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Selections from “The Tamworth Narrative” by Marjory Gane Harkness
AN AMAZING FIND! Via an antique bookshop in Minnesota, I tracked down my own copy of this anecdotal/historical tome about my future hometown, penned in 1958.
Favorite excerpts follow…
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INTRODUCTION
A very small town has come here to be looked at, a town that has never thought to be the subject of a biography over three hundred pages long. Ever since 1830 its population has hovered over the one-thousand mark in spite of that pull of the West and of the cities that changed the face of all New England hill towns in the seventies and eighties. This means that it has never diminished to the point of losing its character or its continuity, never increased so as to cut down all the elms on Main Street of otherwise get out of hand. Moderation it has always favored. Innovation it has eyed appraisingly, making changes gradually and not for temporary resons. In an America where towns today rush to conform to a common pattern called Progress, this alone sets slightly apart a town that has not done so.
On The History of Great Hill Farm…
OFF THE HIGHWAYS
At the end of the same road is Mrs. Tozzer’s property. this was the tract marked off for himself by Jonathan Moulton when the Tamworth map was created. In the 1800′s it came into the hands of Dr. Rollins from Boston who was quite the first example of summer owner in the Great Hill section He built a plain small house and experimented with several scientific interests. he hybridized iris, he was a highly successful early photographer, one of the best in the the country, and an X-Ray authority when the subject was new. Study pigeons he worked out the principles of aviation before the Wright brother flew…
…Through Mrs. Rollins came their neighbor Dr. Francis Williams who became an X-Ray authority, having studied the subject with his brother-in-law Dr. Rollins. The Williams house was some years later transferred to President Compton of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then to Professor Louis Flaccus of Haverford College; his family still foregathers there. Mrs. Rollins also introduced the Clarke family, now in its fourth generation on their property. James Freeman Clarke, grandfather of Major Clarke of the same name, was the distinguished Unitarian writer and minister who founded the Church of the disciples in Boston and preached there until his death. He took over the very old Bennett farmstead near Dr. Rollins, and his son Eliot Clarke afterward added to it several others as the old owners wanted to sell. Dr. Rollings and Mr. Clarke got the town to move the road away from their houses for more privacy.
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The Clarke Family property spoken of is modern day “Great Hill Farm.” It seems that I have some enormous britches to fill if I am hoping to even hold a candle to the men & women who lived, worked, and vacationed on the very same land before me!
Much much more to come on the subject of Tamworth, NH history. I am only 100 pages in!
Written by robin on 06/04/2009 in Blog | Book Review | Folk Art | History | History Resources | The Farm
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