USA > Vermont > Windham County > Londonderry > The history with genealogical sketches of Londonderry > Part 6
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In June, 1834, the society dedicated the building, which still stands and is regularly used for religious services, situated on the hill at the northerly end of the South village. From the dedication of this building for a period
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The History of Londonderry
of several years a good degree of prosperity seemed to attend the society, but dissensions arose and soon assumed most serious proportions. Finally these difficulties caused a complete disruption and in 1845 a formal separa- tion of the two factions or parties took place, they being known respectively as the northern and the southern brethren.
The "southern brethren" continued to occupy the brick church, under Reverend Sem Pierce as their pastor, while the "northern brethren" met for a time in the school houses at the south village and at the Center of the town, and also in the old church at the Middle-of-the-town.
In 1847 they erected a frame building at the lower part of the village, (South Londonderry), then termed "The Patch," about where the dwelling of Hallie A. Thompson now stands. This was dedicated in October, 1847 and while it was used as a place of worship Reverend Luke Sherwin and Reverend Russel Wheeler served as pastors. For nine years this separation continued in spite of various vigorous efforts, by no means confined to the membership of the two factions, to effect a union.
In 1854 a union was effected and the reunited church resumed its worship in the brick meeting house. The frame building on "the Patch" was sold and later moved across the highway and became a part of the old carriage shop still standing. In January, 1856, the brick house, having been repaired, was rededicated and the church continued to prosper.
Again, in 1880, the building was thoroughly repaired, a frame addition for use as a vestry made, and a service of rededication held September 21, 1880.
The names of the several pastors who have served this church from its organization to the present time (1927) are here given in the order of their service, but it is impossible to state the precise term of such service in several cases:
I. GERSHOM LANE
2. SETH EWER
3. DAVID SWEET
4. SEM PIERCE
5. RUFUS SMITH
6. LUKE SHERWIN
7. RUSSELL WHEELER
8. I. C. CARPENTER
9. J. P. HUNTINGTON
IO. CHARLES COON
II. JOHN S. GOODALL
12. RICHARD NOTT
13. JOHN S. GOODALL, second pastorate
14. L. W. WHEELER
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Church History
15. HALSEY C. LEAVITT
16. OLIVER P. FULLER
17. NEWELL A. WOOD
18. WILBUR T. RICE
19. FRED E. COBURN
20 RALPH H. TIBBALD
21. WARREN C. GOODWIN
22. F. KENDRICK HACKETT
23. EDWARD E. ENO
24. CHARLES O. DUNHAM
It is highly probable that prior to 1831 some of the earlier circuit-riders of the Methodists had visited the Londonderry field, and if they did so it is certain that services under their ministrations were held within the town for those men moved from place to place for that very purpose, taking ad- vantage of every opportunity to preach or exhort and making opportunities where none were otherwise afforded.
No accurate or definite knowledge on this score, however, exists, but in 1831 one Allen, a local Methodist preacher, said to have hailed from Win- hall, preached at the "Block School house," which was located in the south- westerly part of the town. So far as exact knowledge of the facts go, this was the beginning of Methodism in town.
Following Allen came Sanderson and Wells who also preached at this same place, as well as in some of the neighboring towns.
During the next four or five years there was preaching service at irregular intervals and such services were held in various places, at school houses and in private homes, for this society then had no definite abiding place in the town or vicinity.
The "Londonderry Circuit" in those early days included also the towns of Landgrove, Peru, Windham, Winhall and Weston, and for many years the preachers on this circuit were two in number and had charge of the de- nominational interests in all these towns. At this time and down to 1845 this territory was within the jurisdiction of the New Hampshire Conference. In 1840 the house of worship at the north village was erected and then for the first time Methodism had a home among our people wherein to hold regular public services.
The deed of the land for a site was given by Niles Aldrich to the Stewards of the M. E. Church on the Londonderry Circuit, December 26, 1840, and describes the plot as that, duly bounded, "on which the meeting-house now stands."
About 1843 the harmony of this society was disturbed by serious differ- ences among the members.
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The History of Londonderry
At this time E. Hutchinson and M. R. Herrick were the preachers and, after preaching a few months, Herrick, who was the later comer of the two, departed. Hutchinson left the Methodists, joining the Wesleyans, and the field was for a time left vacant, until Moses Adams and Lorenzo Pettengill came to the work of undoing the evil results of the preceding strife and bitter feeling. Their efforts met with much success and the work went on with increasing prosperity.
From the establishment of the Vermont Conference, in 1845, to 1850 two men were kept constantly upon this circuit but, in the latter year, only one, Reverend Z. S. Haynes, was sent here. In 1852 the Methodists joined with the Congregationalists in erecting the frame building in the South village and made use of it for public worship for many years. The pulpit in this "Union House," for several succeeding years, was supplied by each of these denominations, as a rule, for one half the time respectively, but with some interruptions.
During several years following 1852 the Methodist Conference sent dif- ferent men to the north and south churches in town, each having additional territory within his charge, but in some of them the same pastor supplied both churches. In 1869 the church building at the North village was pur- chased by the Second Congregational Society and the Methodist strength centered at the South village. February 29, 1872, the Stewards of the M. E. Church quit-claimed the interest of their denomination in the Union House at the South village and the title stood in the Congregational Society for about two years. This was the old, or First Congregational Society, which was so far brought back to life as to thus hold the title, though no pretense was made of its holding or controlling the regular religious services therein; and the title was so held until, in 1874, the same was conveyed to the Stew- ards of the M. E. Church, who made repairs and alterations to the building in 1887 and again in 1900. They maintained regular services there until 1920, since which time no such services have been held.
The "Second Congregational Church of Londonderry" was organized August 19, 1868 by a Council composed of the ministers of ten Congrega- tional churches and nine lay delegates, and at that time numbered twelve members. The next year a parsonage was erected at the North village and the church building there purchased of the Stewards of the Methodist church. The parsonage was destroyed by fire in 1915 and rebuilt in the following year. This church has never been strong in numbers and has had, from time to time, assistance from funds of the Home, or State, Missionary Society of its denomination. It has not sustained preaching services continuously but has kept its life and organization, and of late years seemed to gain some- what in strength. In the past few years, and at the present (1927) it has
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Church History
united with the church in Peru in the employment of a pastor who serves both parishes.
This brief sketch is believed to cover, in the main, the history of all the evangelical churches that have existed in the present town of Londonderry since its earliest settlement.
In 1901 some adherents of the Universalist belief purchased a lot in the North village with dwelling house thereon and remodelled the house, mak- ing additions to it, and transformed it into a small but very neat and pretty chapel in which intermittent services have since been held. Such services have been, almost entirely, conducted by students for the ministry in that denomination and by those taking their vacations in the vicinity.
Contemplation of the early churches and their activities invites and al- most compels a comparison with conditions in these later days, and we find nothing more marked than the change in church-going habits.
On hard benches or in uncomfortable, straight backed pews our grand- sires were wont to sit out two discourses on a Sunday, each double the length of a modern sermon, with serenity and real or well feigned satisfac- tion, while our grandmothers sought, often with most indifferent success, to mitigate the wintry chill of the unheated, stoveless edifice by means of their little individual "foot warmers" charged with a tray full of coals, and the children, in uneasy endurance, awaited the time for the benediction.
Were those conditions revived, to what point would the present scanty congregations shrink and how vain would seem the effort to now fill the pews. In these country districts more attractive churches and more con- venient audience rooms, fitted and furnished with restful and comfort-induc- ing seats, have signally failed to attract or to hold the attendance of the majority and the worshipping congregations have grown fewer and fewer in number. The teams such as once came well laden to the church door are now rarely seen, and the more pretentious automobile fails to make good the number brought thither on days of service.
The old rows of sheds adjacent, erected to shelter the horses and vehicles of worshippers, are going, or have gone, to decay and have been in their later days, for the most part, utilized for purposes wholly foreign to the service for which they were designed. Times, manners and customs have changed greatly, and these conditions are but manifestations of the change.
It may be, as is often said, that real, true worship is no less sincere though evidenced in other ways than then; and a gloomy pessimist must he be who asserts that the world, or its people as a whole, are growing worse rather than better morally. The real spirit may grow and strengthen though man- made creeds have lessened force.
Outside the religious aspect of the situation, however, this growing ten- dency toward non-attendance of public worship, with the weekly mingling of families once common at the Sunday services, had a social value and
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The History of Londonderry
influence and its decadence is regrettable for its place is not wholly filled by other gatherings founded on later customs or usages.
As far back as the original grant of Kent some provision had been made toward providing a home for the pastor who should minister to the people of the town then yet to be settled and later, under the Vermont Charter of Londonderry in 1780, similar provision was made in the reservation of land for "the first settled minister," as well as for other public purposes; but the minister's lot, though later set out and definitely located, was not at any time used as a parsonage lot or personally occupied by the minister.
The first parsonage lot in town was a sixty-five acre farm conveyed to the First Congregational Society by Damaris Gibson, April 1, 1836.
Some question arising as to the validity of the title so conveyed, a second deed of the same tract was executed to the Society, by Lyman Whitman, March 5, 1846. This land lies about one-half mile easterly of the site of the old, or first meeting house and was long known, in later years, as "the Ben. Reed farm." This property, or that part of it on which stood the buildings was disposed of by the Society March 14, 1862, the other portion having been sold off about eleven years previously.
On the same day, March 14, 1862, Benjamin Reed, to whom this old par- sonage was conveyed, in turn conveyed to "Lyman Whitman, Agent, and the members of the First Congregational Society of Londonderry" half of a house in the village of South Londonderry, designating in the deed the several rooms in the house which were conveyed and covering "an undivided half" of the other buildings connected therewith and the lot whereon they stood.
This was used as a parsonage by the Society, named so long as the services of a pastor were retained and later, in 1883, was sold and conveyed by agents of the Society. This act seems to have been the last evidence of any degree of vitality in the old Society.
A little more than a year after the Methodists received the deed of the lot on which stood their church building at the North village, Niles Aldrich and Abel Johnson conveyed to the Stewards of that church a parsonage lot "with buildings thereon standing." The date of this deed was August 29, 1842 and the premises so conveyed were those lying next westerly of the meeting house, containing one half acre, later known as the "Clarissa Wy- man place" and owned by Ella M. Payne at the time of her decease.
In 1866 the Stewards of the church sold this parsonage lot to J. W. Marsh. In 1860 the First Baptist Society purchased a lot on the northerly limit of the village of South Londonderry and erected the parsonage buildings which have continued to be occupied ever since by the several pastors serving that society.
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Church History
In 1868 the Methodist Society built their parsonage, which was made ready for occupancy in January, 1869. The lot had been purchased some time previously and was immediately opposite the parsonage of the Baptist Society at the north end of the village.
After the Baptist and Methodists united in their regular weekly services on Sundays, and in support of such exercises this last named parsonage was sold to Frank L. Darling.
Schools
NOTWITHSTANDING the provisions made for aid in the maintenance of schools in town, both in the charter of Kent and, later, in that of London- derry, it was a matter of long years before any material assistance was afforded by those lands reserved for that purpose in the later charter; and none whatever at any time came from those set out in the charter of Kent. Our knowledge of the earliest, and of the early, schools in town is obscured by the haze of long past years and lack of records.
Even tradition offers but little beyond the statement that the first school was taught by one Doctor Lazelle and its sessions held in the dwelling houses of David Cochran, Joseph Oughterson and Hugh Montgomery. As to when it began, how long continued, the number of pupils attending and the means or manner of supporting it tradition itself is silent; but declares that the first school house was built, at an early, undetermined date, in the vicinity of "the Great Pond" (now Lowell Lake), and that it stood until about 1814 when it was destroyed by fire, and was rebuilt within what was later known as District No. 5.
Some time later, but at a date not now to be determined, another school house was built near the height of land between the present two villages. This stood upon the road which then passed over the hill a little farther to the west than the present highway and nearly opposite the Dr. John Gibson brick house, now owned by Robert Batstone.
In 1804, the road having been changed to its present location, Stephen Chaffee conveyed to the town a parcel of land extending westerly from the "new road" to the old school house grounds, but very soon after this the building was moved to the site of what was long known as the "Middle-of- the-town" school house (No. 4), half a mile to the south of the old grounds.
At a town meeting in March, 1797, a committee was chosen "to Devide the town into Destricts for Schools." No action by such committee is re- corded and the next reference to the subject appears in the warning for the annual town meeting in 1801 which contained an article: "to see what the town will do about dividing into School Districts as the law directs." At that meeting four School districts were, by vote of the town, set out and described by somewhat indefinite bounds and, in June following at a special meeting called for that purpose, it was voted to set off "Joseph Allen, John Wakefield, Ebenezer Wakefield and Joseph Allen Junior, into a School Dis- trict by themselves," but imposed a condition that they should pay their
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School History
just proportion then already voted "in the District to which they now be- long" for the purpose of building a school house "in sd District, & for school- ing the present summer."
At the then next annual meeting, March, 1802, it was voted to set off a District called the Center District, which was to include "all the Inhabitants south of West River not heretofore set off into other districts."
The modification of the several Districts and constituting additional ones went on for considerable time, but no one now, nor even then as it would seem, could tell from the records just what territory was included in them severally. Most of the descriptions profess to contain no boundaries of spe- cific territory but merely set certain individuals from one District to an- other. In several years the town, in annual meetings, voted school taxes and, in some instances, chose School District officers.
The first record of a school tax on polls and estate is in the proceedings of the annual meeting in March, 1804, when a tax of two cents on the dollar on the list of 1803 was voted, to be paid in hard money.
In March, 1809, a like tax of two cents on the dollar was voted, "payable in wheat, Rye, Corn, flax, flax seed, wool, oats, Butter, Cheese."
A census of the scholars between four and eighteen years of age was filed that same month showing the following numbers:
Ist School District, 50 3d School District, 28
6th School District, IO 2nd School District, 38
North School District, 16
Center
School District, 41
Fifth School District, 50
233
At the time the legislature abolished the old District System and estab- lished the "Town System" there were thirteen Districts in town and two "Fractional Districts," the latter being a small territory annexed to No. 5 in Winhall ("Winhall Hollow") and a little larger tract annexed to No. 1 in Weston ("Weston Island").
As a result of the legislation referred to the entire town now forms one "Town School District" and all the schools are under control of the Board of School Directors. Of the school houses formerly occupied by the old School Districts only five remain in the ownership of the Town District; all the others having been disposed of and many of them torn down. One of the five is that locally known as the "Block School House," so termed from the manner of contructing the original house, the walls of which were built up by placing large, squared timbers one upon another, like blocks, until the desired height was reached. This old building was removed some years be-
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The History of Londonderry
fore the old District was legislated out of existence and replaced by a sub- stantial frame building not now regularly used for school purposes.
At the session of the State Legislature in 1852 "The Londonderry Aca- demy" was incorporated and on the 5th of the following February was duly organized under the provisions of its charter. Niles Aldrich was elected Presi- dent; Barnet Wait, Vice-President; David Arnold, Clerk, and David O. Gale, Treasurer. This corporation had existence by grace of the power of the legislature but never had either building, building site or endowment. By virtue of the corporate name the District school house in the village of Londonderry was dubbed "The Academy" and the officers arranged, for a few years, to secure a teacher "to teach and manage" the school each fall; the teacher's compensation depending upon tuition fees collected from his pupils. In fact being nothing more, save in name, than the "select school" at that period common in the different towns round about. The year follow- ing the organization nothing was done,-not even the annual meeting held, -but in 1855, 1856 and 1857 meetings were held and, in each of those years, it was voted "to have a school in the autumn." These facts all appear from the Clerk's records, still preserved, and here they end.
The West River Academy, "to be located in the south village of London- derry," was chartered by the legislature in 1853. That this action was secur- ed merely and really in the interest of education is hardly credited, but it seems rather to have had its origin in the rivalry between the two villages which long existed to the detriment of the best interests of the town at large, but now, happily, well worn away.
No record of any organization under this charter can be discovered nor, in truth, is it certain that there ever was a formal organization.
Like the "Londonderry Academy" this corporation exerted its activities, so far as there was any activity, without endowment, abiding place or visible means of support. As a rule it was only once in two years that there were slight evidences of its life, alternating with like biennial exhibitions of vital- ity in the other village. On such occasions some teacher, usually a college student, was secured to conduct a fall term but practically all that the in- stitution could offer him as an inducement was permission to use the name of "West River Academy" in advertising his school and occupancy of the village school house for its sessions.
The NAME was practically all that ever had real existence in either of these institutions and none could note their transition from life to death, so slight was the change.
The common, or District, schools measure the full extent of educational opportunities within the town beyond what is already stated until the estab- lishment of a High School at the South village by vote of the town in March, 1911, "to instruct the School Directors to provide a two-years course of higher instruction in town."
Mills and Manufacturing Establishments
THE manufacturing establishments that have existed in the town are more imposing in point of number than in the extent of business done, and the sites of comparatively few of them are now occupied.
The natural centralization of business in the villages is, in part, an expla- nation of this and the fact that most of the earlier mills were situated on a small stream which failed to furnish a sufficient volume of water to do the business when the stream shrunk, on the clearing of the lands and the busi- ness increased in amount, doubtless had equal force in producing this result. These various establishments will be considered as separate groups disting- uished from each other by the streams upon which they were situated rather than by reference to the dates of their erection.
The first mill in town was built by Captain Edward Aiken in 1774 at the outlet of "The Great Pond," now known as Lowell Lake, and was fitted up as a saw mill and grist mill, capable at best of barely furnishing means for grinding the grain for family use and supplying coarse lumber for building purposes. But little occasion on demand for such lumber existed for many years as the houses were nearly all primitive log structures.
One of the old traditions is that, when the first mill was built by Captain Aiken his cousin, Deacon Edward Aiken, had an interest in the mill and that they there sawed out lumber for a frame house for each of themselves which, being piled up in the mill yard, was lost in a fire which consumed both mill and lumber. The date of this occurrence is fixed as previous to 1776.
The mill was promptly rebuilt and for a long time was the only mill in town. It is said that, in 1776, Colonel Rogers built a two-story frame dwell- ing on his home farm, once known as the "Larkin Place."
This may have been the first frame raised in town though it is uncertain whether this or a frame house on the farm formerly called the Brooks Place and lying westerly from the main "hill road" between the villages was the first put up. One of these was, doubtless, the first frame house in Kent and neither could claim any great priority in point of time over the other.
The timber for these houses was, undoubtedly, sawn at the Captain Aiken mill. This mill, and the land about it, passed through many different pro- prietors during the next twenty-five years, among other owners being George
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The History of Londonderry
McMurphy, who once owned an undivided half of it, John Jacobs, Samuel Thomson, Andrew Morrison, Captain Warner and Daniel, his son.
From the father and son last named the lake took the name of Warner's Pond by which it was long known and by which it is designated in some old deeds. It was Daniel Warner who first stocked the pond with pickerel.
Going to New Hampshire for them, he procured about eighty which he put into those waters from which quantities reaching even to tons have since been taken. Other buildings were put up in place of the original struc- ture, or rather in its immediate vicinity, to replace it; for in a deed as early as Oct. II, 1793 the description of the land conveyed, covering the then existing mill, reference is made to the "old saw mill," even then a ruin.
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