Category: History

By Muriel Bristol | September 23, 2018

---

Continued from Milton’s Winter Soldier, Part One

---

Mount Independence

Prior to the Declaration of Independence, Mount Independence had a less grandiose name: Rattlesnake Hill.

Two years previously, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys had surprised and captured Fort Ticonderoga in May 1775. He famously did so “In the name of Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” He was certainly an interesting man. He had rebelled against New York prior to the Revolution. He was a rebel’s rebel. The Revolution just sort of joined him. Guns from Fort Ticonderoga had been sledged to Boston, where they were used to expel the British from that city. Under threat of those guns, mounted on Dorchester heights, the British “evacuated” on their fleet to occupy New York City instead. (Boston celebrates a city government holiday on “Evacuation Day,” which is coincidentally also St. Patrick’s Day).

Fort Ticonderoga had been built by the French in 1755 and had seen better days. It stood on the New York side of the narrow bottom of Lake Champlain at its river outlet. It had been built with an eye to blocking any approach from the south (up the Hudson River from Albany and New York). Its strong defenses were less formidable when approached from the north (down Lake Champlain from Canada).

To improve those defenses, the Colonial forces built an ancillary fortress on Rattlesnake Hill in 1776. That was a sort of hilly semi-peninsula on the Vermont side (modern Orwell, VT) of the lake. They constructed also a rough military road, with log planking and bridges to span wet places, between there and Hubbardton, Vermont, and a pontoon bridge over to Fort Ticonderoga. News of the Declaration of Independence came there on July 18, 1776 and Rattlesnake Hill became Mount Independence.

British General Guy Carleton arrived there from Canada with his army in October 1776. He abandoned this initial invasion attempt when he saw the double-fortressed position with its approximately 12,000 defenders. Most of the Colonial forces dispersed to their homes for the winter not long after. Their enlistments had expired. Only a skeleton force of 2,500 remained to hold the forts over the winter.

---

The British planned a much more serious invasion attempt for 1777. They hoped to split New England off from the rest of the colonies. To accomplish this, General John Burgoyne’s army would proceed south across Lake Champlain from Canada and General Gage’s army would come north up the Hudson River from New York City. They planned to meet in Albany, control the Hudson River, and thus split the colonies in two.

All three Continental regiments of the New Hampshire Line marched westward from New Hampshire in May 1777 in order to reinforce Fort Ticonderoga’s skeleton garrison. It took them six or seven weeks to get there.

At the head of the Second Regiment, its commander, Colonel Nathan Hale (not the famous spy, but another one from Rindge, NH) rode on horseback with his staff. The Second Regiment’s national and regimental colors flapped in the breeze.

The colors they carried before them had been made in Boston in April 1777. The buff-colored national flag’s ring of thirteen interlocked state rings was based on a Benjamin Franklin design. It had also been used on Continental currency the year before. Its motto “We Are One” appeared in the center of the rings. The blue-colored regimental flag had a shield with “NH 2nd Regt” upon it and a banner or scroll appeared above with the motto “The Glory Not the Prey.” The two cantons were “mocks” or variations on the British Union Jack.

Colonial soldiers and engineers had built encampments for three brigades (enlarged or reinforced regiments) at Mount Independence in 1776.  The defenses in progress there included a large shore battery, with a another horseshoe-shaped battery or citadel above it. They also built storehouses, workshops and had begun a star-shaped picket fort. Some of this work continued in the spring of 1777, including the beginnings of three new batteries along the peninsula’s eastern shore.

Mount Independence was as yet an unarmed and undefended construction project. When the New Hampshire regiments arrived, they joined the skeleton garrison of Fort Ticonderoga.

British General John Burgoyne and his army of 7,800 British and Hessian soldiers arrived soon after at nearby Fort Crown Point on June 30, 1777. It was unoccupied and his presence went unnoticed. He next had his troops drag cannons up onto the summit of Mount Defiance (Sugarloaf Hill), which overlooked both Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence. (“Where a goat can go, a man can go; and where a man can go, he can drag a gun.” – British Major General William Phillips, as his men brought cannon to the top of Mount Defiance in 1777). The British occupation of Mount Defiance remained completely unnoticed until July 5, when some British-allied Indians lit a fire there.

The Colonial commander, General St. Clair, was completely surprised. British guns overlooked Fort Ticonderoga now, which made it completely untenable. He had little choice but to order an immediate evacuation of Fort Ticonderoga. The Colonial forces snuck out that night across the pontoon bridge to Mount Independence, under its British guns, and from there down the military log road to Hubbardton. They were headed for the Rutland, Vermont area.

Most of the sick and wounded were taken to bateaux boats at Skenesborough (now Whitehall, New York), while that was still possible. The baggage went there too.

Battle of Hubbardton

Colonel Seth Warner commanded the rear guard covering the Continental retreat toward Rutland, Vermont. His detail included his own Green Mountain Boys and Colonel Hale’s Second New Hampshire regiment. There were also some stragglers from other units, as well as some number of sick and wounded men.

Colonel Warner paused in Hubbardton, Vermont, on July 6, 1777, while the main force escaped down the Castleton road. He set his men to felling trees to make a obstacle of downward-facing branches on Monument Hill and to extend that position on either flank. The British did not appear that day and Colonel Warner decided to spend the night.

The next morning, July 7, at 5:00 AM, Colonel Warner’s pickets spotted approaching British scouts. There was an exchange of gunfire and the scouts retreated. A more substantial British force arrived at the bottom of Monument Hill at 6:30 AM. They attacked and were repulsed.

The British regrouped, attacked again, and were repulsed again. British General Fraser sent now for his Hessians. Meanwhile, his Grenadiers climbed the Pittsford Ridge beyond the Colonial east flank in order to block their escape route down the Castleton road.

The Hessian reinforcements arrived about 8:30 AM and counter-attacked on the Colonial northern flank, where the British were being hard-pressed. The Second’s commander, Col. Hale, and a detachment of seventy Second Regiment men were captured. Colonel Warner decided it was time to go. The Colonials withdrew across the Pittsford Ridge as best they could.

This is considered to have been a British victory, as they held the field when it was all over, but the rear guard had accomplished its mission. They forced the British to stop, deploy their forces, and fight. All of this took time, valuable time. After the battle, British General Fraser gave up his pursuit of the Colonial main body entirely.

The Battle of Hubbardton involved approximately 2,230 troops – 1,000 to 1,200 Americans, 850 British, and 180 Germans fighting for the British. It resulted in the deaths of 41 American, 50 British, and 10 German soldiers. Of the 244 wounded, 96 were American, 134 British, and 14 German. The British took 234 American prisoners. Total casualties, including prisoners, were roughly 27 percent of all participating troops.

Milton’s Private Enoch Wingate was wounded during this rear guard action. Captain Rowell’s next muster roll listed him as one of sixteen men that had been “Missing since July 7th.”

The Second New Hampshire Regiment continued to regard the captured Colonel Hale as its commander. His name headed all their paperwork, until as late as January 1779, when Lt. Colonel George Reid was listed as commander. Hale died in captivity in September 1780.

The fancy Regimental flags also went missing. They had been packed away with the baggage on the bateaux at Skenesborough to go down river. The British got the lot.

---

And next came Bemis Heights? Yes.

---

To be continued in Milton’s Winter Soldier, Part Three

---

References:

Concord Monitor. (2017, May 23). NH Gets Its Flags Back. Retrieved from www.concordmonitor.com/New-Hampshire-Gets-Its-Flags-Back-9404052

CRW Flags. (2018, July 25). Second New Hampshire Regiment, Continental Line. Retrieved from www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us%5Enhrcl.html

Fort Ticonderoga. (2018). Fort Ticonderoga: America’s Fort. Retrieved from www.fortticonderoga.org/

Fort Ticonderoga. (2018). Mount Defiance. Retrieved from www.fortticonderoga.org/history-and-collections/places/mount-defiance

National Archives. (n.d.) Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

State of Vermont. (2018). Hubbardton Battlefield. Retrieved from historicsites.vermont.gov/directory/hubbardton/history

State of Vermont. (2018. Hubbardton Battlefield. Post-Visit Exercise: Using Primary Sources to Learn about the Battle. Retrieved from historicsites.vermont.gov/sites/historicsites/files/Documents/directory/hubbardton/Hubbardton%20Battlefield%20Post%20Visit%20Primary%20Sources%20Exercise%5B1%5D.pdf

State of Vermont. (2018). Mount Independence. Retrieved from historicsites.vermont.gov/directory/mount_independence

Wikipedia. (2018, September 16). Ethan Allen. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Allen

Wikipedia. (2018, September 13). Fort Ticonderoga. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Ticonderoga

Wikipedia. (2018, July 20). Mount Defiance (New York). Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Defiance_(New_York)

Wikipedia. (2018, June 20). Mount Independence (Vermont). Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Independence_(Vermont)

Wikipedia. (2018). Nathan Hale (Colonel). Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Hale_(colonel)

 

By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 21, 2018

---

Milton, N.H.

Strafford co. The Salmon Fall river washes its whole E. boundary, a distance of 13 miles; and a branch of the same river crosses, from the S. part of Wakefield, and unites near the centre of the E. Boundary. Teneriffe, a bold and rocky mountain, extends along the E. part of Milton, near which lies Milton pond, of considerable size, connecting with the Salmon Fall river. This town was formerly a part of Rochester, from which it was detached in 1802. It lies 40 miles N.E. from Concord, and 20 N.W. by N. from Dover. Population, 1830, 1,273.

---

Previous in sequence: Milton in 1823; next in sequence: Milton in 1849

---

References:

Hayward, John. (1839). The New England Gazetteer. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=O8wTAAAAYAAJ

By Muriel Bristol | September 19, 2018

On a warm April day, an older Milton man, Enoch Wingate, stood before Judge Richard Dame in the Strafford Court of Common Pleas in Dover. He had a tale to tell, or, in proper legal parlance, a “declaration” to make.

On this seventh day of April 1818 before me the Subscriber, one of the Judges of the Court of Common pleas for the County of Strafford in the first District in the state of Newhampshire, personally appears Enoch Wingate aged Sixty four years, resident in the town of Milton in the county of Strafford and state of Newhampshire aforesaid, who being by me first affirmed according to law doth on his solemn affirmation make the following declaration in order to obtain the provisions made by the late act of Congress intitled An act to provide for certain persons engaged in the land and naval Service of the united states in the revolutionary war.

That the said Enoch Wingate inlisted at Rochester in the state of Newhampshire in the company commanded by Captain William Rowell in the Newhampshire line Second Regiment commanded by Col. Hale in the month of April or May 1777.

That he continued to serve in said Corps in the Service of the United States untill the 22 day of June 1780, when he was discharged from said Service at Dover in the State of Newhampshire having Served three years for which he enlisted.

That he was wounded in retreating from mount Independence, rejoined the army at Bemis heights, was at the taking of Gen. Burgoyne’s Army, marched to Pennsylvania, was in the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, was with General Sullivan in the Indian Country. –

And that he is in reduced Circumstances and stands in need of the assistance of his country for support. And that he has no other evidence of his said service except the discharge hereto annexed.

Solemnly affirmed to be true and declared before me, the day and year aforesaid.

Outside, after court, I caught up with him near a tavern. Sire Wingate, you certainly saw a lot of hard service. I’d like to hear about it. It’s a warm day. Here, have a seat in the shade, let me get you a nice, cool cider.

---

Enoch Wingate was about twenty-three years old when he walked from the Milton-to-be part of Rochester into Rochester as-is. It was a late April morning in 1777. He probably went to participate in a militia training day. These were festive occasions – a sort of holiday almost – featuring muster gingerbread, hard cider, rum, music, and, of course, some militia drills and training.

Colonel Stephen Evans of the Fourth New Hampshire Militia Regiment sent his sergeants out from Exeter. He wanted men for the New Hampshire Line regiments. The Continental Line was a reorganization of the existing state regiments into Continental regiments. General Washington had sought – begged really – for longer enlistments and a more professional structure.

The New Hampshire Line would consist of three Continental regiments  manned with New Hampshire’s quota of volunteers or, if there were not sufficient volunteers, New Hampshire’s draftees. The older New Hampshire state regiments were the base on which these new regiments would be built. For instance, the 8th New Hampshire Regiment became the core of the new Second Regiment, New Hampshire Line. The new enlistment terms would be for three years, rather than one or less.

Likely, Wingate had read (or heard read) Thomas Paine’s recently-published polemic Common Sense. It began:

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. …

The sergeants were persuasive too. The Rochester militiamen had all seen newspapers that told of General Washington’s victories last winter at Trenton and Princeton over the British and their Hessian mercenaries. The sergeants pointed out that most of those soldiers’ enlistments had expired already. Who would now fill the ranks? Who will preserve our liberty? New Hampshire needs you. (And there is that enlistment bounty too – £20).

Wingate was one of the twenty-three Rochester men (and one from Wolfeborough) that enlisted that day. His younger cousin (or brother), Daniel Wingate, Jr., signed up too. Col. Evans recruited for the First Regiment, but the two Wingates ended up in Captain William Rowell’s Eighth Company, in the Second Regiment, New Hampshire Line.

In a week or two, all that they had to settle their affairs and make their goodbyes, they marched. From Rochester, they likely marched next either to Exeter, the capital, or to Portsmouth, where their guns awaited them. The Continental Congress had purchased three thousand French muskets. The Mercury delivered a partial shipment from Nantes, France, to Portsmouth that very same month. Those muskets would be enough to outfit some, if not all, of the New Hampshire Line regiments.

The men called them “Charlesville” muskets, because they were made at the armory in Charleville-Mézières, France. They were the newer model, the 1766 one, not the older 1763 model. (There would be a 1777 model next). They fired a smaller 69-caliber bullet versus the British Brown Bess’ 75-caliber. The ammunition was lighter to carry. The muskets were lighter also than the British Brown Bess muskets while still having good stopping power. They were accurate out to 110 yards against a mass of men. The ramrod had been redesigned. They were long and sleek, with a bayonet way out on the business end.

Wingate’s had a walnut stock and its State, battalion, and serial number were stamped on the barrel: NH 2 B No. – well, forty-one years on, he forgets the exact number – 500 something.

---

But how came you to be wounded at Mount Independence? For that matter, where is it and what happened there?

Aah, I could tell you something about that, he said, while looking into his empty mug.

---

To be continued in Milton’s Winter Soldier, Part Two

---

References:

Colonial Quills. (2012, October 7). Muster Day Gingerbread. Retrieved from colonialquills.blogspot.com/2012/10/muster-day-gingerbread.html

Independence Hall Association. (1999-2018). The Crisis by Thomas Paine. Retrieved from www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/

National Archives. (n.d.) Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files (NARA microfilm publication M804, 2,670 rolls). Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15. National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Society of the Cinncinati. (2010). New Hampshire in the American Revolution. Retrieved from www.societyofthecincinnati.org/pdf/downloads/exhibition_NewHampshire.pdf

Wikipedia. (2018, August 9). Charleville Musket. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleville_musket

By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 15, 2018

An extract from the Farmington Weekly Courier of Friday, February 5, 1864.

---

A Letter from Milton Mills:

Milton Mills, Jan. 29, 1864 –

I am pleased to know, that someone has the courage  and “goaheaditiveness” to start a paper in this part of the county, and hope it may prove as profitable to its Editor as interesting to its patron.  News in this  (the Northeast) corner of the county, is at this time quite meager.  It is now the sleighing, and the farmers and wood men are busily engaged in carrying to market their surplus stock of wood, which this winter brings them a good round price, compared with the prices of former winters.

Some of the lovers of the “finny tribe” in this locality are enjoying the luxury of fishing upon Horn and Garvin Ponds, for pickerel, these pleasant days, with good “luck,” and this, as you well know, Mr. Editor, is fine sport, when you have plenty of “Tom Cod” for bait, and a “nibble” every now and then from each line.  

Business in this locality is very good, with plenty of work for those disposed to “earn their living by the sweat of their brow” and otherwise.

The flannel Mill of John Townsend, Esq., is now in full blast, (and, by the way, it is reported to be the best woolen mill in New England) and turns out about thirteen thousand yards of flannel per week, which finds a ready sale in Boston, New York and Philadelphia.  There is some prospect of having a new mill, put up the coming season, by our enterprising citizen, Edward Brierly, who is now engaged quite extensively in the printing and finishing of flannels, table covers, balmoral skirts, etc. 

We boast of but four regular stores in our quiet little village, that of Asa Fox & son, Bray C. Simes, John U. Simes and Asa Jewett, all of which are doing a fair  amount of business.  We have beside these, three or four places where groceries, etc., are sold, much to the disadvantage of the regular trade.  There is probably not a village of the size of this in New Hampshire, where so much blacksmith work is done, as in this — We have now four blacksmiths, (working early and late) and plenty of work for four more.

We are furnished daily, in this out-of-the-way locality, with the Boston morning and evening papers, by our friend Elbridge W. Fox, of the firm of Asa Fox & son, who also has charge of the Express Office of Canney & Co.  

Did I say “this out-of-the-way locality?”  Yes.  Well, it is true in some respects, for we are situated four long miles east of the “head of locomotion” of the Great Falls & Conway Railroad at Union; but thanks to our enterprising Expressmen, Messrs. Canney & Co., we are provided with a good span of “chestnuts” and when once “aboard,” the “ribbons” in the hands of the faithful messenger and careful driver – Asa A. Fox — we are soon there.

One thing, among the many, that we need to give our village a more lively and business like appearance, is a shoe manufacturer; one with means and energy, capable of doing a large business, for we have plenty of good work men in this vicinity that would gladly make shoes for a home manufacturer, rather [than] freight stock from Rochester, Dover, Haverhill and Lynn.

But enough of this.  People are beginning to talk politics, now the conventions are over.  Excuse me, Mr. Editor, you don’t talk politics in your paper, so I will stop.  More Anon.

Vulpes.

---

N.B. The pseudonym Vulpes is Latin for “Fox.”

For more about the Great Falls & Conway Railroad, see our piece on Milton’s Railroad Line.

---

References:

Farmington Weekly Courier. (1864, February 5). A Letter from Milton Mills. Farmington, NH

By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 14, 2018

---

MILTON’S CENTENNIAL

Events of the Day

The centennial celebration of the town of Milton, held August 30, 1902, was in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of the first town meeting. This meeting convened at the tavern of Lieut. Elijah Horne, August 30 1802, only a short time after the charter, which gave Milton its independent existence, had been signed by Governor Gilman. This instrument had been granted at the June session of the legislature of New Hampshire at the petition and largely through the efforts of Capt. Beard Plumer, one of the representatives from Rochester, who, with others, felt that the time had come for Milton to sever the ties which bound her to the mother town.

At the annual meeting held in March, 1902, it was voted to celebrate in an appropriate manner the closing of the first century of the town’s existence. An appropriation was made and a general committee selected. As a result of the able and painstaking efforts of this committee, together with those chosen to assist, the observance of the centennial was made eminently fitting to mark the close of the first century of Milton’s history.

Saturday, August 30, 1902, was a beautiful day; there was scarcely a cloud in the sky and the temperature was ideal for the purposes of the occasion. Sunrise was accompanied with the ringing of bells and a cannon salute of thirty-three guns. One hundred guns were fired during the day, a second thirty-three at noon and the remainder at sunset. Although the celebration had practically begun on Friday night with the huge bonfire on the summit of the historic Mt. Teneriffe, it was not until Saturday morning that the guests commenced to arrive in large numbers.

Every incoming train was heavily laden and hundreds came in teams from surrounding towns. It was the largest crowd that Milton ever saw being variously estimated by the press at from seven to ten thousand.

From 8.30 to 10 o’clock field and water sports were held; from 9 to 10 o’clock the Hanson American band of Rochester gave a concert on the Upper square. Then came the street parade. This was a fine feature of the day, including many beautifully trimmed floats and private teams, bicycles, and not a few grotesque and humorous make-ups. The marshal was Major Charles J. Berry, Milton Mills, N.H.; assistant marshal, James F. Reynolds, Wakefield, Mass.; aides, Clifford A. Berry and Charles Manser, Milton Mills; Walter Holden, Wakefield, Mass.; Scott Ramsdell, Samuel E. Drew, and Fred S. Hartford, Milton.

Following the parade a good old fashioned New England dinner was served in large tents, on the Nute High School grounds, to over two thousand people. It was at high noon, also, that the new town clock in the Congregational Church was officially started. This was presented to the town of Milton by Mr. Albert O. Mathes of Dover, N.H., as a memorial to the Rev. James Doldt, who was pastor of the Congregational Church from 1850 to 1871.

Promptly at two o’clock the commemorative exercises began in the grove, on the Nute High School grounds, Hon. Elbridge W. Fox, of Milton Mills, Ex-Senator from this district, presiding as President of the day. In addition to those upon the official programme, Mayor Bradley of Rochester spoke in behalf of the mother town and Mr. Edward P. Nichols of Lexington, Mass., treasurer of the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, delivered a short address. The violin used as an accompaniment to the singing was played by Miss Annie B. Kimball, of Milton, while the old violincello which took the place of the church organ in the early days of the town, was restrung and played by Mr. Sumner Hodsdon of Dover, N.H.

One of the most attractive and appropriate features of the day was the collection of antiquities in the old Worcester House, itself past one hundred years in age. These rare and valuable articles, from 75 to 200 or more years old, and gathered from many sources, by Mr. Albert O. Mathes of Dover N.H., were intimately connected with the early history of the town. Many of the interesting buildings in the village had placards placed upon them, giving the date of their erection and other matters of interest. Among these were the following: The home of Dr. Stephen Drew, 1820-1873, built by John Bergin in 1773; the house in which Lewis W. Nute was born; the building formerly the Union meetinghouse, 1838-1859; John Fish’s house, 1794, where was located the first post-office in 1818; the site of the first tavern built in 1787 by Benjamin Palmer; the house of Thomas Leighton, 1810-1860; the site of the house of Gilman Jewett, first town clerk, 1800; the site of the first tannery, owned by John Bergin, 1773.

The celebration was in every respect an unqualified success, and reflected the greatest credit upon all concerned. All of those present, whether natives of the town or friends, felt that the observance was in every way worthy of the occasion and of Milton.

---

See also Report of the Milton Centennial Committee

---

References:

Mitchell-Cony Co. (1908). The Town Register Farmington, Milton, Wakefield, Middleton, Brookfield, 1907-8. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=qXwUAAAAYAAJ

By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | September 12, 2018

Selectman Lucier held forth on the History of Milton and its implications, as he sees them, at the Board of Selectmen’s (BOS) meeting of Monday, September 10, 2018.

---

Chairman Thibeault: Alright, next on the agenda, History of Milton.

Selectman Lucier: I put this on just to kind of shed some light on what’s going on in the … in Milton. I mean, you just brought up as far as bringing people into the beach. I mean – that was – I think that was kind of plopped into my other spiel, but …

You know, the town of Milton was a thriving boomtown. I mean … you had … you had two stores in Milton Mills. You had the tannery in Milton Mills, where everybody worked. So, I mean, now Milton Mills has basically turned into a bedroom community. I mean, you came down … you used to come down, start up … There was no Spaulding Turnpike. You came down [NH] Route 16, this was Route 16.

You had the Christmas Bell shop. You had Dawson’s Antiques. You had Louis Herron’s apple stand, that sold more apples than MacKenzie’s sells. You had, you know … So, this was back in the 70s, late 70s, early 80s. You could come right come down through town, there was Ray’s Marina was booming, everything was booming. So, what, what happened? All the way to Rochester. Rochester was … even [NH Route] 125 into Rochester was booming.

What changed? The Spaulding Turnpike came. In 1978, they started cutting trees and basically that took … everybody that came … went to the North Conway went through Milton. So, they saw Milton. I mean …

And now, we … nothing against Economic Development, I think they’re doing a great job of moving the town forward, of getting businesses back in, which we’ve got to do, but we’ve got to sell Milton. Because, whether it’s advertising or … I mean we’ve got the lake. We don’t have the seven lakes that Wakefield does that draws the huge crowds in and, you know, keeps the tax rates low, but we’ve got to do something to … I mean, I don’t know how … I know that when they put the Turnpike in – that they gave on [NH] Route 75, they only gave two accesses – and that was off to the side of where Frizzell’s is at Commerce Drive. You know they won’t allow anything off the right-hand side and they won’t allow anything, anything off from the Turnpike itself. They kept a 50-foot buffer,  so that, so that nothing can be developed.

You know the town of Milton used to get a ton of business off from the … there was a huge mom & pop’s all up and down these streets. I mean, they’ve all gone away. There were antique stores galore, especially downtown. I mean now it’s … you know, Ray’s Marina is sitting there because the State’s put the clamp down as far as what he can do as far as developing … I mean, you had Russo’s restaurant, you had the Craig Keg Room lounge, you had the lobster pound. I mean, there was a ton, a ton of businesses, but …

Thibeault: So … so, that’s the past. How do we …

Lucier: I am just trying to, you know, get out there that … we’ve got to do something to promote Milton. I mean, I like the idea of a State boat launch, don’t get me wrong on that, I just don’t think the town beach is the location for it.

I mean, back in the old days [the mid 1960s?] when we used to be playing ball, we’d have to stop and wait for the guy pulling his boat and trailer out to go across the soccer field, so … You know, that’s the way it was. I mean, there was no … the ballfield – you’d have to got out and pick up a handful of nails before the soccer game, because that’s where the old ice houses were. So, the town, Milton’s changed. The biggest change? The Spaulding Turnpike went through and the State – I don’t know whether it’s something we can … it was actually the Federal government that did it.

That put the kibosh to developing the other side of it [NH Route 75 from Exit 17 towards Hayes Corner and Farmington] because people would like to develop it – both sides of [NH Route] 75, which moving forward I don’t know if that’s something – you know, there used to be – when that Turnpike was built, it was supposed to be maintained by the Turnpike Division, and they didn’t catch it until what? – two or three years ago, when they made the State build a shed down at Exit 16, the State barn at Exit 16. So, the barn right here by – the State shed – by [NH] Route 75 doesn’t plow the Turnpike anymore – they can’t – so, they plow [NH Route 11] all the way from Planet Fitness in Rochester to the Alton traffic circle. From Milton, you know, that’s … but anyway … We’ve lost, I mean, we’ve lost a ton of drive-through business … I mean that’s what … I mean, I don’t know what to do to promote …

Vice-Chairwoman Hutchings: Can I? As [BOS Ex Officio] representative for Milton Economic Development, we’ve just submitted an application to the State to make Exit 17 an ERZ Zone [Economic Revitalization Zone], which will give tax breaks and such to businesses coming into the area.

Lucier: Well, but it’s …

Hutchings: It’s a start.

Lucier: It’s only going to be on the south side of …

Hutchings: But, it’s a start. And we’re working on other ideas to promote business here in town. We just ordered signs, [EDC Committeeman] Bob Bourdeau just ordered signs for – actually the downtown area here is an ERZ area – and the signs have been ordered to be purchased. We’ll put those up here in the downtown area. So that it’s a “known” ERZ. Does it actually help to bring the business in, right now, by putting that sign up? No, but when people see those signs, they realize there’s an incentive for putting a business in there. So, with that being said, the Milton Economic Development is working on … projects.

Town Administrator Thibodou: They seem very active.

Hutchings: They’re active, they’re very active. So, …

Lucier: Milton was volunteers. We’ve got to get more people to … you know, step up to the plate to make things happen.

Thibeault: Alright.

---

Previous Milton and the Spaulding Turnpike and Milton’s Railroad Line pieces cover much of the same ground as Selectman Lucier’s recollections. Selectman Lucier does identify the location of the ice sheds (at the Town Beach ballfield), once so integral to Milton’s seasonal ice industry. Very interesting. He does not mention the hotels that sprang up to house the seasonal ice workers or the railroad that fostered this vital local industry, now gone with the wind. (The advent of refrigeration killed the seasonal ice industry in the late 1920s).

N.B. I do not necessarily endorse or agree with Selectman Lucier’s interpretations of the meaning of these events, nor with his and the Board’s prescriptions for what must be done, if anything.

References:

Bergeron, Chip. (2010). The Tannery, Milton Mills, NH. Retrieved from www.authorsden.com/visit/viewPoetry.asp?id=282253

Card Cow. (2004-18). Russo’s Italian-American Restaurant. Retrieved from www.cardcow.com/297493/russos-italian-american-restaurant-milton-new-hampshire/

Town of Milton. (2018, September 10). BOS Meeting Agenda, September 10, 2018. Retrieved from youtu.be/PlwhI_Uz_rs?t=2238

By Muriel Bristol (Transcriber) | June 12, 2018

Milton

---

Town Beach Open

The town beach gates swung open the past week-end [June 18-19] to begin another season at this cooling-off spot. More picnic benches have been added to accommodate additional picnickers. The commissioners also have purchased a ride-around lawn mower to keep the alfalfa under control.

---

References:

Rochester Courier. (1960. June 23). Town Beach Open. Rochester Courier: Rochester, NH