By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 2, 2019
In this year, we encounter below zero places, the death of a Porter ice man, microscopic writing by a minister’s wife, two life estates, a lightning strike on an ice house, and the death of a former ice magnate.
Milton appeared again in a list of places whose railroad station thermometers registered below zero temperatures.
Way Below Zero Places. Ayer, 20 to 25; Georgetown, 15 to 20; Billerica, 15; Concord, Mass., 12; Westboro, 10; Lawrence, 8 to 26; Waltham, 5; Newburyport, 14; Methuen, 25 to 33; North Lancaster, 32; Marlboro, 15; Northboro, 15; Southboro, 11; Gorham, Me., 34; Portland, Me., 7; South Berwick, Me., 24; Westbrook, Me., 22; Cape Elizabeth, Me., 12; Kittery Point, Me, 6; Nashua, N.H., 35; Newington, N.H., 20; Manchester, N.H., 29 to 36; Goffstown, N.H., 38; Salem Depot, N.H., 35; Portsmouth, N.H., 10 to 18; Cotton Valley, N.H., 24; Milton, N.H., 16; Dover. N.H., 14; Rochester, N.H., 20; Ludlow, Vt., 20; Woodstock, Vt., 40; Bridgewater, Vt., 36; Whetlock’s Hen House, 16 (Boston Globe, January 24, 1922).
The accidental death of ice cutter Frank Tebbetts sheds some light on how the ice channel, through which cut ice blocks were pushed towards the ice house’s conveyer belt, was kept open.
Melvin Frank Tibbetts was born in Rochester, NH, circa 1870, son of Luke and S. Abbie ((Ellis) Colby) Tibbetts. He had an elder sister, Phebe L. Tibbetts (m. Charles E. Ham), and younger siblings, Charles A. Tibbets and Alice M. Tibbetts. Their father died in Milton, September 17, 1893.
Frank M. Tibbetts, a laborer, had his house at 72 Main street, opposite the depot, in 1912. His mother, Abbie S. Tibbetts, widow of Luke Tibbetts, and his brother, Charles O. Tibbetts, an iceman, had their house at 64 Main street.
Frank M. Tibbetts, a saw mill sawyer, aged forty-nine years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fourteenth (1920) Federal Census. His household included his servant, Nettie O. Mills, a private family servant, aged fifty-four years (b. NH). He shared a rented two-family dwelling on Upper Main Street with the household of Everett Brown, aged sixty-four years (b. NH).
ICE CUTTER IS DROWNED IN MILTON, N.H., POND. MILTON, N.H., Jan 27 – Frank Tebbetts, employed by the J.O. Porter Ice Company, was drowned at midnight last night on the Milton Pond and his body was recovered by the Selectmen at 5 o’clock this morning. Mr. Tebbetts was keeping the channel open for ice cutting, using a boat, which capsized. He was 52 years old and leaves two sisters and a brother (Boston Globe, January 27, 1922).
According to Milton town records, Frank M. Tibbetts died in Milton (“accidental drowning”), January 27, 1922, aged fifty two years and twenty-one days. He had been born in Rochester, NH, son of Luke and S. Abbie (Ellis) Tibbetts.
Here we may marvel at the patience and dexterity of a Methodist minister’s wife.
Pastor’s Wife Wrote 10,558 Words on One Side of U.S. Post Card; Hancock Record Goes. Special Dispatch to the Globe. MILTON MILLS, N.H., Feb. 13 – In a recent issue of the Globe, in a dispatch from Schenectady, N.Y., it stated that Mrs. Samuel Sweet of Hancock, Mass., wrote 8632 words on a postal card, which, it said, was “a record.” The lady will have to try again. In 1890 Mrs. Lillie E. Taylor, wife of Rev. B.S. Taylor, then residing in Des Moines, Ia., wrote 10,558 words on one side of a common U.S. postal card with a steel pen, without the aid of a magnifying glass. Mrs. Taylor also wrote The Lord’s Prayer six times, and 27 words extra, in a space the size of a nickel (420 words) (Boston Globe, February 14, 1922).
Such things are possible. One may see in the Essex Institute of Salem, MA, a miniature carving of the Last Judgment in which there are dozens of figures – if not more – carved inside half of a walnut shell.
FINNOCHIARO WILL FILED. Special Dispatch to The New York Times. Newport, May 22. – The will of Mrs. Florence Angel Finnochiaro, formerly Mrs. John J. Mahon of New York, was filed here to-day. Francesco Paola Finnochiaro, the husband, said the estate would not exceed $400,000. Bond was fixed at $800,000. The husband receives all of the estate, except a $5,000 bequest to a servant of forty years in the household. He gets the residue of two $25,000 trust funds. The income of one of these funds goes to a brother, Harold G. Angel of Milton Mills, N.H., for life, and the income of the other to George A. Smith of Milton Mills, for life (New York Times, May 23, 1922).
Edward S. Simes, a woolen mill carpenter, aged seventy-seven years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fourteenth (1920) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Mary E. Simes, aged seventy-four years (b. ME), his son-in-law, George A. Smith, aged sixty-four years (b. NH), his daughter, Laura Smith, aged forty-six years (b. NH), and his boarder, Harold G. Angell, aged sixty-one years (b. NY). They resided on School street.
Ice houses were among the largest, if not actually the largest, structures in town. Their height and isolated position (beside an open lake surface) would tend to attract lightning strikes.
BOSTON COMPANY’S ICE HOUSE AT MILTON, N.H., HIT. MILTON, N.H., July 18 – During a heavy showers this afternoon lightning struck the chimney of the engine and boiler room and one of the large ice houses of the Metropolitan Ice Company of Boston. About 10 feet of the chimney was demolished and a side of the ice house damaged (Boston Globe, July 19, 1922).
REPRESENTATIVE CHASE OF LYNN KILLED IN MILTON, N.H. LYNN, Sept. 4 – Representative Mial W. Chase of 15 Euclid st., Lynn, was killed yesterday by a fall from a hayloft in Milton, N.H., in the rear of the home of relatives whom he was visiting. He was found dead by a farmhand. Mr. Chase, a native of Lynn. was serving his second term in the Massachusetts Legislature, being elected from the 13th Essex District. He was the brother of Edward E. Chase, chief of the Lynn Fire Department. For a number of years he was a member of the Lynn School Board. He was an officer of the North Shore Ice Company and was formerly president of the old Chase Ice Company for a number of years. (Boston Globe, September 5, 1922).
Mial W. Chase, an ice delivery co. treasurer, aged fifty years (b. MA), headed a Lynn, MA, household at the time of the Fourteenth (1920) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Maude Chase, aged forty-nine years (b. MA), his in-laws, Alonzo Hollis, aged eighty-four years (b. CT), and Carrie Hollis, aged seventy years (b. ME), and his boarder, Sarah Bush, a widow, aged eighty-six years (b. MA). He owned their home at 15 Euclid avenue free-and-clear.
Previous in sequence: Milton in the News – 1921; next in sequence: Milton in the News – 1923
References:
Find a Grave. (2011, August 21). Mial W. Chase. Retrieved from www.findagrave.com/memorial/75276792/mial-w_-chase
Milton Observer 