The Old Bridge - Street Pound.

A PAPER BY ORRIN H. LEAVITT, READ BEFORE THE MANCHESTER HISTORIC ASSOCIATION, SEPTEMBER 18, 1901.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN: Having been in the city but few years comparatively, and having taken no part in the municipal or business affairs, I feel a little out of place in coming before the Manchester Historic Association to discuss matters relating to the early history of localities with which nearly all of you are better acquainted than I am. But my idea is that the object of an organization of this kind should be to preserve material proofs as well as written records of former methods where it is possible to do so, and having expressed at various times my opinion that the old pound should be preserved as it is, if not restored to its original form, I have been invited to prepare a paper on the subject for this meeting, and I hope I shall be pardoned for making a slight digression from my subject for the sake of explaining, or, perhaps, excusing my interest in the matter.

Perhaps my habit of reading puzzle pictures to get views of things which do not appear on the surface, has got me in the way of looking crosswise at some matters which were not intended for such inspection, but it seems to me that the policy, as far any policy is shown in the methods employed about this city, is to work largely for the present with little regard to the future and less respect for the past.

To illustrate this point I will name four boiling springs in the northern part of the city, which originally supplied many families each with pure, cold water, but have been covered by

the city dumps during the process of making streets. One of these springs is in the gulley on the west side of Elm street and north of Fenacook; one is near the crossing of Chestnut and Sagamore streets; one, just east east of Pine, is now under the fill made for Sagamore street, and worst of all, the spring which supplied the camping ground when the soldiers were quartered at the north end during the early days of the civil war, and later, was included in the old fair ground and had a half hogshead set in it which was always full, is now under the dump of Liberty street. This condition being found in such a limited locality would indicate that many more with which I was not familiar have gone the same way. Any of these could have been perpetuated by inserting pipes to bring the water to the surface, and without interfering with the construction of the streets or other desirable changes. But they are gone, and the people are supplied with water taken from the muddiest portion of Massabesic, while we have a Board of Health to look after the sanitary affairs; and even the pesthouse is to be supplied with city water" to avoid too much of a change when patients are carried there.

Another matter on which I have not recovered from a desire to express myself is the filling of the ponds on the commons. When I came here there was a pond on Merrimack common, and one Hanover common, both walled with split stone, so that children or dogs which got in must be helped out or drown. With all that water in sight no dog or even bird could get a drink. It was finally decided that the water was impure and endangered public health by its emanations, and they were filled up.

My belief was and still is that if the walls had been removed and sloping gravel banks substituted, so that children could wade, dogs swim and birds drink; silt basins put at the inlet so that sediment would settle where it could be dipped out; pond lillies planted to make use of the undesirable elements in water, the water could have been kept as pure as our city supply is under present conditions, and aged people and invalids could have been refreshed by the ever restful spectacle of sparkling

waves in contrast with the dust of the streets and clatter of pavements. But now, with Mile brook running unused under the whole length of these commons, we are buying water every winter to make skating ponds which kill the grass so it is late in the spring or summer before the crop of annual weeds covers the reeking mud with the kindly mantle of green.

It was by observing these transactions that I was led, years ago, to speak for the preservation of the relic of former customs which still remains in the ruin of the old "town pound."

As it is customary for amateur writers or lecturers, when calied upon to treat any agricultural subject, to go back and tell when and where the plant was discovered, how it became distributed, how it has been improved and what the average yield is per acre, I may be pardoned for briefly referring to the history and use of the institution known in former times as the "town pound."

It

In the days of the pioneers, when clearings were scattered and only the cultivated fields were fenced, cattle were turned into the forests to get their living on wild grass and browse, so it often happened that they strayed too far and found their way into poorly protected fields of some distant neighbor. is related that people in Massachusetts were once in the habit of driving cattle up into this section to get their living as best they could through the summer, and they became very annoying to the scattered farmers among whom they foraged. People at that primitive age had not evolved the idea of sending tramps along to the next town to find new victims, so they conceived the plan of constructing enclosures where stray animals could be confined and cared for until the owner called for them and paid for the food and trouble. This was a protection to the farmers and a kindness to owners of stock who rather pay a reasonable sum for such care than wander aimlessly in the wild forest in search of their animals which might be doing great injury to some growing crop.

This method of disposing of stray animals was continued long after every man who owned stock was supposed to have a

pasture fenced for its use. But the idea that the highway was public property still led some men to think that they were not trespassing on the rights of others by turning their cows through the barnyard bars and dogging them down the road, and when this practice became unbearable to the neighbors whose expost ulations failed to bring reformn, the pound was resorted to as a lesson in law. It has also been used as an instrument of revenge. A man would find an animal belonging to some neighbor with whom he was not on friendly terms browsing in his field or running in the road, and would drive the animal to the pound if it was several miles farther away than the home of the owner. I have known a man to lead a horse two miles out of his way to get to the pound without going past the house of the owner, when the pound was four miles away and the men lived less than half a mile apart.

A pound-keeper was among the officers annually elected by the town, and his duty was to supply impounded animals with food and water, advertise them if not called for within a certain time, and get his pay from the owner of the stock when it was taken away. Another officer closely connected with the pound keeper was the " field driver," and his duty, and sometimes privilege, was to drive to pound animals found trespassing or in anyway troubling the settlers. As this was a minor posi tion with little work and no pay, it was unually filled by nomi nation, and the young men in town who had been married since the last election were honored with this mark of the respect and confidence of their fellow citizens, sometimes twenty or more being chosen at a single meeting.

In my native town, in Maine, an article which appeared in the warrant, regularly for many years, was: "To see if the town will allow loose cattle to run at large all or any part of the year." This was usually passed over without action, and at last some one discovered and announced that men were not obliged to fence their fields, and that when cattle were turned into the highway, without a keeper, they were, in effect, turned into

their neighbor's cornfield, and that the town had no authority to legalize such action. Soon after this the field-drivers were discontinued, and it was voted that every barnyard in town should be a pound and every man who had a barnyard was appointed pound keeper and authorized to confine stray animals and collect pay for the same from their owners. This ended the pound business in that town.

By a somewhat hurried examination of the two histories of Manchester (Potter's and Clarke's), I find that they agree on one point: that in 1800 the town voted to build a pound at the south end of the church at the Center. Clarke's says this was used till 1830, but says nothing about its successor as being located or built. Speaking of the Stevens farm, which is a part of what is now the city farm, it says : "On the old farm is an unused pesthouse and a pound." And here arises a question which I have been unable to solve, for it continues: "A new pesthouse was built of brick in 1874 upon the old farm near the Mammoth road." Where is or was that brick pest

house?

Potter's history relates that the pound to be built in 1800 at the south end of the church, was to be seven feet high, with square posts, and rails of pine or cedar heart wood.

While both agree that this pound served until 1830, Potter's speaks of the vote to build another, under the transactions of 1840, so there are ten years that we do not know whether a pound was maintained or not.

The ruins of the structure now under consideration are on land owned by the city and in what is a part of Derryfield Park, so there would be no outlay for purchasing the site, it being in the park and near the road which is most used in going to the Weston Observatory. It is in a prominent place and would be an object of interest to visitors who would seek information as to its origin and use, and, standing on that spot, with the clatter of electric cars and the bustle of a city all about them, could realize more fully than in any other way that here, where they see all these modern conveniences and signs of activity