ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

The thanks of the editor and the publication committee of the Manchester Historic Association are due to His Honor Mayor Eugene E. Reed, Mr. Edward C. Smith, city clerk, for advice and help, and to all others who have kindly given their support toward publishing these early records of the township of Manchester, formerly incorporated as Derryfield. G. WALDO BROWNE. EDGAR J. KNOWLTON. MARY BELL WILLSON.

WILLIE E. DODGE.

CHARLES B. SPOFFORD.

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

HILLSBOROUGH, SS.

I, the undersigned, Chairman of the Publication Committee of the Manchester Historic Association, to whom has been assigned the task of compiling and editing the Early Records of Manchester, N. H., certify that the following transcript of the original books is a true and correct copy. GEORGE WALDO BROWNE.

MANCHESTER, N. H., November 24, 1910. Subscribed and sworn to before me, this twenty-fourth day of November, A. D. 1910.

HARRY T. LORD,

Justice of the Peace.

12

INTRODUCTION.

The seven years, 1829 to 1835, covered by this volume, was a period of comparative indifference to progress, though the spirit of the new order of activity was being felt. The inventory for 1829 gave 196 taxpayers; that for 1835, 231, not including in either case the nonresidents. The taxes for the first year amounted to $932.01 (state, $107.60; county, $73.60; town, $750.81); for the last year, state, $173.50; county, $27.39; town, $853.62; total, $1,054.71.

If the increase of population and business was slight, it could be already seen that it trended towards the settlement about the Falls, which awakened feelings of jealousy and rivalry on the part of those living in other parts of the town. An attempt to repair the old meetinghouse and make of it a townhouse was voted down by those from "the new village" in 1832. Two years later the matter again came up for consideration and was rejected, but in 1836 a vote was taken to that effect.

Boating on the Merrimack may be said to have reached its greatest volume during this period. Frederick G. Stark was agent of the boating company the entire time, or from 1822 to 1837. His books show that for the month of October, 1831, the river traffic amounted to $1,598.65. The quickest round trip from the Piscataquog river to Boston ever made on the river was in 1833, when Samuel Hall, John Ray, and Joseph M. Rowell performed the feat in four days. In 1833 the Proprietors of Amoskeag Canal were first taxed for $18,000, and this was repeated with different amounts the two years following. It seems that this tax was not forthcoming, for in 1834 the town voted to collect the same, though there is no record to show the result.

In 1834 the ten years' controversy over building the "Mammoth Road" through this town reached its climax, the court deciding that the road should be built. In one year (1833) the expense of fighting this highway amounted to more than the state, county, school, and highway taxes.

The cotton manufacture, started at Amoskeag in 1809 by Benjamin Pritchard and three brothers named Ephraim, David, and Robert Stevens, with changes in management from time to time, continued as a private enterprise, with varying results, until July 15, 1831, when the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company was incorporated with a capital of one million dollars. The incorporators were Oliver Dean, Ira Gay, Willard Sayles, Larned Pitcher, Lyman Tiffany, and Samuel Slater. Mr. Tiffany was made the first president. Mr. Gay was chosen clerk and Oliver Dean agent and treas

urer.

In 1835 this company came into possession of the Isle of Hooksett Canal Company, the Bow Canal Company, and the Union Locks Company, and the following year the Hooksett Manufacturing Company was acquired. That year the first brick mill upon the Merrimack was built at Hooksett from material made in the yards close by. The increase of this new factor in the development extended in the years following.

The smallpox breaking out in the household of Col. Josiah Stowell in 1834, at a special town meeting called to be seen what could be done, it was voted to establish a pesthouse. There is nothing to show that this vote was carried out more than to quarantine the home of Colonel Stowell. The disease was brought from Lowell by one William Davis, who recovered. Four persons, two of whom were the aged parents of Mrs. Stowell, a young woman named Mary Brown, and a baby died.

The town continued to hold money derived from the sale of the ministerial lot, and voted that the interest be paid for preaching, the sum to be divided equally between the Presbyterian and Methodist societies.

Tythingmen were chosen through the entire period. No firewards were chosen in 1833 and 1834. For the first time in the records of the town no poundkeeper was elected in 1834, and there was no one in 1835. No overseer of the poor was chosen in these years. The last sale of paupers was in 1832. The first auditor was chosen in 1835.

In 1829 the matter of schools again came to the front and the town voted to have a literary fund proportioned among the districts and authorized each to choose its own committee.

In 1795 a movement was started to establish a social library in town, and the first meeting was held in December of that year. January 1, 1796, the first books were bought. This association continued for nearly forty years, when it ceased in 1833, the same year in which the first free public library was established at Peterborough. The Derryfield Social Library was the second in the state, one at Dover antedating it by a little over two years.

The following lists comprise the town's leading officers of this period:

MODERATORS.

1829. Ephraim Stevens (annual meeting).

1830. Frederick G. Stark.

1831. Frederick G. Stark.

1832. Frederick G. Stark. 1833. Ephraim Stevens, Jr. 1834. Gilbert Greeley.

1835. Ephraim Stevens, Jr.

CLERKS.

1829-1830. Samuel Jackson.

1831-1833. Amos Weston, Jr.

1834-1835. John R. Hall.

TREASURERS.

1829-1830. Ephraim Stevens, Jr.

1831-1835. Frederick G. Stark.

1829. Frederick G. Stark, Archibald Stark, James McQueston.

1830. Amos Weston, Jr., John Proctor, Nathaniel Conant.

1831. Frederick G. Stark, John Proctor, George Clark.

1832. Amos Weston, Jr., Frederick G. Stark, George Clark.

1833. Amos Weston, Jr., John Proctor, James McQueston.

1834. James McQueston, Gilbert Greeley, Frederick G. Stark.

1835. Frederick G. Stark, Amos Weston, Jr., Isaac Huse.

1829. John Young.

1830. Samuel Hall.

COLLECTORS.

1831-1832. Reuben G. Sawyer.

1833. John Brown.

1834-1835. Josiah Stowell.

The slow growth of the town is shown by the returns of the census: 1775, 285; 1790, 362; 1800, 557; 1810, 615; 1820, 761; 1830, 887; 1840, 3,325; nearly all of the rapid increase in the last decade having been made in the years 1838 and 1839.

G. W. B.