented the Pemigewasset Hotel on the opposite side of the street. This house was opened to guests in later years. Now it is the one landmark remaining from a generation of a century gone by.
THE WOMEN'S SOCIAL CIRCLE
The year 1858 marks the beginning of organizations by women of the churches. At the home of Mrs. John Keniston on Main Street, that stood about on the site of the present Gulf Station, about sixty women assembled to organize The Women's Social Circle of the Congregational Church. Their an- nual dues were twenty-five cents. However, very soon they began to earn funds by the same methods that are perpetuated today. The annual church fairs were instituted shortly and suppers that specialized in baked beans, oys- ters and harvest menus supplemented their meager dues. By contrast, the usual price, except for oysters, was ten cents per person.
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Henry William Blair in his Civil War uniform, 1862.
THE CIVIL WAR
The attack upon Fort Sumter on April 15, 1861 astonished the quiet village of Plymouth. Yet attention should have been called to a native son who was becoming closely associated with Abraham Lincoln. The suggestion may not be amiss that pages 435-442 in Stearns' History of Plymouth are filled with personal reminiscence by Hon. Alfred Russell of his associations with President Abraham Lincoln that should be widely read.
Alfred Russell was born in the brick home on Highland Street, the son of William Wallace Russell, on March 18, 1830. He was educated in Holmes Plymouth Academy, and Dartmouth College where he was graduated with Phi Beta Kappa honors. In 1852 he received the degree of LL.B. at Harvard Law School.
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He was admitted to the Bar in New Hampshire in October and immedi- ately removed to Detroit, Michigan. Within the succeeding six years he was presenting cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
He attended the convention in 1854 at Jackson, Michigan, that founded the Republican Party. Two years after, he became acquainted with Mr. Lin- coln, forming a close, personal friendship that continued until President Lincoln was assassinated. His tribute to President Lincoln is an honor to the town of Plymouth.
President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops. Eight men in Plymouth im- mediately volunteered for the First New Hampshire Regiment, enlisting for three months, then for three years in later regiments. Eleven men, either natives or residents of the town, enlisted in the gallant Fifth Regiment, and thirty-eight in the famous Sixth.
Before the close of the war, over 250 men of Plymouth served in the army. One should recall that a soldier in the Civil War fought face to face with his foes; he witnessed the horror of battle.
After a century, the words of President Lincoln should be pondered: "We must never forget" what the volunteers in Plymouth did in the Civil War. The North was without preparation for the conflict. Especially wanting were facilities to relieve the wounded. Only two hospitals existed in 1861: one in New York, the other in Boston. Nurses were men; a trained woman nurse was unheard of. Anesthesia was in the experimental field. Antiseptics were undiscovered.
Without sanitary equipment, wounded men died by thousands. Women became aroused which resulted in the formation of the Sanitary and Christian Commission. The women of Plymouth responded generously with bandages, lint made of linen scraped to a downy substance for dressing wounds, foods for invalids, and sums of money. The women of the Methodist Church were commended in the newspaper, "The New Hampshire Statesman," for their gift of money. The signature of a woman on a check would not have been honored a century ago.
The railroads and telegraph were in operation. Mail service was absent or delayed. The Civil War Commission, now sanctioned with thousands of dollars by the United States Government, is searching for letters and diaries throughout the country that have been hidden in attics and almost forgotten. Families in this town will fulfill a service to posterity by offering to submit to the American Legion any historical facts that may be recorded in corres- pondence from their sons who fought in the Civil War.
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HENRY WILLIAM BLAIR
One volunteer in the Civil War was distinguished in the Fifteenth Regi- ment. Henry William Blair resigned his position of County Solicitor to enlist in 1862. He attempted to enlist in 1861 but was rejected by the surgeons. Immediately after his acceptance in the Fifteenth Regiment, he was appointed captain of Company B, then commissioned major of the regiment and in 1863 became lieutenant-colonel. He was severely wounded twice but continued in the service until the regiment was mustered out in August of 1863.
Henry W. Blair was born on a hill-top farm in Campton. He attended schools in Plymouth and the academies at Plymouth and New Hampton. As was the custom of many students, he taught school in the winter terms. The older pupils who studied in these winter schools were frequently problems in discipline. They expected to try out the teachers. In consequence, vigorous young men were usually employed with no restrictions about corporal punish- ment.
Mr. Blair prepared for his profession by reading law in the office of William Leverett with such success that he was admitted to the Bar in 1859. Mr. Leverett formed a partnership with his pupil under the firm name of Leverett and Blair, in the office beside the Congregational Church.
Legislative affairs began to fill his time in 1866. He progressed from representative for Plymouth to the State Senate, then to representative in Congress for two terms, and in 1879 he became United States Senator.
His reputation as a statesman was of the highest integrity.
WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER
Another young lad was growing to manhood in Plymouth, William Jewett Tucker, who was destined for a distinguished career in the theological and education fields. He was the nephew of Mrs. Tucker, the wife of the clergy- man at the Congregational church, Rev. William Reed Jewett.
Mr. Jewett was the pastor from 1845 to 1862. The family resided in a rambling house on the site of Hall Dormitory. William was born in Griswold, Connecticut in 1839. His early schooling was in Plymouth. He was a bril- liant student with characteristics that stamped his boyhood in the memory of those with whom he was associated.
After graduation at Dartmouth in 1861, he finished his course at Andover Theological Seminary in 1866. His first pastorate was at Manchester, New Hampshire. Until 1893, he filled positions in theological institutions, then became President of Dartmouth College. His influence as counselor and guide to his students cannot be measured. He retired in 1909 and died in Hanover in 1926.
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REV. THOMAS STARR KING
A summer guest at the Pemigewasset House was Rev. Thomas Starr King, one of the foremost preachers in the Unitarian denomination in his time.
He was born in New York in 1824, and lived in Charlestown, Massachu- setts where he was employed as a clerk in a store at twelve years of age. He was teaching school at sixteen and became a minister at twenty-two.
He began to write about the White Mountain region from his personal walking trips around Plymouth and Jefferson. His favorite spot was in Camp- ton, now named the Starr King View, where he was wont to spend hours sitting on the bank above the Pemigewasset River about in the location of the former West Campton Schoolhouse.
He published his "Tales of the White Hills" in 1859 that was so popular that several editions were printed and sold which aided in attracting tourists to visit his special beauty spots. In Plymouth, he is said to have sat beneath a spreading elm on the grounds of the hotel, now called "The Starr King Elm." (See Elm on page 81.)
Mr. King was an enthusiastic advocate of anti-slavery. His health failed in 1860 and he went to California for rest. There he lectured with such eloquent persuasion that much credit is his that California remained among the free states at the beginning of the Civil War.
He died in California in 1864 at the age of forty years. When the state unveiled two statues in the National Statuary hall in Washington, the cele- brated Unitarian minister was one; the other was a founder of one of the early missions in California.
PEMIGEWASSET HOTEL FIRE
At the close of this decade, in 1862, a fire of disastrous proportions destroyed the Pemigewasset Hotel. Since no newspaper was then published in the town, no details are remembered. Russell's & Webster's store owned a so- called "Depot Store" that was also consumed with the contents.
A picture taken in 1860 shows the gambrel roof of the Webster Tavern and the gabled roofs above the second story. Wide verandas on two sides and six chimneys indicate that the comfort and pleasure of his guests were upper- most in the intentions of Landlord Burnham. The building was set far off Main Street to the east, surrounded by wide lawns enclosed by fences.
At the time of this fire, kerosene lamps were considered safe for house- hold use. In 1849, brackets that held kerosene lamps were hung on the walls of the Congregational church. However, not until several years later did Mr. John D. Rockefeller refine the oil to produce a non-explosive kerosene.
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Candles were discarded in many homes and street lights were designed that were elevated upon poles, their four-sided glass panels shedding a dim glow from the kerosene light within. The exact year when this innovation appeared along the streets is not certain. Mrs. Elwin Smith possesses several of these relics that changed the darkness of centuries to a glimmer of light along the village streets.
FUNERAL CUSTOMS
The first reference to burial of the dead in the history of Plymouth states that two brothers, Freeman and Ephraim Cook, owned a saw mill on Hazel- tine Brook in 1860. They offered coffins for sale.
In early times, a family stored a few boards ready to build a coffin if death occurred in its own or a neighbor's family. Embalming was impossible, only the sympathetic ministrations of an experienced person prepared the body for burial. Sanitation was practiced by bathing with lye soap and salt- peter.
Before the roads were more than bridle paths, the casket was carried by "bearers." A bier was fashioned with two saplings, each about ten feet long, separated near the center by crosspieces to form a platform upon which the casket was placed. On the shoulders of four men, this bier and coffin was carried to the cemetery. Usually short pieces were inserted into the saplings for legs to permit the bearers to set the bier on the ground for rest or to change sides to relieve aching shoulders.
To cover the coffin a pall or cloth was spread and four men, called pall bearers, held its corners to prevent its slipping. After roads became passable, usually a town purchased a hearse for common use.
After the Dartmouth Medical School graduated students in 1789, "grave- snatching" for bodies to use in experimental study was not uncommon. In fear of such disturbances, families located cemeteries in proximity to their homes.
Above South Main Street is such a tomb on the lot formerly owned by Mr. Jabez Hatch Wells. Mr. Obadiah G. Smith, a contractor, came to Ply- mouth in 1865. While he was excavating for a cellar for the house now owned by Mr. John Johnson on Crawford Street, a passageway underground was discovered that led to a bricked-up doorway. When this was opened, a tomb was found with large stone walls, ten by twelve feet square, covered by three long, flat stones, that were supported in the center by two stone pillars, con- taining seven coffins.
After a relative of the Wells Family was discovered and permission ob- tained, these caskets were interred in a lot at Riverside Cemetery, with proper
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inscriptions. One folktale exists that a ghost was known to wander about this spot that frightened the superstitious from renting a house on Crawford Street.
CEMETERIES
In sight of the highways are Pleasant Valley near the Smith Bridge; Currier on Lower Intervale; Turnpike on Route 3A; at the Spencer Farm on Route 25; and Riverside on the Fairground Road.
Scattered over the hills are twelve burial grounds. Along the Reservoir Road at Huckins Hill is the grave of a Civil War soldier named Howard surrounded by an iron rail; beyond is the Ellis Ground containing many graves; and the Glover Farm; Pike Hill; Bayley or Bartlett; Stearns on the Texas Road; on the hill near Glove Hollow; and the Union with Bridgewater.
On the Fairground Road, about opposite the gate to the Grange Fair grounds, is an early burial ground surrounded by an iron railing; on Beech Hill is the private Merrill Family ground, and at the Cook Neighborhood. The graves of the Webster Family are near the Trinity Chapel in Holderness.
SUMMARY
The addition to the Russell & Webster Store, Business in Glove Hollow, Story of Early Agricultural Fairs, A Landmark-Rose Lawn, Women's Social Circle-beginning of Women's Organizations, The Civil War, Thomas Starr King, William Jewett Tucker and Henry W. Blair-three important Citizens, Pemigewasset Hotel Fire, Funeral Customs indicate many changes.
Sheep on the hill above Loon Pond. The low hill at the left is "The Knowl." In the dim distance, "Old Chimney" rises, named for a fireplace believed to have been used by Indians for their beacon fires.
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Second Pemigewasset Hotel-1863 - 1909
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1863-1873
THE SECOND PEMIGEWASSET HOTEL
The Pemigewasset hotel was in ruins and Mr. Burnham retired from the hotel business. The management of the railroad realized that their summer traffic and the restaurant demanded a hotel. Accordingly, Mr. John E. Lyons, the manager, decided that The Concord and Montreal Railroad would finance construction of a three story, T-shaped building with a gable roof and dormer windows in the attic.
On the level of the tracks a one story extension served for the station and the restaurant. A wide staircase ascended to the first floor of the hotel and the spacious diningroom.
At the noon hour, trains from the north and the south met at Plymouth. Passengers crowded the restaurant and the diningroom.
Meanwhile the engine was fired with hard wood that sent a cloud of black smoke from its stack while the tender was refilled. Mushroom shaped smoke stacks covered with fine meshed screening prevented sparks from starting fires along the line of tracks. Then quiet reigned until the same rush hour was repeated at 5 P.M.
One of the recreations in the summertime for the villagers was to crowd the station platform to watch the trains arrive. The contrast of the costumes of the city boarders with the styles of the rural women was carefully studied, since few subscribed to Godey's Magazine of fashions that Mrs. Josepha Hale was then publishing.
About a year after, on May 19, 1864, a sad event occurred when the novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, suddenly died in a room directly above the front entrance. Hawthorne was in failing health and his friend, the recent President of the United States, Franklin Pierce, accompanied him with the hope that the mountain air would restore his strength. The students of Ply- mouth High School have placed a bronze tablet in honor of Hawthorne on the Village Common.
THE VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY
The slope from the post office to the sidewalk on the east side of Main Street falls about twelve feet. In 1863 this was a rough, gravel bank. The
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citizens decided to landscape this plot that was surrounded by dusty streets in the summer and snow banks in the winter.
A village improvement society graded the bank and surrounded it with the fence of colonial pattern, also seen in several towns in New Hampshire. The granite posts were drilled to receive the irons that firmly connect the square, wooden rails. Trees were planted within this enclosure a century ago.
Mr. Moses Batchelder, who was born in 1866, related that he followed his grandfather around the streets while he set the elms that are fast disap- pearing because of age or disease. Thus, the Common became the Village Center.
NEW STORES ALONG THE SQUARE
Three young men began their careers in business at this decade. First to arrive was Plummer Fox from Campton, second was John Mason of Bristol, and third, John Tufts from Gilmanton. Young Fox and Mason were clerks in the Webster, Russell & Co. store for three years. Then they formed a partner- ship in the Dearborn Store that Mrs. Dearborn had rebuilt since the fire. Dur- ing the following seventeen years they carried on together. Meanwhile, Mr. Tufts sold dry goods, then drugs around the corner.
Mr. Fox remained alone on Highland Street. Mr. Mason built the block on the corner of Main and Bridge Street, called in later years the Sargent block, and continued in business until his death in 1898. Meanwhile several fires occurred and in 1895 again the entire Fox corner was destroyed. Then Mr. Fox erected on Main Street the large, three story Fox block.
RUSSELL STREET IN 1869
One day in the summer of 1868, Mr. and Mrs. John Mudgett of Holder- ness decided to remove to Plymouth. After exploring the vacant east end of Summer street, they turned south across Highland street to look over a gate below Russell House into the cow pasture of William W. Russell's property.
They saw the house above Main street that Mr. W. Z. Ripley had built, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Harl Pease. Beyond was the home of Mr. David Clough Webster, the grandson of Col. David Webster, later called "Rose Lawn." Then these homes had an unobstructed view of Mount Pros- pect with the lawns of the Pemigewasset hotel in the foreground.
The pasture seemed inviting for a houselot. Mr. Mudgett purchased the land, now at the corner of Russell and Pleasant streets, and immediately erected the present house for himself, wife and three year old daughter, Caroline. At thirty-nine years of age, Mr. Mudgett was a skilled carpenter, and growing Plymouth offered future homes to construct along the new streets.
Russell street was opened from Highland. Soon Mr. James Langdon
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built the house at Number 2, a spacious residence at that period. This Lang- don family came from Portsmouth.
Along Russell street at the corner of Webster a large residence was soon built and another at number 25, the home of Mrs. Edward A. Chase. Several years passed before Russell street joined Warren street.
Following west along Warren street a brook flows down through the trees, where Winter street meets Warren, that gained the name of Shamrock Val- ley. Among Miss Caroline Mudgett's papers, she tells how this spot acquired its name.
SHAMROCK VALLEY
A few years before 1869, the immigration of many families arrived from Ireland, attracted by employment in the cotton mills. Gradually a few Sons of Erin settled in Plymouth, three families in the beginning. One by the name of Murphy lived by the brook and the others nearby. Mr. Murphy was em- ployed by Mr. Dodge of the railroad. Mrs. Murphy was a neighborly person and one morning while in the Mudgett kitchen she remarked, "Ye might think it a terrible thing to get married, but ye get used to it, ye get used to it!" spoken in her broad Irish brogue. Shamrock Valley and Fox Pond close- by should not be forgotten names of a century ago.
THE TOWN HALL
The history of this building dates back to 1798-1802 and the reason that it came to Plymouth relates to the second meetinghouse on Ward Hill. With- out repairs the meetinghouse became unfit for public use. In 1865 it was sold and became a storage place. Twelve years later the building was taken apart and the frame went to Campton Hollow, beside the Beebe River near the beautiful waterfall, for a sawmill which was consumed by fire on February 19, 1884.
In these years Plymouth did not possess a hall for the town meetings or a voting place.
At Wishman's Corner in Campton, a Congregational church was erected in 1798 at an expense of $2,000. Public worship of God was held there during the following fifty-six years until October 10, 1858.
Then the building became Cook's Hall in Plymouth with an arrangement with the town for an annual rental of fifty-five dollars, to be used for town meetings, records and voting.
Mr. Ephraim Cook was a carpenter and mill owner. He demolished the church piece by piece, moved it to Main street on a lot almost opposite Bridge street, built stores for the first floor and erected the old timbers for a second floor and a wide attic on the third floor.
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THE TOWN HALL, 1858 - 1938
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The Masons, G.A.R., American Legion and related organizations rented the upper floors until 1938. Mr. Fred W. Brown purchased the building and razed it when the town decided to widen High street.
PLYMOUTH NORMAL SCHOOL
Improvement for education in the public schools was a problem that within the past ten years had been discussed by prominent men, especially Mr. Hiram Orcutt of Lebanon, New Hampshire. He introduced a bill in 1870 at the legislature to establish a Normal School for the professional training of teachers. Fortunately, this bill became law.
Plymouth was then divided into a dozen districts, each collecting its own taxes, employing teachers without standards of any certificate concerning their scholarship, often a relative of a member of the district committee. The law instructed a board of seven trustees to advertise for proposals from towns, corporations or individuals to furnish school property or funds on condition of securing the location for the School.
Plymouth possessed the vacant Holmes Plymouth Academy. Lawyer Joseph Burrows and State Senator Henry W. Blair were active in placing the School in Plymouth. The town purchased the Academy from Mr. Denison Burnham and the dormitory from Mr. John T. Cutter and presented them to the State. The railroad donated $4,000 and citizens $1,100. Also, District No. 2 agreed to pay the State the amount that was raised for the public school in return for instruction of these pupils in a model school for practice teaching by students. In real estate and cash, $42,000 was paid to the State to establish the School in Plymouth.
In 1871 a spring term of eight weeks began at the institution. The State contributed $5,000 annually for the salary of the faculty and $8,000 for re- pairs and enlargement of the building with a new mansard roof and tower. There were people throughout the state who opposed the Normal School, claiming that only a few students profited at the expense of the taxpayers.
The course of study covered but one year; the requirements for admis- sion did not demand a high school course of study or graduation from one of the academies in the state. Throughout New Hampshire hundreds of small rural one-room schools existed, many of them closed during the three winter months. Often girls from these schools became students at Plymouth.
The students paid their board and room, while the state furnished the salaries for the faculty and the books. The students compensated for their tuition and books by teaching in New Hampshire for the time that they at- tended the Normal School.
The fourth principal was Mr. Henry P. Warren, a man of high scholar-
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E
Plymouth Normal School-1871
ship and experience. After four years of faithful work at the school, he re- ceived a position that meant too great an advancement to be refused.
The position was filled by Mr. Charles C. Rounds, an educator with the ability to instruct and govern while winning the respect and admiration of his students. He remained at the school over a period of thirteen years. He created a firm foundation for the professional standing of the Normal School that increased its value to the public schools throughout New Hampshire.
A NEW METHODIST CHURCH
The first Methodist church building stood for forty years on the corner of Main and Bridge streets. The denomination increased until this small edi- fice was inadequate for the requirements of a growing congregation.
A new building of Gothic design was erected on the east side of Main street south of the Record Office in 1872 at an expense of $20,000. The audi- torium seated over three hundred persons and the chapel on the lower floor supplied the facilities for the many functions of the denomination.
With a legacy in the will of Mr. John H. Gill, a bell was hung in the steeple that served for a fire alarm over many years. Mr. Gill was a musician, taught singing schools, a popular evening recreation, and led the choir until his death in 1888.
THE EXPRESS BUSINESS
The railroad eliminated the stagecoaches with their drivers kindly deliv- ering parcels along their routes. Instead, an express business developed. Mr. James Fogg Langdon, "Uncle Jim" to his scores of friends, joined with Mr. Nathaniel White of Concord and Mr. Benjamin P. Cheney of Peterborough in an express company that operated between Boston and Montreal.
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