My First Editorial - And Not My Last

Editorial:

Nothing is more historic than downtown Somersworth, its buildings, its mill, and its hill area, so why does it look so bad?

I'm not talking about the buildings or homes, I'm talking about the roads, sidewalks, and esthetic features that exist within the Historic District.

The fact is High St is deplorable, the year after year practice of temporary patching has only made matters worse, and still no word on when this situation will be addressed.

I love it when I hear certain city officials say we need to attract business to the downtown, yet they do nothing to make the downtown attractive. Take a drive through our neighboring cities, who still has the old rusty street lights we still have? None of them. Are new lights in the Capital Improvement Plan? No.

Take a drive through the downtown's of our neighboring cities, who has a street that is the entrance into there city that is as deplorable as High St in Somersworth? None of them. Where's this on the Capital Improvement Plan?

This is my favorite, who anywhere actually believes that instead of using granite curbs we'll just use asphalt to make one is a good idea?

We ask a lot of those that live in the Historic District, sometimes things that are costly but must be done, yet the city itself poorly maintains what we have asked them to care for.

Recently we elected a new Mayor, and a few new council members, all promise to improve the downtown, talk can be cheap.

Year after year the business and downtown community has asked for a new road, so lets build a fire station.

When Christmas Was Banned in Somersworth

As Christmas approaches historians such as myself often tend to reflect on Christmas of old. In old “Summersworth” we can trace most of the original families to the English and Scottish Puritan school of thought, your true bah humbug individuals. Chances are Christmas in early Summersworth just didn't happen. Some of the reasons for the Puritan opposition to Christmas are very familiar to us today. First, they knew that there is no biblical or historical evidence connecting the birth of Jesus with late December, when it probably would have been too cold in Bethlehem for shepherds to be ``keeping watch over their flocks by night'' (Luke 2:8). Second, they recognized that Christmas had its roots in pagan winter solstice festivals like the Roman Saturnalia.
In the agricultural societies of colonial America, December was a time when there was relatively little work to be done and an abundance of food was available. The harvest was complete, animals had been slaughtered, and the year's supply of beer and wine was ready. This combination of circumstances naturally resulted in the Christmas season being a time of gluttony and drunkenness. Persecution of Christmas persisted through the 17th century. Caroling, games and even mince pies, considered a vulgar holiday luxury, were all outlawed. Despite its Spartan beginnings, New England did have many people who celebrated Christmas, especially as more and more settlers began arriving from Europe through the 17th and 18th Centuries. This trend is apparent in 1686 by a repeal of a 1659 law that fined people five shillings for feasting or any other perceived merriment on December 25th. Despite People’s growing acceptance of Christmas, it wasn’t made an official holiday in New England until the 1856.

Masonic Ties In The Time of War

Much of what you are about to read here was written by General J. Madison Drake, Historian, (1837-1913), Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

I came across this story twice while researching the 5th New Hampshire Regiment, both times I read it my heart grew sad, not because of the story but because we are rapidly losing the fraternal organizations, choosing online networking over face to face or hand to hand.

One need only take a stroll through Forest Glade Cemetery in Somersworth to see how strongly the fraternal organizations mattered, the symbols of Freemasons, Knight Pythias, and Odd Fellows adorn the majority of the stones.

Although the Masonic lodge, Libanus, closed many years ago I assure you there are still many amongst you.

“In civil life there are ties of affection, of friendship, of family, and in an army during a war the tie of comradeship surpassing in fervor and intensity all other human bonds. During the Civil War perhaps the strongest fraternal tie binding men together was that of Freemasonry, a bond of fellowship that has been recognized and proved the wide world over as a blessing to mankind.”

There were numerous instances in which the sacred tie of Masonry intervened at critical moments not only in battle but in prison pens, where perhaps its luster showed with more brilliance than that radiated by any diamond. Property was preserved, lives protected, and executions stayed by the discovery that the persons involved belonged to the mystic circle, and escaping prisoners of war on both sides, when all hope seemed lost, were succored through its benign influences.

I do not know that I can more forcibly illustrate the truth of this statement than by relating a thrilling incident on the day following the sanguinary battle of Antietam, when a grievously wounded Virginian, who had lain helplessly upon the blood-stained field during the night, with a feeble voice called a member of the 5th New Hampshire Regiment, commanded by that sterling patriot, Col. Edward E. Cross, who was doing picket duty not far from the Confederate lines, and gave him a slip of soiled paper on which had been marked in a circle, apparently with great effort, some mystic signs. In lieu of a pen or pencil a bit of stick had been used, and his life's blood had been substituted for ink.

"My good fellow," said the wounded and apparently dying Confederate officer, "do me the last earthly favor of handing this piece of paper to some one of your officers whom you may know to be a Freemason. I am dying and would like to give my last message to my family through the medium of one of my brethren."

The New Hampshire soldier, whose heart was full of sympathy for the unfortunate Southern, after covering him with his blanket, making him as comfortable as possible, took the strange-looking missive and, making his dangerous way to the rear, delivered it into the hands of Colonel Cross, who, although a member of the fraternity, was unable to decipher the token so singularly inscribed. The Colonel, however, feeling it to be a case of life or death, the bearer of the strange missive having told of the desperate condition of its sender, consulted with Capt J. P. Perry, of his regiment, a member of the thirty-second degree in Masonry, and he had no sooner exhibited to him the missive than the latter somewhat excitedly said: "The man who sent this is a brother Mason in imminent peril and must be rescued."

Colonel Cross, fearfully wounded at Fredericksburg, and who at Gettysburg met the glorious death he had coveted, at once sent for several brother Masons in his command and, after reciting the strange story, gave them permission to make their way to the perilous spot where the wounded Confederate was seen by the Union soldier and rescue him from a cruel fate. Owing to the close proximity of the two lines of battle and the constant firing of small arms and artillery which prostrated the standing corn as if done by sickles, the relieving party was compelled to crawl upon the ground to the spot where a young and handsome Confederate was found lying in the agonies of death. He had been shot through the thigh and breast and, weak from the loss of blood, was in a state of unconsciousness.

Despite the terrific storm of shot and shell which swept the cornfield, imperiling their lives, the New Hampshire brethren shrank not from the performance of a humane duty; and when a lull in the firing came they tenderly placed the young soldier on a stretcher they had thoughtfully taken along and carried him to the field hospital of their regiment, where every attention was given him. Recovering from his insensibility, but too weak to speak, the Confederate manifested his gratitude to his new-found friends, a short time before deadly enemies, for the great service rendered him by mute expressions of love. Removed to the general hospital at Washington, the Southern speedily recovered from his ghastly wounds, and later on was exchanged and permitted to return south.

The soldier thus rescued from the jaws of death was Lieutenant Edon, who belonged to an Alabama regiment and was a member of a Masonic lodge at Mobile.

That same day the colonel of a Georgia regiment, whose body had been riddled with bullets and who had lain helpless on the field all night, made himself known to our soldiers as a member of the Masonic fraternity, and was treated with the utmost kindness by his New Hampshire brethren, with whom but a few hours previously he had been engaged in fierce and deadly combat.

Often were the strongest friendships formed on the battle field; for there, amid carnage and desolating scenes, the true heart opens its floodgates and humanity again asserts itself. The enemy, whom but a short time before one is doing his best to kill, you now endeavor to save. You supply him with water to quench his consuming thirst, with your last morsel of food to sustain his strength, and use sympathizing words to soothe his troubled mind. All that is human or charitable in your nature now rises to your face and you become consecrated by that spirit of mercy that "blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

One afternoon in the prison enclosure at Savannah, which, by the way, was a paradise compared to others in the South owing to the large live oak trees whose luxuriant foliage protected the six hundred Union officers there confined from the burning sun by day and the heavy dews at night, a Confederate captain of the 1st Georgia Regiment, the best set of men that ever guarded a prison, while walking about the enclosure, engaged in conversation with a comrade of mine, in the course of which they happily recognized each other as Masons.

"What can I do to render your situation more comfortable?" I heard the Confederate ask my friend.

"Well, captain," replied the Union prisoner, "if I could be provided with a couple of boards, I would be enabled to build a bunk for myself above the ground."

The Southern, after extending his hand, which was promptly grasped and significantly pressed, took his departure, and a couple of hours afterward a wagon-load of smooth, yellow pine boards was delivered to my companion, whose joy was so great that he divided the lumber among his friends, reserving scarcely enough to answer his own purposes.

I might tell of many instances of this character that came under my observation during the four years' war to show the love that true-hearted man, even though enemies can bear toward one another.

The Stranger & Activist Come to Town

"There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them, but to get high profits from their work."

-- Lewis Hine, 1908

It was the year 1909 an an unexpected visitor arrived in Somersworth.

His name, Lewis Hines, his purpose, to expose the child labor that was present at the Great Falls Manufacturing Company in downtown Somersworth, and reveal he did.

After the Civil War, that had particularly hurt the textile mills in Somersworth, the demand for cheap labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th centuries many children of the Canadian migration were drawn sadly into the labor force.

Between 1840 and 1930 roughly 900,000 French Canadians left Canada to emigrate to the United States. Historically, the great mover of large numbers of people has been poor or deteriorating economic conditions. When one’s life is miserable, when one does not see a way to pull out of poverty, then one is literally pushed out of one’s environment.

Factory wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families. Often forced to work under the most dangerous conditions. Low lighting, poor ventilation, and extreme temperatures were common in the Great Falls Manufacturing Company. Couple anyone of those factors with machinery and the danger of death is ever present, not to mention the fast spreading diseases known to spread in mills, Typhoid, Tuberculosis, and various lung diseases to name a few.

Businesses liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts and tools. Children were seen as part of the family economy. Immigrants and rural migrants often sent their children to work, or worked alongside them. However, child laborers barely experienced their youth. Going to school to prepare for a better future was an opportunity these underage workers rarely enjoyed. Higher education was rarely discussed.

As children worked in industrial settings, they began to develop serious health problems. Many child laborers were underweight. Some suffered from stunted growth and curvature of the spine. They developed diseases related to their work environment, such as tuberculosis and bronchitis for those who worked in cotton mills. They faced high accident rates due to physical and mental fatigue caused by hard work and long hours.

By the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery" and were demanding an end to it. They argued that long hours of work deprived children of the opportunity of an education to prepare themselves for a better future. Instead, child labor condemned them to a future of illiteracy, poverty, and continuing misery.

In 1904 a group of progressive reformers founded the National Child Labor Committee, an organization whose goal was the abolition of child labor. The organization received a charter from Congress in 1907. It hired teams of investigators to gather evidence of children working in harsh conditions and then organized exhibitions with photographs and statistics to dramatize the plight of these children. These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau as a federal information clearinghouse.

The Lewis Hine Visit 1909

Lewis Hine, a New York City schoolteacher and photographer, believed that a picture could tell a powerful story. He felt so strongly about the abuse of children as workers that he quit his teaching job and became an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee.

Hine traveled around the country photographing the working conditions of children in all types of industries. He photographed children in coal mines, in meatpacking houses, in textile mills, and in canneries. He took pictures of children working in the streets as shoe shiners, newsboys, and hawkers. In many instances he tricked his way into factories to take the pictures that factory managers did not want the public to see. He was careful to document every photograph with precise facts and figures. To obtain captions for his pictures, he interviewed the children on some pretext and then scribbled his notes with his hand hidden inside his pocket. Because he used subterfuge to take his photographs, he believed that he had to be "double-sure that my photo data was 100% pure no retouching or fakery of any kind." Hine defined a good photograph as "a reproduction of impressions made upon the photographer which he desires to repeat to others." Because he realized his photographs were subjective, he described his work as "photo-interpretation."

Hine believed that if people could see for themselves the abuses and injustice of child labor, they would demand laws to end those evils. By 1916, Congress passed the Keating-Owens Act that established the following child labor standards: a minimum age of 14 for workers in manufacturing and 16 for workers in mining; a maximum workday of 8 hours; prohibition of night work for workers under age 16; and a documentary proof of age. Unfortunately, this law was later ruled unconstitutional on the ground that congressional power to regulate interstate commerce did not extend to the conditions of labor. Effective action against child labor had to await the New Deal. Reformers, however, did succeed in forcing legislation at the state level banning child labor and setting maximum hours. By 1920 the number of child laborers was cut to nearly half of what it had been in 1910.

Lewis Hine died in poverty, neglected by all but a few. His reputation continued to grow, however, and now he is recognized as a master American photographer. His photographs remind us what it was like to be a child and to labor like an adult at a time when labor was harsher than it is now. Hine's images of working children stirred America's conscience and helped change the nation's labor laws. Through his exercise of free speech and freedom of the press, Lewis Hine made a difference in the lives of American workers and, most importantly, American children.

If your local and you would like to view a number of the photos Lewis Hine took during his visit to Somersworth, please visit the Summersworth Historical Society on Main St. in downtown Somersworth.

Disclaimer: this site is not affiliated with the Summersworth Historical Society, however I'm a big fan and supporter.

The Town That Never Was

Great Falls New Hampshire 1877

Do you really know where you live?

That would be a question I would have loved to ask the inhabitants of Somersworth during much of the eighteen hundreds, a time when most actually believed they lived in a town named Great Falls, an erroneous belief.

Spend a day researching the history of Somersworth and you'd be amazed at how many individuals, business's, and trade journals refereed to Somersworth as Great Falls.

We had the Great Falls Manufacturing Company, the Great Falls and Conway Railroad, the Great Falls National Bank, the list could go on and on, but no matter how you cut it Great Falls didn't exist.

The downtown Somersworth you see now isn't the downtown Somersworth prior to 1820. The downtown Somersworth you see now was just a neighborhood on the outskirts of the true Somersworth; a neighborhood nicknamed Great Falls because of its proximity to the waterfalls behind the mill.

Build a mill, employ individuals, and before you know it growth around the epicenter expands.

The blunder first occurred when the post-office was constructed in the Great Falls neighborhood in 1825, the postmaster general mistakenly thinking Great Falls was the name of the town.

For nearly seventy years the place where the compact part of the city of Somersworth is, was called and generally known as Great Falls: nobody ever said they were going to Somersworth. No, they were going to Great Falls; but when it came to changing from town to city government there was a revolt against calling it "City of Great Falls”, because it was Somersworth. The old historic name was restored, and we have city of Somersworth. It was astonishing how quickly the name Great Falls was dropped; it has never been used since 1893. Before that date, probably, half of the inhabitants did not know they lived in Somersworth.

Capt. Joshua Littlefield Somersworth's First Hero

Grand Army of the Republic - Downtown Somersworth

“Proud past, bright future” is the motto you'll hear bantered about from time to time in Somersworth, a slogan that even adorns the local High School, yet how many actually know about Somersworth's past?

As Somersworth's newest and probably first, self appointed historian I'll attempt to tell the stories of the city that has forgotten its past.

If you’re looking for a chronological history, sorry it isn't going to happen, to much of the personal would be left out.

What you have here is a mixture of stories, personal histories of mostly unknown residents, and events that combined to create what today we call Somersworth.

Without further ado let’s begin our historic journey back to the year 1889, a brick and mortar year when the Grand Army of the Republic building would rise in downtown Somersworth cementing together the brotherly bonds of fraternalism.

After the end of Civil War, fraternal organizations were formed for veterans to network and maintain connections with each other. A perfect fit for Somersworth, a once cotton town, where a large amount of its population served in the Army of the North.

Many of the veterans used their shared experiences as a basis for fellowship.

Groups of men began joining together, first for camaraderie and later for political power, strength in numbers.

Emerging as one of the most influential among the various organizations was the Grand Army of the Republic, founded on April 6, 1866, on the principles of "Fraternity, Charity and Loyalty," in Decatur, Illinois. A perfect fit for many of the fraternal organizations that were similar design, Freemasonry, Odd-fellows etc., all of which mutually embraced brotherly love.

Little did they realize when they were building what was to become known as the GAR in downtown Somersworth that the organization had already celebrated its heyday and its numbers were on a slow downward slide, a slide that would last another sixty years when the final GAR member would die and the fraternity dissolved. Although the GAR had dissolved the Free and Accepted Masons of Libanus Lodge found themselves at home on the top floor of the building for many years to come.

Before the demise of the Grand Army of the Republic the Post in Somersworth could be considered the meeting place of those who had helped form the city, and those who would influence its future direction.

Allow me to introduce you to the Somersworth resident the Post was dedicated to and named after, Capt. Joshua Littlefield.

Joshua Littlefield

Joshua Littlefield lived atop of the hill in Somersworth, a builder/carpenter by trade he built and worked on many of the houses upon the hill, his still standing humbly at the corner of Mt. Vernon and Grand.

April 1861, shots were fired at Fort Sumter; the War Between the States had begun.

It should be remembered that Somersworth was a town that revolved around the mill, a cotton mill. The War Between the States would adversely affect life in Somersworth. Without Southern cotton every aspect of Somersworth would suffer.

Joshua enlisted in the Union Army the 27th of May 1861.

Although Joshua was in his early forties he lied and said his age to be 32 when he enlisted.

One can only assume that Joshua knew that most of the recruits were an average of twenty years younger and he did not want to be considered the old man of the group.

Quickly those of rank realized his maturity and promoted him to Lieutenant within a couple of weeks of his enlistment, a wise decision for those who saw a potential leader. By August of his first year he was promoted to the rank of Captain.

On the evening of August 28th 1861 Capt. Littlefield was told of his transfer to the 11th NH and subsequent promotion to Lt. Col., a rank he would never see.

Disregarding his order of transfer Capt. Littlefield chooses to ride with his present Company into a planned battle the next day.

The 29th of August 61, the Second Battle of Bull Run began. Capt. Littlefield led his Company in a charge over a heavily fortified railroad, a trap where the Confederates lay in waiting on three sides, a gauntlet of lead.

The battle was a disaster for Joshua, receiving three severe wounds he would lay dying ever so slowly on a battlefield that both sides would eventually retreat from.

Lying severely wounded with no food, no water, the hot day of the battle turned into a cold night of mourning and screaming. Hundreds of the critically wounded lay crying and praying aloud. The fortunate died the first night.

With both sides in full retreat the wounded were left to fend for themselves, or die.

Days brought on the heat and thirst, nights the cold and hunger.

They were abandoned for almost a week.

Eventually both sides returned to the battle field not to resume the fight but to bury the dead. It was during this battlefield burial the body Capt. Joshua Littlefield was discovered and found to be alive. Hanging on by a thread he was rushed to a Union Hospital only to meet his own death on the 17th of September.

He was accorded one of the grandest burial services in Forest Glade Cemetery. It was told that all the business in town closed down, schools shut there doors, and a Brigade Band from Strafford County played while Somersworth's returning hero was buried with all military honors.