Milton’s NH State Representative William Palmer (1757-1815), speaking for a “respectable number of inhabitants,” petitioned NH Governor John Taylor Gilman and his Executive Council in 1813, seeking appointment of a Milton justice-of-the-peace. (Gilman was a Federalist, as opposed to a Democratic-Republican).
The nominee, John Remick, “Jr.,” was born in Kittery, ME, April 17, 1777, son of Sergeant William and Lydia (Staples) Remick. (He acquired the appellation “Junior” in Milton to distinguish him from his older cousin, John Remick, who was a son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Deed) Remick and who came to Milton after him, in 1799).
John Remick married (1st) in Kittery, ME, August 17, 1794, Mary “Polly” Butler. She was born in Portsmouth, NH, May 18, 1770, daughter of Captain Edward and Elizabeth (Langdon) Butler.
John and his wife, Mary, bought land in Rochester, 1795, 1798 and 1799. 7 June 1799 he signed a deed as “Jr.,” and also in 1800 (Remick, 1933).
John Remick, Jr., headed a Rochester, NH, household at the time of the Second (1800) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 26-44 years [himself], one female aged 26-44 years [Mary (Butler) Remick], one female aged 16-25 years, one male aged 10-15 years, one male aged under-10 years [Edward B. Remick], and two females aged under-10 years [Lydia S. Remick and Eliza Remick].
John Remick, Jr., signed the petition seeking to divide what would be Milton from its parent Rochester, NH, in 1802. He was one of the newly established town’s first three Selectman in 1802, along with William Palmer and John Fish. He served in that capacity in 1802, 1804, 1805, 1807-11, and 1819-20 (Mitchell-Cony, 1908).
He served as a selectman from 1802 to 1812 and again in 1820 and was a Justice of the Peace from 1814 to 1838 (Remick, 1933).
In May 1806, he bought land in Wakefield of which he sold part to Andrew Libby of Kittery, 12 Apr 1809. He sold property in Milton Mills in January 1810 and April 1821, and in both deeds is called “Jr.” (Remick, 1933).
John Remick, Jun., headed a Milton household at the time of the Third (1810) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 26-44 years [himself], two females aged 26-44 years [Mary (Butler) Remick], one male aged 16-25 years, one male aged 10-15 years [Edward B. Remick], two females aged 10-15 years [Lydia S. Remick and Eliza Remick], and one female aged under-10 years [Mary B. Remick]. Their household appeared first in the enumeration, just before those of Moses Paul and Joseph Libby.
In 1813 former selectman and then NH State Representative William Palmer penned his personal petition recommending John Remick, Jr., for appointment as justice-of-the-peace. (In it he alluded to several business entities then active in the Northeasterly part of Milton, i.e., Milton Mills).
To His Excellency the Governor And the Honorable Council of the State of New Hampshire
Wm Palmer, A Representative from the town of Milton, respectfully beg leave to represent, that a respectable number of Inhabitants who live in the Northeasterly part of said town, experience many inconveniencies by reason of there not being any Justice of the peace living within three or four miles of them, that it is a considerable place of trade – 3 Sawmills, 3 Gristmills and one carding machine in the village, where much business is done, and where much company resorts – that it would be very convenient and gratifying to the inhabitants to have some suitable person, who resides among them, appointed to that office ~ that it would have a happy tendency to preserve peace, insure tranquility and promote the public good ~ I therefore ask leave to recommend Mr John Remick, Junr, as a suitable person for that office ~ A man in my opinion whose natural and acquired abilities are good, of correct morals and temperate habits ~ And if appointed it will be Gratifying to the town at large ~ And in particular to your Excellency and Honors.
Palmer’s petition was labeled on its reverse side:
For a Justice
In Milton
Nominated 1813
Court Rosters indicate that John Remick, Jr., of Milton, received his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on June 18, 1813.
The Records of Elder Joseph Spinney of Wakefield from 1835 to 1898 have been preserved and among the items contained therein were a list of marriages performed by John Remick, Jr., Justice of the Peace of Milton, N.H., from 1814 to 1838, and an extract of the will of [his father-in-law,] Captain Edward Butler (Remick, 1933).
John Remick, Jr., was Milton’s State Representative during the 1816-17 biennium.
Court Rosters indicate that John Remick, Jr., of Milton, received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on June 18, 1818.
Remick was at the center of the dispute that arose over Milton’s militia company in 1820.
… in 1820 an effort was made by the people living in this town below Lovell’s pond with others living in the Northerly part of Milton, to have that part of Wakefield south of Lovell’s pond and the northerly portion of Milton incorporated into a new town, Luther Dearborn of this town and John Remick, Jr., of Milton headed petitions to the legislature for the new town which was to be called Lisbon. The Rev. Mr. Piper favored the project and suggested the name Milfield for the new town (Thompson, 1886).
The NH Register and Farmer’s Almanac of 1822 identified Milton’s Justice of the Peace and Quorum, which was the higher or senior office, as being Levi Jones, and its Justices of the Peace as being Jotham Nute, D. Hayes, John Remick, Jr., and James Roberts (Claremont Manufacturing Co, 1822).
In 1822 he acted as the administrator of the estate of Mark Langdon Butler of Portsmouth, his brother-in-law (Remick, 1933).
Court Rosters indicate that John Remick, Jr., of Milton, received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on June 10, 1823.
His older cousin, John Remick (son of Corporal Benjamin Remick), the existence of whom had caused him, the younger cousin, to be identified for many years as “Junior,” died in Milton, June 25, 1823. The elder cousin’s widow, Susanna (Cole) Remick, died in Milton, August 28, 1824.
The NH Political Manual and Annual Register of 1824 identified Milton’s Justice of the Peace and Quorum as being Levi Jones, and its Justices of the Peace as being Jotham Nute, D. Hayes, John Remick, Jr., and J. Roberts. Jotham Nute was also identified as being Milton’s coroner (Farmer, 1824).
Mary (Butler) Remick died in Milton, sometime before February 1826.
John Remick, Esq., married (2nd) in Wakefield, NH, February 9, 1826, Sally Nudd, he of Milton and she of Wakefield, NH.
In his second marriage record he had the appellation of “Esq.” given to him, because of this latter [justice-of-the-peace] office (Remick, 1933).
Court Rosters indicate that John Remick, Jr., of Milton, received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on June 14, 1828.
John Remick headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifth (1830) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 50-59 years [himself], one female aged 50-59 years [Sally (Nudd) Remick], one female aged 15-19 years [Salome Remick], and one male aged 10-14 years. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of Nathl Dearborn and Francis Chapman. (Milton Mills merchant B.U. Simes appeared on the other side of Nathl Dearborn).
Court Rosters indicate that John Remick, Jr., of Milton, received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on June 15, 1833. He did not continue as a justice beyond the June 1838 expiration of this last appointment.
John Remick headed a Milton household at the time of the Sixth (1840) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 60-69 years [himself], two females aged 60-69 years [Sally (Nudd) Remick and her sister, Betsy Nudd], and one male aged 20-29. One person in the household was engaged in Agriculture.
John Remick made out his last will, May 29, 1840. In it he devised a life estate in all of his real estate, as well as two cows, six sheep, furniture and personal property, to his beloved wife, Sally Remick, and her sister, Betsy Nudd, while they remained unmarried. Should either die or marry, their share in the life estate would pass to the survivor or, in the event of a marriage, to the one that remained single. Once both had either passed or married, the property was to pass to his children or trusts set up on their behalf. Daughter Lydia S. Page was to have a life estate, which would pass eventually to grandson J.W.R. Page at her decease. Of the remainder, daughter Eliza L. Copp was to receive one-third outright. Amasa Copp was to hold one-third in trust in order to pay an allowance to son Edward B. Remick. John Wingate of Wakefield, NH, was to hold one-third in trust in order to pay an allowance to daughter Mary Copp, widow of William Copp. He appointed his wife, Sally Remick, and James Berry, as joint executors. David Witham, Josiah Farnham, and Josiah Hussey signed as witnesses (Strafford County Probate, 58:325).
John Remick died in Milton, September 12, 1840. His will was proved in Somersworth, NH, October 6, 1840.
Sally (Nudd) Remick died in Milton, November 23, 1845, aged sixty-seven years, seven months.
Thompson, Rev. Albert H. (1886). Memorial of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Organization of the First Church, and Ordination of the First Settled Town Minister of Wakefield, N.H. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=EKm15quwMhsC&pg=PA42
Theodore Cushing “T.C.” Lyman was not born under that name. He was born as Theodore Ham in Dover, NH, in 1770.
His grandson, John D. Lyman (1823-1902), would devise in his will a number of mementos to family and friends. Among them was a fire shovel, which he gave to his son, John T. Lyman (b. 1862).
The little old fire shovel (the one used by John Twombley born about 1732 and who lived on my father’s farm and brought up my grandfather Theodore Cushing Lyman, and my first property excepting a dollar given me by Wm. Allen Lord) (Rockingham County Probate, 220:182; Portsmouth Herald, September 25, 1902).
Through which one may learn that John Twombly (1732-1825) had raised Theodore Cushing Lyman – then Theodore Ham, – as a child, and had late in life lived on Micah Lyman’s Milton farm. (And that William Allen Lord had given a dollar to a young John D. Lyman (perhaps as a gift on the occasion of Lord’s marriage to his paternal aunt)).
The Mitchell-Cony account of Milton’s first settlement had John Twombly settling in the “Varney neighborhood” around 1771-72.
About ten or a dozen years later, in 1771 or 1772, John Twombly established himself in the so-called Varney neighborhood. His nearest neighbor was a man named Jenkins upon Goodwin Hill at the time.
As one may see later, Theodore C. Lyman had several South Milton mill associates named Varney. “Goodwinville” was later a neighborhood on the ridgeline in West Milton (along the Governor’s Road).
Milton Town Clerk Ruth L. (Plummer) Fall (1886-1960) claimed Twombly as one of her own.
John Twombly died in Milton in 1825, aged ninety-three years. He is buried on the farm of my great-great-grandfather, who was taken when a young boy by John Twombly. This Twombly was a native of Madbury. When our New Hampshire troops, stationed at Ticonderoga during the Revolution, were reported to be in need of supplies, John Twombly yoked up his oxen, and drove to Portsmouth, where his team was loaded with flour, powder, bacon and rum. Then he journeyed across New Hampshire and Vermont to Fort Ticonderoga where he was gladly welcomed by our needy soldiers (Bartlett, 1952).
John Twombly headed a Rochester, NH, household at the time of the First (1790) Federal Census. His household included two males aged 16-plus years and one female. His household appeared in the enumeration between those of Richard Mason and Ebenezer Jones. (See Northeast Parish in the First (1790) Federal Census).
Theodore Ham married (1st) in Rochester, NH, January 3, 1797, Dorothy “Dolly” Allen, both of Rochester (NEHGS, 1908). She was born in Rochester, NH, August 24, 1769, daughter of William and Hannah (Emerson) Allen.
Son Micah Ham was born in Rochester (Milton as would be), NH, November 23, 1797. Daughter Lovey Ham was born in Rochester, NH, in 1800.
Theodore Ham headed a Northeast Parish, Rochester, NH, household at the time of the Second (1800) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 26-44 years [himself], one female aged 26-44 years [Dorothy (Allen) Ham], one male aged 16-25 years, one male aged 10-15 years, one male aged under-10 years [Micah Ham], and one female aged under-10 years [Lovey Ham]. His household appeared in the enumeration between those of Clement Hayes and Nicholas Harford. (See Northeast Parish in the Second (1800) Federal Census).
Daughter Clarissa L. Ham was born in Milton, October 9, 1802. Son George D. Ham was born in Milton, August 27, 1804. Son William Blake Ham, was born in Milton, April 23, 1807.
State of New Hampshire } AN ACT AUTHORIZING THEODORE HAM AND HIS FAMILY TO ASSUME THE NAME OF LYMAN. ~ [Approved December 13, 1808. Original Acts, vol. 20, p. 26; recorded Acts, vol. 18, p. 32]
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives, in General Court convened, That Theodore Ham of Milton in the County of Strafford, be, and he hereby is authorized and empowered to assume and bear the name of Theodore C Lyman, and the children of the said Theodore are hereby authorized and empowered to assume and bear the name of Lyman, instead of that of Ham and the name of Lyman to annex to each and every of their christian, given or baptismal names instead of the name of Ham as aforesaid, and by those names respectively, in future, shall be called and known, any law, usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. ~
Provided, that nothing in this act contained, shall impair any contract or obligation by them or either of them made, or affect any action or suit now pending in any Court of law, within this State wherein the said Theodore or either of his children is a party ~ (NH Secretary of State, 1918).
Roxana A. Lyman was born in Milton, in 1809. She would have been the first child born under the name Lyman. (The others had their surnames changed from Ham to Lyman in the prior year).
Theodore C. Lyman and twenty-two other Strafford County inhabitants petitioned the NH Governor and his Executive Council, January 31, 1810, to have Amos Cogswell (1752-1826), Esq., of Dover, NH, appointed as Strafford County Sheriff. Cogswell had been an officer during the Revolutionary War and was a Colonel in the militia. (Beard Plumer, Levi Jones and William Jones signed also this petition).
[T.] C. Lyman headed a Milton household at the time of the Third (1810) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 26-44 years [himself], two females aged 26-44 years [including Dorothy (Allen) Lyman], one male aged 10-15 years [Micah Lyman], one female aged 10-15 years [Lovey Lyman], two females aged under-10 years [Clarissa Lyman and Roxana A. Lyman], two males aged under-10 years [George D. Lyman and William B. Lyman], and one female aged 45-plus years. His household appeared in the enumeration between those of Ebenr. Gate and Jno. Twombly.
At the U.S. Congress, in January 1811, Milton’s Theodore C. Lyman and [Rep.] John Fish (c1760-181[9?]) sought salvage rights in any public property that might be lying at the bottom of Lakes George and Champlain in New York state. (U.S. Representative William Hale (1765-1848) of Dover, NH, presented their petition).
Mr. Hale presented a petition of Theodore C. Lyman and John Fish, of the State of New Hampshire, stating that they have invented a machine for exploring the bottoms of Lakes Champlain and George; and praying that they may have the exclusive property in all articles which belonged to the public prior to being lost, and which they may recover. Ordered, That the said petition be referred to the Committee of Commerce and Manufacture (US Congress, 1826).
This begs so many questions. What was the nature of their machine? Perhaps a floating derrick, a diving bell, or something truly innovative, such as a submarine. What public property did they hope or expect to find? Perhaps something lost in those lakes during the Revolutionary War. Did they experiment by exploring the depths of Milton Three Ponds or Lake Winnipesaukee? At any event no further information has come to hand and that distant lakes region would become again a seat of war during the War of 1812.
Milton sent Theodore C. Lyman twice as its representative to the NH legislature, first in the 1811-12 biennium. (He succeeded his salvage associate, John Fish, in that office).
Theodore C. Lyman was one of ten petitioners that recommended Mr. Dominicus Hanson (b. 1760), then Strafford County Registrar of Deeds, for appointment as justice-of-the-peace. Their June 1812 petition was dated Concord, NH. (Hanson did receive his appointment as a justice in Dover, NH, November 8, 1813).
The Mitchell-Cony directory relates that there was a “famous” celebration at the T.C. Lyman tavern in [South] Milton, April 15, 1815, “which fitly manifested the joy and satisfaction of the people here over the outcome of the war,” i.e., the War of 1812. (In 1876, Betsy ((Meserve) Pinkham) Lyman would remember that there was also a thanksgiving service on that occasion at the Tuttle school in West Milton).
State of New Hampshire } AN ACT TO INCORPORATE GRAPE ISLAND MILL COMPANY
[Approved June 20, 1817. Original Acts, vol. 24 p. 73, recorded Acts, vol. 21, p. 32] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened, that Jacob Varney, Theodore C. Lyman and Job Varney and their associates, successors and assigns be, and they hereby are, incorporated and made a body corporate and politic, by the name and style of Grape Island Mill Company. and by that name may sue and be sued prosecute and defend to final judgment and execution. and they are hereby vested with all the powers and privileges which by law are incident to similar institutions. And be it further enacted, that said Jacob Varney and Theodore C. Lyman or either of them may call the first meeting of said Corporation, at any suitable time and place in the town of Milton, in the County of Strafford, by posting up notifications for that purpose in said Milton and in the towns of Farmington and Rochester, at some public place in each of said Towns, fourteen days prior to the time of holding said meeting; at which meeting they may elect a Clerk, who shall be sworn, and all other officers necessary for such an institution; and shall also agree on a method of calling future meetings, and determine on the time of their annual meeting, and make and establish, generally, such rules, by laws and regulations, not inconsistent with the laws of the State, as shall be deemed necessary and proper for the government of said Corporation; and may divide the same into a convenient number of shares ~ and all absent members may be represented at any meeting, by written authority, which shall be filed by the Clerk; and in all cases each share shall be entitled to one vote ~ And be it further enacted, that said Corporation be and they hereby are authorized and empowered to build, support and keep in repair in Milton aforesaid, on Salmon fall river, so called, any buildings or works necessary and convenient for sawing lumber, grinding and bolting grain and meal and carding wool and cotton, and the business necessarily connected therewith, and may purchase and hold in fee simple or otherwise any lands adjoining said buildings and works, necessary and convenient for said Proprietors not exceeding three acres. And the share or shares of any proprietor may be sold by said Corporation for non payment of assessments duly made, agreeably to the by laws of said Corporation ~ and any proprietor may alienate his share or shares in said Corporation by deed duly executed and recorded by the Clerk (NH Secretary of State, 1918).
President Monroe visited New England in the summer following his 1817 inauguration. He traveled from Boston, MA, to Portsmouth, NH, and Portland, ME, returning via Dover, NH.
The President was then escorted by the principal inhabitants of Dover, a part of Capt. [Theodore C.] Lyman’s troop from Rochester & Milton, under the command of Col. Edward Sise, and a great cavalcade of citizens to this town. On his arrival he received a national salute from the artillery. After passing a few moments at Wyatt’s Inn, the President, attended by his suite, proceeded to an eminence arranged for the purpose, near Col. Cogswell’s, decorated with the rural simplicity of evergreens and roses, where he was addressed by the Hon. Wm. King Atkinson … (Wadleigh).
Milton sent Theodore C. Lyman as its representative to the NH legislature for a second – non-contiguous – term in the 1818-19 biennium. (He succeeded William Plumer in that office).
Theodore C. Lyman and thirteen other Strafford County inhabitants petitioned the NH Governor and his Executive Council, June 24, 1818, to have Jonathan Locke of Dover, NH, appointed as Warden of the state prison. Locke was then keeper of the Strafford County jail or prison. (Amos Cogswell signed also this petition).
Theodore C. Lyman and twenty other NH Representatives from Strafford County petitioned the NH Governor and his Executive Council, June 8, 1819, to have John P. Hale (1775-1819), Esq., of Rochester, NH, appointed as Strafford County Registrar of Probate. Hale would die later that same year.
DIED. At Rochester, (N.H.,) in the 45th year of his age, John P. Hale, Esquire, counsellor at law (New York Evening Post, October 19, 1819).
(Hale was father of John P. Hale, Jr. (1806-1873), who would be U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and one of the principal anti-slavery politicians of the ante-bellum period. (There is a statue of him in front of the NH State House and a portrait painting of him hanging in the NH House chamber)).
Theodore C. Lyman and six others petitioned the NH Governor and his Executive Council, June 10, 1819, to have John Hill of Middleton, NH, appointed as a second Middleton justice-of-the-peace.
The NH House passed a housekeeping measure, June 30, 1819, in order to correct an error in the travel allowances of Representatives Theodore C. Lyman of Milton and Joshua Lane of Chichester.
Presented. A resolve that Theodore C. Lyman, esquire, and Joshua Lane, esquire, members of the House of Representatives, have and receive out of the Treasury the following sums, viz. the said Lyman two dollars and the said Lane one dollar and sixty çents, those sums being deficiencies in their travel the present session, as certified by the Clerk. Was brought up read and concurred (NH General Court, 1819).
Captain Theodore C. Lyman was one of fourteen officers of the Second NH Militia Regiment that petitioned the NH legislature, September 23, 1819, for appointment of a regimental surgeon’s mate. The regimental surgeon, who resided in Dover, NH, was too distant from them to fulfill all their needs alone. (Ensign Norton Scates was another of the petitioners).
Daughter Lovey Lyman married in Rochester, NH, January 27, 1820, Benjamin Scates, Jr., both of Milton. Rev. Haven performed the ceremony. He was born in Milton, April 10, 1794, son of Benjamin and Lydia (Jenness) Scates.
A dispute regarding the Milton militia company – and especially the great distances some militiamen had to travel to attend its training days – arose in 1820. The regimental field officers refused a request to divide the company into two parts. Those seeking two companies petitioned the NH legislature to simply divide the town instead, which would achieve the same object of having two companies.
Some 127 Milton men filed a remonstrance petition intended for the June 1820 session of the NH legislature. It opposed dividing the town to solve the militia problem. Company officers Jeremy Nute, James Hayes, Jr., and Norton Scates all signed this remonstrance, as did former company officers Levi Jones, Jotham Nute, and Theodore C. Lyman, and future officer Bidfield Hayes.
Some 88 Milton men filed a company division petition intended for the November 1820 session of the NH legislature. Company Captain Jeremy Nute signed this proposal, as did former company officers Levi Jones, Jotham Nute, and Theodore C. Lyman, future company officer Bidfield Hayes, and Milton selectman Hopley Meserve.
Son Micah Lyman married in Milton, December 27, 1820, Mary Kelly, both of Milton. Rev. James Walker performed the ceremony. She was born in Rochester, NH, circa 1795. (Foster grandfather John Twombly would live with them).
Theodore C. Lyman and thirteen other NH citizens petitioned the NH General Court, December 6, 1824, seeking a law to prevent rocks, stones and other debris being thrown in the Piscataqua River.
Son George D. Lyman died in Milton, August 31, 1825.
John Downs sued Theodore C. Lyman over a mill privilege – the “privilege of the floom,” i.e., the flume, in July 1825. Downs asserted a one-sixteenth share in the land of which Lyman’s mill stood. The original privilege had been granted to Samuel Ham by the city of Rochester, NH, in 1763. Ham had sold a one-eighth share to Joseph Roberts in 1769. One might suppose that this was how capital was raised. Ham’s grantees built a mill in 1770. Roberts sold his share to to D. Garland and Joseph Tibbetts in 1776. The mill had burnt in 1785, at which point some of the interested parties declined to rebuild. They seem to have developed some reason to doubt their right to do so. D. Garland sold his one-sixteenth interest (half of a one-eighth interest) to John Downs in 1797.
Lyman maintained that the actual “privilege of the floom” was a riverine feature that lay 200 rods [3,300 feet (or 5/8 of a mile)] above the mill site. The ruling had gone to the demandant, i.e., John Downs. The higher court appeal focused on this issue of whether the flume and the mill site that it fed were the same thing, and whether the unspecified verbal refusal by long-dead people to rebuild on the land might be taken as an acknowledgement by them that they did not have title to the land. The higher court sustained the verdict of the lower one, i.e., they ruled against Lyman (NH Supreme Court, 1827).
Theodore C. Lyman received his initial appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on May 16, 1829.
Theoph C. Lyman headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifth (1830) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 50-59 years [himself], one female aged 60-69 years [Dorothy (Allen) Lyman], one male aged 20-29 years [William B. Lyman], two females aged 20-29 years [Clarissa Lyman and Roxana A. Lyman], and one male aged 15-19 years [Theodore Lyman]. His household appeared in the enumeration between those of Isaac Wentworth and Joseph Walker on one side and Micha~ Lyman on the other side.
Daughter Clarissa Lyman married, circa 1831, William Allen Lord. He was born in Berwick, ME, March 20, 1801, son of Samuel and Abigail (Allen) Lord. (They were cousins, being as their respective mothers, Dorothy (Allen) Lyman and Abigail (Allen) Lord, were sisters).
Theodore C. Lyman received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on May 20, 1834.
Son Theodore Lyman married, probably in Milton, circa 1837-38, Betsy Bragdon. She was born in Milton, in 1818, daughter of Samuel and Lydia (Walker) Bragdon. (Her younger sister, Louisa A. Bragdon, would marry in Milton, February 4, 1841, Luther Hayes, he of Rochester, NH, and she of Milton).
Theodore C. Lyman received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace on May 21, 1839.
Theodore C. Lyman headed a Milton household at the time of the Sixth (1840) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 60-69 years [himself], and one female aged 20-29 years [Roxana A. Lyman]. (His wife, Dorothy (Allen) Lyman, does not seem to have been counted with his household). One member of his household was engaged in Agriculture. His household appeared in the enumeration between those of Isaac Wentworth on one side and his sons, Theodore Lyman, William B. Lyman, and “Michael” [Micah] Lyman on the other side.
Theodore C. Lyman appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1843, as a h. [house] carpenter, upper end of Waldron street. (Some much later death records of several children recorded him as having been at sometime a “contractor”).
According to Scale’s History of Strafford County, Milton’s Free-Will Baptist church organized itself at Theodore Lyman’s house in May 1843.
A Free-Will Baptist Church was organized at the house of Theodore Lyman, on the 11th day of May, 1843, with seventeen members, viz.: Hazen Duntley, Daniel M. Quimby, Luther Hayes, William Fernald, James O. Reynolds, Drusilla Jewett, Betsey Lyman, Mary H. Downs, Mrs. D.W. Wedgwood, William B. Lyman, Theodore Lyman, E.S. Edgerly, Dearborn Wedgwood, Phoebe Duntley, Sophia Quimby, Sally F. Downs, Mrs. A. Hubbard.
This church organizer would seem to have been Theodore C. Lyman’s son, Theodore (without the “C”) Lyman, based at least partly on the presence and membership of that son’s wife, Betsy [(Bragdon)] Lyman). (See also Milton’s Free-Will Baptist Ministers of 1843-50).
Son William B. Lyman had received his first appointment as a Milton justice, June 29, 1843, but there was an additional notation of “gone,” i.e., he left town before the expiration of his five-year term. Theodore C. Lyman received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace, on May 20, 1844, there is next to his entry also a notation of “gone.” So, it would seem that for a time they found it more convenient to live where they were contracting, i.e., Waldron street in Dover, NH. (The railroad not having reached Milton at that time).
Son William B. Lyman appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1848, as a pump-maker, with his house at 8 Lyman’s court.
Dorothy (Allen) Lyman died in Milton, November 25, 1848.
Theodore C. Lyman, a carpenter, aged seventy-nine years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Seventh (1850) Federal Census. His household included Roxann A. Lyman, aged forty years (b. NH). Theodore C. Lyman had real estate valued at $5,000. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of Giles Burrows, a farmer, aged twenty-six years (b. NH), and Abigail Tuttle, aged seventy-two years (b. NH). (And Luther Hayes, a lumber dealer, aged thirty years (b. NH), just beyond Tuttle).
Theodore C. Lyman married (2nd) in Rochester, NH, in 1850-51, Betsy [(Meserve)] Pinkham, he of Milton and she of Rochester, NH. He was aged eighty-one years, and she was aged sixty-eight years. She was born in Dover, NH, in 1782, daughter of Stephen and Abigail (Yeaton) Meserve.
Betsy ((Meserve) Pinkham) Lyman’s new home in Milton would have been for a time adjoining a PGF&C railroad construction site. A legislative report of 1848 described the intended route from Great Falls, i.e., Somersworth, NH, to Conway, NH.
Commencing near the covered bridge at Great Falls and running northwesterly, on the west side of Salmon Falls river, to the Parade at Rochester Village; thence from Rochester Village, running a northerly course across the plain, to near where the road that is travelled leaves the Pine Woods; thence running in the vicinity of George Hays’s house and Theodore Lyman’s house to near where the new factory frame of A.S. Howard & Co. is erected, in Milton; thence up by the Milton Ponds and west of the Plummer bridge, so called to Union Village, in Wakefield; thence by Lovell’s Pond, in said Wakefield to the head of Pine River; thence down said river to the east side of the Ossipee Lake; thence across the Ossipee river, to near where Thomas Andrews lives, in Freedom; thence up the valley of what is called the Burke Pond, in Eaton; thence by Daniel Lacy, 2d, and Wm. Stacy’s to Eaton Corner; thence through the valley of the Pequacket, to Conway (NH Senate, 1849).
Daniel G. Rollins, treasurer of the Great Falls & Conway Railroad, sent a letter to his stockholders, June 1, 1850. The railroad intended to issue preferred stock to complete the railroad track between Rochester, NH, to Lyman’s Crossing in South Milton, and, if any funds remained, from there to Milton Three Ponds.
7th. The funds realized by the issue of this preferred stock shall first be appropriated to the completion of the road from Rochester to the road crossing in Milton, near the house of Theodore C. Lyman, and fitting the same for the transportation of passengers and freight, in providing furniture to run and operate the same, and in paying all the debts of the corporation. Any balance remaining shall be appropriated to the completing of the road from Lyman’s crossing to Milton Three Ponds (NH General Court, 1850).
Sophia ((Cushing) Hayes) Wyatt stopped to view the Lyman family tomb at South Milton in January 1854. (See Milton Teacher of 1796-1805). (Despite the coincidence of their Cushing names, they do not seem to have been related).
Son William B. Lyman appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1859, as a builder, with his house at 12 Charles street.
Son Micah Lyman died in Milton, September 14, 1860. Son-in-law Benjamin Scates, Jr., died of consumption in Milton, November 10, 1862, aged sixty-seven years, ten months.
Theodore C. Lyman died of old age in Milton, July 30, 1863, aged ninety-two years.
Daughter-in-law Betsy (Bragdon) Lyman died in Milton, September 22, 1864. Daughter Roxana A. Lyman died in Milton, January 19, 1865.
Betsy [((Meserve) Pinkham) Lyman of Rochester, NH, made out her last will in Rochester, NH, July 21, 1868. In it she bequeathed a life estate in her Rochester house and furniture to Louisa F. [(Davis)] Mathes [(1818-1901)], widow of Stephen Mathes [(1797-1867)], which was to go next to the son, George Frederick Mathes [(1856-1934)]. She bequeathed her wearing apparel, beds and bedding to her nieces, May Pinkham, Abigail Twombly [(1809-1893)], and Betsy M. [(Twombly)] Minot [(1820-1904)]. She bequeathed the rest and residue to her nephews, Bidfield Meserve [(1807-1891)] and Samuel Meserve [(1808-1900)], who were sons of John Meserve [(1785-1871)]; Stephen M.Y. Meserve [(1811-1876)], who was a son of Hopley Meserve [(1789-1875)]; and the Methodist Church of Rochester, NH, in equal parts. She nominated John McDuffee [(1803-1890)] of Rochester, NH, as her executor. Dominicus Hanson [(1813-1907)], Ezekiel Wentworth [(1823-1905)], and Frankin McDuffee [(1832-1880)] signed as witnesses (Strafford County Probate, 89:413).
(Witness Franklin McDuffee, A.M., wrote historical articles for the Rochester Courier, which would later be assembled, edited and printed in 1892 as The History of the Town of Rochester, New Hampshire, from 1722 to 1890).
Betsy Lyman, aged eighty-seven years (b. NH), headed a Rochester (“Gonic P.O.”), NH, household at the time of the Tenth (1870) Federal Census. She had real estate valued at $1,000.
NEW ENGLAND NEWS. NEW HAMPSHIRE. Mrs. Betsy Lyman, now living in Rochester Village, at the age of ninety-four years, took part in a thanksgiving service at the Tuttle schoolhouse in West Milton, on the occasion of the arrival of the news of peace with England in 1815, by reciting an original poem (Boston Evening Transcript, September 19, 1876).
The last will of Betsy [((Merserve) Pinkham)] Lyman, late of Rochester, deceased, was proved in Strafford County Probate Court held in Somersworth, NH, in February 1878 (Strafford County Probate, 89:413).
Things in General. Fifty years ago a Dover (N. H.) man who was on the Island of St. Helena, cut some sprigs from a willow tree grew over the grave of the great Napoleon. He afterward gave them to William B. Lyman, of Dover, who planted them at his residence, and willow tree was the result. This tree was destroyed during the high wind Friday (Standard (Albert Lea, MN, October 12, 1882).
(Napoleon died in exile on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, May 5, 1821. His remains were disinterred and returned to France in 1840. The sprig would have to have been cut between 1821 and 1840. “Fifty years ago” would have been about 1832.
Daughter-in-law Mary (Kelly) Lyman died of old age in Milton, December 31, 1885, aged ninety years.
LOCALS. Mary, widow of the late Micah Lyman, Esq., of Milton, and mother of Hon. John D. Lyman, and ex County Commissioner Lyman of South Milton, died at her home in Milton, Thursday, aged 90 years 6 months She was the oldest lady in the town (Farmington News, January 8, 1886).
Son William Blake Lyman, died in Dover, NH, November 13, 1889.
Son Theodore Lyman died of heart disease and dropsy in Milton, August 1, 1891, aged seventy-eight years, eleven months, and nine days. He was a widowed farmer. J.W. Lougee, M.D., of Rochester, NH, signed the death certificate.
Daughter Clarissa L. (Lyman) Lord died of old age in Berwick, ME, March 18, 1893, aged eighty-nine years, five months, and eighteen days. O.M. Boynton, M.D., of Somersworth, NH, signed the death certificate.
Greetings fellow skywatchers! Welcome to this month’s edition of Celestial Seasonings including two important and fascinating manifestations of manmade industriousness.
In the interest of clarity, I have included two quotes. The first one on Artemis comes from Wikipedia.
The Artemis program is a United States-led international human spaceflight program. Its primary goal is to return humans to the Moon, specifically the lunar south pole, by 2025. If successful, it will include the first crewed lunar landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, the last lunar flight of the Apollo program. The Artemis program began in December 2017 as the reorganization and continuation of successive efforts to revitalize the U.S. space program since 2009. Its stated short-term goal is landing the first woman on the Moon; mid-term objectives include establishing an international expedition team and a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Long-term objectives are laying the foundations for the extraction of lunar resources, and eventually, make crewed missions to Mars and beyond feasible (Wikipedia, 2021).
And the other on Axiom from a website called Inverse.com. I have also included a YouTube video for your viewing pleasure that will provide you with visual depictions of February 2022 celestial events.
AXIOM SPACE COULD create the successor to humanity’s most iconic space station. The Houston-based firm plans to fly civilians on a series of private missions to the International Space Station. These missions would act as a steppingstone to a fully-fledged, private, independent space station. It’s a fascinating twist in the new space race, which includes private companies alongside national agencies. While most attention has gone to rocket launch companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin, Axiom Space is an example of a company in another area that’s also crafting an exciting vision of humanity’s future in space. Comments from Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos in May 2019 demonstrate why this is valuable. He explained that a company like Amazon could only emerge after the previous infrastructure was established, like the postal service and credit cards. Blue Origin, he said, would help develop the infrastructure to reach space so an imaginative entrepreneur could venture further in the future. With Axiom Space, which depends on rocket launch companies to power its space station, that vision could take a big step forward. The end goal is to use the private space station for commercial purposes. It could offer such amenities as a luxury hotel, a factory floor, or even a media production facility. The company’s website argues that “microgravity is the most promising environment for innovation and problem-solving since the Internet.
As NASA has only cleared the ISS for operations until 2030, it might even be a successor (Brown, 2022).
So, let’s now delve into the evening skies of February- the month of the full Snow Moon.
February 8. Today is the first quarter of the Moon.
February 9. Venus will reach its brightest as the morning or evening star. At times such as this, Venus can stand out so brightly that it may appear to shine along with our Sun and Moon. Mercury will locate to its highest point in the sky making it much more visible than it is normally.
February 11. Mercury will be at half phase. It only is visible in twilight so it might be difficult to view without equipment.
February 12. Venus reaches its highest point in the evening sky. Venus and Mars will rise to the right. This date will bring Artemis One, the first of three space flights planned for this program.
February 16. February is supposed to be the snowiest month, thus the name Snow Moon which will be full today. Mercury will be at its furthest distance from our Sun.
February 23. Today brings the last quarter of the Moon.
February 27. Today brings the right ascension of the Moon and Mars as well as the Moon and Venus. The Moon and Mars will closely approach one another.
February 28. Axiom in conjunction with Spacex will send people to space after they have completed ten days of training and paid fifty-five million dollars.
Norton Scates was baptized in the First (Congregational) Church in Rochester, NH, June 27, 1790, son of Benjamin and Lydia (Jenness) Scates. His mother, Lydia (Jenness) Scates, died in Lebanon, ME, after 1800, but before May 16, 1802.
The Federal Census exists to apportion voting districts, for which a simple headcount would suffice, but the government has always found military and other purposes for it too. The age range breakdowns for males – males aged 16-plus years and males aged under-16 years – in the early enumerations were intended to assess the potential size of the militia.
Norton Scates would have been sixteen years of age, i.e., aged 16-plus years in census terms, when he was wounded seriously while marching with Captain Levi Jones’ Milton militia company in September 1806.
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in General Court Convened – June 1807
The Petition of Norton Scates a private soldier in the 8th Company in 2d Regimt of Militia ~
Humbly Sheweth
That he was enrolled, Duly notified and ordered to appear on the parade at Norway plains in Rochester on the 15th day of Septr 1806 equipped according to law for Military exercise ~ that in obedience to the laws of the State at the Command of my officers, set out for the place appointed, that on the March to said place, by an accidental Discharge of a Gun, by one of my brother soldiers in arms, I received a cruel wound in my body, under my right shoulder blade, which confined me for a long time to a sick bed, and came very near to have terminated in death, but by Divine Goodness, and the assistance of Medical aid, my wound is healed ~ But your Petitioner thereby is made a criple [SIC] ~ his Constitution destroyd and he in the prime of life rendered incapable of making a comfortable living by his industry ~ that the bills of expenses occasioned by said misfortune have been considerable and your petitioner has no means to discharge them without applying to an indulgent parent who has already done to the utmost of his abilities ~ But I am informed that the Goodness and Benevolence of the General Court has heretofore extended to relieve in some measure the unfortunate in such cases ~ I am therefore incouraged to pray that your Honors would Grant me such relief as your wisdom & Justice shall think proper ~ as I in duty bound do pray ~
Milton, May 25th 1807 Norton Scates
We the undersigned, having seen the above Petition, Do hereby Certify that the facts above stated are correct and that the Petitioner, in our opinion, Merits the interference of the Legislature
(Dr. Samuel Pray (1769-1854) was a physician and surgeon at neighboring Rochester, NH. He would be one of the two NH Medical Society “Censors” that examined and approved Milton’s Dr. Stephen Drew (1791-1872) for admission to the society in 1818).
At a June 1807 session held in Hopkinton, NH (the current State House not having been completed until 1819), NH Representatives Samuel Quarles [of Ossipee], Beard Plumer [of Milton], and Harvey were assigned to a committee to consider the petition, together with such member or members that the NH Senate might designate.
The committee on the petition of Norton Scates, reported that Norton Scates receive out of the treasury of this State sixty dollars towards defraying the expence occasioned by the wound mentioned in his petition; which report was accepted, and a resolve passed for payment of said sum (NH General Court, 1807).
Benjn Scates headed a Milton household at the time of the Third (1810) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 45-plus years [himself], one female aged 26-44 years, one male aged 16-25 years [Norton Scates?], one female aged 16-25 years, and one female aged under-10 years]. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of David Wallingford and James Twambly.
Norton Scates married (1st) in Rochester, NH, November 22, 1812, Hannah Cook, both of Rochester (NEHGS, 1908). She was born in Rochester, NH, circa 1792.
Son Thomas L. Scates was born in Milton, December 17, 1813.
Father Benjamin Scates married (2nd) in Portsmouth, NH, February 8, 1814, Abigail Folsom, he of Milton and she of Portsmouth, NH. Rev. Joseph Walton performed the ceremony.
Norton Scates had evidently recovered sufficiently to march again with Milton’s militia company seven years later, in September 1814, when it was called up during the War of 1812. (See Milton in the War of 1812).
Ensign Norton Scates was one of fourteen officers of the Second NH Militia Regiment that petitioned the NH legislature, September 23, 1819, for appointment of a surgeon’s mate. (Captain Theodore C. Lyman was another petitioner (Scates’ brother, Benjamin Scates, Jr., was married to Lyman’s daughter, Lovey Lyman)).
Captain Jeremy Nute, Lt. James Hayes, Jr., and Ensign Norton Scates petitioned the Field Officers of the 2nd Regiment, May 31, 1820, to have their Milton company divided into a northern part and a southern part. Norton Scates signed also a remonstrance intended for the June 1820 session of the NH legislature. It opposed one or more competing petitions that sought the division of Milton into two towns.
Son Eri N. Scates was born in the “Fish House” in Milton in 1820.
He was a son of Captain Norton Scates and was born in Milton at the “Fish house,” where his father dwelled and kept the post office in the early twenties (Farmington News, July 28, 1899).
The “Fish House” had nothing to do with fish, as such, but was instead the former residence of John Fish (c1760-1819[?]). Fish had been one of Milton’s original selectmen, then town clerk, and had received his appointment as a justice-of-the-peace, June 24, 1814. He was said in 1820 to have been “removed by death,” and Scates took up residence in his house.
J. Norton Scates received an appointment as Milton’s second Postmaster during the administration of Democratic-Republican James Monroe, April 8, 1822. As this was at least in part a political plum, he was likely also a Democratic-Republican, i.e., a Democrat. He had paid over $6.39 to the Postal Department by July 1823 but owed them still a further $10.09 (US Postmaster General, 1824). Norton Scates received $3.98 in compensation for being Milton postmaster in 1824 (US Dept. of the Interior, 1824).
Benjamin Gerrish succeeded Norton Scates in the postmaster position in 1826. The presidency being still held by a Democratic-Republican, President John Quincy Adams, this substitution might have arisen through Scates’ relocation to neighboring Middleton, NH.
The NH Senate considered a NH House bill on Tuesday, June 27, 1826, to revoke the militia commissions of officers that had moved from their respective militia company areas and had neglected to resign them in favor of new officers.
The Senate and House of Representatives of said State in General Court convened respectfully represent to your Excellency, that the following officers, who have been duly commissioned to command in the militia of said state, have removed from the limits of their respective commands without having resigned their commissions to wit: … Norton Scates, captain of the fourth company of infantry in the thirty-ninth regiment; and Benjamin Scates, jr., second lieutenant of the company of cavalry in said thirty-ninth regiment; and Japheth Gray ensign of the fifth company of infantry in said thirty-ninth regiment … (NH Senate, 1826).
Scates had risen to the captaincy of the Fourth Company in the Thirty-Ninth Regiment of NH Militia Infantry, but then had moved, apparently from Milton to Middleton, NH. (His brother, Benjamin Scates, Jr., had been 2nd Lieutenant of the Cavalry company of the same regiment and had also moved).
Norton Scates headed a Middleton household in that same Fifth (1830) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 40-49 years [himself], one female aged 30-39 years [Hannah (Cook) Scates], one male aged 20-29 years, one male aged 10-14 years [Thomas L. Scates], one male aged 5-9 years [Eri N. Scates], and one female aged 5-9 years.
(Father Benj. Scates headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifth (1830) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 70-79 years [himself], one female aged 40-49 years, one male aged 10-14 years, one female aged 5-9 years, and 1 male aged under-5 years. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of Benj. Scates Jr., and Ed. Ellice).
Norton Scates was mentioned in the replevin action of York vs. Davis regarding a pasture in Middleton, NH. “Replevin” is the legal term for a lawsuit seeking return of personal property, in this case nine cows impounded by defendant Davis.
On trial, it appeared that the plaintiff in 1833 and 1834 occupied a pasture by parole permission of John York, Jr., who held the same by a conveyance from James Goodwin executed in 1832, and that the defendant owned and occupied a pasture, contiguous to that occupied by the plaintiff, which he purchased of one Norton Scates in 1830. The plaintiff offered evidence tending to show that Goodwin and Scates, while owners of the closes agreed by parol on a division of the fence between them, and built and maintained the fence accordingly until they parted with their title and occupation. The court instructed the jury that such agreement not being in writing would not be binding on their grantees or successors in the occupation (NH Supreme Court, 1844).
The lower court had decided in favor of the plaintiff, John York, Jr. The defendant Davis had appealed to the NH Supreme Court.
Norton Scates appeared only as having been the prior part-owner with one Goodwin of the meadow land. They had agreed between them to partition the shared land with a fence (Good fences make good neighbors). Scates had sold out to York in 1830, and Goodwin to Davis in 1832. Davis had not maintained his portion of the fence as faithfully as he might have, which allowed York’s nine cows to cross over. (The grass being always greener on the other side). The NH Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff York, who got his nine cows back (NH Supreme Court, 1844).
Norton Scates appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1833, as a clerk at Sam’l Thayer’s, and board-house, north of Ela’s tavern, on Main street. Samuel Thayer appeared as proprietor of a provisions store, near Ela’s tavern, with his house on Main street, north of that tavern. ELA’S TAVERN appeared on Main street, with N.W. Ela as proprietor.
Son Thomas L. Scates married in Boston, MA, October 11, 1835, Eliza Clarke. Rev. Hubbard Winslow performed the ceremony.
Son Eri N. Scates married in Dover, NH, April 5, 1837, Mary N. Smith, both of Dover, NH. Edward Cleveland performed the ceremony.
Son Thomas L. Scates was printer of the Groton Academy Catalog in 1838. He published the Yeoman’s Gazette, a Middlesex County, MA, newspaper, in 1838-39.
Son Norton Scates married (2nd), intentions filed in Dover, NH, October 17, 1838, Lyntha Langton (City of Dover, 1927). (Her name is given usually as “Lynthia”).
(The last will of Samuel Langton of Portsmouth, NH, mariner, which was dated November 1, 1806, devised to his wife, Olive [(Libby)] Langton, his daughter, Linthya Langton, and his son, Samuel Lee Langton. The testator died February 6, 1807, and his will was proved in a Rockingham County Probate Court, February 18, 1807 (Rockingham County Probate, 37:341). His daughter was born in Kittery, ME, March 14, 1787).
Census. His household included one male aged 50-59 years [himself], one female aged 30-39 years [Lynthia (Langton) Scates], and two females aged 15-19 years. One member of his household was engaged in “Agriculture” as opposed to the other two possibilities of Commerce or Industry.
Son Thomas L. Scates appeared in the Boston, MA, directory of 1842, as a printer, with his house at 3 Beach street.
Norton Scates appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1843, as a laborer, with his house on Main street. Son Eri N. Scates was a mariner, with his house on Perkins street.
Norton Scates appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1848, as keeper of N. & J. Young’s storehouse, with his house on Water street. (N. & J. Young were tanners & curriers on Water street). Son Eri N. Scates was a watchman at C.M. [Cocheco Manufacturing] Co., with his house near School street.
Lynthia (Langton) Scates died August 28, 1848.
Norton Scates married (3rd) in Rochester, NH, October 29, 1849, Hannah E. Matthes. She was born in Milton, April 8, 1804, daughter of Robert and Sarah (Jones) Mathes.
Norton Scates a laborer, aged fifty-nine years (b. NH), headed a Dover, NH, household at the time of the Seventh (1850) Federal Census. His household included Hannah Scates, aged forty-six years (b. NH), and William Scates, aged ten years (b. NH).
Norton Scates appeared in the Dover, NH directory of 1859, as a grocer on Main street, with his house at the rear of the store. Son Eri N. Scates was a watchman at C.M. [Cocheco Manufacturing] Co., with his house on First street.
Norton Scates, a merchant, aged seventy years (b. NH), headed a Dover, NH, household at the time of the Eighth (1860) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Hannah Scates, aged fifty-seven years (b. NH). Norton Scates had real estate valued at $1,000 and personal estate valued at $400.
Son Thomas L. Scates died of phthisis in Boston, MA, December 21, 1860, aged forty-seven years, three days.
Norton Scates was a Sealer of Weights and Measures for the city government of Dover, NH, in 1858, 1859, 1860, 1862, 1863, 1864, and 1866. A city expense report of 1862 recorded payments to him of 40¢ for sealing measures, $3.00 for goods delivered to Mrs. Martin Drew (a dependent of a Civil War volunteer). He was a Measurer of Wood and Surveyor of Lumber in 1864 (City of Dover, 1865).
Son Eri N. Scates married (2nd), May 12, 1865, Nancy J. (Clough) Davis. She was born in Effingham, NH, August 11, 1833, daughter of John B. and Sarah (Wentworth) Clough. (She had married (1st) January 19, 1852, Henry S. Davis, and they had a son, Charles H. Davis, before divorcing in June 1862).
Norton Scates, a laborer, aged eighty-one years (b. NH), headed a Dover, NH, household at the time of the Ninth (1870) Federal Census. His household included Hannah Scates, keeping house, aged sixty-seven years (b. NH), and Albert Mathes, a savings bank clerk, aged twenty-seven years (b. NH). Norton Scates had real estate valued at $1,200 and personal estate valued at $500. (See Milton in the News – 1903 for more details regarding her nephew, Albert O. Mathes (1842-1907)).
Norton Scates died in Dover, NH, August 28, 1873.
Son Eri N. Scates died in Ossipee, NH, January 8, 1877.
Hannah E. [(Mathes)] Scates later claimed a War of 1812 widow’s pension for Norton Scates’s service in Capt. William Courson’s Milton militia company. (See Milton in the War of 1812).
Hannah E. [(Mathes)] Scates appeared in the Dover, NH, directory of 1880, as a widow, boarding at Mrs. S.J. Bliss’. Sarah J. Bliss appeared as a widow, with her house on Portland street.
Daughter-in-law Nancy J. ((Clough) Davis) Scates died in 1881.
Hannah E. (Mathes) Scates died of uremia in Dover, NH, May 16, 1882, aged seventy-eight years, one month, and eight days.
City of Dover. (1927). Annual Report of the Receipts and Expenditures for the Municipal Year 1926, Together with Department Reports. Dover, NH: George J. Foster & Co.
US Department of the Interior. (1824). Official Register of the United States: Containing a List of Officers and Employees in the Civil, Military, and Naval Service. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=etg9AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA66
Stephen Drew was born in Newfield, ME, April 7, 1791, son of Elijah and Abigail (Clarage [or Claridge]) Drew.
(His birthplace of Maine might be regarded as being a matter of some dispute. His parents were for several years surrounding his birth in the process of moving as settlers from Durham, NH, to Newfield, ME. Dr. Drew consistently told the later census enumerators who asked him that he had been born in “N.H.,” i.e., Durham, NH).
Dr. Stephen Drew studied medicine with Dr. Ayer of Newfield, Me., attended medical lectures at Harvard University and at other medical colleges, and received his diploma in medicine about the year 1815. He first practiced his profession for more than a year at Conway, in this State, thence he removed to Milton, N.H. (Haley, 1872).
Biographical notes of Dr. James Ayer, Sr. (1781-1834), of Newfield, ME, note that he was a member of the Maine Medical Society, practiced in Newfield from 1805 until his death, and that during his life he had several medical students (Ayer, 1892).
Stephen Drew married in Wakefield, NH, October 26, 1817, Harriet Watson. He was a physician, aged twenty-six years, and she was aged twenty-two years. She was born in Milton, April 9, 1795, daughter of Stephen and Mary (Fogg) Watson.
Stephen Drew settled at Milton Mills in 1818 or 1819, and after a year or two moved to the Three Ponds. He is supposed to have been the first resident physician in town. Before his time doctors were called from other towns when needed (Scales, 1914).
Two Censors of the NH Medical Society met in Farmington, NH, July 21, 1818, and there examined Dr. Stephen Drew of Milton as a candidate for membership.
State of New Hampshire. This may certify that we the subscribers, Censors of the New Hampshire Medical Society, have examined Dr Stephen Drew of Milton in said State, a Candidate for the practice of Physic & Surgery, respecting his skill and knowledge therein, and having found him duly qualified therefor, do, in testimony of our approbation, hereunto subscribe our names at Farmington, this 21st day of July Anno Domini 1818. Asa Crosby, Samuel Pray, Censors of the N.H. Med. Society. Attest Saml Morril Sec’y (NH Medical Society, 1911).
They were censors in the ancient Roman sense of the term: examining candidates and maintaining up-to-date lists of approved physicians through the addition or removal of names. Changes would arise usually through the approval of new members, and relocations, retirements, or deaths of older ones, but also through the occasional “striking off” from their rolls of offending ones. (Dr. Drew would be himself a Censor for the society in 1833).
At the time that Dr. Drew joined them, the society had its own annually expanding medical library of eighty volumes at Portsmouth, NH (and others “at C.,’ i.e., Concord, NH):
Saunders on the Liver, 1; Cook on Tinea Capitis, 1; Fothergill’s works, 2; Willan on Cutaneous Diseases, No 3; Bostock on respiration, 1; Harty on Dysentery, 1; Bell’s Surgery, 3; Ford on the Hipjoint, 1; Burns’ Anatomy, 1; Chapman’s Midwifery, 1; Read on Electricity, 1; Rush works, 5; Currie, 1; Prize questions, 1; Rush Lectures, 1; Annals Chemistry, 1; McBride’s Essay, 1; Richerand’s Physeology, 1; Bell on Wounds, 1; Cheyne, 1; Bell on Ulcers, 1; Abernethey’s Observations, 1; Desault’s Chi Journal; Thomas’s Practice, 1, 1st at C, 1; Denman’s Aphorisms, 1; Moss on Dysentery, 1; Bell’s Operative Surgery, 2; Horne’s Observations, 2; Priestly on Air, 3; Rigby on Uterine Hem, 1; Withering’s Botany, 3; of Medical Extracts, 3, 1st c, 1 & 2 at C; Desault’s Surgery, 2; Le Drans’ consultations, 1; Smellie’s Tables, 1; Heberdon’s comment, 1; Balfour on fevers, 1; Wiseman’s Chiurgery, 1, 2nd c; Crill’s Chem Journal, 1; Medical Ethics, 1; Pemberton’s Treatise, 1; Pott on Hydrocele, 1; Watson’s Chemical Essay, 2nd, 2 at C; Fordyce on Digestion, 1; Russell on kneejoint, 1; Duncan’s Comment, 10; Beddoes on Consumption, 1; McClurg on the Bile, 1; Medical and Physical Journal, 6; Boyer on the Bones, 1; Wardrop on soft Cancer, 1; 80 volumes (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Even a modern layman might recognize at least one of these tomes: “Priestly on Air.” Joseph Priestly (1733-1804) discovered oxygen, as well as nine other gasses. The society’s member physicians seem to have been able to borrow the society’s library books for several months at a time.
Each Fellow and Associate be entituled to receive out of the library Four Volumes at a time, and keep the same three calendar months, and in case of neglect to return them at the time, he shall forfeit and pay Twelve & half cents a week for each volume so kept, to be demanded and received by the librarian (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Son Stephen Watson Drew was born in Milton, August 15, 1818. (He was a namesake for his maternal grandfather, Revolutionary soldier Stephen Watson (1762-1846)).
The Milton of fifty-six years ago was very different from the Milton of to-day. Says a reliable informant: “At that early period the large tract of country over which his visits extended was a wilderness in comparison with to-day. Very few good roads, but many bridle paths, making it necessary for him to perform much of his labor on horseback, subjecting him to much inconvenience and exposure” (Haley, 1872).
Dr. Stephen Drew of Milton became a member of the Strafford District Medical Society – the local branch of the statewide NH Medical Society – in 1819; and he was its secretary in 1823 (Scales, 1914).
The use of Quack Medicines should be discouraged, as disgraceful to the profession, injurious to health & often destructive to life. No physician or surgeon therefore shall dispense a secret nostrum whether it be his invention, or exclusive property; for if it is of real efficacy, the concealment of it is inconsistent with beneficence & professional liberality, and if mystery alone give it value and importance, such craft implies either disgraceful ignorance or fraudulent avarice (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Son David Fogg Drew was born in Milton, February 5, 1820. (He was a namesake for his maternal great uncle, Revolutionary soldier David Fogg (1759-1826) of Epping, NH).
Stephen Drew was one of a “number of respectable citizens” of Milton that petitioned the NH legislature in June 1820, opposing a proposed division of Milton into two parts. He signed also a November 1820 remonstrance regarding the same issue.
The NH Medical Society voted at their meeting held in Concord, NH, June 5, 1821, that twenty-nine [associate] members, including Dr. Stephen Drew of Milton, should be admitted as Fellows of the society. (Dr. Jacob Hammons [Hammond] of neighboring Farmington, NH, was also so admitted). Patients with difficult or unusual symptoms were examined at the meeting and treatment recommendations made. After lunch, officers were elected, reports heard, and delegates to other societies and institutions selected. Five doctors were appointed “to be a committee cloathed with discretionary powers to make application to the Legislature for the enactment of a law for the suppression of quackery and also for pecuniary aid” (NH Medical Society, 1821).
Daughter Abby Jane Drew was born in Milton, May 30, 1822.
The NH legislature authorized incorporation of the Milton Social Library by nine Milton men, including Stephen Drew, June 14, 1822.
Stephen Drew was one of nineteen Milton inhabitants who petitioned to have Gilman Jewett (1777-1856) appointed as a coroner, June 12, 1823. They observed that there was no coroner between Rochester and Wakefield, NH, a distance of twenty miles, on the “great main road from Portsmouth to Lancaster,” NH. (See Milton Seeks a Coroner – June 1823).
Daughter Clarissa Mathes Drew was born in Milton, February 28, 1824. (She was a namesake for her maternal aunt, Clarissa Watson (1799-1824), who had married in Milton, August 24, 1823, Stephen M. Mathes, and died in Milton, January 16, 1824, aged twenty-four years. (Mathes was during their short marriage Milton’s town clerk)).
Steph. Drew headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifth (1830) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 30-39 years [Stephen Drew], one female aged 30-39 years [Harriet Drew], one male aged 20-29 years, one female aged 15-19 years, two males aged 10-14 years [Stephen W. Drew and David F. Drew], one female aged 5-9 years [Abigail J. Drew], and one female aged under-5 years [Clara M. Drew]. His household was enumerated between those of Peletiah Hanscom and James Goodwin.
Stephen Drew received an appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace, June 29, 1830.
Third-year Maine Medical student Moses R. Warren (1804-1881) of Milton had Dr. Stephen Drew as his local instructor or preceptor during the Spring of 1832 (Bowdoin College, 1832). Warren might have been the male aged 20-29 years residing with the Drew family in 1830. Moses R. Warren, M.D., of Middleton, NH, was proposed as a Fellow in the NH Medical Society in June 1834. (By 1865, he was practicing in Rochester, NH, and was an officer of the Strafford District Medical Society).
When the NH Medical Society met at the Phoenix Hotel in Concord, NH, June 6, 1832, it appointed John McCrillis and Stephen Drew as its Strafford County Counsellors (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Milton sent Stephen Drew as its representative to the NH legislature for the 1833-34 biennium (Scales, 1914). While it would be possible to study his voting record in some detail, a single example will suffice to give some idea of the legislative process in which he was involved.
In 1833, NH Senate passed a bill entitled, “An act to repeal an act entitled an act allowing certain premiums for killing Bears, Wild Cats, Crows and Foxes.” That is to say, the NH Senate sought to repeal a previously enacted bounty on bears, wildcats, crows and foxes. One supposes that farmers might have been in favor of such bounties. Rep. Drew voted with those that sought to indefinitely postpone the bill, i.e., he voted to retain the bounties. The motion passed by a single vote, but the House Speaker threw his vote into the negative column, causing a tie, so consideration of the bill was not postponed indefinitely. Next a similar motion was made to postpone the bill only until the next session, i.e., two years out, rather than indefinitely, and that motion passed by a larger margin. So, the bounties remained in place, at least for another two years (NH General Court, 1833).
Dr. Stephen Drew was one of twelve “Censors” for the New Hampshire Medical Society in 1833 (Farmer & Lyon, 1833).
State of Newhampshire. We the Censors of the Newhampshire Medical Society have this day examined Mr. Elijah Blaisdell of Boscawen in this State in the different branches of Medicine, Surgery & Obstetricks and do recommend him as qualified to practice in those branches. Concord, June 3rd 1834. Dixi Crosby, David T. Livy, Stephen Drew } Censors. Attest Enos Hoyt, Secretary (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Mother-in-law Mary (Fogg) Watson died in Acton, ME, March 10, 1835, aged sixty-four years.
Stephen Drew received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace, June 15, 1835. He was at this time “advanced” or promoted to justice in quorum.
Dr. Stephen Drew of Milton was president of the Strafford District Medical Society in 1836-38 (Scales, 1914).
Son David F. Drew of Milton, aged sixteen years, and his elder brother, Stephen W. Drew of Milton, aged nineteen years, entered Phillips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, NH, in January 1836 and January 1837, respectively. (In a graduate catalog of 1850 they were listed as Stephen W. Drew, M.D., of Milton, and David F. Drew, A.M., Dart. Col., of Milton) (Phillips Exeter Academy, 1838, 1850).
Stephen Drew succeeded James M. Twombly (1798-1886) as Milton postmaster, June 17, 1837. Such positions were at this time political plums given out to supporters. The incoming U.S. President who appointed him was Democrat Martin Van Buren. James Firneld [Fernald] (1779-1861) succeeded Dr. Drew in that position, March 10, 1840. The incoming U.S. President at that time was Whig William Henry Harrison. President Harrison died within a month and was replaced by his Vice President John Tyler. (Their campaign slogan had been: “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too”).
When the NH Medical Society met at the Phoenix Hotel in Concord, NH, June 5, 1838, it appointed Stephen Drew, M.D., and Noah Martin, M.D., as its Strafford County Counsellors. When it met again at the Phoenix Hotel in the following year, June 4, 1839, it appointed Stephen Drew, M.D., and J.S. Fernald, M.D., as its Strafford County Counsellors (NH Medical Society, 1911).
The article in the By-laws respecting Consultations was discussed, which resulted in the adoption of the following Resolution – That it is disreputable for any fellow of this Society to leave with any patient, his written prescription or opinion, in any case where he has satisfactory evidence that such prescription will go into the hands, and be administered by an empyrick, or any pretender, not in fellowship with the faculty of Medicine (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Empirics, as the NH Medical society defined them (and as we would now spell it), were healers or doctors who relied primarily on their practical experience – empiricism – rather than on scientific theories and principles. The NH Medical Society regarded empirics or empiricists as being charlatans, quacks, or pretenders.
It is a bit of a side-trip, but the reader might find some clarity regarding the issues and, perhaps, even some levity, in an anecdote of medical empiricist “Dr.” David B. Gray (1834-1900) of Penobscot in our neighboring State o’ Maine.
Dr. Franklin Farrow of Brooksville faces a problem. One of his maternity patients was running dangerously overdue for delivery. None of the ordinary inducements had worked. For reassurance he called in Dr. Littlefield from Blue Hill and Dr. Babcock from across the Bagaduce. The visiting doctors arrived and made their own examinations. Dr. Littlefield recommended the use of forceps. Dr. Farrow was violently opposed. The husband, growing worried and impatient, suggested that if these eminent gentlemen could not agree perhaps they had better call in Dr. David Gray. Dr. Gray was a man with a considerable reputation. His methods and his success were based on the use of old-fashioned Indian remedies and obscure procedures which the more conservative M.D.s had not found in their medical school texts. Dr. Babcock remembers him as a most impressive man who wore a tail-coat beneath a bushy beard. He had an air of solemn dignity about him that was bound to impress his patients and give confidence and authenticity to his decisions. Dr. Gray arrived and after making his examination, the fourth that the by now discouraged patient had been obliged to endure, he joined his colleagues in the parlor. Satisfied with his examination and secure in his diagnosis, he put it all in a simple question: ‘Why don’t you quill her?’ Dr. Babcock, thinking that Gray was directing the question to him and having no knowledge of ‘quilling,’ suggested that Dr. Littlefield do the honors. Dr. Littlefield, equally in ignorance, passed the buck to Dr. Farrow. Finally it was unanimously agreed that Dr. Gray was the man to carry out his own recommendation. ‘Very well,’ said Dr. Gray, and the conference moved to the bedside. With the dignity of a Tarratine chieftain performing a tribal ceremony, the doctor brought forth from an inner pocket the long tail feather of a turkey. He smoothed out the ruffled tip with his finger, holding the instrument of nature in his left hand with the grace of a conductor’s baton. The patient was too exhausted to take any notice. Watching the rhythm of her breathing, he waited for an inhalation. As deftly as a surfboarder timing a wave, he inserted the tip of the feather into the patient’s nostril, agitating it gently. In a reflex of surprise and muscular response she cut loose with an enormous sneeze. The normal forces of labor were cut loose from their shackles and a normal birth was under way (Francis W. Hatch, “I Think We’d Better Quill Her,” Ellsworth American, April 27, 1972).
Stephen Drew headed a Milton household at the time of the Sixth (1840) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 40-49 years [Stephen Drew], one female aged 40-49 years [Harriet Drew], two males aged 20-29 years [Stephen W. Drew and David F. Drew], and two females aged 15-19 years [Abigail J. Drew and Clarissa M. Drew]. One member of his household, presumably Dr. Drew himself, was employed in a learned profession. His household was enumerated between those of Paul Jewett and Lucy D. Hartford.
Stephen Drew received a renewal of his appointment as a Milton justice-of-the-peace in quorum, June 13, 1840.
When the NH Medical Society met at the Phoenix Hotel in Concord, NH, June 1, 1841, it appointed John Morrison of Alton, NH, and Stephen Drew of Milton as its Strafford County Censors (NH Medical Society, 1911).
Father Elijah Drew, Esq., died in Newfield, ME, November 18, 1841, aged ninety-four years.
Son David F. Drew of Milton was a student at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, in 1841. (He graduated in 1842 and studied medicine with his father in 1842-44).
Son Stephen W. Drew joined the Strafford Medical Society in 1843. S. Watson Drew married, probably in Milton, June 20, 1843, Mary Yeaton Chase. She was born in Milton Mills, June 25, 1823, daughter of Simon and Sarah (Wingate) Chase.
Stephen Drew, John L. Swinerton, and Stephen W. Drew appeared in the NH Registers of 1844 and 1846, as being Milton’s physicians (Claremont Manufacturing, 1846).
Mother Abigail (Clarage [or Claridge]) Drew died in Dover, NH, October 20, 1843, aged ninety years.
Son David F. Drew was principal of the Rochester Academy in Rochester, NH, in 1844-45 (McDuffee, 1892).
From March, 1844, to the latter part of 1845, David Fogg Drew, son of Dr. Stephen Drew of Milton, was principal (McDuffee, 1892).
Son David F. Drew was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in July 1846 (Davis, 1895).
In 1845 became a law student in the office of Daniel M. Christy, of Dover; later studied with Theodore Otis, of Roxbury, Massachusetts; also with Willey & Hutchins, of Boston, and after his admission to the Suffolk bar in 1847 [1846] he began the practice of law in that city (Cutter, 1919).
Daniel M. Christie (1790-1876), Esq., was a fellow Dartmouth graduate, lawyer and justice in quorum at Dover, NH. Theodore Otis (1811-1873) was a counsellor, i.e., lawyer, at 4 State street, in Boston, MA, who resided in neighboring Roxbury, MA. Willey & Hutchins had their law offices at 5 Court square in Boston, MA.
Father-in-law Stephen Watson died in Acton, ME, in October 1846, aged eighty-four years.
Daughter Abbie J. Drew married September 15, 1847, Moses W. Shapleigh, Esq., she of Milton and he of Lebanon, ME. She died June 15, 1848, aged twenty-six years.
MARRIAGES AND DEATHS. MARRIAGES. SHAPLEIGH, Moses W., Esq., Lebanon, Me., to ABBA JANE, eldest daughter of Stephen Drew, M.D., Milton, N.H., Sept. 15 (NEHGS, 1847).
Son David F. Drew moved to New York, NY, where he initially practiced law but then reverted to being a school principal.
In 1849 he removed to New York City, where he opened a law office, but was shortly afterward induced to accept the mastership of one of the metropolitan schools, which position he retained for some time (Cutter, 1919).
Milton in 1856 (Detail). Dr. S. Drew is shown with the red arrow.
Stephen Drew, a physician, aged fifty-eight years (b. NH [SIC]), headed a Milton household at the time of the Seventh (1850) Federal Census. His household included Harriet Drew, aged fifty-four years (b. NH), Clara M. Drew, aged twenty-five years (b. NH), and Relief Jones, aged eleven years (b. ME). Stephen Drew had real estate valued at $2,500. (Relief G. Jones (1839-1921) was a daughter of Jonathan and Rebecca (Knox) Jones of Lebanon, ME. Her mother had died in 1848).
Son S. Watson Drew, M.D., of Woburn, MA, published in the Boston Medical & Surgical Journal an account of his attendance at the delivery of triplets on the afternoon of Sunday, January 25, 1852.
Dr. Drew’s Report of a Case of Triplets. – The following account, from Dr. Drew, of the case of triplets, alluded to in last week’s Journal, came too late for insertion in its proper place. I was called last Sunday P.M., 25th inst., at half past 1, to Mrs. Patrick Costelo of Winchester. She gave birth to a boy at 20 minutes before 4 o’clock. Presentation natural. Labor pains continued, and at 20 minutes past 5 o’clock, she gave birth to another boy. Breach presentation. About two minutes after, another boy was born. Presentation natural. The placenta came away in a short time, and the womb contracted well. The placenta was about the common width, where there is only one child. The length was three times as long as it was wide. The funis attached to the first child was once around its neck; it was three feet long and attached to one end of the placenta. That of the second was small, 2½ feet long, and attached to the other end of the placenta. The cord of the third child was two feet long, and attached to the middle of the placenta. Weight of first child, 7 lbs.; weight of second, 4 lbs. 10 oz.; weight of third, 6¾ lbs. They are all alive, and to-day, together with their mother, are doing well. S. WATSON DREW. Woburn, Mass., Jan. 30, 1852 (Cupples, Upham & Co., 1852).
James, Hugh, and Winchester Costello were born in Winchester, MA, January 25, 1852, triplet sons of Irish immigrants Patrick and Mary [(Duffy)] Costello of Winchester.
Daughter Clara M. Drew married in Milton, August 21, 1851, John Brodhead Wentworth. (J.B. Wentworth, a M.E. clergyman, aged thirty-six years (b. NH), headed a Perry, NY, household at the time of the Eighth (1860) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Clara Wentworth, aged thirty-six years (b. NH), and four children).
Dr. Stephen Drew of Milton appears to have been a Democrat when he had served as Milton postmaster in 1837-40. But the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 fractured the Democrat party over the issue of slavery. The Republican party was formed at that time by former Whigs, whose own party had collapsed already, defecting anti-slavery Democrats, such as Dr. Drew had either been or become, and others. (See Milton and Abolitionism).
His church affiliations were with the Congregationalists. He was a Master Mason. In politics he was in later years a Republican (Cutter, 1919).
Son David F. Drew returned to the study of medicine in 1853 and graduated from the medical school of the University of Albany, NY, in 1855. He married in Brooklyn, NY, in May 1856, Olivia M. Gilman. She was born in Canaan, ME, August 11, 1832, daughter of Winthrop W. and Deborah (Tupper) Gilman. (Olivia M. Gilman of New York, NY, had been a student at the Brooklyn Female Academy in the 1850-51 academic year).
Son David F. Drew and his elder brother, S. Watson Drew, both appeared in the Massachusetts Register of 1857, as Woburn, MA, physicians. S. Watson Drew of Woburn was also a surgeon’s mate with the 5th MA Militia Regiment in 1857.
Son David F. Drew appeared in the Lynn, MA, directories of 1858, 1860, and 1863, as a physician, with his house at 7 Franklin street.
Stephen Drew, a “practicing physician in Milton 40 years,” aged sixty-six years (b. NH [SIC]), headed a Milton household at the time of the Eighth (1860) Federal Census. His household included Harriet Drew, aged sixty-three years (b. NH). Stephen Drew had real estate valued at $6,000 and personal estate valued at $5,000. He was enumerated just after, i.e., in close proximity to, Joseph Jenness, landlord [of the Milton Hotel], aged thirty-six years (b. NH). Boarding with Jenness were two other doctors: Dr. Jackson, a physician, aged forty-two years (b. NH), and George Hattan, an Indian doctor, i.e., an “empiric,” aged fifty-five years (b. NH).
Son Stephen W. Drew served as surgeon for the 9th MA Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War.
MILITARY. NINTH REGIMENT. Stephen Watson Drew of Woburn, appointed Surgeon (Aug. 27, 1861), in place of Peter Pineo, promoted Brigade Surgeon, U.S.A. (Boston Evening Transcript, September 12, 1861).
Son David F. Drew, a physician, aged forty-four years (b. MA [SIC]) registered for the Civil War military draft in Lynn, MA, in May or June 1863. He was an “At Large” Lynn School Committee member in 1864.
Stephen Drew of Milton made his last will in Milton, July 9, 1866. He devised his homestead in Milton, as well as any other property, to his “beloved” wife, Harriet Drew. He gave to his two sons, Stephen Watson Drew and David Fogg Drew, “all my library, medicines, surgical instruments, splints, and office furniture,” to be divided equally between them. [Both sons were also physicians, but in Woburn and Lynn, MA, respectively]. He gave his daughter, Clara Mathes Drew Wentworth, the sum of $100, and all the remainder of his personal estate to his wife, Harriet Drew. He appointed Harriet Drew, Stephen Watson Drew, and David Fogg Drew as joint executors. Joseph Sayward, Ira S. Knox, and Nathaniel G. Pinkham signed as witnesses. The will would be proved in Farmington, NH, April 2, 1872 (Strafford County Probate, 84:46).
Stephen Drew appeared in the Milton business directories of 1867-68 and 1868, as a Milton physician.
Son David F. Drew was mentioned in the later obituary of Dr. Solomon W. Young (1835-1890), as having been in 1869 the decedent’s medical instructor or mentor in Lynn, MA. (Young appeared in the Ninth (1870) Federal Census as a Lynn shoe worker).
Dr. David F. Drew. To the extent that a son might resemble his father, or vice versa, Dr. Stephen Drew might have looked like him.
RECENT DEATHS. Dr. Solomon Walker Young, who died at Pittsfield, N.H., yesterday, was born in Alexandria, N.H., and was in the fifty-fourth year of his age. A volume entitled “Legends and Lyrics,” of which he was the author, is now ready for publication. He was educated at Pittsfield and Exeter academies, and taught school many years. He served at Winchester and Fredericksburg in the Twelfth New Hampshire Volunteers. He studied medicine with Dr. David Drew of Lynn in 1869, and attended medical lectures at Harvard in 1871 and 1872, and in 1875 received his degree of M.D. from Dartmouth. He practiced one year in Lynn and then went to Barnstead and from then to Pittsfield. He has written many poems (Boston Evening Transcript, January 25, 1890).
Stephen Drew, a physician, aged seventy-nine years (b. NH [SIC]), headed a Milton household at the time of the Ninth (1870) Federal Census. His household included Harriet W. Drew, keeping house, aged seventy-five years (b. NH). Stephen Drew had real estate valued at $5,000 and personal estate valued at $1,300.
Stephen Drew appeared in the Milton business directories of 1871, as a Milton physician.
Dr. Stephen Drew died of consumption in Milton, February 27, 1872, aged eighty-one years, ten months.
Son Stephen W. “Watson” Drew, M.D., died in Woburn, MA, February 18, 1875, aged fifty-six years, six months.
Masonic. The members of “Woburn Royal Arch Chapter and Mount Horeb Lodge, F. and A.M.,” are requested to meet at Masonic Hall, Woburn, Tuesday, Feb. 23, at 1½ o’clock, for the purpose of attending the funeral of our late companion and brother, S. Watson Drew. SPARROW HORTON, Secretary. Woburn, Feb. 20, 1875 (Boston Globe, February 22, 1875).
DEATHS. DREW – At Woburn, 18th inst., S. Watson Drew, M.D., 56 yrs., 6 mos. (Boston Evening Transcript, February 23, 1875).
Harriet Drew of Lynn, MA, made her last will in Lynn, MA, March 12, 1875. (She was then living with her son, David F. Drew). She devised $1 each to her grandchildren, Mary Josephine Drew, Harriet Watson Drew, and Carrie Brooks Drew, all of them children of her son, Stephen Watson Drew of Woburn, MA, lately deceased. She devised $1 to her other son, David F. Drew of Lynn, MA. [As he was still living, his four daughters, Carrietta H. Drew, Clara O. Drew, Alice G. Drew, and Lillian W. Drew, did not receive placeholder bequests].
Milton in 1871 (Detail). Dr. S. Drew is shown with the red arrow.
Harriet Drew devised $1 to her daughter Clara M.D. Wentworth of LeRoy, NY, wife of John Broadhead Wentworth, but also the Milton homestead of Stephen Drew, late of Milton, physician. [As she was still living, her ten children did not receive placeholder bequests]. The Milton homestead was bounded west by the Wakefield Road (so called) and east by the pond. She devised also a thirty-acre wood lot in Milton to the same Clara M.D. Wentworth. It was bounded west by the road (known as Silver street) and was called the Silver Street Wood-lot.
Harriet Drew named her daughter Clara M.D. Wentworth as residuary legatee and sole executrix, and freed her from the requirement to pay a bond. Neighbors George Deland [(1829-1910)] of 15 Farrar Street, Lynn, MA; and H. Louise [(Wood)] Houghton [(1840-1922)] of 13 Franklin Street, Lynn, MA; and granddaughter Carrietta H. Drew [(1859-1929)] of 11 Franklin Street, Lynn, MA; signed as witnesses (Essex County Probate, Docket 38042).
Rev. Dr. John B. and Clara M. (Drew) Wentworth transferred from LeRoy, NY, to Evanston, IL, in late 1875. Harriet (Watson) Drew left her son David F. Drew in Lynn, MA, and went to live with her daughter in Evanston, IL.
PERSONAL. The Rev. Dr. Wentworth, of LeRoy, New York, has been transferred to the Rock River Conference, and will take charge of the Evanston M.E. Church (Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1875).
Harriet (Watson) Drew died in Evanston, IL, May 7, 1876. aged eighty-one years.
Anack’s Diary. … Our citizens learned by telegram today [May 8, 1876,] of the death of Harriet Watson, widow of the late Stephen Drew, M.D., at Evanston, Illinois. Fifty odd years ago she was a resident of our village, coming here from Shapleigh Mills in 1816, as the young bride of our ‘beloved physician’ with whom she lived happily until his death in 1873 [1872], when she went west to make her home with her daughter Clara, the wife of the Rev. Dr. John Brodhead Wentworth (Farmington News, April 21, 1899).
SUBURBAN. Evanston. Dr. and Mrs. Wentworth have gone to New Hampshire with the remains of Mrs. Harriet Drew, Mrs. Wentworth’s mother, who died at Evanston Sunday. This will necessitate a further postponement of action in the Hurd-Brown case (Chicago Tribune, [Wednesday,] May 10, 1876).
(The Hurd-Brown case was a real-estate dispute being settled in an ecclesiastical tribunal convened by Rev. Dr. Wentworth).
May 11 [1876]. A showery day. The remains of Madam Drew arrived at noon. The funeral services were at the Congregational church. The Rev. James Thurston (Northam), a life-long friend of Dr. Wentworth, came from Dover and officiated, giving a discourse upon the faithfulness of the ‘Mothers in Israel,’ and alluding to the years of love and faithfulness of this mother who had devoted her best years to the education and training of her children for the useful lives she saw them attain to (Farmington News, April 21, 1899).
The last will of Harriet (Watson) Drew was proved in Essex County Probate Court, June 5, 1876. Executrix Clara M.D. Wentworth was by then a resident of Evanston, IL. Her brother, David F. Drew, was present at the proceedings (Essex County Probate, Docket 38042).
Son David F. Drew, a physician, died of a carbuncle and erysipelas in Lynn, MA, February 13, 1886, aged sixty-six years, eight months.
Death of David F. Drew of Lynn. Lynn, Mass., February 13. David F. Drew, one of Lynn’s prominent and respected citizens, died at his residence, 29 North Common street, at 12.45 o’clock this morning, from blood poisoning caused by a carbuncle boil. Dr. Drew was attended by Dr. I.F. Galloupe of this city and Dr. Collins Warren of Boston. The doctor graduated at Dartmouth College, and came to Lynn in 1857, where he has remained ever since. He was 66 years old, and leaves a widow and four children (Boston Globe, February 13, 1886).
Daughter Clara M. (Drew) Wentworth died in Buffalo, NY, May 2, 1890, aged sixty-six years.
Death of Mrs. Dr. Wentworth. Mrs. Clara Wentworth, the estimable wife of the Rev. Dr. J.B. Wentworth, presiding elder of the Buffalo District, M.E. Church, died yesterday, aged 66 years. Funeral Sunday at 3 p.m. from the residence of Mr. W.G. Hartwell, 274 East Utica street. Interment at Medina (Buffalo Commercial (Buffalo, NY), May 3, 1890).
Dr. Drew, his two sons, and their widows, were remembered in Farmington, NH, as late as 1901.
Gilman Estate. The settling of the estate of the late George F. Gilman of Black Rock, Conn., has called to mind the fact that Mrs. Olivia Gilman Drew of Lynn, Mass., is one of his nieces. The Boston Journal says Mrs. Drew is the widow of the late David M. [F.] Drew, at one time the most prominent physician in Lynn, and is considered the richest woman in that city. In fact, by many she is said to be the wealthiest woman in Essex County. She lives in a handsome residence fronting on Lynn Common, and moves in the highest society of that city, as do her three daughters, two of whom were recently married. Mrs. Drew is very much averse to coming into public notice, and thus far has managed to keep her connection in the affair out of the papers. Dr. Drew of Lynn and Dr. Watson Drew of Woburn were sons of Dr. Stephen Drew, a well-known physician in Milton. The widow of the Woburn physician resides in Dover, with her daughter, Mrs. A.O. Mathes, as her next neighbor, and with her younger daughters, the Misses Hattie and Carrie Drew as members of her own household, all of these being well known in this vicinity. Mrs. Drew of Dover was a Chase, sister of the late Mrs. James Farrington and Charles K. Chase of Rochester (Farmington News, March 15, 1901).
Mary Y. (Chase) Drew died in Dover, NH, November 2, 1911. Olivia M. (Gilman) Drew, widow of David F. Drew, died in Lynn, MA, October 11, 1918.
NH General Court. (1833). Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of New-Hampshire, at Their Session Holden at the Capitol in Concord Commencing Wednesday, June 5, 1833. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=BhItAQAAMAAJ
Twenty-four inhabitants of Wakefield, Rochester, and Dover, NH, and some from Massachusetts, in 1797 petitioned the NH General Court (its House and Senate in joint session) in hopes of keeping the Salmon Falls River clear between Wakefield and what would be Milton Mills through to what would be Milton Three Ponds.
To the Honorable General Court of New Hampshire convened at Concord in said State the 25th day of Decr in June in the Year of our Lord 1797 ~
The petition of the subscribers, Inhabitants of Wakefield, Rochester & Dover in said State with others, Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, humbly sheweth that whereas that part of Salmon fall River above the three ponds so called as far up as the mills is found to be of great benefit for transporting of timber boards & slit stuff from said mills by water a considerable ways towards the market, the length of the river from the mills to & across the said three ponds & whereas said part of the river is often times obstructed by mill logs & stuff thrown into & left in it by careless or designing men so that there is no transporting of timber or boards that way to the great damage of your Petitioners ~ therefore, the prayer of the Petition is that an act pass the General Court prohibiting any Obstructions being made by any person or persons in the said part of said river to hinder a free tranportn down the river to & across the said ponds, that through the Season of the Year for transporting by water, from the first day of May to the last of November. The priviledge we pray for we consider as a public priviledge & trust that the honorable Court will take the matter into consideration & in their wisdom make such Order as will be in our favor of the publick good, as in duty bound we shall ever pray ~
[Column 1:] Paul Jewett, Jona Palmer, Aaron Hubbard, Jonathan Gilman, Jeremiah Gilman, Charles Powers, Gershom Wentworth, Stephen Watson, Francis Hatch, Daniel Dore, Solomon Lowd, Jonathan Copp,
[Column 2:] Joseph Farnham, Avery Hall, Beard Plumer, Benjn Palmer, Levi Merrill, John Rollins, Zebulon Gilman, David Copp, Jno Manning, Sam Hall, Joseph Leavitt, Jeremiah Dearborn
Rochester, NH’s Northeast Parish would be split off to form the town of Milton in 1802. Petitioner Paul Jewett (1744-1835) would be appointed its first justice-of-the-peace. (His son, Gilman Jewett (1777-1856), would be its first town clerk).
Beard Plumer (1754-1816) was an early settler on Plummer’s Ridge in Milton, and would be a member of the town meetinghouse building committee, and a NH State Senator. (See also Milton Teacher of 1796-1805).
Daniel Dorr (1754-1831) settled at Miltonridge, i.e., Plummer’s Ridge. Gersom Wentworth would sign the Milton separation petition of 1802
Jonathan Palmer (1751-1841) was a son of Maj. Barnabas Palmer (1725-1816), and an elder brother of then Rep. William Palmer (1757-1815) (who would be one of Milton’s original selectmen). The elder brother moved from Rochester, NH, to Wakefield, NH, “when two or three families constituted the entire population, and when there was scarcely a dwelling between his own and the Canadas” (Portsmouth Journal, January 30, 1841).
Zebulon Gilman, Jr. (1764-1838), Aaron Hubbard (1753-1814) and Dr. Charles Powers (1762-1844), all resided in Shapleigh, ME, apparently that western part that would become Acton, ME.
Solomon Lowd (1762-1840) resided in Lebanon, ME, in 1790, and Portsmouth, NH, in 1800. Stephen Watson (1762-1840) resided in Rochester, NH, in both 1790 and 1800.
State of New Hampshire } In the House of Representatives June 20th 1797
Upon reading and considering the foregoing petition voted, that the petitioners be heard thereon before the General Court on the Second Wednesday of the next Session and that the Petitioners Substance of the Petition and the Order of the Court thereon be published six weeks prior to said day of hearing in Bragg’s Sun a paper printed at Dover that any person or persons may then appear or shew cause, if any they have, why the prayer thereof may not be granted.
Sent up for Concurrence. Wm Plumer, Speaker.
In Senate the same Day Read & Concurred. Nathl Parker, Dey Sy
The petitioners spoke of their need to float their milled lumber from Wakefield and that part of Rochester that would soon be Milton Mills, down the Salmon Falls River to and across the Three Ponds, which was not the end destination, but only a “considerable way” to their market. They gave no indication in this document of how their lumber products might be transported further from there. (The Salmon Falls River below Milton Three Ponds was not considered navigable or, at least, not navigable by boat, and the railroad lay fifty years in the future).
The participation of petitioners from Rochester and Dover, NH, which are downstream from Three Ponds, and even from Massachusetts, suggests further “downstream” stages in this timber supply chain and perhaps even final destinations as far removed as Portsmouth, NH, and Boston, MA.
Joseph Dearborn Willey was born in Wakefield, NH, January 14, 1854, son of Aziah C. and Martha A. (Dearborn) Willey.
Joseph D. Willey moved from his native Wakefield, NH, and took up residence in neighboring Milton in or around 1877. He opened a store that carried groceries and dry goods.
George H. Staples, works on shoes, aged forty-four years (b. NH), headed a Milton (“Milton 3-Ponds Village”) household at the time of the Tenth (1880) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Lavina Staples, keeping house, aged forty-one years (b. NH), his child, Clara A. Staples, at school, aged fourteen years (b. NH), and his boarder, Joseph D. Willey, a storekeeper, aged twenty-six years (b. NH).
J.D. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1880, 1881, 1882, 1884, 1887, and 1889, as a Milton merchant. (He had appeared also in 1889 as keeping a summer boarding house).
MILTON. Joseph Willey is repairing his dwelling in fine style, and is building a new stable. Go ahead, Joe, you will get a bird for your cage, by and by (Farmington News, October 29, 1880).
MILTON. Joseph Willey is about to put in a stock of boots and shoes in connection with groceries and dry goods (Farmington News, April 29, 1881).
Father Aziah C. Willey died in Wakefield, NH. February 21, 1882.
Joseph D. Willey married in Somersworth, NH, May 13, 1883, Annie O. “Olive” Roberts, he of Milton and she of Berwick, ME. He was a merchant, aged twenty-eight years, and she was a lady, aged twenty-two years. Rev. Samuel Bell performed the ceremony. She was born in North Berwick, ME, February 20, 1860, daughter of William A.C. and Catherine (Guptill) Roberts.
Son Joseph E. Willey was born in Milton, June 27, 1886.
MILTON. J.D. Willey, the grocer, has recently applied a new coat of paint to the interior of his store, which greatly improves its general appearance. The groundwork is walnut and the panels light oak (Farmington News, February 28, 1890).
CHIP’S CONTRIBUTION. The meeting of Fraternal Lodge last Friday evening was well attended. the Entered Apprentice degree was conferred on Joseph Willey of Milton. Refreshments were served at the close and a pleasant time was had (Farmington News, October 30, 1891).
CHIP’S CONTRIBUTION. The special meeting of Fraternal lodge Monday evening was well attended. The second degree was conferred on Joseph Willey of Milton. The time of meeting has been changed. The regular meeting hereafter will be held Friday on or before the full moon in each month at 7.30 p.m. sharp. The next meeting occurs this Friday evening. Work on the third degree. Let there [be] a full attendance (Farmington News, December 11, 1891).
Milton in 1892 (Detail). J.D. Willey is shown with the red arrow as having two buildings on Main Street near its intersection with Silver Street. Note his proximity to the Three Ponds schoolhouse (“S.H.”), next but two to the south, Dr. C.D. Jones, next but two to the north, and, on the other side of the street, the A.O.U.W. meeting hall next to the blacksmith shop of I.W. Duntley and the N.G. Pinkham shoe store. The Burley & Usher shoe factory may be seen along the river to the south, as well as the Riverside House at the road to Lebanon, ME, to the north.
Joseph D. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1892, 1894, and 1898, as a Milton general storekeeper and merchant.
MILTON. J.D. Willey has prepared a large room at the institute by tearing down the partitions. A class will also be held in the vacant store in the new hall. … J.D. Willey is having the old school house at the foot of Silver street remodeled on the inside, and will convert it into tenements. He has also prepared a place for a large store in the basement (Farmington News, April 15, 1892).
MILTON. J.D. Willey is preparing to move the old institute nearer the road and to change it into a tenement house (Farmington News, September 15, 1893).
John A. Carrecabe, son of the John M. Carrecabe, founder of the Milton Leatherboard Co. mill, worked briefly as a clerk at J.D. Willey’s Milton grocery store in 1893.
MILTON. John A. Carrecabe is clerking at J.D. Willey’s grocery store (Farmington News, February 17, 1893).
Joseph D. Willey’s store was twice burgled in 1894. The first burglary took place on Thursday, April 5, 1894.
MILTON. J.D. Willey’s store broken into the 5th of April. Not much was taken and only a few dollars were missed. The safe was not touched (Farmington News, April 13, 1894).
Burglars struck the Murray Brothers’ store and post-office in Milton Mills in May 1894. (See Milton in the News – 1894). A month later burglars struck also at the N.G. “Gilman” Pinkham and J.D. Willey stores at Milton Three Ponds during the night of June 14-15, 1894.
Burglars Visit Dover, N.H. Dover, N.H., June 15. The store of Gilman Pinkham at Milton, which is also the post office, was entered last night and some stamps and money taken. The store of Joseph D. Willey, at the same place, was also entered, and a sum of money stolen. The safes in both places were wrecked (Boston Evening Transcript, June 15, 1894).
LOCALS. June 14. Thieves broke into the store of Gilman Pinkham where the post office is at Milton, wrecking the safe by an explosion and getting a large amount of money and stamps. They also visited the store of J.D. Willey, where they got considerable money from the safe. No clew to the thieves (Farmington News, June 22, 1894).
Mother-in-law Catherine (Guptill) Roberts died of dropsy in North Berwick, ME, August 7, 1895, aged sixty-six years. Dr. H.V. Noyes signed the death certificate.
Daughter Catherine R. Willey was born in Milton, September 24, 1895.
Mother Martha A. (Dearborn) Willey died of chronic pneumonia in Wakefield, NH, November 5, 1895, aged sixty-six years, twenty-six days. W.E. Pillsbury, M.D., signed the death certificate.
MILTON NEWS-LETTER. A lively runaway occurred Tuesday morning, the horse attached to J.D. Willey’s grocery wagon becoming frightened at a dog. No damage was done the team, but a little boy, Georgie Norton, came near meeting with a serious injury. In trying to get off from the runaway team, he fell, between the shafts, where he hung till he was rescued from his perilous position unharmed. … A concrete sidewalk is being built from the Phœnix House to J.D. Willey’s grocery store, on Main street. It would be a great improvement over the present sidewalks if concrete were used all over the village (Farmington News, March 19, 1897).
Nephew J. Herbert Willey (1875-1946) came to Milton and opened a drug store on Main Street, at its intersection with Silver Street, in May 1900.
Joseph D. Willey, a storekeeper, aged forty-six years (b. NH), headed a Milton (“Milton Village”) household at the time of the Twelfth (1900) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of seventeen years), Annie O. Willey, aged forty years (b. ME), his children, Joseph S. Willey, at school, aged thirteen years (b. NH), and Catharine R. Willey, aged four years (b. NH), his niece, Annie M. Roberts, aged sixteen years (b. ME), and his servant, Stephen E. Dixon, salesman in store, aged thirty-six years (b. NH). Joseph D. Willey owned their house, free-and-clear. Annie O. Willey was the mother of two children, of whom two were still living.
J.D. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1901, 1904, 1905-06, and 1909, as proprietor of a Milton general store.
LOCAL. Columbian Chapter of Free Masons welcomed guests from neighboring towns, in the meeting on Monday evening, among whom were the Hon. J. Frank Farnham and William Lord of Union; Percy S. Jones and C.H. McDuffee of Alton; B.B. Plumer and Hazen Plumer, J.D. Willey and Mr. Willey the druggist, of Milton (Farmington News, June 14, 1901).
MILTON. Mrs. J.D. Willey and daughter Catherine are at Berwick, Me., for a two weeks’ visit (Farmington News, August 30, 1901).
Annie O. (Roberts) Willey’s nephew, Frank Roberts, died of typhoid fever in Wolfeboro Falls, Wolfeboro, NH, December 27, 1903, aged seventeen years, eleven months, and nineteen years. He was a blacksmith, who had resided in Wolfeboro only four months (his previous residence was Berwick, ME). Nathaniel H. Scott, M.D., signed the death certificate.
MILTON. J.D. Willey and family attended the funeral of Frank Roberts, Mrs. Willey’s nephew, at Berwick, Me., Dec. 30 (Farmington News, January 8, 1904).
MILTON. Miss Andrews of Boston, Mass., is the guest of Mrs. J.D. Willey (Farmington News, April 1, 1904).
Two political tickets – Republican and Democratic – appeared in the Farmington News edition published just prior to the November 1904 election. At the head of the Republican ticket stood Theodore Roosevelt, and at the head of the Democratic one stood Alton B. Parker, both of New York. (Theodore Roosevelt won). Further down the Democratic ticket were the Strafford County candidates.
For county officers – Sheriff, John F. Quinlan, Rochester; solicitor, James McCabe Dover; treasurer, Joseph D. Willey, Milton; register of deeds, John McCovey, Dover; register of probate, Walter H. Miller, New Durham; commissioners, Arthur J. Seavey Somersworth; Walter H. Smith, Barrington; Joseph Warren, Rochester (Farmington News, November 4, 1904).
Republican Stephen D. Wentworth of Rochester, NH, became county treasurer with 4,716 votes (56.5%) county-wide. Democrat Joseph D. Willey of Milton received 3,498 votes (41.9%), and Socialist C.R. Crosby received 131 votes (1.6%). The Prohibition and People’s parties did not field county-level candidates (NH Secretary of State, 1905).
CHIP’S CONTRIBUTION. A special meeting of Fraternal Lodge, A.F. and A.M., was held Saturday evening for the purpose of conferring the Master Mason’s degree on candidates George E. Jordan and Fred S. Hartford. Arthur B. Jefferson, D.D.G.M., Nashua, and Charles L. Wentworth, D.D.L.G., of Rochester were present to witness the work and complimented the officers in pleasing terms for the way in which the degrees were conferred and the manner in which the affairs of the lodge were conducted. Visitors from out of town were Dr. C.G. Rogers, C.H. Brigham, Union; Hazen Plummer, Fred B. Roberts, James H. Willey, Hazen W. Downs, George I. Jordan, S. Lyman Hayes, Charles A. Horn, Joseph D. Willey, Milton; George L. Young, George W. Pendexter, Eugene C. Howard, Rochester. At the close off work all repaired to the banquet hall in Odd Fellows hall where an oyster supper was in readiness, and an hour was happily spent, when all returned home well pleased with the entertainment of the evening (Farmington News, March 3, 1905).
Joseph D. Willey, a general store merchant, aged fifty-six years (b. NH), headed a Milton (“Milton Village”) household at the time of the Thirteenth (1910) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of twenty-nine years), Anne O. Willey, aged fifty years (b. ME), and his children, Joseph E. Willey, a general store helper, aged twenty-four years (b. NH), and Catherine R. Willey, aged fourteen years (b. NH).
J.D. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1912 and 1917, as proprietor of a Milton general store.
Milton elected Joseph D. Willey as its NH State Representative for the 1913-14 biennium (NH General Court, 1913).
Strafford County Sheriff Edward S. Young charged Joseph D. Willey with “keeping for sale,” i.e., keeping liquor for sale, thus violating NH State liquor sales prohibitions. (Milton was in this year a “no license” town. (See Milton Under “Local Option” – 1903-18)).
LOCAL. Two cases from Milton were brought before Judge A.H. Wiggin in the local district court on Wednesday of this week: State vs. Joseph D. Willey, brought by high Sheriff Edward S. Young on a charge of “keeping for sale,” in which the respondent entered a plea of guilty and the court imposed the minimum fine and jail sentence. Sentence was suspended upon payment of costs. The other case, that of State vs. Robert Mcintosh brought by Fred B. Roberts, wherein the respondent was charged with using derisive language toward the complainant, the respondent plead guilty and was fined five dollars and costs (Farmington News, December 15, 1916).
Joseph D. Willey, a retail merchant (groceries), aged sixty-six years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fourteenth (1920) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Annie O. Willey, aged fifty-nine years (b. ME), his children, Eugene Willey, a retail merchant (groceries), aged thirty-three years (b. NH), and Catharine R. Willey, a U.S. government secretary, aged twenty-four years (b. NH), and his father-in-law, William A.C. Roberts, a widower, aged eighty-six years (b. ME). Joseph D. Willey owned their house on Upper Main Street, free-and-clear.
Father-in-law William A.C. Roberts died of atheronia (heart disease) in Milton, February 1, 1921, aged eighty-seven years, ten months. John J. Topham, M.D., signed the death certificate.
J.D. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1922 and 1927, as proprietor of a Milton general store.
J.D. Willey, a general store retail merchant, aged seventy-six years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifteenth (1930) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of forty-seven years), Annie Willey, aged seventy years (b. ME), and his child, Joseph E. Willey, a general store manager, aged forty-three years (b. NH). J.D. Willey owned their house on North Main Street, which was valued at $1,000. They had a radio set.
Joseph D. Willey died of apoplexy on Main Street in Milton, September 4, 1931, aged seventy-seven years, seven months, and twenty days. He had resided in Milton for fifty-three years, i.e., since circa 1877. Walter J. Roberts, M.D., signed the death certificate.
Annie O. (Roberts) Willey died of heart disease in Milton, April 12, 1937, aged seventy-seven years, one month, twenty-two days. She had resided in Milton for fifty-four years, i.e., since the time of her marriage in 1883. Walter J. Roberts, M.D., signed the death certificate.
Joseph E. Willey, a hardware store stockman, aged fifty-three years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Sixteenth (1940) Federal Census. His household included his cousin, Ann L. Redell, a high school teacher, aged fifty-six years (b. ME). Joseph E. Willey owned their house in the Milton Community, which was valued at $1,000.
Son Joseph E. Willey died of “some form of heart disease” in Milton, November 27, 1942, aged fifty-six years, and five days. Forrest L. Keay, M.D., signed the death certificate.
Fifty-two Milton inhabitants petitioned NH Governor John Langdon and his Executive Council in August 1805, seeking appointment of a Milton justice-of-the-peace. (Langdon was a Democratic-Republican, i.e., a Democrat, as opposed to a Federalist-Republican).
The Milton petitioners prepared an initial draft copy, but the corrected text of an accompanying “fair copy” or final version is what appears below. Presumably that is what the Governor saw.
Film tropes typically portray justices-of-the-peace being awakened in the night to sleepily perform civil marriages for eloping couples. While they might perform that function also, a NH justice of this period might be compared more accurately to a modern district court judge (Bell, 1843).
The petitioners recommended Lt. Jotham Nute (1760-1836) of Nute Ridge in West Milton for an appointment as their justice-of-the-peace.
Jotham Nute [Jr.] was born in Dover, NH, November 23, 1760, son of Jotham and Mary (Canney) Nute. (Either he or his father (of the same name) served in the Revolution as a private in Newcastle, NH, in 1776, presumably in coastal defense at Fort William & Mary (now Fort Constitution)). He enlisted with the Second NH Regiment in Dover, NH, January 1, 1777, for the duration of the war. He would have been but sixteen years of age. He served in several battles of the Saratoga campaign, encamped at Valley Forge, and was promoted to corporal and then sergeant. He participated in the Sullivan expedition of 1779.
Sgt. Nute was wounded at the Second Battle of Kingsbridge, NY – a Colonial defeat – in July 1781. He mustered out of the Continental Army as an invalid. (George Washington signed his discharge, June 7, 1783). Nute appeared on the pension rolls of 1783 as receiving an invalid half-pension.
Jotham Nute married in Madbury, NH, November 7, 1785, Sarah Twombly, both of Dover, NH. She was born in Madbury, NH, November 20, 1763, daughter of John and Patience (Bunker) Twombly. They settled at Nute Ridge in West Milton – then still a part of Rochester – in 1786.
The Revolutionary War pension system went through several phases or iterations. Nute applied for a replacement or supplementary pension from the NH General Court in December 1789:
The Petition of Jotham Nute of Rochester in the County of Strafford humbly Sheweth ~ That early in the late Contest between the United States & the Kingdom of Great Britain he entered the Service of his Country in the Regiment from this State, Commanded by Colo George Reid, in which from his Fidelity and good service he was promoted to a Serjeant and continued in the faithful discharge of his duty till the month of July 1781, when in an action with the British Troops near Tarrytown [N. York], he was wounded in the thigh by a musquet ball, which lodged in his hip, where it still continues. Jona Rawson, Atty to the Petitioner (NH General Court, 1884).
(The draft copy only of the 1805 petition regarding his appointment supplied the additional detail that he had also “for a Long time bin [been] a prisoner of war” but did not specify when this might have occurred).
Jotham Nute headed a Rochester, NH, household at the time of the First (1790) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 16-plus years [himself], four males aged under-16 years [including sons John T. Nute, Jeremy Nute, and Jacob Nute], and two females [including Sarah (Twombly) Nute]. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of James Varney and Saml Nute.
Jotham Nute headed a Rochester, NH household at the time of the Second (1800) Federal Census, and he signed the 1802 petition that sought to have Rochester’s Northeast Parish incorporated as a separate town (Milton). In 1800 and in the 1805 petition that follows he was styled “Lieutenant,” i.e., a lieutenant in the NH militia.
To his Excellency the Governor & Honorable Council of the State of New Hampshire ~
Humbly shew ~
The subscribers, inhabitants of Milton in the County of Strafford in said State and the vicinity thereof, that there is no Magistrate or Justice of the peace acting at present in commission within the distance of five miles on one side, and of Seven miles on the other side of the residence of Lieut Jotham Nute of Milton as aforesaid. That in consequence of the aforesaid want of a Magistrate within said bounds, the citizens are much incommoded in obtaining the civil assistance and official duty of a justice of the peace, as well as redress of grievance in breaches of the peace and other criminal acts incident to society. That your petitioners would beg leave to represent that the aforesaid inconveniences may be remedied by the appointment of the said Jotham Nute to said office. That his local situation alone makes the appointment in every respect desirable, were that the only reason which could be assigned. But that they also feel a confidence in recommending the said Nute to your notice as a Gentleman every way worthy of the appointment, both as it may respect his natural and acquired abilities, his moral and political conduct, and the claim which former public services and sacrifices have upon his fellow citizens. They on that head only observe that he has faithfully served his country in the revolutionary war for the term of Seven years; that he has fought and bled in her defense; and has from hence been taught duly to appreciate the blessings of liberty and good government. That by his own honest industry he has acquired a handsome property, enough to secure him from temptation in an office of so high [a] responsibility. That within the aforesaid bounds your petitioners know of no person who in that office would give so general satisfaction, or do more real good to his Country.
Wherefore your petitioners pray that the aforesaid Jotham Nute may be appointed and commissioned to act in the office of Justice of the peace within the County aforesaid, whenever and so soon as your Excellency and the honorable council may in your wisdom deem proper – and as in duty bound will pray &c &c – August 28, 1805.
[Column 1:]
Jeremiah Cook, Ebenezer Corson, Ichabod Corson, Nathaniel Rand, Joseph Rand, Eleazar Rand, William Tuttle, Caleb Wakeham, Benjamin Wakeham, Jonethan Wakeham, Daniel Wintworth, Aaron Varney, Gideon Johnson, John Hanscom, Simon Torr,
Samuel Twombly, Jr, Samuel Twombly, William Hatch, Benjamin Corson, William W. Lord, Stephen Jenkin, Jr, John Varney, Silas Whitehouse, James Roberts, Jere York, Benja Varney, James Varney, Ephraim Varney, Edmon Varney, John Jenkins, Lemuel Varney, Stephen Jenkins, Robert Knight, Joseph Lord.
The five-mile and seven-mile spans between magistrates to which the petitioners referred would be just about the distances between West Milton and Milton Three-Ponds (or Plummer’s Ridge), on the one side, and West Milton and Rochester, NH, on the other side.
(Grandson Lewis W. Nute was born in Milton, February 17, 1820, son of Ezekiel and Dorcas (Worster) Nute)).
The NH Register and Farmer’s Almanac of 1822 identified Milton’s Justice of the Peace and Quorum, which was the higher or senior office, as being Levi Jones, and its Justices of the Peace as being Jotham Nute, D. Hayes, John Remick, Jr., and James Roberts (Claremont Manufacturing Co, 1822).
The NH Political Manual and Annual Register of 1824 identified Milton’s Justice of the Peace and Quorum as being Levi Jones, and its Justices of the Peace as being Jotham Nute, D. Hayes, John Remick, Jr., and J. Roberts. Jotham Nute was also identified as being Milton’s coroner (Farmer, 1824).
The NH Annual Register and US Calendar of 1826 identified Milton’s Justice of the Peace and Quorum as being Levi Jones, and its Justices of the Peace as being Jotham Nute, D. Hayes, John Remick, Jr., and J. Roberts, Hanson Hayes, and Stephen M. Mathes (Farmer & Lyon, 1826).
Jotham Nute headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifth (1830) Federal Census. His household included one male, aged 60-69 years [himself], one female aged 60-69 years [Sarah (Twombly) Nute], one male aged 10-14 years, and one female aged 100-and-over years. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of David Nute and Ezekl Nute.
Jotham Nute died in Milton, February 3, 1836, aged seventy-five years.
David Nute headed a Milton household at the time of the Sixth (1840) Federal Census. His household included one male aged 40-49 years [himself], one female aged 30-39 years, two males aged 10-14 years, two males aged 5-9 years, and one female aged 70-79 years. The older female was more particularly identified as [his mother,] Sarah [(Twombly)] Nute, aged seventy-seven years, recipient of a Revolutionary War widow’s pension. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of James Varney and Ezekiel Nute.
Sarah (Twombly) Nute died November 21, 1849, aged eighty-six years.
WEST MILTON. Memorial day exercises by the pupils of Nute Ridge were held Monday, May 29, and tribute was paid to the soldier and sailor dead of all the wars by an appropriate program. Special exercises were paid at the grave of Oscar G. Morehouse, who was a teacher at the Nute Ridge school prior to his entering the service during the World war, and who died in France. Special tribute was also paid to Jotham Nute of the Revolutionary war, David Nute of the war of 1812 and Israel Nute of the Civil war (Farmington News, June 9 1939).
Jotham was highlighted, some forty years after his passing, both for his Revolutionary service and for the aggregate longevity of his children, six of them surviving still, one hundred years after the Revolution.
NEW HAMPSHIRE. The six living children of Jotham Nute of Milton, a soldier for seven years in the revolutionary war, aggregate 473 years of age, Jeremy, the oldest, being 89, and Andrew, the youngest, 72 (Springfield Daily Republican (Springfield, MA), October 14, 1875).
References:
Bell, Samuel D. (1843). Justice and Sheriff: Practical Forms for the Use of Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Coroners and Constables; Containing Forms of Proceedings, and the Revised Statutes of New-Hampshire, Relating to the Duties of Those Officers. Retrieved from books.google.com/books?id=52JKAAAAYAAJ
Happy New Year one and all! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season in 2021. This month brings a super meteor shower as well as a super moon. Our Sun will be as close to the Earth as it ever gets.
Providing you have the proper equipment, check out the recommended YouTube videos for more in-depth events.
January 3. The Quadrantid meteor shower from Bootes, the Constellation will be present in this evening’s sky. This is the major shower of this month and there will be a black moon and the showers will be prolific rendering this the finest time of this month for sky watching.
January 4. Our planet makes a complete orbit in one year. The orbit is not purely circular but slightly ovular. Once in every orbit the Earth makes its closest approach to the Sun. This year, that close approach will occur today and the Sun may look bigger than usual.
January 5. The Moon and Jupiter will ascend to the right as well as rise together in this evening’s sky.
January 7. Mercury will be as far away from the Sun, but might not be visible with the naked eye.
January 9. Mercury will be half visible, but again, hard to see without an amplification tool. The Moon will be at first quarter today.
January 10. Mercury will be at its highest point in tonight’s sky.
January 17. The full Wolf super moon will display tonight. It was named the Wolf moon because wolves were thought to cry more in January than at any other point in time.
January 19. The y-Ursae Minorid meteor shower from the Constellation Ursa Minor will put on a show this evening.
January 25. This will show the final quarter of the full Wolf super moon.
January 29. The Moon and Mars will travel with one another as well as ascend to the right.
James Herbert Willey was born in Rollinsford, NH, May 27, 1875, son of James P. and Frances P. (Davis) Willey.
J. HERBERT WILLEY, postmaster at Milton, N.H., and proprietor of a drug store, was born at Salmon Falls, N.H., May 27, 1875, and is a son of James P. and Frances P. (Davis) Willey, and a grandson of A.C. Willey, of English and Scotch ancestry on the paternal side, and of John B. Davis on the maternal side. James P. Willey was born at Wakefield, N.H. (Scales, 1914).
James P. Willey, works in cotton mill, aged twenty-eight years (b. NH), headed a Rollinsford, NH, household at the time of the Tenth (1880) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Frances F. Willey, keeping house, aged twenty-seven years (b. ME), his son, James H. Willey, at school, aged five years (b. NH), and his boarders, Jane D. McFarland, works in cotton mill, aged forty-eight years (b. ME), Emmer Coolidge, works in cotton mill, aged forty-five years (b. ME), and Vietta Bowin, works in cotton mill, aged twenty years (b. ME).
J. Herbert Willey was reared at Salmon Falls, where he attended school and also at the South Berwick Academy. He was graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy at Boston, after which he came to Milton to go into business (Scales, 1914).
James Herbert Willey was one of twenty-four graduates of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s Class of 1898.
TWENTY-FOUR GRADUATES. Commencement Exercises of Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. The 13th annual commencement exercises of the Massachusetts college of pharmacy took place yesterday in Pharmacy hall, corner of St Botolph and Garrison sts. Mr. Fred Strong Chapman of the graduating class presided at the exercises, and music was furnished by the Boston cadet band. Kilburn Charles Brown delivered the salutatory. A poem by Marion Cowan followed, and the address for the faculty was delivered by Robert W. Greenleaf, M.D. The class history, replete with telling hits concerning the various members of the graduating class, was given by Anthony Charles Rogers, and the oration was delivered by Horace Charles Twigg. Charles Henry Wentworth ventured on the class prophecy, and the valedictory was by Charles Henry Howard, A.B. At 1 o’clock luncheon was served. The company, including relatives and friends of the students, numbered about 300. A most enjoyable time was had. The graduation exercises proper commenced at 2.30. Pres. Linus D. Drury presided and conferred the degrees. Rev. James de Normandie delivered the graduation address. The calling of the roll by the secretary, William D. Wheeler, followed, and then the degrees were conferred by the president. The names of the graduates are: Adrian Francis Barnes, Arthur Leslie Beal, Frederick Ellsworth Bigelow, Kilburn Charles Brown, Elisha Leland Buffington, Henrietta Burden, Fred Strong Chapman, Marion Cowan, Henry Rice Dennett, Charles Walter Day, Clarence Belknap Emery, Charles Henry Howard, A.B., Frank Herbert Knight, A.B., John Thomas Loftus, Richard August Morgner, Edwin Vose Noble, Henry Hazelwood Parkis, Anthony Charles Rogers, Virgil Asa Rowe, Frank Joseph Shattuck, Michael Anthony Tobin, Horace Charles Twigg, Charles Henry Wentworth, James Herbert Willey. Henrietta Burden, Marion Cowan and Edwin Vose Noble have taken elective courses in addition to the requirements for graduation (Boston Globe, May 13, 1898).
The Milton druggists of 1898 were C.D. Jones and F.E. Fernald. Fernald was not himself a registered pharmacist, although he had hired one. He seems to have given up his shop in or after 1898. (See The Preacher and the Druggist – 1897).
Henry T. Hayes Advertisement, 1900
Henry T. Hayes (1860-1924) was the successor to Frank E. Fernald. He appeared in the Rochester, NH, directory of 1900, as a druggist in Milton, N.H., with his house at 10 Glen street in Rochester. He appeared also in the Milton directory of 1900 as a druggist on Main street, at its corner with Silver street, with his house in Rochester, NH.
James H. Willey appeared in the Rollinsford, NH, directory of 1900, as a drug clerk in Boston, MA. His father, James P. Willey appeared as foreman of the machine shop at the S.F. [Salmon Falls] Mfg. Co., with his house on South street.
MILTON. Henry T. Hayes has sold his drug business to Bert Willey and moved back to Rochester (Farmington News, May 18, 1900).
He bought the drug store of Henry Hayes, renewed his stock and made the improvements which have converted this into one of the most modern drug stores in the state (Scales, 1914).
[Charles] W. Evans, a counter-maker (shoes), aged thirty-one years (b. NH), headed a Milton (“Milton Village”) household at the time of the Twelfth (1900) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of eight years), Alice M. [(Tibbetts)] Evans, aged twenty-three years (b. NH), his children, Robert C. Evans, at school, aged seven years (b. NH), and Sumner S. Evans, at school, aged six years (b. NH), his mother-in-law, Abby [(Ellis)] Tibbets, a day laborer widow, aged fifty-nine years (b. ME), his brother-in-law, Charles Tibbets, a day laborer (b. NH), aged twenty-four years, and his lodger, J. Herbert Willey, a druggist, aged twenty-five years (b. NH). Alice M. Evans was the mother of three children, of whom two were still living; her mother, Abby Tibbets, was the mother of eight children, of whom six were still living.
J.H. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1901, 1904, 1905-06, and 1909, as a Milton druggist (or apothecary). He had “rooms do.,” i.e., he kept an apartment upstairs from the store, in 1902, 1905-06, 1909, 1912 and 1917. (His drug store was situated quite close – apparently next door – to the general store of his paternal uncle, Joseph D. Willey (1854-1931), who was said to be on Main street, near Silver street).
LOCAL. Columbian Chapter of Free Masons welcomed guests from neighboring towns, in the meeting on Monday evening, among whom were the Hon. J. Frank Farnham and William Lord of Union; Percy S. Jones and C.H. McDuffee of Alton; B.B. Plumer and Hazen Plumer, J.D. Willey and Mr. Willey the druggist, of Milton (Farmington News, June 14, 1901).
Mr. Willey is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Knight Templar. He was reared in the faith of the Episcopal church and is a member of Christ church at Salmon Falls, N.H. (Scales, 1914).
J. Herbert Willey Advertisement, 1902
J. Herbert Willey was also an agent for graphophones. Graphophones were an alternate brand or type of phonograph player, competitive with Edison’s phonograph. One assumes that Willey sold the latest graphophone cylinders or records too. (Al Jolson’s You Made Me Love You topped the charts in September 1913).
J.H. Willey, Ph. G., druggist, Milton, appeared in a list of seventy-five NH bacteriological testing supply stations in 1902. W.G. Evans, druggist, appeared so in neighboring Farmington, NH; R. Dewitt Burnham, druggist, appeared for neighboring Rochester, NH; and there were none in neighboring Middleton, NH, nor Wakefield, NH.
PLACES WHERE BACTERIOLOGICAL OUTFITS MAY BE FOUND. For the convenience of the physician who desires an outfit in the shortest possible time, we have established stations where these supplies may be found in different sections of the state. We have, in most instances, chosen drugstores suggested by physicians themselves, although when more places were named in a given locality than we deemed necessary we have selected one or more, and the physicians in the vicinity have been notified. In some towns where no drugstore exists these supplies have been placed with some physician. The profession have found this arrangement of great convenience and very satisfactory. Supplies are, however, mailed directly from the laboratory to the physician when so requested; but we prefer, for our own convenience, that they be obtained from the station in the physician’s immediate vicinity. Below is a list of stations: (NH State Board of Health, 1902).
The outfits supplied at the above stations are those used in bacteriological work in connection with tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid fever, and malaria. Containers for the collection of samples of water for chemical analysis must be obtained directly from the laboratory at Concord. We wish again to notify the public that it is useless to send samples of water collected in any but the bottles sent out from the laboratory, which in all instances are forwarded by express free of expense. Water sent in old bottles, jugs, or any other convenient receptacle will not be analyzed at the laboratory (NH State Board of Health, 1902).
Milton was initially a “No License” town under the New Hampshire’s “Local Option” liquor law of 1903. James Herbert Willey had a Class 5 state license at Main & Silver streets in 1903, 1905-06, and 1906-07. Such a license would permit sales by a druggist for select purposes (NH License Commissioners, 1904, 1906). (See Milton Under “Local Option” – 1903-18).
ANNUAL MASQUE BALL. Entertainment Given at Milton, N.H., by Dramatic Club of That Place. MILTON, N.H., Jan 8. The Milton dramatic club gave its second annual masked ball at A.O.U.W. hall tonight. There were 92 couples in the march, which was led by Mr. and Mrs. Fred S. Hartford. The ball officers were Fred S. Hartford, chief marshal; Samuel E. Drew, Frank S. Norton, aids; George A. Gilmore, George W. Paey, Samuel Swett, assistants. Among those present were: Mr. John Hartigan, Mr. Charles Parker, Mr. Herbert Finnegan, Mr. W. Wentworth, Mr. & Mrs. E. Looney, Mr. Herbert Willey, Mr. Harry Page, Mr. William Elliott, Mr. Frank Burke, Mr. Fred Downs, Miss Alice Brock, Miss Annie Marcoux, Miss Annie Young, Miss Clara Hurd, Miss M. O’Loughlin, Miss Florence Dore, Mr. Frank Cassidy, Mr. Ernest Leighton, Miss Mary Varney, Miss Grace Pike, Miss Grace Stone; Mrs. Piercy, Mr. & Mrs. C. Wingate, Mr. & Mrs. J. O’Loughlin, Mr. Frank Jones, Mr. Philip Irish, Mr. Walter Randall, Mr. James Howard, Mr. William Dore, Mr. & Mrs. Leslie Hayes, Mr. Scott Randall, Miss Effie Howard, Mr. & Mrs. J. Marcoux, Miss Blanche Tufts, Mr. Charles Drew, Mr. & Mrs. Charles Page, Mr. Herbert Dow, Mr. Fred Emery, Mrs. John Daniels, Mr. & Mrs. Fred Home, Miss Lizzie Stead, Miss Blanch Dore (Boston Globe, January 4, 1904).
J. Herbert Willey’s parents, James P. and Frances P. (Davis) Willey, moved from Rollinsford, NH, to join him in Milton, circa 1906. James P. Willey appeared in the Milton directory of 1909, as retired, with his house at 7 Church street, Prospect Hill, Milton.
J. Herbert Willey Advertisement, 1909
James P. Willey, an odd jobs machinist, aged fifty-eight 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 thirty-five years), Frances P. [(Davis)] Willey, aged fifty-five years (b. ME), and his son, J. Herbert Willey, a drug store pharmacist, aged thirty-four years (b. NH). James P. Willey owned their house, free-and-clear. Frances P. Willey was the mother of one child, of whom one was still living, i.e., J. Herbert Willey. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of Asenath Wentworth, a widow, aged sixty-two years (b. NH) [at 11 Church street], and Brackett F. Avery, a general farm farmer, aged thirty-one years (b. NH) [at 21 S. Main street].
James Herbert Willey had a Class 5 state liquor license for his store at Main & Silver streets in 1911-12, and 1912-13. Such a license would permit sales by a druggist for select purposes (NH License Commissioners, 1912, 1914). (See Milton Under “Local Option” – 1903-18).
J.H. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1912, and 1917, as a Milton druggist (or apothecary). He kept his drug store at 2 Main street in Milton, at the corner of Silver street.
J. Herbert Willey Advertisement, 1912
As one may see in his 1912 advertisement, his stock included drugs, chemicals, toilet articles, perfume, candy, fine cigars, and graphophones. Not mentioned were postcards: he published some of the old Milton postcards that you may see around. (And medicinal liquor).
PERSONAL ITEMS. J.H. Willey of Milton, N.H., was here on Thursday calling on friends (Portsmouth Herald, December 27, 1912).
Here a regional sales directory identifies liquor licenses granted to Milton residents in 1913.
New Hampshire Licenses [Liquor Licenses]. MILTON, N.H.Emerson, Eugene W., Main St., P.O. Milton Mills, 5th. Willey, James Herbert, Main & Silver Sts., 5th (Denehy, 1913).
Jas. H. Willey replaced Joseph H. Avery as Milton postmaster, July 26, 1913. Postmaster appointments were political plums. Avery, having received his appointment under Theodore Roosevelt, was likely a Republican, while Willey, having received his appointment under Woodrow Wilson, was likely a Democrat. At any rate, Willey was postmaster until March 1922, i.e., until the presidency of Republican Warren G. Harding. (In the Milton section of the Dover directory of 1917: Milton Post Office, J. Herbert Willey, postmaster, 10 Main, near Silver).
In politics he is a loyal Democrat and on August 13, 1913, he was appointed postmaster to succeed Joseph H. Avery. Milton is a thriving village and is constantly growing so that there is considerable business done here and its volume is reflected in the postoffice. Mr. Willey has H.D. Coles as his assistant (Scales, 1914).
Henry D. Coles (1857-1930) had been also Milton’s assistant postmaster under Republican Joseph H. Avery.
Milton Store Interior (Cigars in Glass Case) – 1915
J.H. Willey joined with other Milton merchants, Carl E. Pinkham and Fred B. Roberts, in organizing the Milton Factory Company, August 5, 1913. One might suppose that they intended to purchase a Milton factory.
Milton Factory Company – Principal place of business, Milton; incorporated, August 5, 1913; capital authorized, $5,000; par value, $50; capital issued, $4,950; debts due from corporation, $31.25; assets, debts due corporation, $173.97; description of assets, factory; treasurer, Carl E. Pinkham; directors signing return, Carl E. Pinkham, J.H. Willey, Fred B. Roberts (NH General Court, 1915).
J.H. Willey had become a Rexall vendor or franchisee by 1917. (The Dollar General chain announced in March 2010 that it would sell Rexall-brand medications in its stores).
J.H. Willey succeeded himself as postmaster of Milton in 1917, i.e., he received a renewal under a variant of his name.
NEW HAMPSHIRE. James H. Willey to be postmaster at Milton, N.H., in place of J.H. Willey. Incumbent’s commission expired July 26, 1917 (US Congress, 1918).
A courtship might just be glimpsed between the lines of the Colby College catalog of 1920. Grace C. Willey née Fletcher was listed there as an alumna of the Class of 1917. (Colby College is situated in Waterville, ME).
Grace C. Fletcher had appeared in the Waterville, ME, directory of 1915, as a student, boarding at her father’s house at 167 College avenue. (Her father, a minister (and missionary), kept then a grocery store in neighboring Fairfield, ME, but lived in Waterville). Grace graduated from Colby College in 1917. She took a teaching job in Milton for the 1917-18 academic year, likely at the Nute High School. She did not appear in the Milton directory of that year (whose data had been compiled prior to her arrival), but she would have boarded near the school.
In Milton she evidently met J. Herbert Willey, either at his store or at some church or social function. (If not exactly a May-December romance, it would have been at least a May-September one). At the conclusion of Nute’s academic year, she accepted a position some 110 miles away as principal of the high school at Jefferson, NH. Somehow, despite the distance between them, they filed marriage intentions in Waterville, ME, only four months later, December 28, 1918.
James Herbert Willey married in Waterville, ME, January 4, 1919, Grace Constance Fletcher, he of Milton and she of Waterville, ME. He was a druggist, aged forty-three years, and she was a teacher, aged twenty-two years. Her father, Rev. William Fletcher, performed the ceremony. She was born in Cape Neddick, ME, April 19, 1896, daughter of Rev. William and Winifred E. (Roundy) Fletcher.
The NH Agricultural Experiment Station examined seeds sold by J.H. Willey of Milton at his store in 1919. His Millet seeds received a “Satisfactory” purity rating (94%) and had a “Satisfactory” (80%) germination rate; his Red Clover seeds received a “Satisfactory” purity rating (96%) and had a “Below” (91%) germination rate; and his Timothy seeds received an “Above” purity rating (99%) and had a “Satisfactory” (98%) germination rate (NHAES, 1919).
James Herbert Willey, a druggist, aged forty-four years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fourteenth (1920) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Grace F. Willey, aged twenty-three years (b. ME). James Herbert Willey rented their house on Upper Main Street in Milton Village. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of Bessie M. Corson, a farmer, aged twenty-nine years (b. NH), and [his paternal uncle,] Joseph D. Willey, a retail merchant (groceries), aged sixty-six years (b. NH).
His father, James P. Willey, a retired mechanic, aged sixty-seven years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fourteenth (1920) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Frances P. Willey, aged sixty-four years (b. ME). James P. Willey owned their house on Church Street (now Steeple Street), near its intersection with Farmington Road (now Elm Street), free-and-clear.
Son Herbert F. Willey was born in Milton, August 9, 1920. (His father was a druggist).
J.H. Willey appeared in the Milton business directories of 1922, 1927, and 1930, as a Milton druggist (or apothecary). Samuel G. Blaisdell succeeded him as Milton postmaster, March 16, 1922.
Daughter Frances E. Willey was born in Rochester, NH, September 9, 1925. (Her father was a druggist).
James H. Willey, a druggist (drug store), aged fifty-five years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Fifteenth (1930) Federal Census. His household included his wife (of ten years), Grace F. Willey, aged thirty-four years (b. ME), his children, Herbert F. Willey, aged nine years (b. NH), Frances E. Willey, aged four years (b. NH), and his parents, James P. Willey, retired, aged seventy-eight years (b. NH), Frances P. Willey, aged seventy-six years (b. ME). James H. Willey owned their house on North Main Street, which was valued at $2,500. They had a radio set. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of Joseph D. Willey, a retail merchant (general store), aged sixty-six years (b. NH), and Leon Willey, an odd jobs laborer, aged thirty-four years (b. NH).
Father James P. Willey of Milton died of acute uremia at the Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NH, December 25, 1932, aged eighty years, ten months, and eleven days. Walter J. Roberts, M.D., signed the death certificate.
IN MEMORIAM. James P. Willey. It is with sincere regret that the “News” reports the death of James P. Willey of Milton, which occurred at the Frisbie Memorial hospital in Rochester following an operation last week. He was one of the most representative men of the town and a twin brother of the late merchant prince, Joseph H. [Joseph D.] Willey, famed in ten counties for bis keen business acumen. They were alike as two peas in a pod, genial, kindly, charitable, withal astute to every business opportunity. James Willey was a native of Wakefield, the son of Aziah and Martha (Dearborn) Willey, and had been a resident of Milton for 27 years, having moved there from Rollinsford, where he had been a director of the Rollinsford Savings bank. His death occurred at the age of 81 years, and until recently he retained his virile energy and a remarkable degree of activity. He was a prominent Mason and member of Fraternal Lodge, A.F. & A.M., and Columbian Chapter, R.A.M., of Farmington. He is survived by his wife, a son, J. Herbert Willey, a druggist of Milton, and two brothers, William H. Willey of Wakefield and Aziah C. Willey of Portsmouth. Burial was in Milton (Farmington News, January 6, 1933).
Mother Frances P. (Davis) Willey died of a cerebral hemorrhage on Main Street in Milton, June 15, 1936, aged eighty-three years, nine months, and three days. She had resided in Milton for thirty years, i.e., since circa 1906 (having previously resided in Salmon Falls, Rollinsford, NH).
Drug Store of J.H. Willey, Ph. G., with his apartment above. (Note the signage for Moxie “tonics,” i.e., soft drinks, on the awning above the door, as well as the sign beneath the lefthand window indicating that Willey was also local agent for Rochester, NH’s G.T. Steam Laundry service).
Willey’s Drug Store (J. Herbert Willey) in Milton appeared in a NH Pharmaceutical Association list of non-member drug stores in 1939.
James H. Willey, a drug store druggist, aged sixty-five years (b. NH), headed a Milton household at the time of the Sixteenth (1940) Federal Census. His household included his wife, Grace F. Willey, aged forty-four years (b. ME), and his children, Herbert F. Willey, aged nineteen years (b. NH), and Frances Willey, aged fourteen years (b. NH). James H. Willey owned their house in the Milton Community, which was valued at $2,000. Both James H. and Grace F. Willey had four-year college degrees, and Herbert F. Willey had attended one year of college. Their household appeared in the enumeration between those of [his cousin,] Joseph E. Willey, a hardware store storekeeper, aged fifty-three years (b. NH), and Leon Willey, a leatherboard mill machinist, aged forty-four years (b. NH).
LOCAL. Grace F. Willey of Milton, past worthy grand matron and past worthy matron of Fraternal Chapter, O.E.S., Mrs. L. Violet Jones, of this town, past grand marshal, Mrs. Norma M. Studley of Rochester, worthy grand matron, and Mrs. Ruth Coombs of Gorham, associate grand conductress, compose one group from New Hampshire which entrained last Friday to attend the General Grand Chapter session of the Order of the Eastern Star to be held in San Francisco. They will return the last of this month (Farmington News, September 13, 1940).
EASTERN STAR OFFICERS GIVEN COMPLIMENTARY DINNER PARTY. Mrs. Grace Willey of Milton, past worthy grand matron of the order of the Eastern Star, and Mrs. L. Violet Jones, past grand marshal, complimented the officers of Fraternal Chapter, No 24, O.E.S., with a formal dinner party at the Fernald Hackett London room, ia Rochester, Monday evening. The group included eighteen ladles who as assembled at seven o’clock in the dining room where a fascinating spectacle was presented by a beautifully arranged table. The centerpiece was a work of art, consisting of a huge orange bowl filled with bayberries, bittersweet and spruce banked about a single large orange candle. At each end of the table were copper candlesticks bearing orange candles which furnished subdued light over gleaming silver and crystal accessories. The place cards were dainty and the favors were glass ash trays, for the present filled with nuts, but when emptied disclosed the initial of the ladles for whom they were intended as mementos. Other personal favors were corsages of bayberries and bittersweet, tied with silver ribbon, and fashioned by the daughter of Mrs. Willey. The menu consisted of roast lamb, flanked with a tempting array of edibles which occupied the group for a long time, after which games, guessing contests and pleasant conversation completed a most delightful occasion (Farmington News, November 22, 1940).
Father-in-law William Fletcher died in 1940. Mother-in-law Winifred E. (Roundy) Fletcher died in Waterville, ME, March 8, 1942.
Son Herbert F. Willey married in Keene, NH, July 24, 1943, Winifred L. Pearce, he of Milton and she of Syracuse, NY. He was an ensign in the US Naval Reserve, aged twenty-two years, and she was a home economics teacher, aged twenty-three years. Rev. A. Norman Janes performed the ceremony.
WOMEN’S CLUB MEMBERS TO BE GUESTS AT FORT DEVENS, MASS. Seven women, chosen by the New England Council of State Federations of Women’s clubs, will spend Friday and Saturday at Fort Devens, Mass., as guests of the WAC detachment stationed there. The trip is a reward for their efforts in aiding the recruitment of women for the Women’s Army Corps during the past several months. While at Fort Devens the club women will be housed in the WAC barracks, stand reveille at 6.m., eat in “G.I.” mess halls, and get first-hand introduction to many jobs WACS are doing at the military post. Mrs. J. Herbert Willey of Milton, president of the New Hampshire State Federation and a member of Farmington Woman’s club, will be in attendance (Farmington News, September 8, 1944).
James H. Willey died in Rochester, NH, April 27, 1946, aged seventy years, eleven months.
IN MEMORIAM. James H. Willey. Several fraternal members attended the funeral services of James H. Willey, 70, well known drug store owner of Milton, held at the Community church in that town Tuesday afternoon. He was a member of Columbian Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and Fraternal Chapter, O.E.S. of Farmington. His wife, Mrs. Grace Willey, is worthy matron of the O.E.S. this town (Farmington News, May 3, 1946).
Mrs. Grace C. (Fletcher) Willey moved to Beverly, MA, after the death of her husband.
Society. Rippere-Willey. Mrs. J. Herbert Willey of Beverly, Mass., formerly of Milton, N.H., announces the engagement of her daughter, Frances Elizabeth, to John Burke Rippere, son of Rev. and Mrs. Robert H. Rippere, of Brooklyn and Lake Pleasant, N.Y. Miss Willey is a graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Me. Mr. Rippere is a graduate of Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (Boston Globe, September 15, 1946).
Daughter Frances E. Willey married in Beverly, MA, March 1, 1947, John B. Rippere.
Society. Rippere-Willey. Miss Frances Elizabeth Willey, daughter of Mrs. J. Herbert Willey of 27 Princeton Ave., Beverly, Mass., formerly of Milton, N.H., and the late Mr. Willey, was married Saturday afternoon to John Burke Rippere of Pittsfield, Mass., son of the Rev. Robert H. Rippere and Mrs. Rippere of Brooklyn. The ceremony was performed at the home of the bride’s mother by the Rev. Leland L. Maxfield and a reception followed. Cecil A. Lockwood gave his niece in marriage. Mrs. H. Fletcher Willey, the bride’s sister-in-law, was matron of honor. Miss Elizabeth Kimball was bridesmaid and Lawrence Rippere, nephew of the bridegroom, was page. Oliver Rippere was best man for his brother (Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, NY), [Tuesday,] March 4, 1947).
Grace C. (Fletcher) Willey died in Hickory, NC, February 13, 1986, aged eighty-nine years.
Deaths and Funerals in North Carolina. HICKORY – Mrs. Grace Fletcher Willey, 89, homemaker, died Feb. 13, 1986. Memorial service will be at a later date in New Hampshire. Survivors are her son, Herbert Willey of Sherborn, Mass., daughter, Mrs. Frances Rippere, sister, Mrs. Harriet Lockwood of Port St. Lucia, Fla. Bass-Smith is in charge (Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, NC), February 16, 1986).
Captain Theodore C. Lyman was one of fourteen officers of the Second NH Militia Regiment that petitioned the NH legislature, September 23, 1819, for appointment of a regimental surgeon’s mate. The regimental surgeon, who resided in Dover, NH, was too distant from them to fulfill all their needs alone. (Ensign 
Son Herbert F. Willey married in Keene, NH, July 24, 1943, Winifred L. Pearce, he of Milton and she of Syracuse, NY. He was an ensign in the US Naval Reserve, aged twenty-two years, and she was a home economics teacher, aged twenty-three years. Rev. A. Norman Janes performed the ceremony.
