USA > Vermont > Orange County > Newbury > History of Newbury, Vermont, from the discovery of the Coos country to present time > Part 33
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In February, 1791, a resolution to establish four post routes and riders in New Hampshire, was carried by only one majority in the legislature, there being thirty-four votes for, and thirty-three against it. In June of that year these routes went into operation, the rider going once each week from Concord by way of Boscawen and Plymouth to Haverhill, returning via Hanover and Canaan, receiving £12 for each six months. In 1795, the federal government took possession of the mail routes, and extended the river route from Hanover to Newbury, and Thomas Johnson was made post- master at Newbury, and Capt. Joseph Bliss at Haverhill. For about five years these places were the post offices for all the country north of them, as far as settlements extended. September 1, 1799, a mail route went into operation from Newbury through Ryegate and Peacham to Danville, once each week. Gen. James Whitelaw was the first postmaster in Ryegate, Samuel Goss at Peacham, and David Dunbar at Danville. A few months later, however, Mr. Dunbar resigned the Danville post office and one or two small appointments which he held under government, alleging that they were not, altogether, "as profitable as a good farrow cow." In 1810, a route was established from Danville to Derby and return once in two weeks.
296
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
In 1807, the following routes, which included Newbury and Haverhill, were in operation:
"From Portsmouth by Dover, Rochester, Middletown, Ossipee, Moultonborough, Centre Harbor, and Plymouth, to Haverhill and Newbury, Vt., and from Newbury, by Haverhill, Plymouth, New Hampton, Meredith, Gilmantown, Nottingham, and Durham to Portsmouth once a week." The rider was to leave Portsmouth on Tuesday, at 2 p. m., and arrive at Newbury by 7 p. m., on Friday.
"From Hanover by Orford to Haverhill, once a week." This left Hanover on Fridays and connected with the Portsmouth mail at Haverhill.
"From Montpelier by Berlin, Barre, Washington, Corinth, Bradford, Newbury, Ryegate, Barnet, Peacham, and Danville to St. Johnsbury, once a week." The rider left Montpelier Thursday noon, lodged at Newbury Friday night, reaching St. Johnsbury at 5 p. m., Saturday. There was a route from Haverhill to Guildhall once a week.
Examination of the proposals for carrying the mail in 1807 shows that a mail left Boston twice a week, Tuesday and Friday, at 3 a. m., and, remaining at Francestown over night, reached Windsor at 2 p. m., on Wednesday and Saturday. There the mail was transferred to another rider, reaching Hanover about nine o'clock of the days last mentioned. As there was but one mail a week above Hanover, and that left on Friday morning, the letters which left Boston on Friday, remained at Hanover several days before they went along. A more direct route, however, went by way of Salem, and Haverhill, Mass., to Windsor, and connected there with the Hanover mail. Letters were from a week to ten days coming from New York, and, in that year a letter which came from Ohio took six weeks to reach Newbury.
Rates of postage were so high as to be almost prohibitive. The postage upon letters was computed, not upon their weight, but upon the number of sheets which the letter contained. The postal rates were eight cents for all distances under forty miles, increasing to twenty-five cents when more than five hundred. If there were two sheets, the letter paid twice these rates, and so on. Newspapers were carried for one cent each, and one and a half cents when the distance was over one hundred miles. Even as late as 1816, letter postage to Boston was one shilling, or seventeen cents. Very few letters were prepaid; the person addressed had to pay the postage, but was not compelled to take the letter from the office. Persons whose standing was good were allowed to let their postage bills run several months.
From an old account book kept by David Johnson, who succceded his father as postmaster in 1800, some interesting particulars are gathered. It will be remembered that in 1800
297
STAGES, INNS, AND POST OFFICES.
postal service had been extended to Peacham and Danville, but Newbury was still the post office for a considerable territory. For the quarter ending April 1, 1801, the amount collected for unpaid letters received through the mail was $14.1212; the postage upon letters prepaid at the office was $4.821/2; and the amount collected from newspapers was $1.57. A few sundry items brought the receipts of the Newbury office to $20.121/2.
Mr. Johnson's commission-thirty per cent of the amount collected from unpaid letters, and fifty per cent of the sum paid upon newspapers, all amounting to $5.64 was not a magnificent salary. Postmasters, however, were privileged to send their own letters free through the mails, and this to a man with large correspondence, like Mr. Johnson, was no small matter.
The net receipts of the Newbury office in 1806 were $49.611/2, and Mr. Johnson's salary amounted to $29.15. One hundred and twenty free letters were received. The average postage on letters received at Newbury for September, 1824 was fifteen cents.
Among the Johnson papers are many like the following :
Newbury, Oct. 1, 1803.
Ben Porter, Esq., Dr. To postage on letters received since July 1,
Do. newspapers,
$2.24 .39
$3.63
Allowing him the low average of ten cents on each letter, it would give him only twenty-two letters in three months, probably only a small part of those which he actually received. The fact was that on account of the high postage most letters were sent by private hands. Ingenious people contrived to evade postage by means of dotted words and letters in newspapers, which passed through the mail for one cent each. These letters and words when read consecutively, conveyed information. Another way, still remembered by many elderly people, was to send a blank sheet of paper, made up like a letter. Peculiarities in the address, or in the form of the letters used, understood by the sender and the receiver, conveyed information as to the writer's health and circumstances. The person addressed would receive the letter, examine it, and return it to the postmaster, professing inability to pay the postage, having, meanwhile, obtained information of the writer, without expense. When the postage on a letter was twenty-five cents or more such evasions were very common. There was something wrong in a system which drove people to cheating in order to gratify their natural desire to hear of each other's welfare.
In 1820 the lowest rate of postage on a letter was six cents; above thirty miles, ten cents ; above eighty miles, nine pence; and so on, till letters going more than 400 miles, paid twenty-five cents. In 1840, the efforts of Rowland Hill and others, in the face of great ridicule and opposition, effected the reduction of postage in Great
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
Britain from one shilling to one penny. Six years later in this country, postage was reduced to five cents for 300 miles, or less, and ten cents between places more distant. Postage was later reduced to three cents between all offices in the country, without regard to distance. In 1883, the present rates for letter postage were adopted. Postage stamps were invented in 1847, and adopted by the American government in 1852. Postal cards were introduced in 1873.
Owing to the high rates of newspaper postage, country papers found it for their advantage to have their papers distributed among their patrons by private carriers. In 1796 "The Orange Nightingale and Newbury Morning Star," then published in this town, advertised its carriers in the following manner :
"NEW POST.
Phillip Rawlins proposes riding as Post thro the towns of Riegate, Barnet, and Peacham, in each of which towns any person who wishes to become a subscriber for the 'Orange Nightingale' will be supplied at the moderate price of ten shillings per annum. In Duesburg (Danville), Cabot, Walden and Hardwick at Twelve Shillings, and through Greensboro and Craftsborough for Fourteen Shillings per annum. Those persons who will please to favor him with their commands, may depend on having their business strictly attended to.
Newbury, August 25."
The last sentence alludes to the fact that these carriers conducted a sort of express business, carried small packages, executed commissions and the like. Files of old newspapers from the earlier third of the century have many such notices. There may be people still living who can remember when the Danville "North Star" was distributed by carriers.
The first postmaster at Newbury was Col. Thomas Johnson, 1785-1800; David Johnson, 1800-1812. The office was in their store, at the Ox-bow. Joseph Smith succeeded Mr. Johnson, and kept the office in his tavern, where Mr. Farnham now lives, till his death in 1815. The next postmaster was James Spear, Jr., who lived in what is now Montebello House. He was a hatter, and the office was in his shop, a small building near his house. Mr. Knight kept the office in his house, the brick house north of the old Newbury House. Since his time the office has been in the Keyes store, in the building which stood where Mr. Hale's store stands, at three different periods in its present location, and from 1891 to 1897, in the store of Silsby and Knight.
Isaac W. Tabor was postmaster at Wells River before Mr. Burbank, but whether he was the first one at that place, is not known. In April, 1871, a postal route was put into operation between South Newbury and Newbury Centre, and offices were established at the latter place and West Newbury. Before that time there had been an arrangement by which some one went from West Newbury to South Newbury, daily, for the mail. After 1866, by a similar arrangement, the mail was brought to the Centre from Newbury on Tuesdays and Fridays.
299
STAGES, INNS, AND POST OFFICES.
The following official list, procured for this volume by Mr. Horace W. Bailey, from the Post Office Department at Washington, gives the date of appointment of each occupant of the offices in town since 1832. It will be remembered that before Mr. Worthley's appointment at Boltonville, in 1865, the post office there had been discontinued during several years.
NEWBURY
James Spear, Jr.,
appointed,
About 1815
Prentiss Knight,
November 14, 1831
Freeman Keyes,
December 15, 1845
William B. Stevens,
66
February 24, 1849
J. M. Chadwick,
April 9, 1849
Daniel Peaslee,
May 23, 1853
Simeon Stevens, Jr.,
March 31, 1854
Jedediah C. Woodbury,
July 31, 1858
H. B. Morse,
August 2, 1861
Thomas C. Keyes,
June 9, 1875
R. W. Chamberlin,
September 23, 1885
William H. Silsby,
June 11, 1891
M. C. Knight,
April 6, 1893
G. L. Andrews,
April 15, 1897
Susie S. Sawyer,
October 1, 1900
WELLS RIVER.
Peter Burbank,
appointed,
December 12, 1832
Elijah Farr,
January 28, 1836 June 12, 1841
Charles B. Leslie,
December 26, 1844
William R. Shedd,
February 6, 1850 December 23, 1852
C. B. Leslie, Seneca Dickey,
May 12, 1853
A. S. Farwell,
October 4, 1853 April 5, 1856 May 4, 1861
Franklin Deming,
Edgar C. Graves,
February 23, 1886
John Bailey,
May 14, 1889
A. H. Bailey, William G. Foss,
March 30, 1893
May 22, 1897
BOLTONVILLE.
William Bolton, Thomas Wasson, H. K. Worthley, Freeman Tucker, H. C. Sargent, 'Sarah Tucker, Samuel A. Tucker,
appointed,
January 15, 1833
April 14, 1841 April 17, 1865
January 13, 1888
66
June 1, 1895
August 13, 1895 January 27, 1899
Hiram Tracy,
A. S. Farwell,
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
SOUTH NEWBURY.
Thomas J. Doe, William W. Brock,
appointed,
June 23, 1838 October 21, 1862
James Gage,
September 21, 1865
William W. Brock,
September 20, 1869
Miss A. A. Doe,
March 14, 1871
Edson Doe,
March 26, 1872
George N. Renean,
66
December 26, 1879
W. H. Child,
September 20, 1880
Clarence A. Butler,
66
March 7, 1883
A. J. Knight,
February 20, 1886
Henry W. Heath,
September 1, 1886
A. J. Knight,
66
September 24, 1887
George Franklin, A. A. Olmsted, P. D. W. Hildreth,
66
August 5, 1897
WEST NEWBURY.
appointed,
April 5, 1871 July 8, 1874
July 22, 1874
February 23, 1883
January 8, 1887
March 31, 1888
Hector Haseltine, J. S. Buttenworth, E. A. Minard, J. B. Tyler,
July 9, 1890
July 6, 1891
July 25, 1896
NEWBURY CENTRE.
Nelson B. Tewksbury, appointed, April 5, 1871.
H. N. Carleton, Dudley Carleton, Hazen K. Wilson, Dudley Carleton, J. B. Darling,
January 12, 1895
October 2, 1895
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CONNECTICUT RIVER.
EARLY NAVIGATION .- MIDDLESEX CANAL .- FALLS ON CONNECTICUT RIVER .- CANAL TOLLS .- THE COOS TURNPIKE .- THE WINDSOR CONVENTION .- DAMS ALONG THE RIVER .- THE "JOHN LEDYARD."- CERTIFICATE OF STOCK .- THE "ADAM DUNCAN."-A RIVER TICKET .- FAILURE OF THE COMPANY .- CANAL PROJECTS .- THE RAILROAD ERA .- FERRIES .- BRIDGE AT BELLOWS FALLS .- COL. PORTER'S CHARTER. - BRIDGES AT WELLS RIVER .- AT NEWBURY .- AT SOUTH NEWBURY.
T HE census of 1840, gives twenty-seven men as employed upon the river. Before the railroad was built, boating was an occupation which employed many men. The boats in use, and the mode of their operation, are described by Judge Leslie elsewhere in this volume. In these days, when anything but a mill log is seldom seen upon the Connecticut, it is not easy to realize that a large commerce was once carried upon that stream.
Boating began upon the river with the first settlements along its banks, and the commerce extended as the country opened. After the revolutionary war, when the nation was in prospect of a long peace, internal improvements were demanded, and among others, some way of passing the falls and rapids along the channel of Connecticut river. As early as 1785, and probably before that time there were men who were constantly engaged in the business of transporting passengers and merchandise on the river. Many of the early settlers of the town came that way, especially of the Scotch emigrants of this town, Ryegate and Barnet.
The records, from 1809 to 1816, of a storage ware-house at
NOTE. This chapter was prepared after the preceding chapters were printed, at the request of many who desired that all the particulars which could be gathered, of the early navigation of Connecticut river, and of the bridges which cross it, should be thus preserved. Thanks are due to the several gentlemen who have furnished the necessary data, and, especially, to the secretary of state at Concord, and to Messrs. Chester Abbott, of Woodsville, and Arthur K. Merrill of Haverhill, for their kind assistance in collecting data concerning the bridges.
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HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
Wells River, show that a great amount and variety of goods were received there, and that merchants and others, from towns sixty miles north of here, had their goods brought in that way. About one-third of the storage charges were for ardent spirits, and the downward freight seems to have consisted mainly of hides and ashes, besides lumber.
The following characteristic letter is in the handwriting of its author :-
NEWBURY, 23d October, 1816.
MR. THOMAS K. BRACE, Dear Sir:
The unbounded goodness of Providence having visited the country adjacent to Connecticut River with plentiful showers of Snow and Rain, I presume you will soon see at Hartford again the Boats from Coos. If Mr. Warren Evans should arrive at Hartford with a Boat, you may put on board two tierces T. I. Salt, & 30 or 40 lbs. Lorillard's Snuff. I enclose Thirty-two Dollars on Account.
DAVID JOHNSON.
It must be remembered that at this time the development of the western country had hardly begun, the Mohawk valley was the western limit of civilization, and the growing towns on the. seacoast drew their supplies for local use, and for the export trade, within the bounds of New England itself. Consequently there was rivalry between the business men of the sea-port towns. of Massachusetts, and those of Hartford and Springfield, for the control of trade from northern New England, and between these last-mentioned towns, and New Haven and New York, which also sought for the Vermont trade.
Boston capital built the Middlesex canal, from that city to Lowell, which was opened in 1803, and the great advantage to all northern New Hampshire soon began to be felt. By the aid of locks, boats could come up the Merrimack to Concord without breaking bulk, and in a very short time merchants at the cities on this river found that they were losing trade. They, in their turn, sought to improve the navigation of the Connecticut, so that boats could pass from Hartford to Barnet. The falls which were the chief obstacles to navigation were those at Enfield, South Hadley, Turners Falls and Bellows Falls. There were others, such as White River falls, Water Queechy and the like, but these were less. It was necessary to construct canals around these falls and rapids. The first one opened was that at South Hadley, in 1795. When
completed, it was two and one-half miles long, and had eight locks. That at Turners Falls was three miles long, and had ten locks. The Enfield canal was opened in 1829, and was six miles long; the one at Bellows Falls was short and had eight locks. There were shorter canals constructed at White River and Water Queechy.
Boats were built, as Mr. Leslie says, just wide enough to pass through the locks at these falls, and they saved all the labor and time required before, to unload each boat, and transport the merchandise around the rapids by teams. There was a charge for
303
CONNECTICUT RIVER.
lockage at each fall. In 1823, the tariff of tolls at Bellows Falls canal shows that each boat passing through the canal paid $2 toll, and eighty cents for each ton it carried. The boxes of lumber which were to pass through the canals were not to exceed fifty-four feet in length and seven in width and to draw not more than three feet of water. As there were three other long canals to be passed through, besides two or three very short ones, it will be seen that the canal tolls alone amounted to, at least, four dollars per ton. In the same year the rates of freight charged by a boating company between Concord, N. H., and Boston, via the Middlesex Canal, were seven dollars per ton from Concord to Boston, and ten dollars per ton from Boston to Concord. The Boston people sought to gain the trade of the north country by constructing a canal from Pemigewasset river in Wentworth to Connecticut river in Haverhill, after improving the channel of the river as far as Wentworth. John McDuffee, Esq., of Bradford, surveyed the route in 1825, and made an elaborate report. This canal would have followed, generally, the present line of the railroad, from Warren to Haverhill. The difficulty of getting water at the height of land was the chief obstacle. The merchants of Haverhill Corner, which, eighty years ago was the most important place in the north country, were not in favor of river navigation, their interest lying in the Coos turnpike, which was largely built by Haverhill capital, and which, in its turn, built up Haverhill Corner. This turnpike, which went out through Court street, and passed between the Tarleton lakes in Piermont to Warren, was then the most traveled road in all this region. There was a tavern about every two miles, and often 200 teams passed over it in a day. One may now travel for miles along that road without meeting a team, and what was then a prosperous community, east of Tarleton Lake, has not now a solitary inhabitant. But the passage of boats along the river was slow, and some plans were formed by which their time could be shortened. It took twenty-five days to go from Wells River to Hartford and return.
Steamboats were constructed to carry passengers and freight, and take boats in tow. In 1826, one called the Barnet was built in New York for service on this river, but it never got above Bellows Falls. In that year a convention, of which Hon. Moses P. Payson of Bath was president, was held at Windsor to determine plans for the improvement of the river navigation as far as Barnet, or, as Mr. Livermore puts it, "to legislate Connecticut river into the list of navigable streams, and to order the removal of obstacles."
The Connecticut River Navigation Co. issued a pamphlet containing the reports of the president and directors, and that of Mr. Hutchinson, its civil engineer. He recommended the construction of dams at suitable points along the stream, by means of which the water could be raised high enough to make
304
HISTORY OF NEWBURY, VERMONT.
navigation easy, these dams to be passed by canals. Two of these were to be in this town, the upper one below the rapids at Wells River, costing about $32,000 which was intended to enable the boats to cross the bar, and pass through the narrows; the other at the upper curve of the Ox-bow, which also included the cutting of a canal across its narrowest part, thus shortening the distance by several miles. This would cost $56,000. The estimated cost of these dams and canals between Hartford, Conn., and Barnet was over $1,000,000. It was expected that when these improvements were completed, small steamboats would ply upon the river, each drawing a small fleet of boats. The project was feasible, and had no railroads ever been built, something of the kind would have been carried out. The latter part of the report discusses the comparative cost of transporting freight at four miles an hour on the river, and at an equal speed upon a railroad, it not being believed then that trains could be made to go faster than six or eight miles an hour, at the utmost.
In 1830, a small steamboat called the John Ledyard, was built, and was taken through the locks by the falls on the river, from Hartford to Wells River. Hiram Wells of the latter place, an experienced river-man, was the pilot. Its arrival at Wells River was announced by the firing of cannon, and a large crowd assembled to see the wonder. A poem, by some forgotten writer, commemorated the great occasion, the closing stanza of which is preserved :
" 'Tis gone, 'tis gone, the day is past, And night's dark shade is o'er us cast ; And further, further, further still, The steamboat's winding through the vale, The cannon roar, o'er hill, through dale, Hail to the day when Captain Nutt Sailed up the fair Connecticut."
But the expectations of those who hoped that its advent would usher in an era of prosperity were not realized. The boat was taken through the narrows, a short distance above the mouth of the Ammonoosuc, to a bar in the river. A long rope was attached to it, and a string of river-men and others, wading, tried to haul the boat over the bar .. But to no purpose. The John Ledyard went back down the river, and never returned.
In the fall of that year the Connecticut River Valley Steam Boat Company issued stock for the building of several boats. One certificate, which is preserved, reads as follows :
No. 628. THIS CERTIFIES, that Henry Keyes of Newbury, in the County of Orange and State of Vermont is the owner of one Share of Capital Stock in the Connecticut River Valley Steam Boat Company, transferable according to the form subjoined.
[SEAL.]
WITNESS the Corporate Seal of said Company at Windsor, this 16th day of March, A. D. 1831.
J. W. HUBBARD, Clerk.
JONA. H. HUBBARD, President.
Shares, No. 1174.
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CONNECTICUT RIVER.
On the back of this certificate is the pencilled memorandum: "Paid $12.50 March 21, 1831."
In that vear five boats were built, and put upon the river, at different sections between Hartford and Wells River. The Adam Duncan, of which Mr. Leslie speaks, and which was built just above the mouth of Wells River, cost about $4,700. It was sixty feet in length, on the keel, with a breadth of beam of twelve feet, the guards projected over the sides to an entire width of nineteen and one-half feet, and it drew twenty-two inches of water. The cabin was ten by twenty-four feet, and was divided into two parts by a movable partition. Four boilers, each fifteen feet long by one foot in diameter, propelled this leviathan of the deep. Horace Duncan of Lyman was the captain of the boat, and Hiram Wells was its pilot. The company issued tickets, which were printed in sheets, and were two by four inches in size. At the left end of each was a figure of the Goddess of Plenty, with agricultural implements at her left, and a mill in the distance on her right; at the top was the picture of a steamboat, and in the vacant space was printed :
"This ticket entitles the bearer to Twenty miles travel on board the Boats of the Connecticut River Valley Steam Boat Company.
Windsor, Jan. 20, 1831."
J. W. HUBBARD, Clerk.
The Adam Duncan made a trial trip, it seems, and on its second trip, which was a Fourth of July excursion to Hanover, the connecting pipe between the boilers burst, letting the steam and water escape. There can be few, besides Mr. Leslie, surviving, who were on the boat at the time. "Several of the passengers," he says, "were in the fire-room, but no one was injured except Dr. Dean of Bath, who jumped overboard, and was drowned." This ended the career of the "Adam Duncan" which was taken to Olcott Falls and stripped of its machinery.
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