On this Internet site, you will find an interesting history of The Old House and its inhabitants with links to information about West Stewartstown NH, and other valuable informations on old buildings of the 19th century.
It is recognized that the end of the Indian war signals the beginning of a New England settlers migration to the North of New Hampshire State, near the Canadian border. With a large river, the Connecticut River, bordering it, and with plentiful of large trees to harvest or to build farmsteads, and lots of land to farm, the town of Stewratstown is expanding fast during the 19th century; it grows from only 90 souls in 1800 to 747 in 1850, and 1,150 by 1900. The others towns of the area, Pittsburg and Clarksville to the North, Colebrook to the South, and Canaan across the Connecticut River, in Vermont, are experiencing the same exponential growth.
The story begins around 1820 when Jonathan Harvey arrives with his family to West Stewartstown from Canterbury, NH, a voyage 140 miles directly North. Ten years later, Jonathan 45. with his wife 35, have 7 children, three boys and four daughters. Jonathan is a joiner and will pass on his trade to his sons. As a joiner, he is a skilled artisan who built homes or barns using timbers, mortise and tenon joints without nails. Timber framing was the popular way to build homesteads from the beginning of the colony until 1840, and was facilitated by the abundance of large timbers in America and by the scarcity of expensive hand-forged nails imported from England.
In 1840, Jonathan’s sons John Lovell Harvey 20 and his brother Harris live with their oldest brother Jorah Harvey 30, head of the family, their 4 sisters age 5 to 15, and their mother 50. In the area, John and Harris are respected joiners and carpenters. Their names are listed in the prestigious New England Business Directory of the time.
In 1849, John, now 31, with his brothers Harris, acquire the lot where the house is presently located. They built an english-style barn in the 1850 to be used as a carpenter shop, for their carriage, horses and possibly a few cows. It is a busy period for John and Harris, building farmsteads in the area and finding the time to find wives. John and Harris gradually built separate houses to live with their new young wives and raise families. Mariah Eliza Harvey Loomis from Colebrook, 22 years old, marries John, and Mary Ellen Dean from Stewartstown, 18 years old, marries Harris.
In 1853, Mariah Eliza gives birth to a daughter, Adah Marie, and in 1861, to a son, Arthur Anson. In 1860, the Harvey’s all live and work in West Stewartstown. John, Mariah, Adah and Arthur live in a house near where the present house will be erected. During that period, the town is flourishing with a saw mill (K. N. Smith), a grist mill (E. A. Hammond), a starch factory (Adams Tewksbury and John Flanders), a hotel-tavern (H. Fling), an iron foundry (L. B. Graham), a cabinet shop and store, a carriage shop, a harness maker (D. G. Ripley), a “wheel wright shop”, many carpenter shops, a grocery store, a good doctor (Dr Oscar Worthley who will remain for many years), a blacksmith (Robert Jammison), a “fancy painter” and printer (Thomas Mayo), a photographer (J. W. Flanders), two Churches (The Congregational church with reverend Hill looking after the parish), several good carpenters (including John L. Harvey, owner of the original house), and many farmers. A toll covered bridge across the Connecticut River connects the town to Canaan, Vermont. You may want to consult the page about "The Town of West Stewartstown in 1861": West Stewartstown 1861 and 1892
By 1870, John L Harvey and his family decide to relocate to Colebrook. John is now over 50 years old; he works as a painter, but he is still a carpenter. The growth and size of Colebrook opens other opportunities for John to make is living painting buildings since his skills as a joiner are no longer in demand. Following the dramatic decline in timbers’ constructions, joiners are not in demand anymore; by 1840 and until 1900, building houses and barns using the Balloon-frame technique with cheap machine-cut nails has become simple and accessible to anyone who can hold a hammer. With Balloon-framing, the erection of buildings is easier and faster. It consists of long uninterrupted 4’’ by 4’’ vertical studs from the base plate to the top wall plate where the roof rafters lean on, and with floor joists sitting on Let-in ledgers notched into the vertical studs. It is somewhat similar to a woven wood basket and turns out, to the surprise of many, to be the extremely strong. An exterior sheathing made of thick planks perpendicular to the wall studs held in place by “machine-cut nails” add to the structure strength and stability.
During the same period, John and Harris decide to construct “The House” on the lot they have next to the Congregational Church on Washington Street (originally South Street). The house consists of a hybrid construction method using large timber for the base plate with mortised floor joists, one of John’s trade, and ballon framing for the remaining of the house.
Soon after the completion of the house, in 1875, Jane Hall (born Goodwin) 43 years old and her husband Hubbard Chandler Hall 51 (1824-1894), acquire from John Harvey the House, considered one of the prestigious residences in town. Hubbard is a lumberman and his profession is in high demand. With most of the family, they decide to relocate from Penobscot, Maine, to New Hampshire. They chose West Stewartstown because of the new opportunities for work with the ever tree-demanding saw mill of the town (Smith’s saw Mill, later Allen Saw & Planing mill), and also, because the Halls and the Goodwins have relatives living in West Stewartstown.
Hubbard is more than a simple lumberman. In 1879, Hubbard is credited for completing the road from West Stewartstown to Stewartstown and Clarksville.
Jane and Hubbard live in the house with 4 of their 6 children. In 1880, Hubbard is 65 years old and Jane 48, the house is full of action with their 2 daughters, Cavena 21 and Jennie 18, both school teachers at the West Stewartstown School just down across the street, and 2 sons, Eliphalet (Alaflet) 14 and Charles 11. Their oldest daughters, Evelyn 24 and Carrie 22, remained in Maine, about to get married. With Hubbard incomes and the salary from her two daughters, they are living comfortably in the large house.
By 1892, the kids are all grown up and have left the nest; the house is too big for two. Jane 60, and Hubbard 68, sell the house to a young couple, Thomas W Piper 33, born in Stewartstown, and his newly married wife Mary Cole 27, from Colebrook. Thomas is a successful grocery salesman. He has many relatives in the area; his grand-father Samuel Piper settled in the area in 1856 and had many descendants. The house is expensive; Thomas’ parents, William Piper and Olive A Keysar, will help securing the mortgage and will also move in to live with them as renters, living on the second floor of the “small house”. They have a made or servant who resides when off-duty on the third floor that was recently finished.
More information about this historic picture on this page: historic picture and its personages
As a second source of income, they have one or two boarders. One is a railroad station agent for Upper Coos Railroad in West Stewartstown. The railroad has been recently completed in 1887 and explains, in part, the economic success of region. The house atmosphere is ounce more very animated with the two generation of Piper’s under the same roof, and regular boarders and a servant.
A detailed map of the village in 1982 and its inhabitants, when the house was still owned by the Halls. you may want to read more about it on the page "West Stewartstown and its inhabitants": West Stewartstown in 1861 and 1892
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Tragically, Mary dies in 1894. A year later, Thomas finds a new wife and marries Viola “Ola” Thrasher 26. In 1904, Viola gives birth to a daughter. They name her after Thomas' mother, Olive (“Olie”).
For over 20 years, Thomas and Viola live in the house with Thomas’ mother Olive, widowed since 1896, and their daughter “Olie”. By 1910, they own the house “free of mortgage”.
In 1915, Eva B. Drew Barbour and Doctor Guy Barbour who is practicing medicine in town since 1909 offer to buy the house. It is one of the largest family house in town. They offer was good. Thomas, Viola, his mother Olive, and their daughter “Olie” relocate to Canaan, Vt. Thomas had grown up and went to school in Canaan; he has many friends in Canaan. Unfortunately, a year later, Thomas suffers the loss of both his wife Viola and his mother Olive. Viola had gallstones and suddenly became very sick, needing surgery. She dies February 03, 1916, from septicemia following an operation to remove her gallbladder (note: antibiotics became only available after World War II). His mother Olive, without her usual caretaker, dies shortly after, at the age of 84. A year later, in 1917, Thomas marries Mary Deyette (widowed, formerly “Charest”), and now lives in Canaan with his daughter “Olie”, now 15, his new wife and his three step-daughters age 16,12,11, French Canadians born “Charest”. They girls, including “Olie”, are about the same age and must have had a good time together.
The house is acquired by Eva B Drew Barbour 27, a school teacher, and her husband Doctor Guy William Barbour 31. Doctor Barbour, born in Clarksville, just North of Stewartstown, graduated from Kentucky School of Medicine in 1908. He returns home and gets married in 1909, and starts practicing medicine in West Stewartstown. He has a flourishing medical practice, and after buying the house, relocates his office in the house in one of the parlor on the first floor. Eva’s only brother Edwin Warren Drew, only 12, and mother Cora Drew 49, widowed since 1912, live with them.
Dr. Barbour and his wife Eva become the adoptive parent to a baby girl, Rachel, as soon as she was born November 25, 1920, in Ohio.
In 1930, Dr. Guy Barbour 46, lives with his wife Eva 42, Rachel 9, his step-brother Edwin Drew 27 who works as a chauffeur, and Bertha Smith 22, a servant. Cora Drew 65 went to Colebrook to take care of her aging father John who is 92. Cora will come back the following year to live with the Barbours after her father’s death.
At the age of 8, Rachel is diagnosed with brain tumor. She dies in 1931, after two years of sickness, at the young age of 10. In 1935, Edwin 32 marries Mae I Thornton 25, a school teacher from Manchester, NH. They will stay in the Barbours' house, renting the second floor of the small house.
The US Census of 1940 reveals that Dr. Barbour, now 56, lives in the house with his wife Eva 52, and his mother-in-law Cora Drew 75. Still renting, Edwin 37, is a “scaler at the lumber mill”, and Mae 29, a teacher in West Stewartstown at the Grammar school on Washington street near her house, across the street.
In 1956, Dr. Barbour dies at the age of 71 after suffering for one year of “chronic myocarditis with auricular fibrillation”. Mae and Edwin will live in the big house with Eva until her death in 1971, at the age of 82. Mae and Edwin will not have kids. Mae will be very active in the school system for many years as a teacher and administrator, while Edwin was busy as an active investor. "Almost every day, I would see Mr. Drew sitting in the park smoking his cigar and reading the Wall Street Journal" says Marc R.. "I would visit Mrs. Drew frequently, almost every day, she had been one of my best teacher and was very good at it; she was always welcoming and nice, and well dressed" says Daniel L. "Mrs. Drew always kept the house well painted. Her garden was frequently used by newlyweds to take pictures" says Jules M. who took take care of her lawn for many years.
Mae and Edwin inherit the house following Eva Barbour’s death. Ultimately, the house remained in the same family’s hands for 100 years. After Edwin’s death in 1982, Mae takes good care of the house, hiring local people to help keep it up until her death in 2002, at the respectable age of 92, but without relatives. "She left a sizable amount of invested money with the income distributed on a regular basis through a trust to her best eight friends and to the only Catholic Church in Stewartstown", says Mark R. (from reliable sources).
Without relatives to inherit her property, in 2007, the house is conveyed by Fiduciary Deed to Jean Brown (Francoeur) working at Coos County Nursing Hospital in West Stewartstown and Scott Brown. They spent the following years renovating the house with new plumbing system, new heating system, new electric circuit and house wiring, and some other major repairs.
In 2015, the house is sold to Doctor Robert J. Rose, an emergency physician working in Colebrook. He does not really live in the house, but, he completes the renovations started by the Brown’s and installs new windows, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new flooring in some rooms, and a new roof. Retired Doctor Jacques Belair and Doctor Sanaa Belair took over in 1918.
For more details about the families presented above, visit the site: The Harveys-the Halls-the Pipers-the Barbours
References:
For genealogy:
FamilySearch, available on line: https://ident.familysearch.org
Photos:
“West Stewartstown Memories”, The Town of Colebrook, M/S Printing, July 2000.
Photographic glass plate negative, courtesy of the Alice M. Ward Memorial Library, Canaan, VT
Architecture:
Andrew Cogar, architect
Maps:
West Stewartstown Villages, New Hampshire 1861 Old Town Map by H.F. Walling
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from West Stewartstown, Coos County, New Hampshire. Oct 1887
Library of Congress Geography and Map Division Washington, D.C. 20540-4650
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3744wm.g3744wm_g053951887
New Hampshire State Atlas 1892, New Hampshire
Published by D. H. Hurd & Co. in 1892. Available on line:
Books:
History of Coos County, New Hampshire, by Merrill Georgia Drew, W. A. Fergusson & Co., Syracure, 1888
https://archive.org/stream/historyofcooscou00merr/historyofcooscou00merr_djvu.txt
https://archive.org/details/historyofcooscou00merr/page/698/mode/2up?view=theater
https://archive.org/stream/historyofcooscou00merr/historyofcooscou00merr_djvu.txt
Vital Statistics of Stewartstown, N.H. From Dec. 1, 1770 to Jan. 1, 1888
by Charles E. Comp and Pub Tewksbury (Town Clerk) 1888
Contains Names & Dates of the Original Grant, Incorporation, Settlement, Marriages, Births, & Deaths. In Polk’s Medical Register and Directory of NorthAmerica.
Dixville, Colebrook, Columbia, and Stewartstown
by Susan Zizza, 2013, Arcadia Publishing. Available on line: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dixville_Colebrook_Columbia_and_Stewarts/b4gJQ5K4UhcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=west+stewartstown+nh+washington+street&pg=PA80&printsec=frontcover
Colebrook: "a Place Up Back of New Hampshire”, by Dr. William H Gifford
News and Sentinel, Incorporated, 1970, 1993, Colebrook, NH - 386 pages
Fahnestock's Pittsburgh directory for 1850, containing the names of the inhabitants of Pittsburgh, Allegheny & vicinity; their occupation, places of business and dwelling houses, also a list of the public offices, banks &c.
Pittsburgh, Printed by G. Parkin, 1850. 118 p.
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.00196193777
dcmsiabooks.fahnestockspitts00unse
