Upstream - logginginlincoln · Upstream . Upper Pemigewasset ... will be promoting their book about their hikes through the White Moun-tains. ... Sometimes teachers could not be found,

Upstream Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society

Spring 2011

Carol Riley, President

Donna Thompson, Vice President

Janet Peltier, Treasurer

Judy Boyle, Secretary

Directors:

Brian Baker

Carol Govoni

David Thompson

Betty Webster

Jim Fadden

Newsletter Editors:

Barbara Avery

Dan Bourassa

Museum Is Open for the Season

Saturday, June 18

Open Hours are:

Wednesdays, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Saturdays, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Then & Now Grandview Mountain

Our Facility

The building at 26 Church Street

in Lincoln has had a long and varied

history and for many years has been

home to the UPHS. Over the past

several years many improvements

have been made. It is now apparent

that the siding and roof needs to be

replaced. This project will probably

cost about $75,000

We would welcome any donations

toward this capital project. Thank

you for your consideration.

Grandview Mountain: in the 1890‟s a popular

hiking destination, an observatory built in 1921, an

airport at the base in the 1930‟s, a fire tower at the

summit in 1939, a popular ski area during the 1940‟s

and 1950‟s, and now a residential development. See

more on pages 3-6.

2 Upstream Spring 2011

Donations in Memory of

Betty Hyde

The Board of Directors wish to thank all

those who gave donations in memory of

Elizabeth (Betty) Marden Hyde. Betty was

born in Lincoln on August 22, 1924 and

passed away January 26, 2011. She cared

about our local history and was a founding

member of the UPHS.

Upcoming Programs:

July 21, 7:00 p.m. Lizzie Borden took an

axe, or did she? New Hampshire Hu-

manities Scholar Annette Holba from PSU.

September 15, 7:00 p.m. National best-

selling author Carla Neggers will talk

about her books and sign autographs.

Books will be available to purchase.

September 24, 7:00 p.m. Following Atti-

cus, Tom Ryan and Atticus, his dog,

will be promoting their book about

their hikes through the White Moun-

tains. Books will be available to purchase.

October 13, 7:00 p.m. Birds of the White

Mountains, presented by Stephen Hale

from UNH Speakers Bureau.

Bill Gove will be promoting his newly revised

edition of J. E. Henry’s Logging Rail-

roads: The History of the East Branch

& Lincoln and the Zealand Valley Rail-

roads. Date to be Announced

UPHS Cookbook

We are putting together an-

other cookbook! There is

nothing

better than a tried and

true recipe handed down

through the generations,

and we would love it if you

would share yours with

us. If your recipe comes

with a story or anec-

dote, even better!

Please send your reci-

pes, and stories too if

you wish, to Carol Riley, PO Box 863, Lin-

coln, NH 03251. If you have any questions,

call Carol at 745-8159, or stop by the Lincoln

Library.

Docents Needed

UPHS always needs more docents. If you

are interested in sitting at the museum dur-

ing open hours in the summer, please con-

tact Donna Thompson at 745-8821. People

are needed on Wednesdays from 2:00 to

4:00 p.m. and on Saturdays from 6:00 to

8:00 p.m. You can sign up for as many or as

few sessions as you want.


Grand View Mountain

In the 1890‟s Grandview Mountain be-

came a happy destination for hikers now

frequenting the big hotels, inns and boarding

houses. According to the Plymouth Record

news from North Woodstock in 1898,

Grand View Mountain, one of the points

near Mt. Cilley, is receiving great atten-

tion this season, as one of the grandest

lookoffs in this region. A log house is be-

ing erected there for the accommodation

of visitors.

The 1905 entry in A Little Pathfinder,

published by the North Woodstock Improve-

ment Association during the early 1900‟s ,

describes this trail as follows:

Grandview Mt. (c. 3 m.; 2,300 ft.) - A moderate climb. View includes Mt. Washington, the Franconia and Water-ville Mts., Moosilauke and the Blue Ridge. Association camp at summit.

In 1921, the issue of A Little Path-

finder adds that a new observatory has been

built at the summit by the North Woodstock

Improvement Association.

According to the website :

www.firelookout.org/towers/nh/grandview,

a new wooden tower, forty feet high, was

built at the summit in 1939. It was out of

service by 1948. Peter Thompson, a former

employee at Clark‟s Trading Post, recalls that

in the 1960‟s this fire tower was removed,

using the access from Mt. Cilley road. The

windows from the tower are now installed in

the firehouse at the museum at Clarks and

the timbers were used on many projects.

They still have an inventory of bolts and of-

ten send someone to the warehouse for

„tower bolts.”

A portion of the 1932 U. S. Geological

Survey map below shows an airport in the

area where the road now leaves Route 3 go-

ing into Grandview Development.

Grandview Fire Tower

Continued on page 4


Grandview Ski Slope

N. Woodstock, NH

My family is building a home on Grandview Mt., and I heard that it used to be an old ski

slope. I decided to do some research.

People don’t know very much about it, they think it started around the 1940’s and closed

down around 1955. A man named Johnathan Gillen has visited the site and found many in-

teresting facts.

The lift shack is still standing at the top, Johnathan found an old manila ski lift pass pre-

served by motor oil that dripped from the tow rope engine. Information on the ticket says

Grandview Mt. Ski Tow Inc., length 1200 ft., vertical drop 300 ft., exposure north, altitude

1,100 ft., heated ski hut, good parking, this ticket non-transferable, good only on day pur-

chased, ski at your own risk.

More information on Grandview slope came from John Currier who grew up in N. Wood-

stock. He learned how to ski in a field. He then began skiing at Grandview Mt. before mov-

ing up to Cannon Mountain. John was 11 years old when Grandview shut down. Once a

week the children that skied were taken out of the grammar school for an afternoon of ski les-

sons at Grandview. These students walked the half mile wearing ski boots and carrying their

skis and poles. The last year of lessons, the children had to walk up the hill, because the area

was shut down.

The instructors at Grandview were the famous Paul and Paula Valar. The Valars oper-

ated the Mittersill Ski School on Cannon Mountain. It is believed they went to different towns

during the week to give ski lessons. The tow operator was Roy “Tiger” Andrews, a mechanic

and snow plow operator. He would climb to the top of Grandview and start the tow rope en-

gine before the children arrived.

There was a small warm up hut at Grandview. Mrs. Stevens, a former operator of the

slope, served hot chocolate and sold tickets. Tickets were 50 cents per day for children. Chil-

dren were issued a colored tag to tie on to their coats or ski poles.

The Grandview Mt. ski area was operated by the Stevens family. In earlier years the ski

area is thought to have been operated by the Huot family. There are some photos of people

skiing at Grandview hanging on the wall at the Kancamagus Ski Slope in Lincoln.

Grandview ski area has a very interesting background, and it’s so cool I will live there!

Brooke Hayes

The article below was written by Brooke Hayes a few years ago when she was a Fourth

Grade student at Lin-Wood Elementary School. She now lives at Grandview.


Al Huot at Grand

View Ski Slope,

1947, the warming

hut is in the back

ground.

Above, Al Huot working on tow-line at

Grand View Mtn.

The area now where the rope tow line cut through the forest

A house now sits near where the warming hut used

to be.

Below, recent photos of the remains of the top tow shack on the left,

and on the right, the engine (converted old truck) that ran the tow.

Grandview Ski

area

then and now

Continued on page 6


And, Thanks for helping!

Thanks to Brooke Hayes for sharing

her research and Peter Thompson for

sharing his memories. Thanks to the

Kancamagus Ski Area for sharing the

early pictures of Grand View Ski Slope

and Moosilauke Public Library for other

memorabilia which reference Grandview

Mountain.

If you have more memories and infor-

mation about Grandview Mountain which

you would like to share, please let us

know. We really would love to hear from

you.

Dan Bourassa, 745-8754

Barbara Avery, 745-8845, or

[email protected]

Above, top of Grand View Ski Tow Looking toward Franconia Range, 1947. Below, home of James and Victoria

Martin which is now in the center of what was the Grandview Ski Slope, and enjoys a similarly spectacular view.


Thoughts and Observations As reported in the last newsletter, following the state law passed in 1805, schools were lo-

cated in neighborhoods and run by those who lived in those areas. Neighborhood schools en-

abled children to walk to school, but the quality of the education might differ greatly from one

school to another. School was usually in operation only for two terms each year, spring and

fall, each term being only five or six weeks. Sometimes teachers could not be found, so there

might be no school for that term.

The precarious nature of schooling is shown in the following transcription of a handwritten

report from the Town of Lincoln from 1865 which is in the files at the New Hampshire Histori-

cal Society in Concord.

In 1886 the state passed a law which did away with the district system and put all schools

within a town under the supervision of the town‟s school board. Ideally this system was to re-

duce the number of schools, include transportation to schools, and work toward more equita-

ble education for all students. Some one room schoolhouses did remain, particularly because

population clusters were often far from one another and the transportation issue had not been

resolved. But now, more thought and energy was put towards graded classes in a consoli-

dated system.

Lincoln was faced with rapid increases in population. The student population was 22 in

1890, 84 in 1895, 96 in 1900, 118 in 1905 and 186 in 1910.

Lincoln 1865

Report of the Sup. School Committee of the town of Lincoln

Dis[trict] No. 1 have schooled out but $18.83 of their money. The dis[trict] in-

tended to have 2 schools but on account of diphtheria among the scholars they had

but one school. The dis [trict] have ten dollars fifty-two as of last years money.

The moral deportment of scholars are good and quite a degree of interest mani-

fested by scholars.

Dis[trict] No 2 had the misfortune to have their school house burned and had no

convenient place to have their school, and having but two families interested in

the school they divided their money and had a school in a private house at each

end of the dis[trict]. The scholars have made as good progress in their studies as

could be expected, though there is not the interest manifested as in larger schools.

Lincoln March 1865

Stephen M. Hanson,

Sup School Committee of town Lincoln

Continued on page 8


Plymouth Record—July 14, 1894 – East Lincoln

Although only two years ago the present site of East Lincoln village was a vast wilderness, today it numbers its inhabitants by several hundred, with one of the larg-est lumber mills in the state beside smaller ones, its own railroad, telephone office, store, post office, repair shop and many boarding houses. The educational welfare of its people has not been neglected by the owners, J. E. Henry & Sons and a large three story school house has been built and used for the first time this spring. Miss Nellie M. Norris a member of the class of ’94 New Hampshire State Normal School was chosen teacher and has just closed a successful term of school, proving what a well trained teacher, with power to govern, intellectually and morally can do.

June 30, the teacher assisted by pupils and aided by the ladies of the village gave an ice scream festival at the school hall. The proceeds to be used in buying globe and maps for the school room. Between one and two hundred attended. The net pro-ceeds amounting to $19.15. The hall was trimmed with evergreen and flowers and lighted by many shaded lamps and all in attendance seemed to unite with each other to make the evening a success and it was owning to the generosity of the men as well as the ready help of the ladies.

The photo above was printed in the May 1895 issue of The Granite Monthly in an article ,

Pullman, New Hampshire: A Lumber Camp, by George H. Moses. (Pullman was Moses‟ name

for “The lumber town of Lincoln on the East Branch of the Pemigewasset.” Continued on page 9


The above photo, from the UPHS Museum is a close up of this early school. According to

the names written on the back of this photo it shows: Delia Boldrick, Fridia Harrington, Katie

Collins, Rena Amos, Bertha Amos, Lucretia Pollard, Maud Moore, Mable Godsue, Mamie Dor-

oughty, Georgia Beland, Mary Beland, Mabel Homes, Florrie Wamboult, Stella Pollard, Peet

Brooks, Tommie Temple, Willis Gillis, Earnest Goodroe. Hollas Henderson, Donald Hallett,

Jamie Henry, Frank Moore, Jamy Doroughty, Jamie McGuire, Clayton Tolbridge, Delbert,

Frank Wambutt, Nate Foster and teacher, Esther Ellis.

James E. Henry II, who appears in the picture above, describes this school in his writing,

An Account of the Life of James Everell Henry I and His Town of Lincoln, c1962. He recalls:

“The school grounds had been cleared out of what was a large stump-filled field,

...There was also a tumble-down log cabin near the school building,… The

school, painted yellow with red trim...consisted of two floors having one large

room each and an attic room, the stairs to which were closed to pupils by a

locked door at the foot. That room was used by some secret organization as a

lodge hall, and I can remember listening at that door for sounds made by a goat

that we believed was kept up there for initiation purposes.

“On march 11, 1905, the Sawmill Boarding House...burned and...the school

building was requisitioned and moved the short distance to where the Boarding

House had stood and was made over for the purpose. I believe it is still there.

Continued on page 10


The schoolhouse pictured above, built in 1905, is the school

described by James Henry II, as “quite modern.” This building

later burned in 1919. The remains were purchased by Charles

B. Henry and remodeled into Charkarohen Hall. After serving

many purposes over the years, it has now been converted into condominiums. The building is

located behind Mr. W‟s on Main Street in Lincoln.

“Then to take care of the school problem, the basement of the Catholic Church

was donated for that use. … I believe the basement was used only for the bal-

ance of the school year,...while the new school building was rushed to comple-

tion to be ready for the beginning of the fall term in September.

“The new school house had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs, as well as

basement with toilet and heating facilities. The old school had had to depend on

a wood stove in each room for heating and had only outside toilets, so the new

one was modern in comparison. The two downstairs rooms were for the lower

grades, and the south room upstairs was for the sixth, seventh and eighth, as I

recall it, and that is where I had my last two years of grammar school. The

other upstairs room was used as a church meeting room for some of the protes-

tants in Lincoln…

“Since there were no high school facilities at that time in Lincoln, grammar

school graduates had to go to Plymouth, N. H. to high school, going down on the

“P. V. R. R.” on the early morning train and back on the last one at night. I at-

tended high school that way for three years, Sept. 1907 to June 1910.”

Continued on page 11

Plymouth Record— June

24, 1905—Lincoln

The new schoolhouse,

for which the sum of $4000

was a few months ago voted,

is now under erection. The

foundation is finished and the

frame up. The building is to

be of three stories, the first

two to be devoted to class

rooms, while the third is to be

used as a hall. As the build-

ing is to be 40 by 60, this hall

will fill a long felt want, as

the Labreque hall was too

small to fill the requirements

of the town for show enter-

tainments and dancing...


Plymouth Record—February

24, 1906—Johnson

Several boys and girls are

attending the school in Lincoln and

are carried to and from school by

the genial mailman. They report a

fine school and enjoy the privilege

very much because there is not

school in Johnson this winter.

After 1900, the area of North Lin-

coln, called Johnson, was also growing

fast because of the logging business.

The following year a new school,

pictured at upper left, was built in

Johnson to accommodate the children

living near the Johnson Lumber Com-

pany. Ten years later as the lumber

company closed, this building was relo-

cated further south to be used as a resi-

dence.

The Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society presently has a fascinating publication for sale.

Now Available!:

The Pycolog, the most complete record of life in the Lincoln-Woodstock area during the early and mid-20th century.

The Pycolog was published monthly by The Parker Young Company, and later by The Marcalus Paper Company from 1919-29 and 1941-48.

We offer a nearly complete run of this publication on a set of three DVDs. Together, there are over 1,500 pages of history on these discs, and hundreds of photographs. In-cluded, along with the activities in the Mills and the lumbering operations, are details on nearly every aspect of life in the towns. The discs are fully searchable .

The price of the set is $99.50 postpaid. To order, send a check or money order to: Upper Pemi Historical Society P.O. Box 863, Lincoln, NH 03251

Future Articles

In the fall I will try to present some informa-

tion about Woodstock schools during this same

time period, 1890 to 1910. If you have any pic-

tures or information to share, please contact

Barbara Avery at [email protected], or

745-8845. In particular, I am looking for photos

of the primary and grammar schools (two sepa-

rate buildings) on School Street in North Wood-

stock, and pictures of the Tannery schoolhouse.


Presorted

Standard

US Postage

Paid

Lincoln, NH

03251

Permit No. 24

Upper Pemigewasset Historical Society

PO Box 863

Lincoln, NH 03251

Supporters

These companies are supporting the U.P.H.S. We sincerely need and appreciate their help.

Many thanks! Please contact us if you would like to have your business appear here.

Documents

Upstream - logginginlincoln · Upstream . Upper Pemigewasset ... will be promoting their book about their hikes through the White Moun-tains. ... Sometimes teachers could not be found,