USA > Vermont > Windham County > Rockingham > History of the town of Rockingham, Vermont, including the villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1753-1907, with family genealogies > Part 28
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Agriculture, Commerce and Manufactures - Three strands which, well united, form the strong cord of national wealth.
Connecticut River - Destined yet to be the patroness of enterprise and to bear upon her bosom the golden fleece of industry.
The enterprising, energetic and persevering inhabitants of Hartford- We have long been their friends, we shall soon be their neighbors. Three cheers.
The spirit of improvement in our sister, New York-Egypt has perplexed the world with the enigma of her pyramids; New York has forever recorded her character between the Hudson and the Lakes.
Vermont - A stone bastion in the great fortress of the Union.
The Northern and Western Canals of the State of New York - A work for a nation-No less than a nation has accomplished it.
The memory of our countryman, Robert Fulton - With a purer fame than the conqueror of Europe; like him he used a subjugated element to extend and secure his conquest.
Our mother Connecticut - Her children are glad to see a visitor from home.
The State of Massachusetts - We are proud that she constitutes an interesting portion of Yankee land.
New England Enterprise - With an engine rightly constructed and judiciously managed, high pressure is safe.
After the regular toasts were announced the president of the day gave the following :
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The President of the Connecticut River Company - His indefatigable exertions for improving the navigation of our river are worthy of more than present praise and we hope the history of the Connecticut River valley will name him with honour in future times - We beg leave that he will accept our thanks ; and at the same time do us the honour to present the assurance of our hearty co-operation to the company of which he presides.
The President of the Connecticut River company, Mr. Smith, arose, and after some preliminary remarks expressed himself in the sentiments below :
The citizens of New Hampshire and Vermont - Enterprising, liberal and intelligent, may they be prospered accordingly.
Volunteer toasts were then offered as follows :
His Excellency DeWitt Clinton - The father of internal improvements.
Connecticut River- The grand highway from Canada to the sea-board. Give us Steam ! !
Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut - May they all be united in the improvement of the Connecticut River.
Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire -The first projector, and the two last the coadjutors of a noble enterprise. To the tune of " When shall we three meet again."
Intention of marriage between Lake Memphremagog and Miss Seabrook are hereby made public. May the marriage contract between the above parties be duly solemnized and never be dissolved.
The Town of Barnet-May she speedily be gratified with a sight of her firstborn.
The Marquis of Worcester-The man who first conceived the idea of applying steam to the propelling of machinery.
A speedy execution of the proposed improvement of Connecticut River.
The improved navigation of the Connecticut. We assume its accomplish- ment as certain .- May the wealth which it shall diffuse be so universal as to reach the pocket even of those who ridicule the measure as visionary. and oppose it as impracticable.
The valley of the Connecticut .- Needs no canal while the river runs.
The Connecticut River Association-The triumphant success of this their mission cannot fail to convert the most obstinate infidel to the true faith.
The supporters of the proposed navigation of the Connecticut-May the united exertions drive down all opposition.
The Barnet -- Not like the dove that went from the ark of the first marine builder : on the contrary she has found joy, rest and a welcome.
Let Connecticut river be dammed-never choked.
A Pioneer with high pressure for every canal.
The grand movers of the Improvement of the Connecticut River-may they not be wanting in support.
Massachusetts Legislature-May local interests yield to public benefit.
The arrival of the Steamboat Barnet-May it be the means of converting
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The " Barnet" Departs
many of our respectable citizens to the cause of the improvement of the Con- necticut River, and serve as a lesson to mankind, that they ought not even in the hour of affliction and persecution, despair of better days.
The cannon was used at frequent intervals during the remainder of the day and evening. Fireworks were dis- charged that night from the little park where the Baptist church stands now, and the whole village was given over to rejoicing as never before. Some of the references in the above toasts may be explained by the following account of the struggles and opposition to the enterprise, which was printed in the Bellows Falls Intelligencer on the following Monday :
"The arrival of the Barnet at this place is an event which will form an interesting epoch in the History of the Connecticut river, and is only a small item in the list of improvements calculated to be carried into execution at some future period. It is known to most of our readers that the cause of improving the Connecticut river by dams and slack water has met with a decided opposition from the inhabitants of some of the towns in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The gentlemen who first conceived the plan of navigating the river by the means of steam power, have been ridiculed, and the whole scheme laughed at as visionary. We never doubted its practicability, and we have now the fullest assurances that the plan is not only practicable, but will speedily be carried into effect. The gentlemen who compose the Association to improve the river are entitled to the warmest thanks of the public, for their indefatigable zeal and perseverance in the cause they have undertaken; and we doubt not but they will see their most sanguine expectations carried into effect."
The next morning President Smith of the Hartford Association, who seems to have been the principal official in charge of the trip and its attendant celebrations along the river, tendered to a large number of ladies and gentlemen of Bellows Falls an excursion around the eddy and a short distance down the river and return, a novelty often remarked upon by them in later years.
The size of the Barnet having been found too large for the dimensions of the locks at this place, the boat left at eleven o'clock that day, the 14th, upon its return trip a parting salute of one hundred and twenty-four discharges of the old cannon bidding it good-bye. Two hundred people accom- panied her as far down the river as Westminster. She was at Brattleboro Thursday night, and reached Hartford the
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following Tuesday. Much more time was used than neces- sary upon both the up and down trips because of the celebra- tions at the different points, and the many proffered entertain- ments, many of which were refused fearing the closing of the river by ice.
In August, 1829, a second attempt to prove the river navigable by steamboats, was made by one named the "Vermont." She came up from Hartford. passed the locks here, and late in October she reached the locks at " Water Queechy " in Hartland, Vt., but the locks at these falls proved too narrow for the little boat and she plied between Bellows Falls and Windsor a few months, but unsuccessfully. The Vermont was eighty feet long, fourteen feet wide and drew but twelve to fifteen inches of water. The stroke of the piston of the " Vermont " was horizontal and the power of the engine one hundred and twenty horse. In 1831, the "John Ledyard," built at Springfield, Mass., reached the nearest point to Barnet of any tide-water steamer. She stranded on a bar just north of Wells River and was forced to give up the attempt of going farther north. She was commanded by Capt. Samuel Nutt, a prominent boat builder of White River Junction, who, for some years, acted as superintendent of the Connecticut Valley Steamboat company. He was born in 1792 and died at White River Juncion in 1871.
In the season of 1831, steamboat navigation reached its climax on the Connecticut river. In that year the Connecti- cut River company was merged into the Connecticut Valley Steamboat company. Early in the season it advertised a line of freight pole-boats to run between Wells River and Hartford while its fleet of steamboats was building. Its plan was to use light draught boats and operate them between the differ- ent canals, covering the distance in five different sections, each steamer being built somewhere on the section which it was to cover. There were three steamers below South Hadley. The " William Holmes" was built here at Bellows Falls on the beach below the village and the expense of it was the greatest of any of the fleet, amounting to $4,943.61.
Connecticut River Valley Steamboat Co. 309
She was to run between here and South Hadley Falls. The "David Porter " was built at Hartford, Vt., and ran between that place and Bellows Falls. She cost $4,737.29. The "Adam Duncan," built at White River Junction by Capt. Samuel Nutt, ran north of there.
The company issued tickets which were printed in sheets and were about two by four inches in size. A few of these are still preserved as souvenirs. At the left end of each is a figure of the Goddess of Plenty with agricultural imple- ments at her left, and a mill in the distance on her right ; at the top is the picture of a steamboat, and in the vacant space is printed :
"This ticket entitles the bearer to Twenty miles travel on board the Boats of the CONNECTICUT RIVER VALLEY STEAM BOAT COM- PANY.
Windsor, January 20, 1831."
J. W. Hubbard, Clerk.
The company which built these boats made a financial failure in only one season. Freight rates were necessarily high, the river needed much "improvement," and the com- pany closed the first season with a balance against it and an assessment on its shares. The stockholders were dissatisfied and gave up the attempt to run steamers on the Connecticut, and the company failed. Frequent attempts to navigate the river on a smaller scale were made in after years, before the era of railroads, but none of them proved successful for any length of time. The " William Holmes " plied between here and Turners Falls only during the season of 1831. Later she passed up through the locks and was operated a year or two between here and Charlestown, with occasional excursions farther north, but she was not a financial succcess. The machinery was removed, the hull drawn out on the bank opposite what has been known as "The Patch " at the north end of the village where it was left to decay and was finally carried down stream by a freshet.
The most serious accident that occurred during the steam- boat times upon this river was the explosion of the two boilers of a boat named the "Greenfield" (formerly the Ariel Cooley )
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at a point just north of Smith's Ferry, Mass., May 18, 1840. The boat was built in 1837, and had been rebuilt and supplied with new boilers in 1839. She was employed at the time of the accident in towing between South Hadley canal and Greenfield. Three men were killed and others injured by the accident.
An epitaph in the Brattleboro cemetery reads : " The Grave of Alanson D. Wood,
who was killed instantly on this river by the explosion of the steamboat Greenfield, May IS, 1840. Ae. 30."
CHAPTER XXI.
POST-OFFICES OF THE TOWN - LIST OF POSTMASTERS IN THE DIFFERENT VILLAGES
In the year 1783, while Vermont was an independent republic without allegiance to other states or nations, Gov- ernor Chittenden and his council established the first post office in Vermont at Bennington and authorized the employ- ment of a post rider between that town and the office at Albany, N. Y. The man rode weekly carrying the mail in his saddle bags. The next year the legislature of Vermont established four other offices in the state, at Rutland, Brattle- boro, Windsor and Newbury, and the post rider,-the pio- neer of the splendidly equipped railway post offices of to-day, -between Brattleboro and Newbury passed through Bel- lows Falls once each week, each way. The rates of postage were the same as those of the United States, which then numbered but thirteen states. Anthony Haswell, Esq., of Bennington was chosen postmaster general of Vermont. The post rider between Bennington and Brattleboro was allowed for travel three pence per mile, while riders on the other routes were allowed only two pence, the additional rate being on account of the extremely mountainous country between Bennington and Brattleboro. These post riders were allowed the exclusive privilege of carrying letters and packages on their respective routes, and any person who infringed upon their rights was subject to a fine of ten pounds. Upon the admission of Vermont into the Union, as the fourteenth state, in 1791, the post offices established in this commonwealth became a part of the general goverment, and the number increased rapidly during the next few years.
When regular stage coaches were started in this vicinity about the year 1800, the mails were transferred to, and car-
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ried by, them. In the year 1818, stages and mails passed through Bellows Falls in four directions three times each week.
In 1808, the rates of letter postage were as follows :
" Every letter composed of a single sheet of paper conveyed not exceed- ing forty miles, eight cents. Over forty miles, and not exceeding ninety miles, ten cents. Over ninety miles, and not exceeding one hundred and fifty miles, twelve and a half cents. Over one hundred and fifty miles, and not exceeding three hundred miles, seventeen cents. Over three hundred miles, and not exceeding five hundred miles, twenty cents. Over five hundred miles, twenty-five cents.
Every letter composed of two pieces of paper, double those rates. Every letter composed of three pieces of paper, triple those rates. Every letter composed of four pieces of paper, weighing one ounce, quadruple those rates, and at the rate of four single letters for each ounce any letter or packet may weigh."
As late as 1861 each letter was required to be placed in a wrapper in the post office, and in the package was enclosed a " way-bill " showing the name of the addressee and the amount of postage upon it, similar to what is now done with express and freight parcels.
The first post office in this town was established in 1801, in the village of Rockingham, then the largest village, followed a few months later by that at Bellows Falls.
Following is a list of the different postmasters of the town, giving the dates of their appointments.
POSTMASTERS AT ROCKINGHAM
Roswell Bellows, January 1, 1801.
William Hall, Jr., January 1, 1802. D. W. Hall, January 5, 1808. Robert Gilmore, May 20, 1810.
E. R. Campbell, 2nd, January 1, ISI1.
Horace Baxter, January 18, 1812. Stephen Tyler, April 20, 1818. Russel Burke, July 18, 1820.
Royal Earl, November 3, 1821. Henry Campbell, May 12, 1826.
N. B. Roundy, December 9, 1833. Lewis M. Olcott, March 25, 1834. James Bennett, February 25, 1841. Harvey Wood, April 9, 1841. Elias Olcott, Jr., May 15, 1844.
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Post Office Locations in Bellows Falls
Darius Smalley, June 26, 1845. Joseph Hemphill, June 7, 1847.
Seymore Childs, November 27, 1849. Lewis S. Eddy, June 18, 1851.
John H. Olcott, February 10, 1854.
Willard Stowell, December 30, 1856.
Josiah B. Divoll, April 21, 1862.
Oscar J. Divoll, April 26, 1904.
POSTMASTERS AT BELLOWS FALLS
A post office was established in Bellows Falls April 1, 1801, and Dr. William Page was the first postmaster. He kept it in the office of the canal company, then known by name of "Company for Rendering Connecticut River Navi- gable by Bellows Falls," of which company Dr. Page was the engineer and superintendent. The building was located on the brow of the hill in the rear of Mammoth block. The canal was not completed so that boats passed for a year after the post office was established.
April 1, 1805, Quartus Morgan was appointed postmaster and the office was moved into the old "Morgan Tavern" on the west side of Rockingham street where it was kept until after the death of Mr. Morgan in 1810. This building, still standing, is now known as Frost's block. Mr. Morgan's clerk, Nathaniel Page, acted as postmaster after Mr. Mor- gan's death until the appointment of his successor. Mr. Page was prominently known in those days in connection with the tavern, as he was the assistant for Mrs. Morgan who managed the house until 1816.
Jabez Hills was appointed to succeed Mr. Morgan, June 15, 1810, and the office was for many years in the country store of Hall & Green, a two-story frame building that stood where Union block now is on the east side of the Square. Mr. Hills was clerk for the firm for a number of decades. The late George Slate told the writer a number of years ago that he remembered Mr. Hills well, and that
"as postmaster he gave general satisfaction, was always faithful and obliging. He was the first letter carrier that I ever heard of at that day. It was said when letters came into the office for people two or three miles away he would take the letters, walk out and deliver them."
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History of Rockingham
Dr. John H. Wells was appointed March 18, 1830. He first kept the office in a little frame building which stood where the Allbee plumbing shop now is on the south side of Bridge street in the east end of Howard block. He later moved into Ira Russell's store where the Corner Drug store is on the south side of the Square, and still later into his own building, a small frame one standing on the north side of the Square, where the Italian fruit store is at the present day. Dr. Wells was a physician of the old school, had a large local practice and for many years kept the village drug store, the first in town.
John W. Moore became postmaster April 24, 1841, and the office was moved into his printing office just north of the old Mansion House, on the site now occupied by the National Bank of Bellows Falls on the west side of the Square. Mr. Moore was editor and proprietor of the Bellows Falls Gazette, at that time the only local newspaper.
May 4, 1843, William R. Williams, a brother of the late James H. Williams, was appointed, and moved the office into the hotel temporarily, but held the position only a few months.
John W. Moore was appointed a second time November 9, 1843, and the office was again located in the printing office on the west side of the Square.
Andrew Watkyns was appointed March 23, 1846, and he continued the office in the north half of the printing office building where Mr. Moore had kept it. Mr. Moore occupied the south half.
John N. Baxter became postmaster July 24, 1849, and John W. Moore was appointed for a third time July 24, 1850.
Dr. Samuel Nichols, a popular physician whom many still remember, was appointed September 19, 1851, and at first kept the office in his drug store in the same location as Mr. Watkyns' had been, and later moved into the block where Dr. Wells kept it in 1830.
Albert G. Burke received the appointment June 18, 1853, and was succeeded by Hiram Atkins February 20, 1854.
Bellows Falls Post Office "On Wheels" 315
Mr. Atkins was the editor and proprietor of the Bellows Falls Argus, the local paper of that day, and both offices were located in a frame block which stood north of the "Bellows Falls Stage House," about where the centre of Union block now is. This was probably the same building in which the office was located by Jabez Hills in 1810, and was burned March 14, 1860.
O. D. Gray was appointed postmaster September 15, 1860; A. N. Swain, May 23, 1861 ; Col. Russell Hyde, August 5, 1873 ; Q. E. Morgan, February 6, 1878; George O. Guild, August 2, 1886 ; Barney Cannon, Jr., July 24, 1890 ; Alfred Dow, December 11, 1894; Barney Cannon, Jr., the present incumbent received his second appointment December 14, 1898. He died in office September 13, 1906.
After 1860 the office moved its location so frequently until it settled where it now is, that it was often suggested that it be placed " on wheels " for convenience, and, in fact, it was many years in a small frame building that was frequently moved about to different locations on the Square to suit changed conditions and postmasters. After the conflagration of March, 1860, it was located for a time in the Canal street block, now owned by the estate of A. H. Brown ; later it was in Wightman block between Rockingham and Canal streets now known as Farr block, and for a few months before Post- master Guild, in 1888, located it in the new opera house block where it now is, it was in the Granger building south of Cray's block on the east side of Westminster street.
The postal receipts of the Bellows Falls office have increased rapidly in the last few years. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 1890, the total receipts were $8, 137.64, while for the year ending March 31, 1906 they were $23,- 719.54.
Free delivery of mails was inaugurated in the village Nov- ember 1, 1899, and rural free delivery September 1, 1900.
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History of Rockingham
POSTMASTERS AT SAXTONS RIVER
Daniel Kellogg, December 2, ISI8.
Warren Lovell, May 22, 1823.
Royal Earl, April 11, 1826.
Benjamin Frost, June 29, 1843.
Charles Smith, November 4, 1847.
William L. Wiley, October 1, 1849.
Henry C. Wiley, July 19, 1850.
Calvin Fairbrother, February 26, 1855.
Eliot R. Osgood, June 22, 1861.
F. G. Butterfield, October 17, 1866.
Eliot R. Osgood, July 10, 1867.
Henry C. Johnson, March 10, 1873.
Eliot R. Osgood, January 19, 1883.
William H. Campbell, October 21, 1885.
Helen I. Campbell, May 11, 1889.
Minnie A. Benton, May 4, 1898.
POSTMASTERS AT CAMBRIDGEPORT
George S. Willard, April 16, 1834.
Jesse Howard, June 17, 1837.
Moses Drury, November 8, 1837.
Joseph Buswell, August 31, 1838. Isaac Stickney, June 20, 1839.
Jesse Howard, October 3, 1840.
George W. Goodrich, July 1, 1841.
John S. Fullerton, December 23, 1843.
David F. Cushing, June 26, 1845.
Cyrus W. Wyman, December 28, 1853.
D. F. Cushing, April 15, 1857. Isaac Glynn, August 2, 1861.
Solon Perry, February 16 1863.
George Wellington, July 23, 1867. Isaac Glynn, August 22, 1867.
Charles F. Glynn, December 16, 186S.
Joel B. Ober, January 31, 1873.
D. F. Cushing, Jr., November 2, 1876. Warren G. Stevens, date not given.
Solon P. Cushing, March 31, 1886.
POSTMASTER AT LA GRANGE
Samuel Jackson, February 2, 1835. Office discontinued September 1, 1837.
The Town's Postal Receipts 317
POSTMASTERS AT BARTONSVILLE
Alfred Sargeant, February 9, 1842.
Charles F. Barrett, April 12, 1844. Ralph G. Roundy, April 8, 1847. Lucius W. Adams, February 12, 1850.
O. W. Fletcher, September 6, 1864.
George N. Gould, September 3, 1874. H. S. Bowker, September 20, 1883.
Mary Bowker, June 10, 1901.
The postal receipts of the five post offices of the town for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1906, were as follows :
Rockingham, $105.35.
Bellows Falls, $23,719.54.
Saxtons River, $2,595.41.
Cambridgeport, $197.46. Bartonsville, $255.48.
,
CHAPTER XXII.
THE ERA OF THE STAGE COACH
The era of transportation by stage lines north and south, east and west, through the town of Rockingham, is one the stories of which will continue to be of deep interest to the end- of time.
Previous to the stage coach, and paving the way for it, came the post rider, who had carried mails and small parcels of merchandise between the distant points on horseback. Then followed the establishment of stage lines, connecting the larger towns of the country, and carrying passengers as well as mails and newspapers. As fixing somewhat the date of establishment of stage lines, the following item of news printed in the Vermont Gazette at Bennington, November 15. 1784, is of value :
" Harttord Conn., November 2.
A stage wagon has lately been erected to run, with four horses, between the city of New York and Stratford ferry, in Connecticut, which completes the stages from Portsmouth, in the State of New Hampshire. to Richmond, in the State of Virginia, a distance of upwards of 700 miles."
The date of the establishment of the first stage line through this town has not been ascertained, but advertise- ments in newspapers of the vicinity show that in 1801, there was a weekly stage coach up and down the Connecticut valley, as well as from, and to, Boston once each week.
In 1807, there were three stages a week passing through here each way between Boston and Hanover. In 1814, a regular four-horse coach was put on between Boston and Burlington, which in that year stopped over night at Keene in each direction Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In 1826 and 1827, competing lines were running over this route and as many as sixty to one hundred passengers each day stayed over night in Keene. Many of the coaches at this time had six horses. One line came from Keene via West-
Early Stage Drivers 319
moreland, and the other via Surry and the " Forest Line," which connected over the South Charlestown bridge with the Green Mountain turnpike following the Williams river through this town. This line was advertised as being thirty miles shorter to Rutland than any other route. For some years the village of Rockingham was more of a stage headquarters than was Bellows Falls. Also the village of Walpole, on account of its being the point of intersection of the lines, some of which were owned in that village.
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