By Bill Nichols
Whenever I finish writing an article for the Limrik, I immediately think about what I will write about for the next issue and every time I hit a blank wall. If I was a real writer, I think they would call it writer’s block, but for me it is a case of what will interest you as the reader. It’s not as if nothing has happened in Antrim over the past 277 years, (1744 being the year Philip Raleigh settled within the boundaries of Antrim) but what little piece of history should I choose to write about this month?
I could write about the Great Conflagration of North Branch from 1888 or the flooding of the area that is now known as Pierce Lake in 1927. Maybe the last surviving Native American to live in Antrim, Peter Waugh in 1815 or perhaps David H. Goodell, entrepreneur and owner of the Antrim Shovel Company, Goodell Company and Governor of the State of New Hampshire. These would all be interesting topics of different lengths, but in this issue, I’ve decided to write about the histories of Antrim. We are very fortunate to have many histories written about Antrim, which are available at the Tuttle Library, and in this issue, I will touch on each one just a little bit.
In 1852, the Reverend John M. Whiton published the first written history of Antrim, History of the Town of Antrim for a period of one century; from 1744 to 1844. Whiton was quite a man, which can be derived from the wonderful words written about him by Reverend Ralph H. Tibbals. Born in Worcester, Ma. in 1785, he graduated from Yale in 1805 and married Abby Morris in 1808. Whiton first preached in Antrim in 1807. The town offered him the job as town pastor but he declined. The next year, 1808, the town offered again and he accepted and stayed on until his resignation in 1853. Whiton died in 1856. There is much more written about Whiton in Tibbals’ genealogical record for you to read for yourself, but in his own history, Whiton only mentions himself once.
Shortly after being hired in 1808, Whiton began collecting information from the citizens about the history of Antrim. He did this not only for his own curiosity but as a thank you to the citizens of Antrim for accepting him into their town. Whiton was also responsible for a history of New Hampshire, which he published in 1834 as well as an account of the ministers of Hillsborough County. When he died, he had almost finished his history of Presbyterianism in New Hampshire. Whiton’s father-in-law, James Morris, was a Captain in the Revolutionary army and spent some time on General George Washington’s staff.
Although Whiton’s first history is only 95 pages and includes a brief genealogy, it is a most remarkable source for understanding the beginning of our little town. Had he not had the forethought to interview the citizens of Antrim, we could have lost the first one hundred years of our history. We would have to rely on the next town history that was published in 1880 by the Reverend Warren R. Cochrane, History of the Town of Antrim New Hampshire, from its earliest settlement, to June 27, 1877, with a brief genealogical record of all the Antrim Families.
Some of what you can read in this history comes from Whiton’s original writing with Cochrane adding his update, but the genealogical record that Cochrane composed is an indispensable piece of work. His genealogical record begins on page 331 and continues on through page 785 and covers every family and person that was living in Antrim up until 1877. The amount of work compiling all this information 144 years ago without a telephone, motor vehicle or the internet is absolutely mind-blowing, to say the least.
Whenever the Antrim Historical Society receives a request for information on a family or historical event, Cochrane’s history is our go to.
Cochrane was born in New Boston in 1835 and graduated from Dartmouth in 1859, with what I believe was a degree in teaching, and came to Antrim in 1868 and was soon ordained in 1869. He married, in Dunbarton, a Lilla Cochran in 1864. Cochrane began his ministry in the Presbyterian Church located in Antrim Centre, and along with publishing our second town history, Cochrane also published a volume of “Poems” in 1908. He was also a co-author of the Francestown history, 1758 to 1891 which was published in 1895. In 1888, Dartmouth college “...conferred upon him, entirely unsought, the degree of D.D.” (Doctor of Divinity). In 1896, when Cochrane’s recent written history, published in 1880, was still fairly recent, the town started making preparations for its next town history. Unfortunately, it would be another 81 years before this history would come to fruition. Cochrane died in 1912. In 1938, the largest amount of money to be raised at town meeting was $4,000 (that’s about $77,000 in 2021) to publish a revised History of Antrim in one or two volumes.
Reverend Ralph H. Tibbals, was born in Milford, Ct. in 1878. His sixth great-grandfather, Thomas Tibbals, along with 42 others, left New Haven, Ct. in 1639 and formed the first settlement of Milford, Ct. Tibbals graduated from Colgate College in 1903 and Hamilton Theological Seminary in 1906 and was ordained in 1905. In 1906 he was married to Lewey Belle in Kent, Ct. He resigned as Pastor of Williamstown, Ma. in 1918 to enter the United States army as a Chaplain in World War I. In 1922 he came from Pennsylvania to Antrim as the pastor of the Baptist Church. In 1967, Genealogical Record, Antrim, New Hampshire, Families 1877 - 1940 approximately was published by the Town of Antrim. At some point between 1938, when the funds were raised, and 1967, when the genealogical record was published, the History Committee realized that they didn’t have funds enough to publish both Tibbals’ town history research and his genealogical research, so they opted to publish the genealogy only, writing “with a continually increasing interest in family records, (it) appeared the more important data to preserve and which could be prepared for publication well within our monetary and editorial limitations”. William H. Hurlin, for the committee.
When Tibbals began his work on the history and genealogical record is unknown, but 22 years later it was finally published, but Tibbals never got to see his work in print as he had died in 1945. One day when I was snooping around the museum above the library, I came across a wooden crate at the bottom of a pile of artifacts that were waiting to be cataloged. When I opened it, I was surprised to see it full of 3x5 index cards. After looking at them for a few minutes, I realized that what I was looking at was the original handwritten work of Tibbals from the 1930s and 40s. This crate of 3x5 index cards was turned into the next Antrim genealogical record which is an astonishing 640 pages. In 1968, the year after the publishing of Tibbals’ genealogy, the town appointed a committee to work on the next town history, but before the next written history could be completed, three of its committee members had passed away, but their work was used in the final product. What one man completed in 1852, 1880 and 1940, took a group of no less than 11 people to complete in 1977 and was printed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the incorporation of the Town of Antrim.
Parades and Promenades Antrim, New Hampshire...the second hundred years was published in 1977 by the Antrim History Committee. This 303-page volume is a work of art and a pleasure to read. It includes Cochrane revisited, a chronology through 1977, and for the first time in the history books, photos of years gone by. What it did lack was a town genealogy, which would have been an enormous task to complete, taking into consideration that the last one was completed around 1940. This volume of Antrim’s history is still available for purchase and all the others are available to read at the library or historical society.
Another history, of sorts, was published in 1993 after many years of work. David Hurlin, former owner of Goodell Company, became curious about the house he had been living in and what other families had lived there. He turned his curiosity into many years of investigating the histories of the houses of Antrim. That research turned into several notebooks full of
information about each of the houses built in Antrim, which includes in many cases, when it was built, who built it, who lived there and when and where the owners lived before they moved in and any other historical information that he could find in the previous histories of Antrim and the Antrim Reporter. Also included are many photos of the houses as they stood. This was an enormous project with a wealth of information, especially to people looking to buy a house in town. Every time I use it as a reference, I shake my head in amazement at the work David put into his project. It truly was a labor of love and I like to refer to it as Hurlin’s Houses.
Just 4 years later, the Historical Society published their 98-page pictorial history, A Stroll Through Antrim N.H., which contains over 200 photos from the archives as well as private collections. The informative text was written by David Hurlin and on August 24, 1997 the Antrim Historical Society held an “Authors Tea” at the Maplehurst Inn to showcase their new history. The paper for this book was donated by the ever-generous Monadnock Paper Mills.
We are very fortunate to have these publications available for us to use in our historical research. Shortly, we will begin working on our next publication which we hope to have finished and ready for distribution in 2027 when we celebrate our Sestercentennial. These, and a few other publications not mentioned, are available at the Historical Society and Tuttle Library for you to peruse and if you would like some help with research, we are always available to assist. Just stop by the museum or email us at antrimhistoricalsociety@gmail.com.
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