USA > Vermont > Windham County > Rockingham > History of the town of Rockingham, Vermont, including the villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1907-1957 with family genealogies > Part 11
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There was also a Board of Trade which seems to have functioned desultorily for several years prior to 1915, with two dollar dues, when it appeared to have had an acute attack of inertia. J. C. Day was president and J. H. Blakely, secretary and when at the April meeting only three members showed up, the ailing and expendable (although they probably hadn't coined that word yet) institution was buried with a minimum of ceremony the next week. Funds of $500 were turned over to the more flourishing Chamber of Commerce along with all books and papers. This was then a "live bunch" who put out a paper of their own in 1915 called the Bellows Falls Booster, calling attention to local shopping advantages and which was sent to farms and villages within 15 miles of Bellows Falls. More than
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100 members plus several ladies, rode in style to the Fair at White River that year, in 27 automobiles, all labeled "Bellows Falls Chamber of Commerce." Among those who have served as president of the Chamber of Commerce in past years were John C. Hennessey, C. C. Collins and John E. Babbitt.
The Chamber of Commerce came to life early in 1914 with 100 active members and began work at once on civic problems with a paid secretary. By October there were 200 members with such enthusiastic leaders as Fred Babbitt, president; Dr. Blodgett, O. A. Gast, W. C. Jewett, D. F. Pollard and E. L. Walker. They even tried to get the new state school for feeble minded located in Bellows Falls but it went to Vergennes instead. But the Chamber had its ups and downs and after its October meeting in 1917, it did not get together again until September of 1919 when it reorganized.
However, it evidently slumped for a few years, being re- juvenated in 1926 with a bang when the new Hydro-Electric began to clear away the old mills "under the hill" to make way for its new plant. At a booster meeting in the Armory attended by 1,000 people and headed by Walter Glynn, nearly 300 business men signed up. It was then that William Brooks, Vice Presi- dent of the New England Power Association, said earnestly that no manufacturing plants were moving west or south but "staying in New England where we have the climate, the people and the knowledge." Thirty years later it was a different story in many parts of New England. The Chamber voted again to hire a full-time paid secretary and Everett C. Clark of Spring- field, Mass. came to town in this position. Today both the Board of Trade and the Chamber of Commerce are but ghosts but there is much interest shown at present in the idea of another Chamber of Commerce in Bellows Falls which would include four units, that of the manufacturers, distributors, professionals and merchants or retailers. (A new Chamber of Commerce was organized in May, 1956, Robert Glasheen, sec; in '58, Russell Sargent.)
In 1918 several local men had been in business for 30 years or more including N. G. Williams, Frank Adams, E. S. Leonard, S. D. Harriman, C. E. Howard, S. J. Cray, F. G. Pierce and J. J. Fenton. In 1937 Mr. Leonard was still in the insurance business after 60 years.
Over the years there have been many changes in the business district of Bellows Falls including the side street stores as well as in-or on-"the Square." the maxim of those who carry on their business there. Faces have come and gone, shop signs have changed, fires have done their work with bigger and better buildings rising on the charred remains. Canal Street, once the busiest street in town, has lapsed into an empty-eyed tunnel with only the police station to give it prestige.
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In the days when Canal Street was important to the world, its insignia was the well-known cigar store Indian in front of Fred Exner's tobacco store, the same Indian which, they say, was later removed by nefarious means and which reappeared in an antique shop in a neighboring town. But for many years it guarded the shop known as "Emil's and Hector's" where Emil Exner and his partner made cigars, Mr. Exner's profession being that of cigar roller. In 1910 it was Exner and Murray making Golden Leaf, Chips and Little Phil cigars. They also ran a restaurant which closed in 1933. At one time Thomas Pimer ran a little candy shop and lunch room here along with a parrot which was vastly enjoyed by his customers especially the children. Mr. Pimer was also head of the iron and tin department of the Vermont Farm Machine Company.
Other shops on this street about fifty years ago, at various times, were Will Pierce's Five and Ten Cent Store, the Kimball Carriage Shop opposite the bridge, later owned by W. C. Hadley and which burned in 1911. Mr. Hadley moved into the Morgan Tavern building in 1912 and added to his piano box top carriages, real estate and insurance, making him today the oldest insurance man in town. For twenty-five years there was James Byrne's barber shop, where, before such conveniences as showers became common, a gentleman could repair to take a bath also. He sold his shop to Sullivan Fiorey in 1915 who had worked for him for eight years.
Pasquale "Patsy" Baldasaro had his first fruit shop on Canal Streetand Pat Keane a shoe store whose sign read "In God We Trust; all others Must Pay Cash," Michael Beasley worked for him as cobbler and later opened his own store for "boots and shoes" in the Times block but which was foreclosed in 1916. Henry Webb had a harness shop there for many years until he died in 1929. Canal was not a one-way street then and once the iron bridge over the canal shook with horses and wagons. There was murder there, too, about twenty-five years ago when Charlie Lou, Lee Kee or Ong Fong as he was variously known, the Chinese laundryman familiar to all, was found dead in his shop killed with one of his own flat irons. William LaBelle was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
For forty years John C. Lawrence and Alfred L. Field con- ducted a successful hardware store on Canal Street in the days when coal was twelve dollars a ton. Field and Lawrence was located where Faughts sell typewriters today, and was the old firm of Eaton & Norwood in 1897, later Norwood & Field. Mr. Field retired in 1938 after the death of Mr. Lawrence. In October, 1955, the Fields celebrated their 60th wedding anni- versary. Next to them was the George E. Welch & Son under- taking and furniture establishment for twenty-five years until Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Welch left for Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1926 to open a similar business. Mr. Gerald Welch
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went into business with his father in 1902 and the space is now occupied by the state liquor store. George C. Whitehill bought the business of Gerald Welch and in 1947 Wilberne K. Taylor of Brattleboro, bought the Whitehill funeral business which was started in the Arms block in 1933, and moved it into the former MacLennan home. In 1937 D. P. Noyes & Son Gordon, bought the Field and Lawrence store and moved it, in 1940, to its present location in the Square. In 1943 it united with Kermit White- hill's Paint and Wallpaper store and the new firm became Noyes & Whitehill. Kermit Whitehill had been in the undertaking business with his father.2
Canal Street has been only a small portion of the business establishments in town. Fifty-five years ago Walter Glynn of Saxtons River, was selling "Death Grip Tablets" guaranteed to kill a cold in twenty-four hours or your money back. Twenty years later the Glynn Distributing Company was using the lower floor of the defunct shirt factory on Tuttle Street for Sonora phonographs, where cattle auctions were held from time to time. Radio had not yet driven talking machines from the scene and Stanley Griswold ran Mr. Glynn a close second with his new Edison at the Goodell shop. He called his machine "the phono- graph with a soul." What Mr. Glynn called his instrument- or Stanley-history does not say.
For many years Mrs. Flora Stillwell sold hats to local ladies, being located about where Whelan Drug is today. Her motto was "enter without knocking; leave the same way." Here, in an era of untrimmed hats stacked up like lamp shades and which looked the same way, every customer could pick out her own ribbon for loops and bows, but she was still liable to meet herself around every corner. Mrs. Stillwell sold out in 1917 and passed away ten years later at her home on School Street. Other hat shops in town were run by Pauline Howard who had her Millinery Parlors in the Rockingham Hotel block in 1912; Mrs. F. L. Rafter who made transformations and braids to support the Merry Widow hats; Fannie Armstrong, Pamelia Bosley, Mary Cleary, Mrs. Lilla Gates Hadley and George Davis.
The Reliable Bargain store came to Bellows Falls in 1919 and ten years later moved from the Cray block up to the Blakeley block with Simon Juskowitz, proprietor. The present manager, Irving Slater who came from Keene, N. H. changed the name to the The Reliable Store. Prominent in business here for many years were the Winnewisser brothers, Fred and August. Fred died in 1936 after running the newsstand for many years and August was first in the furniture business, later opening The Surprise Store on Westminster Street, a variety shop in which he was engaged in 1910. He moved to Brooklyn in 1912 and later to Lockwood, N. Y. where he left the business world for farming. The Kandy Craft, at the foot of the stairs, closed in 1910 after six years in business and in the same location George
2 See Addendum
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and Nicholas Cressanthis later opened the Washington Candy Company and also, in 1924, a United Cigar Store agency beside it. As common as ice cream sodas are today, it is interesting to note that the first ice cream "parlor" in town was run almost seventy years ago by C. C. Chapin in the store where he sold toys and what he advertised as "fine" New York candy, 18c a pound," in the Arms block. George Wilson opened the Variety Store on Rockingham Street at one time also run by Agnes Porter. He ran it until his death in 1936 and for a while also ran The Woman's Shop.
Once shoe stores had their place on the east side of the Square. H. N. Bellows came to work there for Dunham Brothers when he was twenty years old, starting his long career in the shoe business. Later, with Harold Hatch, he bought the store which became Hatch & Bellows. Mr. Bellows was in the shoe business for 35 years, working in the store when it was sold to Gerald Page in 1912 and which later became the Kent Shoe Store and which was taken over by Duane Aldrich in 1929. Many people remember when, as youngsters, they were solemnly fitted to square-toed Educator shoes or smart, snub-nosed, buttoned oxfords in this store. Like several stores in town, they advertised "mileage bought and sold and rented" which meant tickets on any railroad. In 1918 Richardson Brothers were running the shoe shop formerly owned by "Dummy" Keefe, the popular but kindly nickname given to the deaf and dumb pro- prietor. The Endicott-Johnson Shoe Store, Fred Martel, manager, opened May 13, 1933 in its present location on West- minster Street, Maurice O'Connor became manager in 1939 but left to work in a Burlington store of the same company. Albert Dick opened a shoe store in the old "Corner Drug Store" and after his untimely death, his widow, with the aid of Fred Martel, formerly of Endicott-Johnson, carried on the store. In 1950, Russell Sargent, for four years and a half manager of the J. J. Newberry store, took over the active managership and in 1952, went into partnership with Mrs. Dick.
In 1886, a few months after the first town hall was built, a clothing store for men was opened in the building by Frank G. Pierce. It has been there ever since, opening again in the new building after the fire of 1925. In 1915, Mr. Pierce's son, Dana F. entered the business with him and when Mr. Pierce died, February 19, 1919, "the dean of business men," it became the Dana F. Pierce store. He died in November, 1940, aged 62 years, after an illness of three months and after 25 years in the store. The next month the store was purchased by George E. Page of the Page Paint and Wallpaper store which he sold to Kermit Whitehill in 1941.3
Abraham Serlin, known as "Abie" to everyone in town, opened a men's clothing store on Rockingham Street in 1911 which he operated successfully for many years, selling out in 3 See Addendum
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1946 to Daniel Howard and moving to New York City. Like Solomon Levi, he sold shoes and shirts to half the male portion of town for thirty-five years. Born in Poland in 1879 when that country was part of Russia, he came to the United States in 1905 and to Bellows Falls as a pack peddler. His first shop was in the present restaurant of the Rockingham Hotel and he moved into his last location in 1924. In 1928 he made a 16-week trip to Palestine to visit his mother and after he sold his shop, he returned once more to Palestine. Howard recently moved his shop into the space vacated by the Western Union in the Square.
In 1919 J. J. Fenton celebrated 30 years in the men's clothing business, coming here from the Pratt, Wright & Co. in Brattle- boro, to open the present store with his former company as part owners. He arrived just a week ahead of the famous blizzard of '88 which did not daunt him and in ten years he was sole owner of the store. The location has always remained the same, the former site of the Howard Hardware Co. which moved one store down the line. In 1912 the Fenton store was enlarged and improved with an addition in the rear and the upstairs space utilized. In May of 1912, Mr. Fenton bought the stock and business including the undertaking work, of the Chase Furniture Co. and John Hennessey who had been a clerk in the Fenton store since 1899, moved across the Square to become a partner in the new store which is still known as the Fenton & Hennessey store. For both the Chase Furniture and the Fenton store, Fred L. Whitcomb worked for 21 years as upholsterer, coming to Bellows Falls about 1900 and later working at his trade at his home in Westminster for seven years when he and Mrs. Whit- comb moved to West Springfield, Mass. to make their home with their daughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Sweet. In 1914 the furniture store took over the F. B. F. grocery space next to it and in 1954 annexed the space used by the Boston Store on its other side.
In March of 1914, C. Dana Whitcomb went to work in the clothing store which has been almost 70 years "on the Square" with many longtime employees still on hand to show you socks and suits and hats and ties. These people included, in 1953, Mr. Whitcomb, president and treasurer; Joseph Eastman, vice president and Hugh Sullivan, secretary, who became officers in 1930 after twenty years of service with the firm. In 1955 Mr. Whitcomb retired from the firm because of ill health and through a stock sale, transferred the bulk of his ownership to Sullivan and Eastman. Mr. Sullivan is now the new president and Mr. Eastman, treasurer. Mr. Whitcomb retained the post of vice president until his death in St. Petersburg, Florida, January 22, 1956. Miss Mary Flavin has been bookkeeper for more than thirty years and until Joseph Dionne retired in 1953, he was connected with the firm as tailor for 51 years. In 1930 the Fenton & Hennessey store was taken over in full by Mr.
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Hennessey and in 1938 they opened Toyland on the top floor of the Centennial block with furniture on the second floor. The same year the J. J. Fenton Company celebrated their 50th anniversary. In 1923 the home of the late Kate Williams on Westminster Street was purchased by Fenton & Hennessey as a funeral home. An unusual feature of the J. J. Fenton store is that it has customers as far away as China and Puerto Rico as well as California and boasts that it outfits the third and fourth generations.
The Riley-Wolff Clothing Co. opened in April, 1914 but closed the next year, the year, as it happened, of many business changes. The Abbott and Wolff store had opened in 1912.
One of the business changeovers in 1915 was that of the George R. Wales dry goods store which for over thirty years had operated as the "dependable store" under the sign WALES CASH STORE. Mr. Wales opened his store in 1885, it being one of the oldest firms in town when it changed hands. It was first situated on the east side of the Square later moving over to the other side and the space now held by the Vermont Savings Bank. Mr. Wales started his mercantile career as a clerk in the George Guild dry goods store and when he struck out on his own, his first and only clerk was his sister, Mrs. Eliza Lane who was with the store until it closed and was a contributing factor to its success. Many a woman bought her needles and thread and yard goods of George R. Wales who died in 1953 at the good age of 94. Among the many clerks who worked there, some of long duration were Mrs. Etta Howard, Misses Alice and Hattie Hapgood, Ed Howard, John Coughlin, Eddie Stone, Margaret Cray, Scott Splan, Mary Wales, Cora Rice, Elizabeth Hennessey and Nellie Smith.
In 1915, E. S. Whitcomb of the Speare-Whitcomb store in Nashua, N. H., bought the Wales store. Mr. Whitcomb had spent his whole life in the dry goods business, having been associated with it in Barre, Randolph and Boston. He carried on the old store under the "dependable" trademark. In March of 1921, Mr. Whitcomb was notified that the Savings Bank needed his space and he moved across the Square, in fact, moved overnight into the remodeled Hotel Windham block where he has been ever since, adding at the rear, the shoe store purchased from Richardson Bros. in 1919. In 1950 Mr. Whitcomb's health forced him to give over the active management to Albert Tidd who had been with him for many years. E. E. Whitcomb, Inc., includes Mr. Whitcomb and Mr. and Mrs. Tidd as incorporators, Albert Hinds, Jr., began work as assistant manager in 1951. In 1940 Mr. Whitcomb celebrated 25 years as a merchant in Bellows Falls and the store is still noted for carrying the best in women's ready-to-wear as well as dry goods. The fire of 1932 put the store temporarily out of business but it was reopened the next year.4
4 See Addendum
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In January, 1917, Mrs. Mary Holmes sold her dry goods shop, the M. L. Holmes & Co. at No. 8 Square, to C. T. Allen. Mrs. Holmes was the daughter of George Guild, a pioneer in the dry goods business and who ran the Holmes store until he re- tired. Mr. Allen worked for Mr. Guild for some years and ran the store until 1926. Chamberlain's Gift Shop, opened origin- ally by Mrs. Betty Chamberlain for women's wear and gifts, has been owned and operated for several years by Arthur and Winifred Schade of Walpole. It was sold in November, 1955, to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Hill of Saxtons River and named the Band Box. The new manager is Mrs. Anne Burns, sister of Mr. Hill.
For many years two dry goods stores carried on business on the east side of the Square, side by side, one run by J. C. Day, the other by Dallas Pollard, cousin of Pres. Coolidge, as the Specialty Store. In 1912 they knocked out the partition be- ween them and combined forces as the Day-Pollard Co. You might say that the partition was burned out for it was in No- vember after the fire that March that they opened as one firm, having also bought out A. F. Winnewisser's Surprise Store and moved in there for the summer. Both Mr. Day and Mr. Pollard had long been in business in the Square, Mr. Day coming to town in 1877 from Keene, N. H., at one time managing the Goodnow, Hunt & Pearson store there and Mr. Pollard coming in 1901 from the Dunham Brothers' store in Brattleboro. Here, in 1910, the ninth grade graduates bought their white dresses with skirts of wide "hamburg" embroidery, their long white silk gloves, their lacy fans and the stiff taffeta ribbon for hair bows and sashes. Four years later, again graduates, they came here for the ankle length suits with the two-tiered skirts and the "washable" silk for blouses to go with them. But they bought little more for in 1916 the store was sold to Goodnow, Jewett & Bishop who held a sale of the stock in their basement in Sep- tember. Soon afterwards the Pollards moved to Burlington where Mr. Pollard became a deputy income tax collector in 1918 and in 1920 a revenue expert in business for himself in which he is still engaged in Burlington. Mr. Pollard is remembered for his work in local theatricals where he was a popular figure for many years.
In 1918 Mr. Day celebrated his 70th birthday and he later moved to Brattleboro where he passed away in 1936 at the age of 87. He was an important part of the community for almost three generations, having been president of the local Y. M. C. A. and one of the five men who served as a committee to arrange for the building of the new Arch Bridge in 1905.
In 1922 the Goodnow store, Bellows Falls' largest shopping center at that time, celebrated its 25th birthday. It opened in 1901 in Bellows Falls as the Goodnow Bros. & Pearson on the site of Henry Amidon's jewelry store using half the first floor
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and three clerks. In 1926 it was a large department store with 18,000 square feet of floor space and thirty-one clerks. Resident partners then were Will Jewett and Ralph Pillsbury, Mr. Jewett succeeding Pearson as general manager in 1907 and becoming a member of the firm whose name in 1913 was Goodnow, Jewett & Bishop. The store sold clothing for the whole family besides shoes and millinery and when David Savage closed his grocery store in the Trust Company building soon after 1910, the Good- now store took this over, adding food to their repertoire. This department closed in 1927 and the Trust Company enlarged into the space. Among the clerks who worked there over a consider- able period of time were Kate Sullivan, Margaret Hartnett, Ame- dee Fontaine, Steve Belaski, Goodwin Parker, Edward Moriarty, E. J. Boucher, Ivy Parker, Katharine Walsh, Mrs. M. J. Butler, Lionel Hilliard, J. O. Wiley, Freeman Bigelow, Nellie Hartnett, Ann Brickley, Mary McCuaig and Richard Rich. Of these Kate Sullivan, Margaret Hartnett, Ann Brickley and Amedee Fontaine are still on duty behind the counters, Fontaine in George Page's store, the others in E. S. Whitcomb, Inc. In 1938 the owners of the store voted to liquidate as since the depression it had been forced to curtail its activities and the future was uncertain and after 37 years "on the Square," the Goodnow store closed its doors.
In 1951 Mrs. Etta Harlow of Westminster opened the Yard Goods Shop in the Square formerly occupied by the antique shop of Mrs. George Bolles who moved on to Westminster Street. For fifteen years Mrs. Constance Barry ran a dress shop on Westminster Street following her employment with the Goodnow store and in 1936 this was purchased by Mrs. Byron O. Way and Mrs. George Page who added knitting lessons to hats and gowns. At the same time Messers Way and Page kept up with their women-or perhaps it was the other way around-by opening the Page Paint and Wallpaper store in rooms near the stairs formerly occupied by Mrs. Stella Dickinson's Epicure Shop where lunches and tea were served and fancy groceries sold.
For twelve years the New York Racket sold dry goods and crockery in the Square under W. E. Conway who was a local merchant for 28 years in all. In 1912 this store moved up the Square near the Goodnow store which took over the space soon after the Racket went across the Square into what had been the dining room of the Hotel Windham before the fire, where it ended ts career. Among the clerks who worked for the Racket were Gerry Walker who says that his wages were $7.50 a week and "they stayed open two nights a week." He moved right along with the store, he says because he always "went along with the lease." But he stayed behind when it crossed the Square, going to work for the Goodnow store, being sixteen years and a half "on the Square." Other clerks among the bevy of sprightly girls with stylish pompadours and high-collared shirtwaists and
THE OLD STONE MILL AT CAMBRIDGEPORT
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THANKSGIVING HIGH SCHOOL BAZAAR 1915
MARCH, 1936 FLOOD
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CORNER OF HADLEY AND HENRY STREETS HURRICANE, SEPTEMBER 21, 1938
S FALLS
WHEELER'S VERMONT
WHEELER BAND, 1910
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B.F. H.S. 1910.
BELLOWS FALLS HIGH SCHOOL, 1910
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young men with the slicked down hair and high collars of fifty years ago were Kate Sullivan who has spent her life in the mer- cantile field and who once ran her own place, The Specialty Shop which closed in 1915; her brother Owen; Nellie Keane who previously ran a shoe store; Margaret Mclaughlin, Dora Vayo.
The Racket space became the Boston Store, run by John McWeeney of Boston who had beeen in the dry goods business for 36 years. He was assisted in the store for many years by his daughters Pauline and Gertrude and his son Joseph. A long time alterations clerk was Lydia Talbot. The family bought the large Carroll Moore home on Henry Street. Death took the father then the son and the store closed in 1950. The space was rented by the Suburban Furniture store of Springfield, Vt., later, by the Beth Bishop Shop, woman's clothing, which has left town.
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