By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 5, 2019
In this year, we encounter the marriage of a minister, a winter warm spell, the Milton Shoe Company auction sale, an iceman hit by a train, a housekeeper wanted, a Milton Mills bakery for sale, a suicide by train engine, a farm for sale, an opportunity for a horse, an East Rochester shoe strike, summer cottages for sale, a barber wanted, a Milton woman in a fatal auto accident, another farm for sale, a fishing prodigy, Milton farmers impersonated, yet another farm sale, Mr. Brady out on a “toot,” and a loom fixer wanted.
This was also the year of the Battle of Verdun (359,000 dead), the Irish Easter Rising, and the First Battle of the Somme (1,052,757 dead) in the Great War. And the year in which President Wilson campaigned successfully for re-election on the strength of his having “kept us out of war.”
WINDSOR. Mr. and Mrs. Charles D. Penniman announce the engagement of their daughter, Jennie Chandler, to Rev. S. Francis Goodheart of Milton, N.H. (Vermont Journal (Windsor, VT), January 7, 1916).
And then, it would appear, the wedding was off.
PASTOR TO TAKE BRIDE. The Rev. S. Francis Goodheart, of Milton, N.H., will be married Thursday to Mrs. Sarah Lester Gane, recently of London, England. They will be at home after September 3 at the Congregational parsonage in Milton. Before going to Milton a few years ago, Mr. Goodheart was pastor of the Congregational church at St. Johnsbury Center (St. Johnsbury Republican, August 23, 1916).
Simon Francis Goodheart married in Rochester, NH, August 24, 1916, Sarah Lester (Jones) Gane, both of Milton.
A three-day warm spell postponed Milton ice cutting for a time.
STOP CUTTING THE ICE CROP. Warm Spell Causes Hold-Up at Sanbornville and Milton. The mild weather of the past three days has interfered with the ice crop at Milton, Sanbornville and other places where the big ice companies are at work. In fear of accidents from the softening of the ice, the companies have suspended operations until colder weather. There is no fear of any shortage of ice on account of the warm spell (Portsmouth Herald, January 28, 1916).
The Milton Shoe Company had gone into receivership in November 1915 and its plant was sold at public auction, February 3, 1916.
The Milton Shoe Company had incorporated originally in 1901. It appeared in Milton business directories of 1901, and it advertised for workers as late as August 1902, but then it seems to have suspended its activities for a number of years.
The Milton Shoe Company resumed operations in August 1909 after nearly seven years, likely under new management. The industry directory Shoe and Leather Annual of 1912 identified that management and the factory’s product:
Milton Shoe Co. (Inc. $25,000). F.J. Currier, pres’t and treas., and M.I. Currier, vice pres’t; Fred Carter, clerk. Women’s, misses’ and children’s fine and medium welts. F.J. Currier, buyer. D. (Shoe and Leather Reporting Company, 1912).
In 1910, the Milton Shoe Co.’s president, Frank J. Currier, its factory superintendent, Ezra D. Colby, and the superintendent’s wife, were all boarding in Mrs. Miller’s Milton boarding house, which was close to the factory. (Note that the Superintendent’s wife worked in the factory as a shoe stitcher).
Sarah M. [(Hodgdon)] Miller, a widow, aged seventy-three years (b. ME), kept a boarding house in Milton at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. Her boarders were Ezra Dolby, a shoe factory superintendent, aged forty years (b. NH), his wife (of fifteen years), Edith [C. (Moody)] Dolby, a shoe stitcher, aged thirty-eight years (b. NH), and Frank Currier, a shoe manufacturer, aged forty years (b. MA). The census enumerator recorded her household between those of Joseph D. Willey, a general store merchant, aged fifty-six years (b. NH), and Joseph Walker, a Cong. Church clergyman, aged fifty-eight years (b. England).
The Milton Shoe Company’s president was enumerated also at his principal residence in Lynn, MA. (Vice-president M.I. Currier was his wife).
Frank J. Currier, a shoe manufacturer, aged thirty-seven years (b. MA), headed a Lynn, MA, household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Marie I. [(Newhall)] Currier, aged twenty-seven years (b. MA), his brother-in-law, Alfred S. Newhall, a bank teller, aged twenty-five years (b. MA), and his servant, Margaret Doyle, a private family servant, aged twenty five years (b. Ireland). They shared a rented two-family dwelling at 16 Greystone Park with the household of Belle H. Marotta, own income, aged forty-six years (b. MA).
The Milton business directory of 1912 listed “Milton Shoe Co., Frank J. Currier, pres. and treas., Leb. side, Milton at Cocheco dam.” As we have seen, Lynn-based President Currier boarded, when he was in town, with Mrs. Miller at 9 South Main street. Frank Currier, employed in Milton, N.H., had his house at 16 Greystone park in the Lynn directory of 1913.
The Milton Shoe Company advertised for workers in 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, and 1915, but not thereafter. That was because it went into receivership, i.e., bankruptcy, in November 1915.
MILTON, N.H. Charles F. Cotter of Lynn and William J. Barry of Boston have been appointed receivers of the Milton Shoe Co., Inc. The bonds were fixed at $10,000. The Ayer Tanning Co., a creditor with a claim of $3,331, instituted the proceeding. The liabilities are about $40,000, and the assets exceed that amount, but are not readily convertible into cash (McLeish, 1915).
Now its factory building, machinery, furniture, stock, and appointments went on the auction block in February 1916.
AUCTION SALES. Receivers’ Sale at Public Auction, Feb. 3rd, 1916, at 12 [P]M, on Premises of the Milton Shoe Co., Inc., Milton, N.H. (Take 8:35 A.M. train from No. Station, Boston). The plant of the said Company. consisting of the factory, shown on left of picture, about 40×150, run by steam and water power, with electrical plant, belting, pulleys, shafting. stitching room machinery, making and finishing room machinery, cutting boards, lasts, pattern, dice, office furniture, safes, typewriter, fixtures, merchandise consisting of upper stock, linings, heeling, threads, inner soles, counters, nails, tacks, heels, toplifts, uppers partially completed, finished shoes, upper leather and other merchandise and articles as usually go with a factory making women’s, misses’ and children’s welt and McKay shoes, contained on said premises and in office of said Company, 135 Lincoln St. Boston, under decree of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts dated Jan. 19, 1916, terms: each bidder to deposit with the Receivers 10% of the amount of his bid and not less than $500 at the time of sale and balance to be paid in cash upon confirmation of sale by the Court, the right being reserved to reject any and all bids: the factory on the right of the picture is vacant and is not the property of the Milton Shoe Co. The factory to be sold is in Lebanon. Me., on the B.&M. R.R.. Milton. N.H. Sta., and has a spur track and is on the banks of the Salmon Falls River and connected with the vacant factory on the New Hampshire side of the river by a foot bridge. The above property is open for inspection. For further description see the Receiver. WILLIAM J. BARRY, 212 Barristers Hall. Boston. Hay. 376. CHARLES F. COTTER, 244 Broad St., Lynn; Lynn 2660. ja20 23 30 (Boston Globe, January 20, 1916).
The company had sought a secretary for “steady work” in the prior year. She needed to understand typewriting and stenography. One may note her typewriter listed in the auction inventory.
Superintendent Dolby might have been an interesting companion at Mrs. Miller’s boarding-house. He played checkers competitively, and became even president of the Lynn Checkers Club.
Although he came here from Lynn, MA, he had local origins, having been born in New Durham, NH, September 23, 1876, son of Henry I. and Ellen A. (Pinkham) Dolby. He married in Lynn, MA, March 2, 1905, Edythe C. Moody, both of 112 Broad Street.
Dolby and his wife returned to Lynn, MA, after the Milton Shoe Company failure. He sold his Indian motorcycle there in July 1916 (Boston Globe, July 1, 1916).
Ezra Drown Dolby, aged forty-one years, registered for the WW I military draft at the American Consulate in Montreal Canada, September 12, 1918. Those records gave his home address as 82 Colonial Avenue, Lynn, MA, but also that he was employed as a foreman by the Kingsbury Footwear Company, La Salle Street, Maisoneuve, Montreal. He was described as a short man, with a medium build, brown eyes, and dark brown hair. He gave as his nearest relation his mother, Ellen A. Wright, of Farmington, NH.
He later manufactured airplanes. He worked in Manchester, NH, from the mid 1920s through at least the early 1930s, but he was back in Lynn, MA, for the 1940 census. He died in Saugus, MA, January 7, 1978. (Yes, a centenarian).
Porter Ice Company foreman John M. Brown was struck and killed by a southbound B&M railroad train on February 20.
John M. Brown married in Boston, MA, July 19, 1884, Margaret Fay, both of Boston. He was then a teamster. John M. Brown, of Peaceable Street, Boston, MA, laborer, petitioned for naturalization, October 15, 1886. In that document, he claimed to have arrived in the United States at Boston, MA, January 15, 1870.
Prior to his fatal accident, John Brown, an ice business ice handler, aged fifty-seven years (b. [Nova Scotia] Canada), headed a Boston, MA, household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of twenty-five years), Margaret [(Fay)] Brown, aged forty-five years (b. MA), and his children, Ambrose [Minot] Brown, an ice business ice handler, aged twenty-four years (b. MA), and Charlie Brown, aged fifteen years (b. MA). They resided at 124 Kenrick Street.
Kenrick Street in Brighton (a district of Boston, MA) was headquarters of the J.R. Downing Ice Company, whose proprietor had died in 1911. Everyone on John Brown’s Kenrick Street census page was employed in some capacity in the J.R. Downing Co.’s “ice business”: bookkeeper, blacksmith, collector, general man, helpers, ice handlers, and teamsters. (That business would have included retail ice sales in the Boston area, including business, store, or home deliveries by horse-drawn wagons). The company had even its own boarding house on Kenrick Street.
Five years after Downing’s death, one finds John M. Brown working for former Downing competitor, J.O. Porter’s Marblehead Ice Company. Porter seemed to have acquired in stages Downing assets and employees over this intervening period. He would eventually buy up any remaining shares of the J.R. Downing Company in 1920.
KILLED BY LOCOMOTIVE. John Brown of Brighton, in Charge of Ice-Cutting Crew, the Victim in Milton, N.H. MILTON, N.H, Feb. 20. John Brown of Brighton, Mass., an employe of the Porter Ice Company of Boston, was instantly killed at noon today by being struck by a locomotive on the way from Sanbornville to the repair shop at Portsmouth. Mr. Brown, who had charge of a crew of ice cutters at Milton Three Ponds, was crossing the track on his way to his boarding house and did not notice the locomotive. The engineer did not see Mr. Brown in time to save his life, but made every effort to do so. The victim was thrown 30 feet. Drs. M.A.H. Hart and J.H. Buckley were called, but life was extinct. Medical Referee Walter J. Roberts of Rochester viewed the body. Minot Brown, a son, employed by his father, was one of the first on the scene after the accident. Mr. Brown had been in the ice business 41 years, most of which time he had been employed by Porter Bros. He was 63 years old and is survived by his wife and two sons (Boston Globe, February 21, 1916).
DEATHS. BROWN – In Milton, N.H., Feb. 20, by accident, John M. Brown. Funeral from his late residence, 124 Kenrlck St., Brighton, Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 2 p.m. Relatives and friends invited (Boston Globe, February 22, 1916).
Milton Town Clerk Harry L. Avery recorded the death of John M. Brown, March 1, 1916. His information had been supplied by W.J. Roberts, M.D., Medical Referee for Strafford County. Ice handler John M. Brown of 124 Kenrick Street, Brighton, MA, had died in Milton, February 20, 1916, aged sixty-three years and seventeen days, when he was “Struck by B&M Railroad Engine while crossing the tracks.” He had been born in Port George, Nova Scotia, Canada, February 3, 1853 [1852], son of Ambrose and Catherine (Winer) Brown.
Spaulding Shoe Superintendent Dickson’s new “take charge” housekeeper of August 1915 evidently needed to take a couple of months off, or longer.
FEMALE HELP WANTED. HOUSEKEEPER wanted for 6 or 8 weeks or longer, four in family, wages $5 per week. Address W.A. DICKSON. Milton, N.H.; tel. 16-3 (Boston Globe, March 13, 1916).
Milton Mills had for a time a bakery: Tacey’s Bakery. It had a “good center location” in Milton Mills, but also offered horse-drawn wagon deliveries in surrounding areas.
BUSINESS CHANCES. BAKERY for sale, good center location, team driving for Milton, Union and Sanbornville, no competition; doing good business, good chance to make money; reason for selling, has other business; unreasonably cheap. TACY’S BAKERY, Milton Mills, N.H. (Boston Globe, April 28, 1916).
And, of course, its owner had a good reason to sell: the demands of their other business. At present, few details regarding this apparently short-lived bakery enterprise have come to light.
The second Milton train death within months was intentional, rather than accidental. Mrs. Kate (Andrews) Perkins threw or placed herself in front of a moving train. (She may have been influenced in the manner of her suicide by the accidental death of iceman John M. Brown in February (see above).
Kate Perkins was born in Kingman, ME, May 7, 1893, daughter of Joseph and Esther (Frazier) Andrews.
Joseph Andrews, an odd jobs laborer, aged fifty-one years (b. OH), headed a Lebanon, ME, household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his children, Kate Andrews, a fiber factory tube maker, aged seventeen years (b. ME), and James Andrews, aged fifteen years (b. ME). They were said to be of Indian, i.e., Native American, ancestry and resided in a rented house.
THROWS HERSELF IN FRONT OF TRAIN. Woman’s Body Is Found Near Milton, N.H. Mrs. Kate Perkins Had Been in Poor Health for Some Time. MILTON, N.H., June 7. – Mrs. Kate Perkins, who lived across the river in Lebanon, Me., committed suicide early this morning by throwing herself in front of a northbound freight train near the Boston Ice Company houses on the Boston & Maine Railroad. Her mangled body was found about two hours later by employes of the ice company while on their way to work. George J. Jordon, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, was notified and later Medical Referee Dr. Walter J. Roberts of Rochester viewed the remains and turned them over to her father, John Andrews. Neither the engineer nor the fireman of the train saw the young woman and knew nothing about the accident until they were notified on their arrival at Mountain View [Mountain View Station, Ossipee]. Mrs. Perkins lived in a small house with her father. Mr. Perkins has been away from home for about two years. Mrs. Perkins has not been well and acted strangely of late. About three months ago she attempted to take her life by shooting herself in the shoulder, after which she notified men who were nearby. After recovering she informed some friends that she did not wish to live, and would take her life in some way. She talked a good deal about the officials being after her for setting the fire which destroyed the hotel of this village about three [seven] months ago. Mrs. Perkins left the house this morning without her father hearing her, taking all her belongings. Her shoes were found about quarter of a mile below her body and were beside the track as if placed there by her. Mrs. Perkins was about 23 years old, coming here from her native town of Farmington. For several years she had been employed in the shoe factory. Since the closing of the factory she had been unable to secure work and had hard work to make a living (Boston Globe, June 7, 1916).
NEWS IN BRIEF. The mangled body of Mrs. Kate Perkins, 23, was found on the railroad tracks at Milton, N.H. It is believed she took her own life by jumping beneath a train (Fitchburg Sentinel, June 8, 1916).
Whether Mrs. Perkins did or did not set the barn fire that spread to the disused Hotel Milton (and other buildings) in November 1915, as well as whether officials were or were not actually “after her” for it, is difficult to say at this point. She would seem to have been what is sometimes termed “distracted.”
Her Milton death certificate gave her birthplace as Kingman, ME, rather than Farmington, NH. It classed her death as “Suicide by R.R. Engine.” It had also the horrifying detail that she had “Sat down on rail in front of engine,” rather than throwing herself in front of it. The “Deceased was wife of Harry Perkins.”
She removed her shoes and then sat down on the railroad tracks. Terrible to contemplate.
S.S. Parker of Farmington, NH, advertised a 40-acre Milton farm for sale. It was one mile off the State’s new White Mountain Highway. He likely served as agent or attorney for someone else.
THE REAL ESTATE MARKET. SUMMER HOME FOR SALE. 40-ACRE farm with wood, lumber, tillage and hay land: 9-room house, stable connected; also poultry house; all in good repair; 3 wells of good water and many fruit trees; location one mile from State highway in Milton, N.H.; price $850. Inquire of S.S. PARKER, Farmington, N.H. Su2t* (Boston Globe, July 2, 1916).
Samuel S. Parker, a general practice lawyer, aged fifty-four years (b. NH), headed a Farmington, NH, household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of thirty years), Mary E. Parker, aged fifty-four years (b. NH), and his father, Harry S. Parker, an odd jobs laborer, aged eighty-eight years (b. NH). He owned their house at 7 Harcourt Street, free-and-clear.
Here we find again an offer to accept a horse for its keep (as seen already in June 1914). This one will in retirement become a driver, i.e., it will pull a small carriage.
HORSES, CARRIAGES, ETC. WANTED – A good driver for its keep, with good reliable parties in the country, a good home for a good horse. Address all letters to G.J. LEAVITT, Milton Mills, N.H. (Boston Globe, July 9, 1916).
One might question, if only as a matter of tactics, the timing of this East Rochester strike against the N.B. Thayer Company, with so many recently laid-off Milton Shoe Company workers living so close by.
SHOE CUTTERS AT ROCHESTER ON STRIKE. ROCHESTER. N.H.. Aug. 3. – Cutters in the employ of the N.B. Thayer Company, shoe manufacturers at East Rochester, went on strike tonight as the result, according to their statement, of the refusal of the company to accede to their request for a minimum wage of $18 a week. The plant, which employs more than 500 shoe workers, may be forced into idleness, it is said, if the cutters remain out (Boston Post, August 4, 1916).
Lock Box 47 owned summer cottages – plural – and sought rusticators to lease them.
SUMMER COTTAGES. TO LET – Summer cottages, fully equipped, good fishing, boating and bathing. For terms address Lock Box 47, Milton, N.H. dSu7t* au11 (Boston Globe, August 17, 1916).
We have seen previous mention, in August 1915, of a summer “colony” of fifty such cottages.
It would seem that one of the barbers hired in 1913 or 1914 needed to be away for a month or so.
MALE HELP WANTED. BARBER at once for 4 weeks or longer; day off; good pay. Address Lock Box 3. Milton, N.H. Sud4t* s3 (Boston Globe, September 6, 1916).
Mrs. Nettie E. (Pike) Plummer was killed instantly when the automobile in which she was riding overturned in two-car collision on Main Street in Acton, ME.
Nettie E. Pike was born in Middleton, NH, August 26, 1863, daughter of John S. “Smith” and Mary (Cloutman) Pike. She married in Milton, March 14, 1891, Hazen Plummer, both of Milton. He was a farmer, aged twenty-four years, and she a shoe stitcher, aged twenty-seven years. He was born in Milton, May 27, 1866, son of Daniel and Sarah E. (Clements) Plummer.
Hazen Plummer, a Un. Shoe Mch. Co. machinist, aged forty-three years (b. NH), headed a Milton (“Milton 3-Ponds”) household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of twenty years), Nettie E. Plummer, aged forty-six years (b. NH), and his son, Ray Plummer, aged fourteen years (b. NH). He owned their house free-and-clear, without any mortgage. Nettie E. Plummer was the mother of three children, of whom one was still living. Their household appeared in the enumeration between the households of Ernest Dickens, a leather-board mill machinist, aged thirty years (b. MA), and George M. Corson, an odd jobs laborer, aged sixty-nine years (b. ME)).
Hazen Plummer appeared as a machine inspector for the United Shoe Machinery Co., and a coal dealer, in the Milton directory of 1912. His house was at 28 Silver street. The United Shoe Machinery Company had a “system”: they did not sell their shoe machinery, but rather leased it. Hazen Plummer was their local representative for machine installations, issues, and problems at any of the Milton shoe factories that leased their machines.
Hazen Plummer had one of the first automobile registrations and one of the first driver’s licenses issued in Milton in 1906 (See Milton Automobiles in 1906-07).
WOMAN KILLED IN AUTO CRASH. Machines in Collision Near Fair Grounds. ACTON, Me., Sept. 14. – Mrs. Nettie Plummer of Milton, N.H., was instantly killed today when an automobile in which she was riding with her husband and a party of friends collided with a machine owned by John Wood of Springvale near the Acton fair grounds and overturned. The other occupants of the cars escaped with slight injuries (Boston Globe, September 15, 1916).
According to her Acton, ME, death record, Nettie E. Plummer died in Acton, ME, September 14, 1916, aged fifty-three years and nineteen days. She was killed instantly; the base of her skull was fractured when her “automobile turned turtle.” The deceased was the wife of Hazen Plummer.
Hazen Plummer married (2nd) in Dover, NH, March 17, 1919, Grace F.C. (Card) Fogg, he of Milton and she of Dover. She was born in Dover, NH, August 2, 1886, daughter of Edsel P. and Helen A. (Whittier) Card.
Former Milton farmer Louis W. Fountain, now of Farmington, NH, and now a widower, sought to sell his Teneriffe Mountain farm.
Lewis Fountain, a farmer, aged sixty years (b. MA), headed a Milton household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of forty years), Lotty Fountain, aged fifty-four years (b. NY), his daughter, Elnora Baxter, aged twenty-eight years (b. MA), her husband (of ten years), John Baxter, an odd jobs laborer, aged thirty-eight years (b. NH), and his boarders, Fred McDonald, aged seven years (b. ME), and John Manulan [?], aged ninety years (b. Canada (Eng.)).
Lewis W. Fountain appeared in the Milton directory of 1912 as being a farmer, who took in summer boarders. His farm was at Teneriffe Mt. in Milton. The directory also took note of the death of [his wife] Mrs. Lottie W. Fountain, March 7, 1911, aged fifty-six years.
THE REAL ESTATE MARKET. $800 TAKES 40-a. farm in Milton, N.H;. 9-r. h., 30×40 b., hen h., shed conn.; write owner for particulars. LOUIS W. FOUNTAIN, Farmington, N.H.. SuM* (Boston Globe, September 18, 1916).
Hazel M. White, daughter of Harry A. “Abbott” and Gertrude C. (Peek) White, of Rye, NH, enjoyed a good night of Milton fishing.
Odd Items from Everywhere. Hazel White, aged 8, while visiting her aunt, Mrs. Nellie Trefethen, at a camp in Milton, N.H., caught nine fish one night (Boston Globe, September 28, 1916).
She was visiting her paternal aunt, Nellie M. (White) Trefethen. (Nellie was the wife of George L. Trefethen, also of Rye, NH).
Boston police officers featured often as Milton rusticators. Back in Boston, these Summer visitors performed their “impressions” of Milton and Sanbornville country folk – as being poorly dressed, unshaven, and looking for a drink – in their liquor “stings” in Boston’s West End.
DRESSED UP AS FARMER. Patrolman Benson Invades West End and Arrests Three Persons Charged With Liquor Selling. Policeman Benson, needing a shave badly and dressed up as a farmer who carried his old dress suit case, got into two houses in the West End last night and, it is alleged, secured liquor illegally, with the result that three persons were arrested. At 6 Minot st. Benson said he just arrived from Milton Mills, N.H., and he was unable to find any place around where he could get a glass of cider. He wanted to hire a room, and did, and he says that he also bought and paid for half a dozen bottles of beer. He had the beer in court today as evidence. As a result of this visit of Benson, Marv Balinsky and Harry Balinsky were before Judge Creed in the Municipal Court on a charge of keeping and exposing liquors in violation of the law. They were held in $500 until Wednesday for trial, after entering a plea of not guilty. Officer Benson also had in court Hyman Flaxman of North Russell st., who was charged with making an illegal sale of liquor. He told Flaxman that he had just come from Sanbornville, N.H., and was very tired and dry. He claims that he got liquor at the house. He also pleaded not guilty, and his case went over until Wednesday for trial, the bail being set at $500. Sergt. Patrick Flaherty had charge of the cases. There was also in court six men who were charged with gaming on the Lord’s day in a house on Minot st. Sergt. Flaherty told Judge Creed that so far as he knew it was the first time the men had ever been arrested, and a fine of $10 was imposed on each (Boston Globe, October 2, 1916).
Their activities might sound like entrapment to you. Boston’s historic West End neighborhood, including Scollay Square, was destroyed in government redevelopment schemes of the 1960s and 1970s. Government Center, including Boston’s City Hall and its plaza, and the JFK Federal Building, are among the architecturally unimpressive replacement buildings.
Here we find yet another farm property sold in what might seem to have been a sort of exodus of Milton farmers.
George W. Hall has sold for Louis and Philanda Anger their stock farm on the Middleton road, Milton, N.H. There are 100 acres of land, an 8-room house with modern improvements, large stock barn and several outbuildings. The price included personal property. Ruth B. Mornay of Somerville buys for a home (Boston Post, November 12, 1916).
Louis Anger, a shoe factory laster, aged forty-six years (b. MN), headed a Farmington, NH, household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Phillinda Anger, an “at home” laundress, aged forty-six years (b. NH). They resided in a rented three-family house on Court Street, which they shared with the households of Fred W. Flaherty, a shoe factory shoe finisher, aged thirty-seven years (b. NY), and Daniel C. Dore, a shoe factory shoe laster, aged sixty-eight years (b. NH).
A bar-hopping Michael C. Brady tried to trade on his supposed relationships to get another drink when he had been “shut off,” so to speak. From this distance, his antics might seem even somewhat amusing – up to and including the policeman’s brass buttons – but his destruction of the glass door was indeed a step too far.
HAD TOO MANY IN HIS FAMILY. Mike Relied on Relationship in Vain. It came to pass that Michael C. Brady, late of Milton Mills, N.H., came home to vote, in Boston. His vote failed to swing the State, but Mr. Brady “saw friends” and has managed to get himself elected to four months at Deer Island. Friday afternoon, while the campaign was still on, so far as Brady could see, they began refusing him drinks around Washington and Castle streets. His claim to family relationship with the licensing board and threat to revoke their selling permit had no softening effect upon the barkeep. So Brady grabbed and swallowed another customer’s beer and was ejected. On the ground that he was an untrammeled American citizen who could vote or take a drink as often as any man, M. Brady went back. Three times more he was thrust farther and farther toward the centre of the car track. Persistently, he returned to take up the broken thread of his interrupted discourse. Then he kicked in the glass door, and, being arrested, threatened to strip the brass buttons off Patrolman Tim Kelliher under claim of blood connection with Superintendent Crowley, Commissioner O’Meara and President Wilson. It was the $35 pane of glass that got him into Central Court yesterday. Admitting that his foot went through the door, Brady offered to take oath, before Justice Burke, that he slipped on a banana peel and the foot got away from him. The court was incredulous (Boston Post, November 12, 1916).
The banana peel under sworn oath was a nice touch. His next destination, Deer Island, was and is a jail in Boston harbor.
Mr. Brady left little imprint in Milton Mills’ record. His stay there, like his claimed relationships with prominent Boston and Massachusetts officials, might have been a slight and passing one.
MALE HELP WANTED. WANTED – Loom fixer on Crompton & Knowles looms, good pay and steady work. Address MR. F.H. SIMES, Supt., Milton Mills, N.H. (Boston Globe, December 24, 1916).
F.H. Simes, a woolen mill weaver, aged forty-two years (b. NH), headed an Acton, ME, household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of twenty-three years), Mary A. Simes, aged forty-one years (b. NH), and his boarder, Ethel Birch, a woolen mill weaver, aged twenty years (b. ME). He owned their home free-and-clear. Mary A. Simes was the mother of one child of whom one was still living.
Fred H. Simes was “boss weaver” at the T. Mills, i.e., the Townsend Mills, in Milton Mills, in the Milton directory of 1917. (He had held that position since at least 1900). He resided at 9 French street, Acton Side, Milton Mills.
Previous in sequence: Milton in the News – 1915; next in sequence: Milton in the News – 1917
References:
Find a Grave. (2014, March 12). Ezra D. Dolby. Retrieved from www.findagrave.com/memorial/126242635
Find a Grave. (2013, August 17). Fred H. Simes. Retrieved from www.findagrave.com/memorial/115612396
Find a Grave. (2018, June 11). Lewis Fountain. Retrieved from www.findagrave.com/memorial/190502983/lewis-fountain
McLeish Communications. (1915). American Shoemaking. American Shoemaking Publishing Company: Boston, MA
Shoe and Leather Reporter. (1912). Shoe and Leather Annual. Shoe and Leather Reporting Company: Boston, MA
Thompson Gale. (2006). Crompton & Knowles Corp. Retrieved from www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/crompton-knowles-corp
Wikipedia. (2019, August 24). Battle of Verdun. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Verdun
Wikipedia. (2019, August 27). Battle of the Somme. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme
Wikipedia. (2019, March 25). Crompton Loom Works. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crompton_Loom_Works
Wkipedia. (2019, August 31). Easter Rising. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Rising
Milton Observer 