by Priscilla Jones Kleinpeter
for the Plymouth Historical Society
From
a 1905 article written by Martha F. Hazelton
Martha Hazelton was born in 1845, and was five years
old when the car of progress rolled into Plymouth in the form of the railroad.
She remembered standing in front of their old house, near where Mr.
Warren Chase lived and seeing the first train of cars come into the village. The
old house was said to be the first framed home built in Plymouth.
The attic was a storehouse for powder and shot in Revolutionary times.
It was a two-story, square building like the old McQuesten house on
Ward’s Hill and was burned a few years later. She talks of attending the old
schoolhouse which stood just north of the Tyler House in 1852 and 1853.
The Tyler House was later enlarged and became the Plymouth Inn.
With the passing of the Keniston home another ancient
landmark was gone, but the long north part still remained, which the Weld family
built for a dancing hall. It was
never used for that amusement, however, as the church members strongly objected
to dancing. Young folks would go to
singing school there and to writing school.
The Welds were stylish, according to Mrs. Hazelton, as they kept a
colored slave named Antony, so said Ellen Rogers, daughter of Peabody Rogers.
Prior to the Kenistons owning the house, John Rogers’ family lived
there and Mr. Rogers’ store was in a brown house near Depot Hill.
Charlotte Rogers was a young woman of great beauty
and character, as well as a talented and efficient helper in church and the
choir. She was married to President
William Tucker and they lived in the house on Highland Street later owned by
Irving Emerson.
The Dodge and Clifford dwellings were erected soon
after 1850 on Main Street. The
Rogers house stood where Mr. Bass’ lived when these notes were originally
written. In the Rogers house two
nice old ladies resided, sisters of John and Peabody Rogers, called Aunt
Caroline and Aunt Relief. The
elderly ladies gave lovely lilac blossoms and pink roses from their yard to the
neighborhood children. Aunt
Caroline told of seeing a bear on the street below their house and about Daniel
Webster boarding at their home when her mother was living.
She told that Mr. Weld had the cupola of the Daniel Webster Courthouse in
his garden and used it for an arbor. It
was broken when the courthouse was moved from the center of the village to South
Main Street and was unfit for further use as a cupola.
The cupola was replaced later with one made “according to someone’s
idea of fitness.” Mr. Farnum, a
wheelwright, owned the building while it was on South Main Street and pointed
out the place on the inside where Daniel Webster wrote his name in chalk in
1835. Unfortunately, the name was
soon erased, as no one thought about preserving it at that time.
Squire Walker owned Walkers Hill, sometimes called
South Mountain. He was a great man
in his day and held his head high when he walked.
It was said that he once stumbled over a cow lying in the road, not
seeing such an obstruction.
There was a large white house where Mr. Gould’s
house later stood. It was the home
of Mr. Samuel Webster’s family; north of that were the Miller house and bar
with a row of tall poplar trees in front. Beyond,
Esquire Eastman lived in the yellow Keniston house and had his hatters shop
south of his house, where in the upper story Mrs. Morgan, his daughter, had her
studio in summer and taught a large class in oil painting.
Mr. Eastman was once Postmaster and the office was in the lower part of
the house where Mrs. Cyrus Keniston used to live.
In front of Rose Lawn about two rods from Main
Street, was the old school house, one story, shaped like the public library
building. Ther floors on each side
were inclined down to the middle where the large stove sat.
Girls sat on the south side and boys were on the north, so they faced
each other. Some of the older girls
were Dora Keniston, Abbie Burnham, Charlotte Dearborn, Martha Robie, Josephine
Langdon, Ellen Green, and Mary Houston. Sarah
Burnham and Clara Robie used to go in to a class in drawing.
They had nearly finished their education at the district school.
They were beautiful young ladies and the younger ones admired them very
much.
West of the schoolhouse was the Webster pasture where
blueberries grew. Soon after this
time Rose Lawn was built by Deacon Clough Webster, and Charlotte Dearborn
Fox’s home by Mr. Latham. In 1854
the new school building on South Main Street was finished and Henry Blair first
taught in it. A Miss Johnson from
Contoocook was a much beloved and superior instructor who interested her pupils
in the driest studies. She also
taught a private school for several terms in the old Holmes Academy.
The students loved to hear William Tucker speak in the lyceum debates.
Moody Merrill, Asbury Smith, Bartlett Green, Frank Russell, and Robert
Clark were some of the pupils, among many others.
Mr. Jewett was the minister who visited the school
and made an address at the close of each term, telling the boys not to swear,
and exhorting all not to forget in the long vacation all they had been taught.
He was a good friend and gave the children many Bibles and books.
One of his gifts was Leigh Richmond’s letters and Baxter’s Call to
the Unconverted, long held treasures to the writer.
The Pemigewasset House was much smaller during this
period and before the Fox Block was built there was a large dwelling house and
Mr. Dearborn’s store. Russell’s
store had a south door on Highland Street and in the boarding house west of the
Holmes Academy, Mrs. Dodge and Mrs. Seth Greenleaf with their families lived for
a year after their arrival in town.
Mrs. Hazelton states that when her grandmother
traveled to Concord from Plymouth she started at eight in the morning and rode
the stage until half past four in the afternoon.
Mr. Marden was the driver. Mr.
Marden often told that at Franklin he sometimes took on a passenger, Daniel
Webster, who always wished to sit beside him and talk.
The poet, John Greenleaf Whittier stopped in Plymouth
several times as he was a friend of Peabody Rogers when he lived on the Dustin
farm beyond the fairgrounds. Mrs.
Cyrus Sargeant said she once invited Whittier and Lucy Latcom to take tea at her
house.
To read the
entire article it can be found in the scrapbook assembled by Caroline Mudgett
and is on the main table at the Plymouth Historical Museum. The above was paraphrased and shortened for inclusion here.