Chapter X. History of Nashua Village
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5 6 tZIS TOt Y" OF N.4 SHUM, N. H. CHAPTER X. FIRST STAGE COACH. BOATING ON THE MERRIMACK. POPULATION IN I800. CANAL BOAT LAUNCHED. ORATION. IAME OF ASHUA. DESCRIPTION OP THE VILLAGE. POST OFFICE. MIDDLESEX CANAL. RADUAL INCREASE. DUNSTABLE PLAINS. CHANGES IN MAIN STREET. NEW MEETING-HOUSE BUILT. REV. MR. SPERRY ORDAINED. DAMS ACROSS ASHUA IVER. CENSUS. MANUFACTURES CONTEMPLATED. IRST VIEWS. NASHUA MANUFACTURING COMPANY. THEIR ORKS. BOATING CANAL. INDIAN HEAD COMPANY. MEETING-HousE ON OLIVE STREET RECTED. HSTORY OP THE TWO CONGREGATIONAL SOCIETIES. EW BRIDGE. TAYLOR'S ALLS BRIDGE. UNITARIAN CHURCH. STATE OF ASHUA MANUFACTURING COMPANY. ACKSON COMPANY. NEWS- PAPERS. IRST BAPTIST CHURCH. METHODIST CHURCHES. ROWTH OF THE VILLAGE. AILROADS. BANK. STEAMBOAT. UNIVERSALIST CHURCH. POPULATION. SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH. AME OF THE TOWN CHANGED. REEWILL BAPTIST CHURCH. IRST CHRISTIAN SOCIETY. PROTESTANT PISCOPAL CHURCH. MACHINE SHOP. MANU- FACTURING AND M]CHANICS' ASSOCiATiON. IRON OUNDRY. ACTORY AT SALMON BROOK. VOTE TO RECT A TOWN HOUSE. TOwN OF NASHVILLE ORGANIZED. ONTRAST OP THE PAST AND PRESENT. OR a number of years little occurred in the history of the town which would be of general interest. It was slowly recovering from the effects of the war and its exhausting sacrifices. About 1795 the first stage coach was put upon this road and was an occasion of great public interest. It was a two horse covered vehicle, owned and driven by Mr. Joseph Wheat, and ran from Amherst to Boston and back again once a week. It stopped at Billerica over night, making the trip both ways in abogt four days. They had not then learned the advantages of changing horses, and the same team performed all the journey. People came from a distance of several miles to look at "the stage, and gazed upon it with the same feeling of wonder that they now do upon a locomotive engine. [i843}. About this time the locks and canal around Pawtucket falls were built, and boating upon the Merrimack began. At this time there were no dwellings where our village now stands, and but one or two at the Harbor. In 18oo the population of Dunstable had increased to 862. In the spring of 18o3 a canal boat was built in the village by Robert Fletcher, Esq. It was a singular structure, having sides five or six feet in height all around it, and doors, and was looked upon as a "wonder." It was the first canal boat ever built in this vicinity for the regular transportation of goods, and the fact was considered of as much importance to the infant village as the opening of a railroad at the present day. It .was launched on the Fourth of July, which was celebrated by a public meeting, and an oration by Daniel Abbot, Esq. * There was a great gathering of the people, and great rejoicing. Already was it a place of some trade, and the more sanguine saw, in imagination, its trade and population doubled or even trebled. The lazdizy was on the Merrimack near the mouth of the Nashua, and a store was there erected. The boat was christened the Nashua," with much parade, and the.village which had until then been called "[,zdian Ygead," received the name of NASHUA VILLAGI.4f That may be considered the birth-day of 2Vasha, and forms an important epoch in its history. Let us endeavor to picture to ourselves Nashua village as i..t appeared July 4th, 18o3. A large, one story dwelling house stood on the site of the Indian HeAd Coffee House, and was kept as a tavern by Timothy Taylor, Esq. A large, one story store, owned and conducted by Robert Fletcher, This oration was printed. This name is found in Winthrop's Journal, both in its present usual orthography and in other forms, as applied to an early settlement on the Nashua river', now Lancaster, Massachusetts. HISTOR Y OF NASHUA, N. H. 5 7 who resided in Amherst, stood where Kendrick & Tuttle's store now (1846) stands. Abbot and Fox's office was a dwelling house occupied by uncle" John Lund, his brother and sisters. A dwelling house, three stories in front and two in rear, had iust been erected by Mr. Fletcher, but was then unfinished. It stood on the north-east corner of Main and Franklin streets, opposite the Baptist meeting-house, and here upon a temporary platform the oration was delivered. The Amherst and Concord roads with Main street, and a road down the northern bank of the Nashua to the boating house and ferries were all the highways then existing. At the Harbor the dwelling house of Gen. Noah Lovewell, now occupied by I-Ion. Jesse Bowers, with two other small hous6s on the south sid of Salmor brook, were the only buildings. A/s the greater part of the inhabitants lived west and south of this, the meeting house was built on the little triangle in front of Silas Gibson's house. Here was the largest village in town, a tavern, store, shops and dwellingS, and here resided the physician and lawyer, (Mr. Abbot.) But in September, 18o3, the Old Tontine, the long, low building at the head of 1VIin street,' in Nashville, Was built, and soon after occupied by Mr. Abbot, (who removed here Dec. i, 18o3; Dr. ]lias Maynard, physician; Dea. James Patterson, bookbinder, and a Mr. Clements, saddler. There was no dam across the Nashua, and its waters flowed far down its natural channel over its rocky b,ed. The "pilgrims" who then settled here must have seen some light from the future breaking through the surrounding darkness, for there was not a building between Salmon brook and Nashua river, and a broad, unfenced, desolate, white-pine forest spread in every direction beyond. In 18o3 a postoffice was first established in town, and General Noah Lovewell appointed postmaster. Previously letters for this town were received from the postoffice at Tyngsborough.* In 18o4 a further impulse was given to the growth and business of the village by the completion and opening of the Middlesex canal. This opened a direct channel of communication with Boston, and rendered the place, as the head of navigation, one of considerable trade. Hitherto the principal markets of this region had been Haverhill and Newburyport. From this period the growth of the settlement was gradual but constant. The whole plain, upon which the village stands, was covered with its native growth of pines, and was considered generally of but very little value. "Dunstable Plains" were often the subject of much merriment, and seemed to some the embodiment of the idea of poverty of soil. It is said that some wicked wag in our legislature once undertook to disparage our soil, declaring that "it would not support 6ne chipping squirrel to the acre ;" but this, as well as the story that a grasshopper was once seen perched upon the top of a dry mullen stalk, with tears rolling down his cheeks looking in vain to discover one stalk of green.grass," is a grieve6us slander, and a device of the enemy. The soil of our plains was, indeed, naturally gandy and barren and of little value for cultivation when other and more desirable locations for tillage were scattered all around. From this circum- stance we may believe the statement to be quite credible that the rise of Main street from the bridge over Nashua river, to the present (1843) place of Messrs. Kendrick & Tuttle's store in Nashville, was "the worst hill between Amherst and Boston." We must remember, however, that a great change has taken place in its appearance and situation. The present bridge is raised some twenty or twenty-five feet above the old one, the water under the present bridge being not the natural stream, but a pond In 1648, "Others of the same town.(Watertown) began also a plantation at Nashaway, some 15 miles N. W. from Sudbury. In 1644, "2Viany of Watertown and other towns joined in the plantation of Nashaway, &c.--Winthrop's Journal, vol. ii., pages 152, 161. In a note in the passage last quoted, the editor, Hon. James Savage, says :--"From our Col. lZec. ii., 57, I find 'the petition of Mr. Nathaniel Norcross, Robert Chide, Stephen Day, John Fisher and others for a plantation at Nashawake is gra.nted, provided that there shall be no more land allotted to the town, or particular men, (notwithstanding their purchase of land of the Indians,) than the General Court shall allow.' In the following entries by Winthrop, in 1648, the name appears to have beei spelt as usual at present: "This year a new way was found out to Connecticut, by Nashua, which avoided much of the hilly way." "The mag.istrates being informed at a court of assistants that four or five Indians who lived upon the spoil of their neighbours, had murdered some Indians of Nipnett, who were subiect to this government, and robbed their wigwam, sent twenty men to Nashua, to enquire the truth of the matter." Journal, vol. ii., page 325. In the Appendix to the same volume, page 394, the editor gives the former name of Lancaster as Nashoway. *See history of the postoffice in Appendix. 5 8 HIS TOtg Y OF NASHUA, N. H. occasioned by the dam below at Indian Head, and many feet in depth. While the bridge has been raised many feet and the road filled in accordingly, the slope of the hill on either side of the river has been cut down and graded, so that the ascent now, in either direction, is comparatively slight. In 1812, the old meeting house, which stood in the little square in front of the Gibson tavern, and which had been standing there more than sixty years, had become too old and dilapidated to answer the purposes of its erection.