tales from

ePPING’s Past

by

madelyn Williamson

With many thanks to Barbara Helmstetter for her encouragement and her tireless commitment to producing the “Speak Up Epping “ newsletter.

These stories first appeared in the “Speak Up Epping” Newsletter published by the Speak Up Epping Communications Group.

Copyright 2017 by Madelyn Williamson Illustrations by Analesa Harvey analesaharvey@gmail.com

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Becoming Epping 6 Resting In Peace 8

Massacre in Epping! 10 Off to a Rough Start 13 Two Rivers in Epping 16 Two Holiday Tales 19

Thirty Revolutionary Years in Epping 21 Not Bad for a Local Boy: General Henry Dearborn,

Great American Patriot 1751 - 1829 24 Another Epping Boy Makes Good: John Chandler

1762 - 1841 27 More Than 12 Years a Slave in Epping 30

Hats Off to William Plumer 32 Kind and Obliging Neighbors: William Plumer and

Seth Fogg of Epping 35 Where In Epping Did Our Three Governors Live? 39 From Holland to New Hampshire: “A Stranger in a

Strange Land” 43 “Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave….” 45

A Tale of Two Bartletts 48 Whistle Belly and Flip: Tavern Times in Old Epping

50 An Old Brick House in Epping 54

Epping’s Tale of Hearts 57 Trailing a Name on an Old Stone: Moses U. Hall of

Epping 60 Remembering Lyman W. Cate: Lest We Forget 63

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High Flying Flags in Epping 65 A Few Olde Timey Epping Characters 68

Up, Down and About the Epping Town Hall 71 The “City of Columbus” Shipwreck 74

Spirits Rap in Epping 76 Home Grown in Epping 78

Down a Wandering Gypsy Trail 82 Lovestruck 84

Piazza (Not Pizza) and Moxie Time in Epping 87 Not Yet Forgotten - Alfred Dorsey of Florida and

Epping, NH 90 Reaching for Stars 92

From Boston to Epping: The Cocoanut Grove Fire 96 Our Old Brick Town 98

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Becoming Epping

Some New Hampshire towns began simply as commercial fishing or trading outposts, but Exeter, of which Epping was once a part, was founded as an organized religious community. Exeter was purchased from the local Indian sagamores by Rev. John Wheelwright in 1638. The area was prime and large enough to also include the present towns of Newmarket, Newfields, Brentwood and Fremont. Up until 1741, when we became a separate town, we were the northwestern part of Exeter and known as “Tuckaway," a name connected to the Pawtucket Indians whose ancestral home this was. Our earliest settlement was slow and sparse, under constant threat of attack and other frontier hardships. The first recorded white child, Anna Sinkler, wasn’t born here until 1730. One year, describing themselves as “poor and few in number," the men hitched their oxen teams to loaded wagons and with drums beating and flags flying paraded over the rough miles into a wide-eyed Exeter Village and paid off all their taxes in cords of wood.

Being so far from Exeter village also made it hard to attend their town meetings resulting in having little or no say in their laws, taxes or the pay for a town minister who seldom came out this way no matter

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how urgent the need. Finally, certain they should have their own separate town, fifty-six men, a number of them members of the same family, pleaded their case before the Exeter selectmen but were always refused.

Undaunted, they went on to Portsmouth and met with the new Governor who agreeably heard their case and granted their petition. Thus, on Feb 23rd, 1741, Benning Wentworth, the first appointed Governor of the newly independent Province of New Hampshire, created his first town and named this ancient forested area here in New England after the ancient forest in Old England that he knew so well - “EPPING”.

- And we had our town.

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Resting In Peace Epping’s first minister Robert Cutler, who died in

1786, was buried in Greenwich, Massachusetts, one of four towns now sitting on the bottom of the Quabbin reservoir. In the 1930’s, he and his family along with thousands of others were all moved to higher ground before the area was flooded over to secure more water for the city of Boston. We also have cases here in Epping where all or part of a cemetery was relocated to a larger, perhaps safer spot in town, or just taken out of town altogether. For example, members of our French family now rest in peace in Exeter, as do most members of our Drake family in Pittsfield, NH, where the Drake name is honored and their ties to Epping well known.

Only two stones remain in the original Drake family

cemetery, set in a field off Nottingham Square Road. They are of Revolutionary soldier Simon Drake, described as a peaceful inoffensive man, and his easy-going wife Judith, the busy parents of ten children. They rest in the land deeded to Simon in 1752, when he and Judith came to Epping, a place described as then being a settlement in the wilderness where "The first framed house had been built only two years before." Also, it was a time when everyone was on Indian alert after some other settlers had been

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massacred about two miles from the Drake farm. In his later years, as his father had done for him, Simon deeded the farm to one of his sons and the place remained in the family for generations. Simon Drake was born into an old respected Hampton family in 1730, the same year the first white child was born in Epping to unmarried parents, eleven years before we became a town. She was named Anna Sinkler and was later described as a fretful and irritable woman who never married and who, when no longer able to work, found herself supported by the town as a pauper. Back then, our poor and needy persons were simply auctioned off at public meetings with the town accepting the lowest bid offered by anyone willing to provide them with room and board for a year. At one such meeting, Anna was bid on and "sold" for $3.95, which might have made her even more fretful and irritable than she already was. Anna Sinkler died here in 1814, at about the same age as was Judith Drake when she died. But unlike the easy going and contented Mrs. Drake, Anna lies buried in an unmarked and unknown place and hopefully has found peace at last wherever she rests.

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Massacre in Epping!

Three hundred summers ago near Hedding Campground, an Indian attack occurred which forever marked our history and gave the Natives some closure in theirs. Their target was Col. Winthrop Hilton, a brave daring soldier, adventurer and famous Indian fighter described as “tall, muscular” and “of the black eyes and bright gun.”

Before the Indian uprising he had been very friendly with them, trading for furs, earning their trust, learning their language, customs and ways until he could coolly “out-Indian any Indian”. Then, during the Indian Wars, he led several expeditions against them from New Hampshire to Nova Scotia and ultimately became a famous bounty hunter, paid for the scalp of every Native he took down. They had long decided he had to go. One rainy summer day, the Indians silently waited and watched as the object of their fury worked in the woods with seventeen others, including his brother Dudley, cleaning up trees slated for England’s shipbuilding and masts. The ambush was sudden and swift for they knew better than to give the man time or opportunity to outwit them yet again. Hilton and two of his men were quickly shot and killed. Dudley, taken captive, was never heard of again. Without having fired a shot, the others ran back

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to Exeter village, sounded the alarm and returned with a rescue party to view a scene of massacre. The remains of one man were buried where he was found and still lies in an unmarked grave somewhere deep in our woods. Hilton’s body, found with a tomahawk in his brain and a lance through his heart, was solemnly carried to his home in the present town of Newfields, close to the Epping line, and buried near the Lamprey River with great sorrow and full military honors. The gravestone that marks his resting place remains one of the most ancient and beautiful to be found in that town.

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Gravestone of Col. Winthrop Hilton

Six months after his murder, Hilton’s wife Anne gave birth to their son and named him after his father. Seven years later, in 1717 and remarried, she put up for sale a “house, barn and a considerable quantity of land & marsh being the home of the late Col. Winthrop HILTON”.

This column is affectionately dedicated to the memory of Richard “Buster” Sanborn, mentor to many, enthusiastic Epping historians and truest and most encouraging of friends.

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Off to a Rough Start Like Exeter, from which we separated in 1741 to

become Epping, we also began as a community organized around a Congregational Church. To entice its first minister and buy him a house, our taxes were upped two cents an acre and a committee appointed to search for a suitable candidate. Another group was to build the church, which was also going to be used for public town meetings, in other words, the original Epping Town Hall.

The spot chosen for this first church/meetinghouse

is quaintly described to be in the “santer” of town, now in the Central Cemetery area, but then on land owned by Jonathan Norris, a local Quaker. The building, known as The Church of Christ Congregational, Second Parish in Epping, measured 50 feet by 40 feet. In the style of the time it probably had a south main entrance, box pews, upper gallery for single men and women, servants and slaves, and a raised pulpit. It was ready when the first minister Mr. Robert Cutler and his family arrived, despite his paltry salary offer, this isolated location, and some heavy grumbling from the Search Committee which had tried hard to get somebody else for the job.

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Robert Cutler had graduated bottom of the 1744 class of Harvard Divinity School after he stole the shoes of another student and then denied it. He was ordained in Epping in 1747, the same year this town was so beset by Indian attacks that people were petitioning for outside help. His wife died here about two years later leaving him with four small children and even poorer when he was denied help with her burial expenses. Then, in 1753, a bunch of religious fanatics called “Ranters,” dedicated to breaking up organized churches, targeted Epping to taunt Cutler and likely traumatized the congregation with “wild singing and dancing, screaming, bellowing and the ripping of their clothes.” Three years later, the Search Committee found itself again busily at work searching for another minister after Mr. Cutler left town having been found guilty of extreme misconduct. This time the Committee greatly succeeded when Josiah Stearns, esteemed minister and American patriot, agreed to come to Epping from Billerica, Massachusetts in 1758, to devotedly serve and guide the Church and all its people for many years thereafter, including through the Revolutionary War. And during all this time, Jonathan Norris, the prior owner of the land on which the Church stood, had never missed a chance to heckle and accuse the town fathers of having cheated him on the deal. For over twenty years he had loudly disrupted services in the Church, the one place where nobody even thought to hum, and had been jailed and heavily fined for refusing to pay his taxes to support the ministers.

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Finally, one cold night in 1770, a group of exasperated townsmen invaded his house, got him out of bed and whipped the now “old and long bearded” man.

But not only did the old boy survive, after healing

up, he defiantly headed off to Court, identified each of his tormentors, sued, -- and won his case. Vindicated at long last, Jonathan Norris, our “obstinate” Epping Quaker, may very well have continued his heckling whenever it suited him, until the day he died.

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Two Rivers in Epping The Lamprey and Pawtuckaway are the two rivers

that most influenced the growth of Epping. The Pawtuckaway is also known as the Stingy River from a tale of a stingy farmer who lived near it and wouldn’t pay his workers as he promised. And it’s nice to know the Lamprey really isn’t named for lamprey eels. It is named for John Lamprey, an early settler of what was once called Lampreyville and is now Newmarket.

The Lamprey rises from Meadow Lake in

Northwood and the Pawtuckaway begins at the pond of the same name in Nottingham. The two rivers join near West Epping and flow through the center of town. This has been the way of our rivers as Indians farmed and fished along the shores, were the first to canoe the waters and roamed all around here on their land trails. Part of Route 27 was one of them.

By 1741, Epping already had four mills in operation,

most likely sawmills by the water. Shortly thereafter, where Bunker Pond Dam stood, Joshua Folsom built the original dam and his grist mill. His was the first of the industries that gradually followed and marked the beginning of what eventually became a bustling West Epping community, meriting its own post office and railroad depot. Bunker Pond itself was named for

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David Bunker who ran a woolen mill and lived on it in the 1800’s. Another factory made clothing. Tanneries turned hides into leather. Sawmills cut logs into lumber and made shipping crates for orchards and boxes for the shoe shops. For years, ladies went to West Epping to buy fashionable high heel shoes for the dances at the Town Hall.

The present center of Town came into its own when

the old Mill Street Dam harnessed the river power to run the mills and shops in that area. A woolen mill was in place by the early 1800’s, followed by Epping’s first knitting mill that made sweaters, stockings and other clothing. A shop made ax handles, and another sawmill cut lumber. In winter, the rivers also provided ice that was cut into blocks and stored for later sale in icehouses, insulated with sawdust from the mills. By 1822, the first of the Epping brickyards was in full swing nearby. Loud whistles from passenger and freight trains’ engines filled the air, spooking horses and upsetting wagons. Old farmland and hayfields gave way to stores, noisy taverns and housing for workers and businessmen. Street corners were lit every night by oil lanterns! This old river town would never be the same.

The river was also the spot for many a merry social

gathering, the great Lamprey River Canoe Races we enjoy today and the floods we can all just expect forever. And, like all rivers, ours have darker tales to tell. Here are a few from Epping’s past: In 1806,

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Abraham Perkins, a man described as his own worst enemy, ended his life in the river probably to avoid further humiliation. One morning in 1846, Joseph Blake struggled to save his horse from drowning and both were lost. In 1883, Jonathan Hoag crossed the river for the last time when his boat capsized as he rowed home from a store in Lee. In 1904, a young man cleaning sawdust under a box factory supposedly lost his balance over the water and was killed when caught in the shafting. That same year a young boy went through the ice and was lost under the Main Street Bridge. In 1927, “a poor hardworking woman” was found and pulled out of the water by a worker from the shoe shop near the Town Hall. And then there was the fellow who had just found out he lost his girl to another man and immediately flung himself into the river to drown before his horrified coworkers. Enough for now. So thus, in both good and not so good times, our rivers will always remain a large part of this place. And sometimes, as you glide a canoe over the quiet waters, this busy world of ours slowly fades away. For a moment, time may suddenly seem to stand still. And then, from somewhere in the distance, you can almost hear the sound of a drum.

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Two Holiday Tales

By the end of their first New England winter in 1620 half the pilgrims at Plymouth were dead. The remaining forty-nine souls, having made it through only by the goodwill and skills shown to them by the neighboring Indians, went on to establish one of the earliest successful colonies in America. At the end of their first November here they had gratefully celebrated their bounty of food and survival with a traditional English Harvest Feast to which they invited their Native benefactors and to which they all contributed and shared. That celebration is still thought by many to mark our first Thanksgiving Day. Fifty years later the Massachusetts colonists gratefully gathered together again in thanks and praise to God for their successful and secure establishment in this country and for their victory over the “Heathen Natives of this land.”

Interest in the hardships of those first few pilgrims

was almost nil by the time New Hampshire’s own Sarah Josepha Hale stepped in. A magazine editor, (and actual author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,”) she launched a solid 40 year one-woman campaign to have a permanent nationally observed Thanksgiving Day. She kept this up until President Lincoln made it so in 1863.

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As for Christmas, President Grant finally made it a

national holiday in 1875. The first American Christmas card was printed and sold in Massachusetts, once that hotbed of Puritan contempt for all things December 25th including nativity scenes, decorating of churches, trees and the like, all the very “pagan practices” they had come over here to separate themselves from in the first place. They also had a hard time dealing with merry-making in general. Music, singing, games of chance, feasting and plays were all banned and fines and public disgrace awaited the offender. Here in Epping, through its own Puritan-based church and leaders, those same stern beliefs prevailed as a way of life for many of our early years.

But today, if so inclined, we have the liberty to

happily make merry and celebrate to our heart’s content, feast, and lift up our voices in song and praise for all the many blessings of this life on each Thanksgiving and on every gracious Christmas Day.

And so may it ever be.

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Thirty Revolutionary Years in Epping Much of America’s great American pioneer spirit

and solid values were forged hundreds of years ago in New England’s Congregational Church communities of which Epping was one. Each one of these churches was democratically run and strongly believed in the Heavenly rewards of good honest hard work, and, to better pray to God and understand the Bible, everyone, servant and slave included, was welcome to their meetings and helped to read and write. Here in Epping, Peter, the black slave of our second town minister, the most esteemed Rev. Josiah Stearns, surely had that chance.

Tall, intimidating and plain spoken, Rev. Stearns

came to Epping in 1758, and for the next thirty years set a solid moral standard for this town. Perhaps with Peter in tow, he had the habit of just showing up to preach any time and anywhere, including at our local happy time taverns from which he then hauled out members of his wayward flock. Unable to afford much of a library, he borrowed and memorized one book at a time and twice each day "fervently whispered his prayers in an unlit, unheated closet adjoining the family parlour.”

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Like many other Congregational ministers of the day, Rev. Stearns was a strong defender of the American Revolution. He was convinced that England’s rule over this country had made us all slaves and that to defeat the British army was "righteous and approved by Heaven.” He sent his sons and Peter to join in the battle for our country’s liberty and promised Peter his own freedom for doing so.

Rev. Stearns baptized 1,060 persons in all and at times his church was so crowded that people were unable to gain admission and stood outside to hear him. The man preached to his congregation until he was so sick with cancer he could hardly speak. When he died in 1788, he was laid to rest by a great and sorrowful gathering in the "old Epping churchyard,” now within Central Cemetery, where other members of his family are buried. About one hundred years after his death, the terrific heat from a fire in the Hoyt shoe factory close by “caused many of the old gravestones to be broken or destroyed.” His large stone was most likely among them as nothing remains today to mark the spot where this remarkable person in Epping’s history lies buried. But one of his grandsons stated his stone was inscribed as follows:

"Josiah Stearns was born in Billerica, Mass January

20 1732, graduated Harvard in 1751 and was ordained pastor of the church in Epping March 8 1758. And died in the assurance of hope, universally lamented, July 25 1788 in the 57th year of his age and the 31st of

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his ministry. An eminent Christian, an able and faithful minister of the Gospel and distinguished patriot, his life was unreservedly devoted to the service of his people and his country.” And Peter, the only one of our Epping slaves whose exact gravesite has been found, lies under a stone that reads in part: “Peter A Revolutionary Soldier, Freed Slave of Rev. Josiah Stearns, Epping, N. H. born 1750, died 1805 A good Christian” Peter is buried in Bedford, Massachusetts in the Shawsheen Cemetery, which is now on America’s National Register of Historic Places.

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Not Bad for a Local Boy: General Henry Dearborn, Great American

Patriot 1751 - 1829 The news of the British attacks in Lexington and

Concord reached Nottingham on April 20, 1775, the same day a baby girl named Augusta was born to the wife of the town doctor. A few hours after his daughter’s birth, the father left home leading his 60 man militia company to join the Colonial army in Cambridge. Two months later he and his men were fighting the British at Bunker Hill. This young doctor, a great American patriot and military force, was General Henry Dearborn, a man who grew up in Epping before his family moved to Nottingham. Among his many military adventures, he led his starving men through the Maine wilderness to fight the British in Quebec, a battle fought with the hope of making Canada our 14th colony and where he was taken prisoner.

He fought with George Washington at Valley Forge,

Yorktown Heights and the battle of Monmouth, New Jersey. During his long military service Henry Dearborn was popular with his men, loved by his fellow officers and was honored by three U.S. Presidents. Washington made him a General, Jefferson made him U.S. Secretaries of State and of

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War, and President Monroe appointed him our Minister to Portugal. In 1812 he was appointed Major General in the United States Army. Not bad for a local boy.

As our Secretary of War, General Dearborn had a

fort built on Lake Michigan named Fort Dearborn, the beginning of the city of Chicago (The fort is now Dearborn Street, still a major street in that city). Other places honoring him include the Dearborn River in Montana, Dearborn County in Indiana and the cities of Dearborn, Michigan and Dearborn, Missouri. Further, Maine’s capitol city was named Augusta, in honor of his daughter, the baby born that fateful day when news arrived of the British attack in Lexington and Concord.

Dearborn owned 5,000 acres of settlement land in

what became the state of Maine. He built the first house there, and suggested the place be called Monmouth after the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey in which he and his men had fought. A number of his former soldiers from Epping were among the first to settle in Monmouth, Maine. Descendants of those heroes remain in that area to this day and are very much aware of their connection to Epping.

Henry Dearborn was 73 years old and our Minister

to Portugal when he asked to come home. His hard life of service had broken his health and he died five years later on June 6, 1829. The grand old soldier was

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buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston with full civil, military and Masonic honors. The boy who grew up in Epping did very well indeed.

This article is written in memory of Amogene

Kimball, whose dedication to Epping history never wavered.

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Edgerly Farm, Nottingham Square Road

Another Epping Boy Makes Good: John Chandler 1762 - 1841

The ancient rock formation we knew as “The Old

Man of the Mountain” or “The Profile” is sadly no more. Daniel Webster once wrote of that great stone face that “up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.” Surely, such a man was John Chandler, who was born here in Epping and raised on Red Oak Hill. His father died during the Revolutionary War leaving his large family with “not enough property to pay his debts.” During that trying time, John stayed on the farm helping his family by working as a blacksmith.

Then his mother remarried and he took off for

Newburyport where he got on a privateer ship whose dangerous business it was to harass and rob the British at sea. He was then about 16 years old. His ship was captured by the British and John and the crew were tortured and taken to a southern prison from which he finally managed to escape. Then, begging for food all along the way, he began the walk of over a thousand miles to get back to Epping. It took him two years to do it, but he finally made it home to the great joy of his mother and family who had given up on ever seeing him again.

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John Chandler was one of the Revolutionary

soldiers from Epping who pioneered the northern wilderness after the war. He was homeless and penniless, but determined to get ahead, he sat down with the school children to learn to read and write along with them. Also, much to his good fortune, he was taken under the wing of the very influential General Henry Dearborn, also from Epping, who became his mentor and lifetime friend.

Under Dearborn’s encouragement and guidance,

Chandler rose from his very humble beginnings to positions of great power. Among them, he became the Sheriff of Kennebec County, a Brigadier General in the War of 1812 (where he was wounded and captured) and a U.S. Congressman. He was a driving force in creating the state of Maine, then part of Massachusetts, as its own separate state and became the first President of the Maine Senate. Described as “an old war horse,” John Chandler’s last years were spent in Augusta, Maine where he died in 1841 and was buried there in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Some years ago, after speaking to the Monmouth Maine Historical Society about their town’s connections to ours, one of John Chandler’s direct descendants approached and turned her head to profile her “Chandler nose.” Believe me, it was a nose to be proud of.

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And perhaps someday, as we have done for the Plumer and Dearborn families, we’ll name one of our streets or roads to honor that young soldier who walked all those many miles to come back home to Epping and who went on to make history.

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More Than 12 Years a Slave in Epping

There were slaves not only in the South but here in

New England as well. As early as the 1640’s men and women captured in Africa were brought into New Hampshire. In 1776, there were about 650 “negroes and slaves for life” living in New Hampshire. Nineteen of them were living in Epping.

The slave owners were usually among the more

prominent and influential men in town. The Epping minister and town doctor each had at least one slave. Slaves were valuable assets for their owners. In addition to their hard work, they could be used to secure a loan or resold at a profit. One Epping owner gave his “good natured and well behaved slave” away to his daughter as a wedding present.

At least four “strong and healthy” Epping slaves

served as Revolutionary War soldiers from New Hampshire and fought for our independence from England. They were promised their own freedom after serving three years.

Today we would well call these men heroes, but

after the War many of these former slaves found themselves without work, unsupported, and forced

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out of one town after another. One of them was Primus Coffin, an Epping soldier, who was 80 years old in 1820 and living in Meredith, NH where he may have died. Another was Cato Fisk who fought for six years and earned a special Badge of Merit for his service. Cato wound up working a toll road gate in Epsom, NH where he died in 1824. It’s believed he is buried in an unmarked grave in Epsom behind the Old Meetinghouse. Yet another Epping soldier was Peter Stearns, the only former slave whose burial place is certain. He lies beneath a beautiful stone in Bedford, Massachusetts. Years after the War, some slaves were still with their owners. One of them was Dinah who was still here with her Epping owners when she died in 1812.

May they all rest in peace.

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Hats Off to William Plumer “Okay, so who’s this William Plumer and what

about him?” I was asked. Well, my acquaintance with Mr. Plumer began long

ago in Concord, through the discovery of an old record book in which he had carefully listed each person who had died in Epping from 1768 to 1842. Having known many of them himself, he often added his own descriptive comments to an entry, not only revealing more about the person, but also providing the reader with first-hand information about what this old town was like back then. As an example, he names the slaves who died here and tells us something about them -- and about their owners.

This gem of a journal has supplied information for

my columns for years and is only one of the many penned by William Plumer, a first-rate historian, who was the founder and first president of the New Hampshire Historical Society. He was also a Baptist minister and a lawyer who began his political career as a young Epping selectman and made it all the way to the United States Senate. However, it’s the man himself who speaks through his writing and who truly seemed happiest when returning home to Epping from his travels and being with his family. Their

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house (shown in a painting at the Historical Society) is no more, but stood on Plumer Road where Plumercrest Bed and Breakfast is now, and where he rests in the family cemetery nearby.

Born in Newburyport in 1759, and brought here as a

boy by his parents, William Plumer was the first of the three New Hampshire governors from Epping. He was the only one of them who served two terms, the only one of the three not born here, and the only one of them who is buried here. William Plumer’s father Samuel was a farmer, a shoemaker and Epping’s champion wrestler who could take down a man thirty years his junior. He hoped William would also be a farmer but the boy was not cut out for it. Even so, he worked in the fields every day and years later pointed out the exact spot where he was hoeing corn in June, 1775, and clearly heard the British cannons relentlessly attacking Bunker Hill in Boston. Epping men and other rugged New England farmers, untrained and outnumbered, armed only with muskets and whatever else they could get their hands on, were there fighting for America’s freedom in one of the bloodiest battles of the American Revolution.

William Plumer was a self-educated student all his life, sometimes walking for miles to borrow a book and almost always having one by his side along with pen and paper. He wrote on subjects ranging from farming to religion, to tips on healthy living such as advising that when we’re young to seek out the

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company of our elders and when older to seek out the company of the young. He also felt that the real secret of happiness was in action, not in rest.

One of his sons described William Plumer as a good

and decent compassionate man who could not stand cruelty or unfairness shown to any man or animal. Open-minded, full of life and energy, with flashing dark eyes and a clear strong voice, he was always ready and eager for any lively debate. William Plumer’s marriage to Sally Fowler of Newmarket had been predicted to her by a fortune teller. They were married for sixty-three years and were the parents of six children, including a son he named Quintus who only lived five days before dying in his father’s arms. Plumer himself was laid to rest in his 92nd year in the winter of 1850. His beloved Sally died two years later.

So hats off to you William Plumer, for your example

of a life well lived in fearless pursuit of truth and justice, education, religious freedom, service to your fellow man and for the common good. We’re glad your parents came to Epping and proud to have had you and your family among us for so long.

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Kind and Obliging Neighbors: William Plumer and Seth Fogg of Epping

William Plumer was the first of our three New

Hampshire governors from Epping. He was also a lawyer, a Baptist preacher, Justice of the Peace, historian, and a lifelong author. It's little known that he was also one of New England's earliest weathermen. From 1796 to 1823 he was out daily, recording weather conditions much as the Sanborn family has been doing here in Epping for many years and to this day.

Governor Plumer was also preparing to write a

history of Epping. He began the project by studying our earliest church records, but it was left unfinished due to his declining years and poor health. Those early church records and many of his writings give information about Epping's beginning days that otherwise might be unknown. Governor Plumer knew many of our early settlers as his friends and neighbors, or by reputation. Through his writings we get to know them better ourselves, as shown in the following tale starring Colonel Seth Fogg of Epping.

Before we were set off from Exeter as a separate

town and named Epping in 1741, this area was known as the Exeter outland. Seth Fogg inherited some of

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this “outland” from his father and came here from Hampton to settle for the rest of his life. He kept a tavern by what was then probably an old Indian trail and is now on the crossroad of Main Street and North River Road near the center of town. The house and tavern are long since gone, but part of the land on which Seth Fogg and his large family settled so long ago is still known as “The Fogg Field.”

Mr. Fogg was a neighbor of William Plumer’s and

he describes him as a hard worker who not only ran his tavern but farmed and made and sold shoes. Fogg's primary occupation however, was that of a tanner, a backbreaking process that could take him months to prepare rough animal hides for leather goods.

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Ladd House, Main Street

Plumer described Seth Fogg as a kind and obliging

neighbor but who at times showed poor judgement and a mind “partially deranged” because as a love-struck young man he had been soundly rejected by the girl and had never gotten over it. Plumer also notes that although Mr. Fogg had no military training whatsoever, he was appointed a Lieutenant in the militia and was later raised to the rank of Colonel, a title he enjoyed the rest of his life. Colonel Fogg also represented our town for years in the Legislature in Concord and as a Selectman here at home.

At the time when America was under British rule

and Epping men were fighting and losing their lives in our war for independence from England, Seth Fogg made it known once too often that he did not support the Revolution. For this he was finally arrested, put in jail, and charged with being a Tory, with insubordination, with rebelliousness, and with stubbornly refusing to answer the questions put to him by the Court. William Plumer finally got him released by convincing him to sign a declaration of apology to the Court for his behavior and probably also advised him to keep his lips prudently zipped in the future.

Colonel Seth Fogg died in 1806 and is probably

buried in the old churchyard part of the Central Cemetery. He had kept a miser’s chest with $500.00 for each of his children after he died and for nearly

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thirty years had set aside a cask of rum to be enjoyed at his funeral as he “wanted no one sorrowful at his burial." Plumer also noted that Colonel Fogg himself enjoyed a pint of rum daily for the last two years of his life. Although the Colonel was not a church member, this kind and obliging neighbor of William Plumer’s left a trust fund to benefit both the Epping church and the school. It’s called the Fogg Fund and benefits our town to this day.

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Where In Epping Did Our Three Governors Live?

William Plumer (1759-1850)

William Plumer, the first of the three New Hampshire governors from Epping, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. His father Samuel, wanting more of the country life for his family, bought a farm near Red Oak Hill and they moved to Epping when William Plumer was about nine years old.

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Plumercrest, Plumer Road

That house and farmland remained in the family for generations thereafter. It was the place William Plumer always loved and called home, where his children were born, and where he died. His old colonial house is no more. Years ago it was demolished by fire and eventually taken down. A house on Plumer Road known as “Plumercrest” now stands on the site of the original one. It was built by the governor’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Olivia Plumer.

Close by where his old home stood, is the old

cemetery where William Plumer, his wife Sally, and family rest.

David Lawrence Morrill (1772-1849)

Governor David Lawrence Morrill, the second of our governors from Epping, was the son of Anna Lawrence and Dr. Samuel Morrill. He was born and raised in a sturdy garrison house built during the 1700’s by his grandfather and namesake, David Lawrence, for protection against Indian attacks. That ancient garrison house, now long gone, stood on the road to and from our parent town of Exeter. When Governor Morrill moved to Concord in 1831, Daniel Watson Ladd acquired the property and built his family home there the following year. It was at that time that this part of our old road to Exeter became known, as it is today, Ladd’s Lane. Governor David Lawrence Morrill and his wife Lydia are buried in the

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Old North Cemetery in Concord near the gravesite of President Franklin Pierce.

Benjamin Franklin Prescott (1833-1894)

This is the only governor’s house still standing in Epping and most of us know just where it is. It was built in 1875 by Governor Prescott on the site of the first Prescott home, built there by his great grandfather over 100 years before.

At the time the governor built his house, the

property had been in the Prescott family for at least five generations. In their wildest dreams, not one of them could have imagined the great festival, complete with hot air balloons, music and crowds, now held every September on their ancestral turf. The bricks for the original house on the property were made right there which leads to an interesting story. As the bricks were setting, the family dog decided to stroll over some of them permanently leaving behind his exact paw prints. When Governor Prescott built his new house, the newspaper of the time reported that he had made sure that some of those old “paw bricks” were set in full view at the base of the chimney in his cellar. They were discovered there many years later by Cory McPhee and Julie DiTursi, the present owners of the Prescott house, They then named their popular Epping restaurant “Zampa,” which means “paws” in Italian.

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In 1894 Governor Prescott died in his home on Prescott Road. He and his wife Lucy are buried in the Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord.

And in 1987 the Prescott House was put on our

National Register of Historic Places.

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Governor Prescott House, Prescott Road

From Holland to New Hampshire: “A Stranger in a Strange Land”

In 1819, a twelve year old boy from Holland named

Bartholomew Van Dame came to America. Three years later he was working here in Epping as an indentured servant under the care, guidance and protection of the John Dow family. Unlike a slave who was owned for life, an indentured servant was freed after working for a set number of years that paid the passage to America and other expenses. Likely, while in service, he or she had also learned a useful skill and perhaps earned a bit of land to start off with. Indeed, many former indentured servants became respected and valuable members of their communities. Bartholomew Van Dame was one of them. Van Dame is described as a rather small man, never of good health, and with one arm deformed by an early childhood accident. Nonetheless, he had served the Dow family well and gone on to become a master of five languages, a schoolteacher, and a composer of music. He was also a Free Will Baptist minister and a convincing public speaker. For example, after a four-month trip down south, he returned to New Hampshire even more against slavery than he had been before. He had brought metal handcuffs and chains back from Virginia and while speaking about the evils of slavery would raise them high and loudly

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shake them over his audiences for everyone to witness and hear for themselves.

The schoolhouse in Nottingham where he taught for

many years, is known as the Dame School and is located on Route 152. Built in 1840 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the building first served as a meetinghouse and school and is now the local history museum and community center. It was topped by a weathervane in the shape of a quill pen that is believed to have been a gift from Van Dame. "As modest as he was honest," he wished "that his bequests be kept secret.”

Bartholomew Van Dame died Apr 3, 1872 when he

was 64 years old. The bond he shared with the John Dow family, who had taken him in so many years before, had never faded. When his time came, he was buried with them in their family cemetery in North Epping. Van Dame had written his own funeral service and no doubt his gravestone inscription as well. It tells us that “Beneath this turf reposes one who was a stranger in a strange land but who was surrounded by friends who were cherished in his affection as in a deathless remembrance.”

May we all be so well remembered.

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“Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave….”

From the time of the Revolutionary War, our

volunteer soldiers were awarded bounty land and pensions as payment for their military service. One of those war veterans was a freed slave named Michael Sudrick. In 1816 Mr. Sudrick was living in or near Epping as shown by his account in an Epping store ledger of that year. By the 1850's this old soldier had died and the scam to tap into his pension funds was hatched by two prominent Epping citizens of the day, namely Charles L. Godfrey who was an Epping selectman and Woodbury Gilman, our town doctor. An 1853 Exeter Newsletter reported that Mr. Godfrey and Dr. Gilman had been arrested and both accused of "great fraud." They were charged with having unlawfully gained access to about 2,000 acres of the bounty land warrants and an undisclosed number of pension funds issued to our war veterans and their families.

In Michael Sudrick's case, Godfrey and Gilman had

persuaded a woman named Bridget Hart to testify under oath that she and Mr. Sudrick had been married in Epping in April of 1789 and, as his widow, she was entitled to his pension. The marriage record was found and her claim was proved. As a result, this lady received a total of $1200.00 from Mr. Sudrick's pension, most of which was turned over to line Mr. Godfrey's pockets. However, the discovery of the

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marriage record that proved Bridget Hart's claim adds more to this tale.

Early on, our marriages were entered and signed

into the town books by the minister who had performed the ceremony. At first reading, every detail of this particular marriage record seems in order, but further scrutiny proves this record was forged.

The entry is carefully signed by Epping minister

Richard Cutler. Mr. Cutler was indeed one of our Epping ministers, but the fact is that his real first name was Robert, not Richard. Further, not only was Mr. Robert Cutler long gone from Epping by 1789, but he had died and was buried in Massachusetts nine years before this marriage supposedly took place. This marriage record could only have been deliberately forged to support Bridget Hart's claim to Mr. Sudrick's pension money by someone not only expecting to gain from this action, but who also had access to our town record books.

The Newsletter reported that when selectman

Godfrey was about to be questioned by the authorities for his role in the scandals, he appeared to be "sinking under a total malady" and "unable to get out of his bed." Mr. Godfrey died in Epping at age 35, perhaps in jail, in November of 1853, about two months after the accusations against him began. By that time, his partner, Doctor Gilman, had already skipped town and nothing more is known here of him or the very

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foolish Bridget Hart. In the words of Sir Walter Scott: "Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." Indeed.

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A Tale of Two Bartletts Josiah Bartlett of Kingston was one of the few

doctors around when, in 1754, this area was hit by another outbreak of a deadly form of diphtheria. It was then called “the throat distemper” and it took down whole families, especially the very young, and there was no known cure. After many experiments, Dr. Bartlett found that powdered Peruvian bark, a source of quinine, could relieve the sore throats and high fevers long enough for the sick to recover and thus he saved many lives. This good and dedicated doctor went on to practice medicine for 45 years. He also founded the New Hampshire Medical Society, became the fourth Governor of New Hampshire and was a Chief Justice of the Superior Court.

However, perhaps Josiah Bartlett is best known as

the second signer of the Declaration of Independence, immediately after John Hancock. Probably as a memento of that event in Philadelphia, he brought a sapling of a linden tree from there to New Hampshire and planted it by his home in Kingston in 1776.

Well over two hundred years later, one of Josiah

Bartlett’s descendants, Lottie Mary Bartlett, came to live in Epping as the bride of our brick maker and first fire chief, Ralph Goodrich. Like in the great movie

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“It’s a Wonderful Life”, the newly married couple was serenaded on their honeymoon by the popular Epping Quartet of singers and musicians. One of their songs may well have been “Home on the Range” which Lottie especially liked. She was also a wild and vocal Boston Red Sox fan and knew baseball legend Ted Williams, who used to come to fish here in Epping with his local buddy, prizefighter Jack Sharkey. For years Lottie also faithfully followed the Red Sox team to Sarasota, Florida for their spring training games and apparently became sort of their mascot. She once arrived late to one of their training games to find they had all held off starting until she showed up. As of this writing Lottie’s ancestral home, the Josiah Bartlett homestead in Kingston, where the good doctor lived, raised his large family and died in 1795, is for sale. The grand place has been in the Bartlett family for seven generations and has a lawn shaded by a massive old linden tree that was once brought home from Philadelphia as a sapling and carefully planted there so long ago.

Dedicated to Lottie Bartlett Goodrich (c 1893-1986)

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Whistle Belly and Flip: Tavern Times in Old Epping

Our first Epping roads weren’t much more than

rough Indian trails so any long trip usually meant spending the night at a local tavern where food, drink, and a warm place to sleep were provided and horses stabled at reasonable prices. By 1776, Epping had about a dozen of these establishments in operation all over town. Our early taverns were also popular meeting places increasingly sought and patronized by local men, whether they could really afford to do so or not. Taverns were enticing spots where anything might take place after sharing rounds of drinks with meaningful names like Rattle-Skull, Blackstrap, Whistle Belly and Flip. Besides, a lot of folks were convinced that regular drinking of these hard cider and rum based drinks was far better for them than the local water supply.

By 1770, the average male adult consumption of

these so called “spirituous liquors” could exceed three pints a week -- and some of their fair ladies weren’t far behind. That was the accepted way of life in New England for generations. Here are a few of many stories showing the effect it had in the little town we were back then. For years Revolutionary Soldier Levi Towle and his family kept a busy and popular tavern

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in the brick house he built and which still stands in Epping. One of his sons, the father of a little boy, died of intemperance at age 24. The little boy grew up, became a carpenter and in shame hid his liquor around the fields in wooden bottles. Through his habit, he had long neglected his business and made his family poor and needy. In 1837, he was stumbling home in the dark in a sudden snowstorm and high wind. The next day he was found frozen near a fence holding on to a bottle from which a pint or more of rum was gone and so was he, at 27 years of age.

When President Washington signed an act to

protect America from foreign invasion, every able-bodied man was required to sign up for the militia. This was done on “Muster Day” which eventually turned into a yearly social event. By 1849, our local Muster Days were described as “little more than gatherings dedicated to gambling and drinking” That’s the year we meet John Thorn, a colorful character described as "a great, tall, gawky looking fellow whose mere glance was a “stiletto.” In February 1849, Mr.Thorn was tried for "a grievous breach of public peace at an Epping tavern at the time of Muster Day.” He had stabbed another man in the groin with a large jack knife in a barroom brawl, for which he was arrested and jailed, but finally acquitted with Epping’s James McMurphy as his lawyer. Two years later John Thorn was "conveyed to the Epping Town Farm," our poorhouse, where he finally met his Maker after his "leg swelling was reduced.”

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Finally there’s the tale of Carroll Barter, a popular

young man about town, "much respected for his amiable qualities," and who in 1845 was "sadly brought down by intemperance," aged 30 years. He was buried in Central Cemetery by his devoted friends who paid for his beautiful stone and for the tolling of the church bell in his honor. They also wrote a heartfelt poem published in his memory. It was titled “The Suicide.” By the 1800’s, the results of drinking had gotten so out of hand that outraged Epping citizens and church groups joined in an organized battle to reform us all. One result of their efforts is shown in the 1839 newspaper ad for the EPPING HOTEL, described as “a Temperance House where no liquors of any kind will be sold.” The battle was still going on forty years later when Professor Adams, "A reformed drunkard" presented his “acclaimed temperance lecture," complete with vivid descriptions of his own personal trials with “that terrible disease” to a hall filled with a West Epping audience.

Then, what must have been a killer play called “Ten

Nights in the Bar Room” was presented in 1884 by the Division Sons of Temperance to a crowd at Bunker’s Hall. This was a two story building located in the middle of town where the Epping Historical Society is now and which burned down in 1919. Many large, well attended socials, lectures and shows were held there, including a publicity appearance from Mr. and Mrs. Tom Thumb who rode into town in a small wagon

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driven by miniature horses. Then came the much-anticipated medicine show put on by hired Kickapoo Indians. They arrived in full native dress in a hot air balloon to a cheering crowd of good Epping citizens, all most eager to stock up on their favorite patented Kickapoo wonder potion and sample any new ones. The famous secret potions absolutely guaranteed to give every man, woman and child a happier outlook on life and to knock out almost any disease on the planet. And of course, most of them were heavily laced with hefty doses of you-know-what.

Cheers everyone!

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An Old Brick House in Epping

Ads found in old city newspapers invite the reader to take a break and come enjoy the good clean air and country living to be found in Epping. Taking in boarders was a way many of our struggling families met expenses, including the family that lived in the house which stands on the corner of High and Nottingham Square Roads. The house, originally two storied, was made of bricks baked on the property and was later reduced by a fire to the one story building seen today. It was built by a Revolutionary Soldier, Levi Towle, who was described as a very large man. He rented rooms while keeping a tavern on the place in the 1700’s with his wife Parna Judkins. They raised six children there. A blacksmith shop and a cider mill were also on the property.

The house remained in the family for generations.

Will Woods, a small man with a black beard, whose mother was a Towle, farmed there and with his wife Florence also took in boarders, most of whom just became part of the family. One of them was Polly Morton, then about sixteen years old, who wrote of life on this farm and about some of the other boarders who lived there. They included a Dr. Green, who would walk with his cane up to a tree, give it a lecture and who she described as “nutty as a fruitcake.”

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Another boarder was Christopher McDonald, whose family established the McDonald’s restaurants so familiar today. Polly also tells us about a homeless hired man who showed up each spring, one of many men who followed the planting season north, starting from as far away as South Carolina, to hire themselves out for room, board and a few dollars.

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Towle monument, Old Nottingham Road

Days at the Woods farm began at 5:00 am with the

roosters waking everybody up and ended with everybody at the long family table enjoying Florence’s great cooking and “lighter than air biscuits.” Nobody talked much at meals and store-bought bread was considered a luxury. At night, oil lamps lit the way to the upstairs rooms because there was no electricity on the second floor.

But on Saturday nights they would forget their

cares, dress their best and attend the lively dances at the Town Hall. After the dance was over, they climbed back into the old Model T and headed back to the farm over the dirt roads and under the thousands of stars shining bright with no competition from streetlights or stores.

This is dedicated to the Woods family of Epping

and to Polly Morton (1908-2008)

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Epping’s Tale of Hearts Over one hundred and eighty years ago, a little

orphaned girl named Rowena Lawrence Thyng came to Epping to live with her uncle Samuel Lawrence and his family on Red Oak Hill. Their house, burned down by a chimney fire in the 1940’s, once stood where Dan and Louise Harvey are now. Rowena grew up there, became an Epping School teacher and “the prettiest girl in town.” From her many admirers, she chose George Shepard from West Epping and moved there as his bride in 1845. Their marriage endured for almost sixty years and their house still stands. As a wife and a mother, Rowena was beloved and esteemed for her deep religious faith and fortitude. She bore the terrible loss of all her children except one and almost lost her brave husband who was twice wounded in the Civil War.

Rowena’s husband, Captain George Shepard, a kind

and gracious man, served on our School Board, in the State Legislature, was the West Epping Post Master and a land surveyor. As a Justice of the Peace he worked tirelessly on behalf of his fellow Civil War veterans. When he died in 1903, the early morning air was filled with the sound of church bells ringing all over town in his honor. The good Captain was laid to rest in West Epping in what is known as the Shepard

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Cemetery as he had “planned, established and given it to the public." He and Rowena were reunited when she died eight years later.

Before her marriage, Rowena Thyng and her family

were often visited here on Red Oak Hill by the already well-known Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, while he stayed with his cousins in the nearby town of Lee. Although sixteen years her senior, it has long been thought that Whittier and Rowena were more than friends. Their initials, set within joined hearts, were discovered carved on an oak tree behind the Lawrence barn. Seventy years later, in 1941, the same initials and heart design were found inside a closet door in Rowena’s old room. The barn still stands, but both the tree and house are long gone with the wind, as is the true identity of the artist.

And whatever his relationship with Rowena may

have been, we might do well to reconsider crediting John Greenleaf Whittier with writing the romantic poem called “The Epping Oak” in which a young lady, undoubtedly Rowena, is oddly described as “creation’s loveliest ‘Thyng’." The untitled poem, dated only “Lee NH 1843” and signed with Whittier’s name, showed up on the breakfast plate of his cousin Jonathan Cartland in Lee, while Whittier and his sister Lizzie were visiting there. Family members have stated that it was not Whittier, but his fun loving sister Lizzie, who wrote the poem and then made one of her male cousins copy and sign it with Whittier’s name. It was a

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joke on Jonathan Cartland, who “had been out the whole night before” and who everyone knew was “very interested in the lady of Epping.” Lizzie herself later admitted she had “much teased and tormented her tall cousins” and “much regretted having done things that were naughty” while with them in Lee.

Perhaps as a reminder of her carefree girlhood days,

Rowena kept a copy of the poem all of her life. It was found by a family member tucked in a small trunk taken from the attic while cleaning out the old Shepard house in West Epping long after she died.

Whittier once very positively told another family

member that the only woman he had ever really loved was a free spirited and talented Quaker lady from Philadelphia whose name was Elizabeth Lloyd, but that he could never marry because his mother and his sister were dependent on him. He said he couldn’t afford to marry anyone, and he never did. Miss Lloyd went on and married someone else.

We can only guess what may have inspired John

Greenleaf Whittier to famously write: For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!” However, it’s a pretty safe bet that his thoughts drifted back to his younger days here on Red Oak Hill and to a girl named Rowena when he said that he “once had a dear friend who lived in Epping.”

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Trailing a Name on an Old Stone: Moses U. Hall of Epping

There’s an old stone in the Prospect Cemetery

engraved with the curious name of “Moses U. Hall.” Other than that he was born in 1835 and died in 1926, little else was known about this man. So, it was decided to try digging up some more information, so to speak. The search revealed some very unexpected things about this Moses U. Hall.

His full name was Moses Uriah Hall and he was the

grandson of the legendary Jude Hall, New Hampshire’s famous Revolutionary War soldier of color, some of whose own story is worth the telling here.

Jude Hall was born into slavery in 1747. He ran

away from his owner, joined the Continental Army, and faithfully served our country for eight solid years to the end of the Revolutionary War. His first battle was at Bunker Hill, where he incredibly survived being thrown headlong by a cannon ball striking near him. Because of his endurance and great strength, Jude Hall was known all over New Hampshire as “Old Rock.” The man stood almost six feet tall and was strong enough to lift up a barrel of cider and drink from it.

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After the war, Jude Hall was given his freedom and

a bit of land by Drinkwater Road in Exeter that’s still known as “Jude’s Pond.” There he built a small one story house of two rooms and settled with his family. Most tragically, over the years, three of his four sons were kidnapped and cruelly enslaved. The one remaining son was George, who was a stonemason.

When Jude Hall died, there was nothing for George

to inherit. Already himself a man of little means, George and his family were granted aid by the town of Exeter and the children were helped with their education. One of his sons was Moses Uriah Hall, a young man eager to learn, and who was allowed to study alongside his employer’s sons at Phillip’s Exeter Academy. After a time, Moses Hall became a Civil War soldier. He came to Epping with his family after the War and lived here for many years, working hard into his old age. Like his father before him, Moses U. Hall was a skilled stonemason and apparently had inherited some of his grandfather’s fabled strength and stamina. In 1915, when he was about eighty years old, Mr. Hall paved the sidewalks on Pleasant Street. Before that, he had built a wall on Prescott Road and set the foundation for a large shoe factory in Raymond, as well as for a new one here in town. He bricked up buildings, and set walkways, stairs, fireplaces and chimneys all over town. The present Hogarth School and Murphy home on Water Street is but one example of his work. In 1917, as our town’s

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oldest citizen, Moses Uriah Hall became the fifth recipient of our Boston Post Cane and the first African-American to be so honored by Epping.

Mr. Hall died at well over ninety years of age. No

doubt buried with military honors, this old Civil War veteran rests from a life well lived that would have made his father and his grandfather very proud indeed.

This column is dedicated to Epping’s hard working Board of Cemetery Trustees.

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Remembering Lyman W. Cate: Lest We Forget

Back in the 1860’s, a man by the name of Lyman

Cate and his family lived here in Epping on Spring Street. This street, as so many were back then, was probably little more than a dirt road. It was located about a half mile from “Epping Corner” which is our downtown area today.

Mr. Cate’s wife, affectionately called “Lizzie,” was a

popular and talented church organist. And Mr. Cate, who was known around town as “Bigfoot Cate” (possibly a clue to his size), was a notable jack of many trades. He was a member of the Epping police force, a shoemaker and a good cook who, with his handy horse and cart, provided food and refreshments not only to the crowds attending the Hedding Camp Ground meetings, but at other events in Epping and elsewhere as well. For years Mr. Cate was also a lamplighter who each evening made his rounds along Epping Corner to fill and light the oil street lamps along the way. And at one time he had men blasting ledge all around his place with dynamite hoping to discover silver and other valuable minerals. We're not sure how long this went on, but the explosions from this venture must not only have bothered Lizzie and

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the neighbors no end, but must have been heard all over town and beyond.

But most notably, Lyman Cate had returned to

Epping as a Civil War veteran. He served with the legendary 8th New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry Regiment at the battle at Port Hudson, Louisiana where he was wounded. This regiment lost a total of 258 men at Port Hudson, the most of any Union regiment in that hot and disease-ridden setting so far from home.

Mr. Cate died here in Epping in 1903 and, no doubt

with full military honors, the old soldier was laid to rest in the Central Cemetery, not too far from his old home place. To further honor him, Spring Street was renamed Cate Street by this grateful town and it remains Cate Street to this day. Lyman Cate is just one of the many war veterans at rest in Epping. Their stones have been carefully marked with the flag of our country and Taps is played over them each year.

And so may it always be. Lest we forget.

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High Flying Flags in Epping About one hundred and fifty years ago, across from

where the Epping Town Hall is now, there once was a house where Dr. Nathaniel Batchelder lived with his wife and their daughter Emily. Back then, the bridge right there was known to all as “Batchelder’s Bridge.” Dr. Batchelder himself, besides caring for the sick, was inclined to display large flags around his place. He also once sued one of his own patients as well as the Town of Epping and was not generally thought to be a very prudent person.

At the very time when men and boys from all over the northeast were fighting in the Civil War and getting killed trying to keep this country together, Dr Nat decided to come out as a solid supporter of the South, for a permanently divided America, for slavery, and for all the rest of it. He covered the front door of his house with a Confederate flag. He started making speeches to increasingly hostile crowds. He was bodily picked up and carried out of a citizens’ meeting by a young Epping soldier and then run out of town to the Exeter jail. One account had him tarred and feathered along the way. Newspapers carried stories about Dr. Nathaniel Batchelder, “the Epping secessionist.” They

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also published the rambling letters he wrote defending himself from behind bars.

Dr. Batchelder was moved to the prison at Fort

Constitution over in Portsmouth for his “anti-union views and speeches given in Epping” -- and undoubtedly for his own safety. Like any other Confederate prisoner of war he had to take the Oath of Allegiance to the United States before being released.

Free at last! --and finally back home in Epping, --

the man lost no time in hoisting up a “large flag of pure white on a 75 foot pole.” His long suffering wife and daughter packed up, moved out, and opened a hat shop in Exeter.

Years later, Emily Batchelder returned home alone

to try to reconcile and care for her father. Sadly, left with very little after he died, she rattled around the old place for years until finally taken to what was then called the County Hospital and Asylum in Brentwood where she died in 1896. However, she was here in Epping when the old Batchelder Bridge was improved and lit by modern lanterns, when Watson Academy was built on the hill and when the fine new Epping Town Hall went up across the road on land her father had donated. She was here in 1881, when Dr Abram Mitchell and his family moved in next door to her, into what is now the home of Greg and Lisa Dodge.

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Dr. Abram Mitchell devotedly served the people of this town for almost fifty years. You could call him anytime and he would come - by horse, sleigh or on foot. Later on, he had a Model T Ford with skis on the front and chains on the rear tires for winter house calls. He stayed as long as was needed and charged 50 cents per visit. Dr. Mitchell was so respected that when he retired in 1930, his letter of resignation as the Rockingham County Physician was refused and he was awarded an unlimited leave of absence with privileges instead. In 1935, when a new General Hospital was built to replace the old County Hospital and Asylum where Emily Batchelder had died, the new building was named in his honor. It still stands and now houses our County Extension services and other Administrative offices in Brentwood.

Dr. Mitchell gave the land where our Harvey

Mitchell Memorial Library is now. He donated land in back of the Town Hall, as well as acres along the river to be used by the Boy Scouts and as a community park. Our American Legion Post #51 bears the name of one of his sons, Lieut. Richard Andrew Mitchell. Among its many good works, the Mitchell American Legion Post of Epping puts up all those beautiful American flags we see flying over our streets each Memorial Day. The thirteen stripes on each flag represent our original thirteen colonies and those fifty bright stars remind us all that as fifty states united as one, we remain a nation strong and indivisible under God: The United States of America.

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A Few Olde Timey Epping Characters   Every town had them.  Here are a few of ours.     John Albert Allen, was a Civil War veteran and a

traveling man. He had a beard so long that he got in the habit of just tucking it inside his vest to get it out of the way and sometimes he sat on it.  One day he finally got tired of all this tucking and sitting so he cut it all off, tied it to a tree and walked away. He died here in 1918.   John Gordon, the prosperous owner of one of the

largest farms in Epping died in 1849 leaving the whole place to his beloved wife, Sophia who was 80 years old at the time.  She decided taxes were never going to be paid on the property again. Never. After years of sticking to her guns, the exasperated selectmen finally gave up trying to work with her,  and she was arrested for non payment of taxes and taken to court. The court ordered her to pay all her due taxes like everybody else. But the town won nothing but legal bills on top of what she already owed.  And so matters remained.  Sophia died in 1856 at 87 years of age and apparently still not having paid a penny as the Epping Town Report of that year states “ the old lady fortified

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herself in her castle and bid defiance” and pinpoints her as “the principal cause of Epping's debt.”   Daniel Barber lived on the old family farm which is

now the Hedding Campground. When he was 83 years old he began husking corn like mad and in 33 days had husked a total of 330 bushels.  Mr. Barber also had a piece of land about an acre and a half which rain or shine, for the last fifty years of his life, he mowed every July 15th, on his birthday.

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Baldwin apple tree

  And there can be no doubt that James Locke,

another of our Civil War soldiers, aimed to please his invalid wife Mary, who was a lady addicted to attending funerals. Even though Mr. Locke had at one time served as Epping Police Chief and Tax Collector, he owned no working vehicle but a wheelbarrow, so after loading her into it he would wheel her to the church for the latest funeral and probably anywhere else around town she wanted to go.     Then there was Rev. Herman Shepard of West

Epping who had a glass eye due to a terrible accident in his horse stall. He used to spray apple trees in local orchards and when he was done spraying he would routinely remove the eye, clean and polish it up nicely with his handkerchief, and  pop it back in. After his long-suffering wife died he fully expected that his daughter Rachel would devote her life to taking care of him.  To make sure she stayed put,  he would routinely just tie her up when she "misbehaved" and talked about leaving, or when he wasn’t around and couldn’t keep his good eye on her. Rachel finally did break loose one day, ran off, happily married and had a beautiful family of her own.  Among her many other virtues she became a very fine poet and was a scholar to the end of her long life. Her twin daughters recently came to visit us from California and shared this story.

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Up, Down and About the Epping Town Hall

The present Epping Town Hall was built in 1893,

and first heated by fireplaces and coal and lit by oil lamps and later by gas lamps. Plumbing was finally installed several years later in the lobby, kitchen and bathrooms much to the relief of our Board of Health (and undoubtedly everyone in the building.) Shortly thereafter, a police court was established on the first floor and prisoners were locked up in the jail cells on the floor below. Long ago someone with a pencil and heavy heart wrote on his cell wall: “Man has a body as well as a soul. It’s hard to be poor and honest.” The words may still be made out today.

The use of oil and gas lamps in the Town Hall

became history when electricity was installed in the building in 1909. At that time, our streets were still being lit by lanterns set atop eight-foot poles. They were tended by a town paid lamplighter, who also made sure “all was well” as he made his evening rounds. He used a ladder to light each one and returned the next morning to put them all out. When Lottie Bartlett came from Kingston as the bride of Ralph Goodrich in 1914, she thought it very quaint to see the streets in Epping lit by a lamplighter. At that time, he might have been Civil War veteran, Lyman

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Cate, after whom Cate Street (formerly Spring Street) was named, or Mr. William Brooks, a one-eyed man also well known about town for his smoked hams.

The plaque listing our Revolutionary soldiers was

affixed to the front of the Town Hall and dedicated on Memorial Day in 1921. Mr. Charles Sanborn, former Chairman of the Building Committee, was there and his daughter-in-law Julia sang the hymn “Lest We Forget” before the attentive crowd.

In the upstairs auditorium of the building, the town

piano was always available for any event, such as a lively minstrel show, concert or play. There were weddings and receptions held up there, as well as meetings of all kinds including Klan, benefits and elegant dances featuring grand marches.

In 1923, the town voted to establish a Municipal

Court in the Town Hall. George Gilmore, the local druggist, veterinarian and town health officer, was appointed the first judge and served for 20 years. He was followed by Arthur MacFarlane (from 1943 to 1957), who owned a watch repair and jewelry shop in what is now 123 Main Street and whose beautiful pocket watches are genuine collector’s items.

Kendall Prescott Chase was appointed as judge by

Gov. Wesley Powell in 1958, and in his honor the Court was kept open until he retired in 1983. The well-used impressive judge’s desk and the witness

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stand (where many persons probably stood with shaky knees) were both stored in a local barn and later brought to the Historical Society where they are prominently displayed.

In 1888, well before the Epping Town Hall was

built, a clock was given to the town by Mrs. Simpson, the widow of a Congregational Church deacon. It was installed in the belfry of that church (now the Epping Community Church on Pleasant Street), and there it has remained, carefully tended and chiming the hours to this day. As for the “clock tower” in the Town Hall, it seems destined to remain little more than a happy haven for generations of pesky bats and pigeons. Back in the 1940’s, Mr. Lussier, the Town Hall janitor and a definite bird lover, most sadly lost both his balance and his life while feeding the pigeons nesting up there – and falling to the street below.

More recently some folks working upstairs in the

Town Hall late at night felt uneasy enough to lock up and leave the building, while others seemed not to have been bothered at all. And some of us have just learned to live with those odd things that can occur in an old Epping place from time to time.

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The “City of Columbus” Shipwreck The “City of Columbus” was a six-masted 275- foot

luxury cruise ship that for years had offered winter weary New Englanders a safe and pleasant journey to the warmth of the South. On January 8,1884 the ship left Boston heading to Savannah, Georgia with a 45 man crew and 87 passengers on board, including Lewis Chase of Epping and his wife Ida.

Mr. Chase was a Civil War veteran and wounded in

battle. However, nothing could have prepared him or anyone else on board when, as they slept below in the dark early morning hours, the ship hit a double ledge of jagged rocks south of Cape Cod, near Martha’s Vineyard, filled up with water and in 25 minutes sank into the sea. Many of those who made it up to the top deck were swept overboard by the giant waves that also smashed the lifeboats against the ship and rendered them useless. Some of the men managed to climb further and held on to the rigging for hours before members of the Wampanoag Indian tribe arrived on the scene and in the high wind managed to rescue 19 persons from the frigid waters. Of the original 132 men, women and children on board, only 17 crew members and 12 adult passengers were saved. Lewis Chase and Ida were not among them.

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The City of Columbus went down almost 30 years before the Titanic and was reported as one of the worst ocean disasters of its time. News of the sinking was immediate and widespread. Here in Epping, the poet Matthew James Harvey, who knew the Lewis Chase family well, was moved to compose a heartfelt poem. He not only describes the disaster itself but also reflects on the uncertainties of life and loss. He titled his work “The Wreck of the City of Columbus.” A copy of this poem is in the Epping Historical Society. About fourteen years ago, using an old photograph of the ship that showed only its bow sticking out of the water, a diver located what is left of the old shipwreck. It lies about fifty feet underwater surrounded by massive rocks on the north ledge of what is still known today as the “Devil’s Bridge.

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Spirits Rap in Epping About 130 years ago, New England was a regular

hotbed of Spiritual activity and a catchy little ditty called “Spirit Rappings” was all the rage. It was often sung at those gatherings held for contacting folks “from the other side” which many believed not only possible, but a proven fact. These gatherings, called séances, were held in private homes year round and at well attended Spiritualist camp meetings in warm weather. New Hampshire had two of these camps. One of them began meeting at Lake Sunapee in 1887. Some others were Camp Etna, Camp Madison and Temple Heights in Maine, and Onset Bay Grove and Lake Pleasant in Massachusetts. Although the Spiritualist Movement faded in New England in the early 1900’s, several of these camps still seem to be going strong. . Meanwhile, back here in Epping, John F. Gear, a soldier who had survived the Civil War, was described by the Exeter News-Letter newspaper as “the gentleman most active and industrious in spiritual work in Epping as well as being a man of property" (he owned a fish market by the Lamprey River).

Mr. Gear and other Believers seemed to like

especially to gather together around Christmastime. As suggested by the visit from The Ghost of Christmas

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Past in the Dickens novel and by the familiar words of “Old Lang Syne,” about the love and friendship of times past, that was when it was often thought best to invite departed friends and family to drop by.

So in 1883, and perhaps close to this time of year,

the News-Letter reported that a two day session of Spiritualists had taken place in Epping and also detailed a notable séance that had been held at “Mr. Brown’s mansion house located near the center of town.” Mr. Gear may well have been in attendance as we learn that “seated around Mr. Brown’s table were fifteen of Epping’s most worthy and intelligent persons.” The séance was conducted by the famed Helen C. Berry, one of two sisters from Boston, both of them Mediums. She was described as a pretty young woman who had been engaged to a man who died shortly before their wedding. However, his Spirit, who she called Charley, was kept busy as the main helper at her séances, although reportedly he never showed himself to anyone.

Helen and Charley must have conducted one pretty

intense session here in Epping, as it was reported that “messages were written from friends in the invisible world, hands warmly shaken, and a 225 pound “Doubting Thomas” found himself pulled up from his chair, the chair put on top of the table, and he himself laid out full length on it.” Surely all this erased whatever doubts he may have had and he became a true believer forevermore. Knock knock. Who’s there?

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Home Grown in Epping Last December a historic old Catalpa tree here in

town sadly had to be taken down. It had lived through an estimated one hundred years and, at 83 feet, was the largest tree of its kind in New Hampshire. All the Catalpa trees still growing in Epping probably descended from that one tree whose seeds had been carefully planted long ago in coffee cans by the owner who sold the little trees at his store on Main Street.

In the smaller and simpler rural town we were back

then, there were a number of gifted men and women who, in raising up their skills like the branches of that old tree in its prime, made their own history. Here are just a few of them. Phyllis Blanchard, a graduate of Watson Academy, earned a Ph. D. in psychology. She wrote a book called "The Adolescent Girl" and went on to examine and test “all children in a New Jersey County.”

John Bickford Folsom was a well-known educator

in New Hampshire whose early death was ruled a “terrible loss." He was principal of the Milton schools, taught in Newmarket and Raymond, and was principal of the Brentwood Elementary School. Mr. Folsom was also a Congregational lay preacher and a minister of The Society of Friends (Quakers). The

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conservation area in West Epping is named in his honor.

Mary Laura Bragg, daughter of an Epping minister,

was deaf from childhood scarlet fever. In 1906 she graduated with a degree in Library Science in Boston, worked in the Museum of Natural History and began the museum at Orr’s Island in Maine. She was also the first woman Director of the Charleston Museum in North Carolina. Her life and career are described in "A

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Historical Society building, gift of John and Minnie Warren.

Bluestocking in Charleston" by Louise Anderson Allen.

Walter Leroy Fogg served as a Sunday editor of the

Boston Herald newspaper. Among other works, he wrote "One Thousand Sayings of History" and a collection of short stories called "An Even Dozen." Mr. Fogg also became the editor of the Lynn, Massachusetts "Telegram" newspaper.

The recreation and sports area in West Epping is

named in honor of Epping’s beloved teacher Mary Evelyn Folsom Blair. Mrs. Blair taught in a number of places and beginning in 1901 in her one room schoolhouse in West Epping where she returned to educate "several generations of Epping children." She is remembered as a compassionate, strong-minded educator and an inspiration to her students.

Fannie Woods Wiggin, born on an Epping farm,

became the first woman in New Hampshire to become a registered pharmacist.

Carolyn Ferguson was the first woman to be

ordained a Congregational minister in New Hampshire. Her ordination service took place here in Epping in 1929.

Matthew James Harvey’s remarkable memory made

him known as a "walking encyclopedia.” A poet and historian, he also wrote articles for the NH

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Agriculture Farm Magazine and the Manchester Union Leader. In addition, he was a State Legislator, member of the National Guard and served as a Justice of the Peace for 12 years. His cemetery inscription reads "A good man whose good works still live.”

Indeed, these were all good people from Epping

who raised up their skills like the high branches of that great old Catalpa tree, and whose own good works still live.

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Down a Wandering Gypsy Trail Gypsies began thousands of years ago in the area

which was then northern India and now is Pakistan. Long persecuted, always viewed with suspicion, and living by their wits, they left their homeland and began traveling from one place to another. Later known as “Travelers,” gypsies are now found all over the world, including right here in New England.

Whether it is true or not, anyone who is living a

questionable lifestyle is often labeled a gypsy. This calls to mind the old tale about “The Barrington Tribe” who lived in that town back in the 1850’s. In his "History of Barrington," author John Scales describes the “Barrington Tribe” as a large and rowdy clan who lived in a remote section of that town and who were long believed to be a gypsy tribe. Like gypsies, they traveled all around with their wives and children, selling their baskets at train stations both here and in Massachusetts and, you guessed it -- telling fortunes. However, they gave all that up and permanently changed their last name after one of them killed his brother during a wild brawl in front of their house. But the members of this family were not really gypsies. It was proven long ago that they were all really just a very rough branch of a well-respected family, long settled in Dover.

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An unusual Exeter News-Letter item reported that a

band of gypsies had entertained the Memorial Day crowd in Epping. That was in 1915, a time when many homes and public buildings in the area were being robbed by well-organized thieves who rode the trains at night from one town to another. Because it had been checked beforehand, these robbers already knew whether or not their targeted town had electricity, an all night police force, a night watchman at the bank or post office, and just who carried large sums of money after dark. They stole money from safes they had cracked open with dynamite.

On a dark and stormy night, just about a year after

those gypsies visited Epping, our Post Office, then located not too far from the railroad station, was broken into. The sides of the safe had been blown out with dynamite, which may have passed for thunder, and well over a thousand dollars, (a fortune back then), in savings and stamps, was stolen. Three men with darkened lanterns were later seen running across the street. Apparently they were never caught or identified.

Today, one hundred years later, maybe a crystal ball

might tell us whether or not those visiting gypsies and that smooth robbery in Epping might have been somehow linked together, like the rails of a train.

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Lovestruck   As we all know, the road that leads to “living

happily ever “ sometimes can get a bit bumpy. These old Epping Tales on the subject were taken from the newspapers of the day.   In the 1870’s, Mr. George A. Tarbox, a Civil War

veteran, was working as a blacksmith here in Epping. Tall and strong, and a fighter and hunter, Mr. Tarbox was clearly a force to be reckoned with. One night he went to a local hotel looking for one George Woodman and when he found him began beating the poor man with a large iron bar. Mr. Woodman, fighting for his life, fired his pistol at Tarbox wounding him in the thigh. The police were hastily called, broke up the brawl and arrested the men on the spot. What caused the fight? Well, it seems that Tarbox had found out that both he and Woodman were crazy about the same Epping girl!   Then, a few years later, Miss Elva Jones, a sweet

sixteen year old from West Epping, simply disappeared. For days on end everybody was out looking for the girl. Her family and neighbors reported that one Mr. Cyrus Peavy of Fremont was infatuated with Elva and showing up often to see her, uninvited, unwelcome, and following her around

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wherever she went. When the police went over to Fremont to question Mr. Peavy, they discovered that he also was missing. Both Cyrus Peavy and Elva Jones were eventually found in Alton Bay. She later said she had been drugged and that Peavy lured her over to the West Epping train station and from there kidnapped her to Alton Bay. He was branded “the villain” and took off to Maine. A few years later, Miss Elva married Mr. John Stacey, named the first of their children Herbert, and hopefully went on to live here happily ever after.

  And there was Mr. Charles Warren, born here in

Epping in 1892. In 1915 he was working as a chauffeur in Massachusetts where he fell madly in love with a waitress named Ruby Stewart. She finally told him she was really interested in somebody else, and an armed and very jealous Mr. Warren showed up at the busy restaurant where Ruby worked and loudly confronted

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Warren Farm, North River Road

her. Ruby’s boss, gallantly trying to protect her, was taken down by Warren. While trying to escape the scene Warren was knocked over on the street by a mail carrier and pinned down by those chasing him until the police took over. Mr. Warren wound up facing a judge and a stiff jail sentence. Hopefully Miss Ruby was able to put all this behind her and go on to live a long and happy life.   Finally, in the late 1880’s, a wild animal was

reported to be on the loose and prowling around the area. Everyone was on alert with “ a rifled cannon in his hip pocket.” The creature was finally taken down in Barrington and it turned out to be a seven and a half foot cougar weighing in at 230 pounds. Fearing the animal, a young Epping man and his sweetheart had prudently suspended their usual Sunday evening visits together but now, with the danger over, they could resume their courting. The local newspaper reported that her sweetheart’s return had caused the young lady to “rejoice with joy unspeakable.” Wow!   With special thanks to Melissa Chase.

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Piazza (Not Pizza) and Moxie Time in Epping

Old photos show Epping looking like an old cowboy

town with hitching posts, stables, and horse and wagon tracks all over dirt roads. Water was hand pumped and light was provided by oil lamps, candles and the sun. Wood-fed stoves and fireplaces were used for cooking, baking, and for keeping warm on frosty days. Many houses also had connected barns to care for their animals without having to go out in the icy snow and subzero temps of those “old fashioned New England winters.” Oxen or horse teams cut roads through the snow, making it easier to get out and about by foot, snowshoe or sleigh. Some folks chose to travel by ice skating on the frozen rivers and sometimes they fell through.

After months of slipping around, everybody was

good and ready for the less stressful days of summer. Even during the summer of 1905, when some folks were hopping mad at their new $12.00 a year bills for town water, they surely could calm down and cool off out on a piazza with a glass of Moxie. Moxie was a drink said to help with “softening of the brain, nervousness and insomnia.“ Moxie was also supposed to toughen us all up and be ready to take on anything. If that didn’t do it, a plate of America’s favorite

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cookies might help. Both Moxie and the original Oreos are still available at the local grocery store. What we call porches today, everybody called “piazzas” back then. Plain or fancy, screened or not, they were found on houses and storefronts all over town and were favorite places for relaxing. Some had hammocks for snoozing and music from hand cranked record players (until 1909 when electricity brought the magic of radio to Epping). Tables were set up for cards, puzzles or checkers, (perhaps in hope of beating Tom Leddy, our own three time State Checker Champion). Every July 4th, one family used to invite all the children in town over for hot dogs, Moxie and tasty donuts made all day by the ladies of the house. The backyard was filled with kids playing games and being treated to movies in the barn. Movies were always a sure hit with everybody. Around 1914, Mr. Charles Gardner leased the Jordan Block on Main Street (a brick building now used for housing). He wired the place for movies and had a full house every Saturday night at ten cents a ticket. He grandly called it the Olympia Theatre and for a while there, the whole building was known as the Olympia Block.

On any summer day you might spot Lottie

Goodrich’s peacocks strutting on the lawn around her brick house or, from your piazza, count all the Model T-Fords and horse and buggies heading to the beach on what is now Route 27. Or, you might have seen a large mother pig strolling along Pleasant Street with all her piglets. They had broken loose from their pen

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when nobody was looking and had almost made it to Main Street when they decided to take a rest and their morning snack on the shady lawn of the Congregational Church. The minister tried getting them up and moving along, but they would not budge. People started gathering and offering advice. Finally some neighborhood ladies arrived on the scene, sized up the situation, hiked up their long skirts and work aprons, rolled up their sleeves, and commenced to paddle the escapees up on their feet and all the way back home with their brooms. The dear daughter of one of those ladies, just a little girl back then, told me this Epping tale many years ago.

Those were the days, my friends.

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Not Yet Forgotten - Alfred Dorsey of Florida and Epping, NH

One day a friend led me through the back of the

Prospect Cemetery to find a gravesite he had discovered there many years before. After rough going for what seemed forever, we finally found the spot which turned out to be a sad little place, tucked far away from all the others with only a dirty bottom piece of a marble monument remaining in the ground. Whose place could this be? Hoping for any clue, we went looking for the rest of the stone, but having no luck we finally gave that up. It was also getting late and time to leave. We paused for a last look at the piece of stone still in the ground and in the shifting light saw something was carved in it. We made out the words “born in Palatka, Florida,” surely an odd find in any New England cemetery and all we needed. The search was on.

Our old Epping town records reveal more in this

department than they do today. Besides providing the places of birth and death, many also include the person’s line of work, race, marriage information and often the name and birthplace of each parent. The only person who was born in Palatka, Florida and died here in Epping was Alfred Dorsey, a young unmarried man, employed as a laborer, and described by the

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letter “C” for “colored.” The names of Mr. Dorsey’s parents were not given. The search continued.

It was discovered that Alfred Dorsey was born in

Palatka on September 1, 1866, a year after the Civil War ended. He died here in Epping “of organic heart disease” right on his 26th birthday in 1892. The 1880 Florida census records identify him as a then 14-year old boy, living with his family and already at work as a laborer. His father, William, was described as “incapacitated and unable to work.” His mother, Isabella, cleaned houses, no doubt to provide some income. There were three children in the family.

We can’t be sure what brought Alfred Dorsey up

here so far from his home and family. Perhaps he was one of those southern migrant workers who we know routinely followed the growing season north each year to work on our local farms. But of one thing we can be pretty sure. The friends he had here in Epping must have thought a lot of this young black man judging from that once elegant white marble memorial they provided for him. And although not much of any of it remains, the memory of Mr. Alfred Dorsey, born in Palatka, Florida is clearly not yet ready to be forgotten.

Additional information generously contributed by author and friend, Mr. Glenn Knoblock.

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Reaching for Stars Back in July, 1925, when Calvin Coolidge was in the

White House and Dan Harvey was almost five years old here on Red Oak Hill, just seeing an airplane flying around Epping was a really rare event. So one can only imagine the excitement that summer day, as a massive object passed over our town. Measuring almost two football fields long and nearly 80 feet around, it was the world famous airship “Shenandoah” on a flight to Bar Harbor from her home port of Lakehurst, New Jersey. She had been built there and christened “Shenandoah,” an American Indian term meaning “Daughter of the Stars.” She was the first rigid helium inflated airship in history and the first to cross North America, thus winning the hearts of Americans and aviation leaders everywhere. When the Shenandoah went down in a squall line over Ohio in September of that same year, it marked the world’s greatest aviation disaster up to that time.

1925 was also the year that a rough-necked

Lithuanian from Binghamton, New York married a girl from Epping, New Hampshire. He came here to live on Pleasant Street and swiftly became one of our town’s more colorful citizens. Jack Sharkey was a Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World and had

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some knockout tales of his own to tell. Here’s one of them:

On the night of May 21, 1927, New York’s Yankee

Stadium was jammed with boxing fans all geared up for the elimination match between Jack and his longtime rival Jimmy Maloney. As the fighters stood in their corners waiting for the starting bell, the ring announcer suddenly asked everyone to observe a moment of prayer. “It got so quiet you could hear a pin drop.” Jack recalled years later. That was the night when 30,000 people in Yankee Stadium got to their feet and bowed their heads as one for the safe landing of a young American pilot who at that very moment was flying alone across the vast Atlantic Ocean on his way to France.

Six other men had died trying, but Charles

Lindbergh, an Air Mail pilot and Army Reserve Officer, was determined to win the $25,000 prize for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris, a distance of over 3,600 miles, in his singleengine plane named the Spirit of St. Louis. To reduce the plane’s weight because of the extra fuel tanks, he had decided to fly without a radio, gas gauge, night-flying lights, navigation equipment, a co-pilot or even a parachute. With only a magnetic compass, airspeed, luck, prayers and five sandwiches, he flew 34 hours straight, a good part of it through snow and sleet. He landed safely through a foggy night on a Paris airfield to be met by the thunderous welcome of thousands of wildly

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cheering French. He was named “Lucky Lindy” and became a world famous hero. President Coolidge presented him with both the Distinguished Flying Cross and our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Dan Harvey was about seven years old here in

Epping when Lindy landed in Paris. His own interest in “those flying machines” had begun when one flew by his house on Red Oak Hill. By the time he was 18 years old, his father was still grumbling that anybody’s life in a plane depended “only on a darn fuel tank.” Nonetheless, two dollars meant fifteen minutes of flying lessons in Haverhill and Dan drove there for them in his old Buick with a door missing. He was his father’s only son, the only boy in an old farming family. To keep him happy and on the farm his father bought him a Piper Cub and a potato planting machine.

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Harvey Farm, Red Oak Hill

Then one cold February night in 1956, Dan was flying solo 3,000 feet above Boston Harbor and ran out of fuel. He managed to land safely on deserted Outer Brewster Island and built a fire to keep himself warm and attract attention to his plight. He found some crackers in his pocket and made a meal of them. Then he hunkered down for the night and woke up next morning to loud shouts of “Anybody there?!!” A U.S. Coast Guard boat had come to the rescue of Epping’s “Flying Farmer.” When he finally landed his plane here back home, he was welcomed by his much relieved family and friends from all over town. People affectionately began calling him "Lindy" to which he replied

“No heroics here. Any fool can run out of gas.” And so wherever life may take us, may we always land safely and never run out of fuel, matches — or crackers.

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From Boston to Epping: The Cocoanut Grove Fire

In 1942, the worst building fire with the greatest

loss of life in New England history occurred in Boston at the popular Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Two couples from Epping planned to go and celebrate there that night after the Thanksgiving weekend football game at Fenway Park. However, when their favorite team, Boston College, lost the game, one couple decided to just call it a day and head back to Epping instead of to the nightclub. The other couple went on to the Cocoanut Grove instead and they never returned home. Heartbroken families and our little town were left in shock.

We lost Ruth Morris, a beloved daughter from an

old Epping family, and her husband, Paul Carbone. The second couple was her old friend Dorothy Dean Swanson, also from Epping, and her husband, boxing champion, Jack Sharkey. Many years later Jack tearfully described how he and Dorothy first learned of the dreadful news when they opened their newspaper the next morning. The nightclub had been jammed with over a thousand people. Wartime servicemen and their sweethearts, football fans, and many others were crowded into a space rated for a maximum of 460 persons. It was said the fire started

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in a dim downstairs lounge when a busboy lit a match to find a light socket.

The flammable decorations and furniture quickly caught fire and it spread to the main level where cloth draperies and more decorations covered the exit signs. Further, the exit doors were designed to only open inward and locked to keep out gatecrashers. Almost 500 lives were lost in Boston that night. This awful event resulted in many more strictly enforced fire regulations for public buildings that protect us today.

Except for some neighbors and history fans, few

folks know just where in Boston the Cocoanut Grove nightclub was located. Last November marked the 71st anniversary of the fire and the small block where the club once stood was officially named Cocoanut Grove Lane and dedicated to the memory and honor of all those whose lives were forever changed there so long ago.

This column is dedicated to the memory of Epping’s lovely Ruth Morris Carbone, her husband Paul, and their families.

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Our Old Brick Town Thousands of years ago, this area was covered by

glaciers. As they melted or moved on, they left behind rich deposits of clay soil. This made for some great farming and bricks of such superior quality that the demand for them became a big business in Epping.

People were making their own bricks and pottery

here for home use, long before our first brickyard opened in town. In his “History of Epping,” lifetime historian Donald Sanborn writes that Mr. Levi Thompson had a brickyard up and running on Main Street as early as 1822. Fifty years later, the man was still hauling his bricks on to horse drawn wagons. His home and blacksmith shop were where Mike and Michelle King are now.

More Epping brickyards opened up after the

railroad rolled into town, making shipping easier and faster. At one point we had thirteen Epping brickyards operating at the same time and making millions of bricks, some of which were sent out as far as New York City. Men from Canada and points south came to fill brickyard jobs in Epping and they often rented rooms or “cottages” close to where they worked. Some of them decided to settle here for good and brought their different languages, music, Catholic faith and their varied customs along with them.

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As of this writing, our last standing Epping

brickyard, W.S. Goodrich, a family owned business since 1887, is up for sale. Once the largest manufacturer of water-struck brick in the United States, it made as many as 6,000,000 Epping bricks a year at the height of production. The sale of this property indeed marks “the end of an era.” You can still find traces of our brick making history. Discarded bricks still mark where a brickyard once stood and as the clay pits filled with water they became peaceful havens for wildlife and enjoyment today. The Pond part of Pine and Pond Park is one of them.

The use of brick has long been encouraged and used

in Epping as shown by our Safety Complex and many other buildings in town. To their credit, the builders of Brickyard Square not only agreed to that name but continue using brick in construction of the site. These gestures not only honor the Proulx family and the large brickyard they established there almost 130 years ago, but all our hardworking Epping brick makers and their families, past and to this day.

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