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| Town of Weare New Hampshire: History | |||||||||
| Taken from the Town History Book of 1888 by William Little (copy at Town Library) | |||||||||
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Town of Weare Seal |
Population (year 2000): 7,776,
Est. population in July 2004: 8,542 (+9.9%
change) Males: 3,910 (50.3%), Females: 3,866 (49.7%) Elevation: 635 feet County: Hillsborough Median resident age: 34.1 years Median household income: $59,924 (year 2000) Median house value: $123,800 (year 2000) Weare, NH residents, houses, and apartments details Races in Weare: White Non-Hispanic (97.8%) Two or more races (0.7%) Hispanic (0.7%) American Indian (0.6%) Ancestries: Irish (19.1%), English (18.8%), French (12.7%), French Canadian (11.9%), German (11.3%), United States (8.9%).
Latitude: 43.09 N, Longitude:
71.73 W |
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To preserve the annuals of Weare
was an idea long cherished by the citizens.
Josiah G. Dearborn and Abner P. Collins each
began collecting historical facts and family
records about 1850; but a town history was not
written. After years of waiting, a meeting was
held at the town-house, March 1, 1882, to take
mmeasures to prepare and publish one.
Twenty-eight men were present; John L. Hadley
was chairman, and Albert B. Johnson secretary.
They selected a general committee of twenty-six
persons* to aid in the work, and a publishing
committee, consisting of David Cross, Josiah G.
Dearborn, Abner P. Collins, Robert Peaslee and
Sylvester C. Gould, who were to collect
material, write the book or procure a writer,
and publish the same when authorized by the
town. At the annual town-meeting, March 14, 1882 five hundred dollars was appropriated towards paying the preliminary expenses, to be expended by the publishing committee, and John L. Hadley, Albert B. Johnson, Abner P. Collins and Robert Peaslee were chosen a finance committee to approve the bills. Under this arrangement many circulars were distributed, a large amount of material gathered and a writer engaged. |
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| Olden Times | |||||||||
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Our early settlers, as has been
told, resided in log cabins. They procured their
food by tilling the land, hunting and fishing.
They were crude farmers. At first they could not
plow their fields, by reason of the stumps and
logs. They dug the soil and hoed in their seed
with a clumsy hoe, made by the common
blacksmith. It required hurculean strength to
wield it. They had no carts, and the manure,
shoveled with coarse wooden shovels, was borne
to the field in rough shods, or lugged in
baskets on their shoulders. The women and girls
often worked in the fields. They could drive
oxen, hold plow, shovel, plant potatoes and
corn, hoe, mow, reap and bind, harvest, take
care of the barn and split wood at the door as
well as the men. But often farm products were scanty. Game from the woods and fish from the ponds, streams and Amoskeag falls were then a great help. At first, their facilities for cooking were very crude, it having to be done by the fire in the great, stone fire-place. |
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Clinton Grove Academy was the first Quaker seminary in New Hampshire. Moses Cartland, who was headmaster for fourteen years, founded the school in 1834. Moses Cartland named the village in which the Academy stands, "Clinton Grove" in honor of DeWitt Clinton, chief sponsor of the Erie Canal. The original Academy served as a private high school. The complex included a classroom building, boarding house, barn and sheds. Students came from as far away as Ontario, Nova Scotia, Minnesota and Texas. The Academy closed in 1847 and reopened in 1851 with a celebration by the alumni. In 1872, the Academy complex burned and classes were continued in the Quaker meetinghouse across the common until 1874, when the current building was completed. From 1877 to 1938, the Academy building served as a Weare district school. In 1933, the Academy's auditorium was used for regular church services and Sunday school. Electricity was installed that year and the auditorium papered. The building was also used as a meeting place for Girl Scouts and a women's organization. In 1934, during the occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary celebration of the Academy's founding, a bronze plaque was set in the boulder in the schoolyard with an inscription written by John Greenleaf Whittier about his cousin, Moses Cartland. |
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