Town: Alt. 561, pop. 12,377, sett. 1762, incorp. 1764.
Railroad Stations: B. & M. R.R., Main Station, Pleasant St.
Bus Stations: B. & M. Transp. Co., Hotel Moody, Tremont Square; Champlain-Frontier Coach Line, Vermont Transit Co., Bee Line, Inc., Condos Bus station, Tremont Square.
Taxis: 25¢ within 1 m. of Tremont Square.
Traffic Regulations: Three parking spaces on Pine St. off Pleasant St.
Accommodations: Three hotels.
Tourist Information Service: At north end of Broad Street Park, near Town Hall, during summer months.
Swimming: Boynton Swimming Pool (public, free), foot of North St.
Annual Event: Russian Easter celebration.
CLAREMONT is larger in population than three of the cities of the State, but prefers not to be organized as one. It is the largest town in the State. Situated above the Sugar River, it is modern in many ways, but still has many visible evidences of a Colonial past in its old well-kept homes and extensive and well-shaded lawns. A nature magazine once referred to Claremont as ‘the town that takes care of its trees.’ Claremont is surrounded by hills, among them Green Mountain (alt. 1800) on the northeast, from which in large part the town water supply is drawn, Bible Hill and Flat Rock on the south, and Twist Back Hill on the west.
Dividing the community geographically as well as socially is Sugar River, which has its source in Lake Sunapee and runs from east to west emptying into the Connecticut in West Claremont. Along its banks are many mills and factories. South of the river is the business and old residential quarter, and north of it is the newer tenement house section, where centers an interesting group consisting mainly of French-Canadians, Poles, and Russians. Many Scandinavians have bought old farms on Town Hill in the western part, and their appreciation of the Colonial history of their houses is marked by their excellent care of them, and of the land.
The center of the town is Tremont Square, from which radiates the business section of two- and three-story brick buildings, nearly all of which have been remodeled. Since this is the shopping district, not only for the town, but for surrounding villages in both New Hampshire and Vermont, the square is a busy place.
Claremont maintains a high degree of culture and social interest. Congregations representing eleven major denominations and groups of several minor sects contribute to the religious life of the town. Among the outstanding social service organizations are monthly health clinics for cancer and tuberculosis. The New Hampshire Tuberculosis Association was started here in 1921. National fraternal and patriotic organizations have active groups, and in addition there are a number of Scandinavian, Polish, and French organizations. A cultural club made up of women, the Monday Reading Club, meets weekly to discuss current books, and has been in existence for nearly half a century. Claremont is much interested in dramatics, the high school having a dramatic club and the town two very active clubs. The Community Players won a State award in 1934.
Claremont is a music-loving town, due in part to the large number of foreign-born inhabitants and their children. A town band is supported; and the high school has two bands and a symphony orchestra. The Stevens A Band has twice been rated the best high school band in the State.
The most exotic cultural event in Claremont is the Easter observance of the Russian inhabitants. The service begins at 11.30 o’clock on Holy Saturday. At midnight a procession is formed, led by the priest carrying above his head a representation of a coffin in which lies the Saviour. He is followed by the men of the fraternity of the church carrying crosses and ikons, and by the choir with lighted candles, singing ‘Christ Is Risen,’ and lastly by the congregation. After traversing the streets, they return to the church, where, standing outside, the choir and congregation sing an antiphonal response. Finally they exchange kisses and enter the church for the rest of the service. Another event among local Russians is a Christmas entertainment in the Town Hall for their own people. Gifts are distributed from the tree by ‘Old Man Frost,’ who takes the place of Santa Claus.
Claremont was granted in 1764, taking the name of Claremont in honor of Governor Benning Wentworth’s friend, Lord Clive, whose English estate bore that name. Only three of the sixty-nine grantees ever settled here and they were preceded in 1762 by two Connecticut men, Moses Spafford and David Lynde. The settlement spread almost immediately to Town Hill, where many of the old houses, some of them former taverns and early farms, still remain.
The inhabitants soon began to realize the possibilities of using the waterpower of Sugar River, which in Claremont has a fall of three hundred feet. In 1767, Colonel Benjamin Tyler built the first dam across the river and erected a small grist and saw mill. He also brought ore from Charlestown and started a forge and smelting works. Eight years later, he erected a gristmill in the Lower Village, and in 1800 a flax mill to prepare flax for the old hand-spinning wheels was put in operation.
Industries continued to multiply in the town, among them shoe factories, and in 1813 Asa Meacham built the first mill for the manufacture of woolen goods. In 1810, the first Merino sheep ever imported into this country were brought by William Jarvis, consul to Spain, and introduced into Claremont by his kinsman, Dr. Leonard Jarvis. In 1831, the Sugar River Manufacturing Company was granted a charter for manufacturing cotton and woolen goods; the name in 1846 was changed to the Monadnock Mills. For about a century these mills were important factors in the growth and prosperity of Claremont, manufacturing the famous Marseilles quilts, and at one time were reputed to be the largest bedspread mills in America.
Although paper-making had been begun as early as 1810 in West Claremont and is still carried on by the Coy Paper Company (see Tour 11), it was not until 1866 that the Sugar River Paper Company was organized in Claremont to produce print paper. This company later took the name of the Claremont Paper Company and now specializes in Kraft paper.
Another of Claremont’s industries began in 1868, when Roger W. Love and Albert Ball of Windsor, Vermont, came to Claremont to interview James Phineas Upham in regard to some newly invented and patented stone-channeling machinery. They are said to have found Mr. Upham pruning apple trees near the highway and to have spread out the drawing of their invention on a large flat stone. This was the romantic beginning of the present large industry known as the Sullivan Machinery Company, which in 1851 took over the foundry and machinery business of D. A. Clay and Company. In April, 1891, the company was consolidated with the Diamond Prospecting Company of Chicago in the production of the celebrated Diamond Drills and various types of mining and mill machinery.
The first railroad, known as the Sullivan, reached Claremont in 1849, by way of the Connecticut Valley, but a greater impetus to the growth of the town came with the completion of the Concord and Claremont Railroad in 1871–72, thus bringing it into closer communication with such important centers as Concord and Boston.
After annexing part of Unity in 1828, Claremont’s growth was steady through the years, as is evidenced by its increase in population from 2526 in 1830 to 12,377 in 1930. Present industries include foundries, manufactories of knitting, hosiery machinery, hosiery, needles, paper and mining machinery.
TOUR l — 2m.
Tremont Square.
1. Tremont Square is the heart of Claremont. In the center of it, the Rossiter Drinking Fountain is said to have its base on the steps of the Old Tremont Hotel, built in 1800 by Josiah Stevens, one of the first merchants in town, and burned in 1879. Lafayette is said to have stopped in this hotel on his way through Claremont in 1825.
2. On the southeast corner of the Square is the brick Town Hall, which was erected in 1896, and is a successor to the old Town House built on Junction Road in 1785. In addition to the usual town offices, the building has an opera hall. Public rest rooms are available here.
S. from Tremont Sq. on Broad St.
Broad Street is one of the widest residential streets in New England, averaging 165 feet in width.
3. Broad Street Park, a triangular plot, was a gift of Colonel Josiah Stevens. In the center of the park a Soldiers’ Monument, a bronze figure of an infantry soldier, was designed by Martin Milmore, a contemporary of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who also designed the soldiers’ and sailors’ monument on Boston Common and the huge granite sphinx in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Peterborough so approved of this monument that it has a duplicate in its Town Common. Weekly band concerts are held in this park during the summer.
4. The Fiske Free Library (open 10 to 9 except Sundays and holidays), Broad St. (L), a Carnegie Fund structure of stone, was built in 1903. In 1873, Samuel P. Fiske, a native of Claremont, founded a library by giving the town 2000 volumes. At their death, Mr. and Mrs. Fiske left $10,000 for the purchase of books. In the basement are three Historical Rooms, the first containing furniture, jewelry, pictures, china, clothing, maps, books, dolls, and many other articles, mostly connected with early Claremont history. The second room includes such household implements as spinning wheels, looms, swifts, and candle molds. In the third room is a natural history collection, consisting of minerals, shells, mounted birds, and bird eggs. On the main floor is a small art collection given by the family of George Farwell, consisting of several fine originals, excellent copies of masterpieces, photographs, porcelains, and a few pieces of sculpture. Rod Miller, one of Claremont’s most distinguished artists, has lent some of his best-known landscapes to the Library.
1. Tremont Square
2. Town Hall
3. Broad Street Park
4. Fiske Free Library
5. Trinity Church
6. Stevens House
7. Clark House
8. Sullivan Machinery Company
9. Four Southern Houses
10. Swasey House
11. Ball House
12. Woolson Birthplace
13. Dexter House
The Library has a Tall Clock, a duplicate of that in the Green Vault in the royal palace of the kings of Saxony in Dresden, Germany, lent by the Farwell family. The clock is made of inlaid rosewood, with brass trimmings, and stands nearly nine feet in height. On top of the clock is a brass figure of Atlas bearing the world on his shoulders, to the left a winged-footed Mercury, and to the right a figure of a woman, running, probably representing Atalanta. The signs of the zodiac, and the month, day, hour, minute, and seconds are all registered on the face. On the face appears the name of Samuel Ruel Ratterdan, an English clockmaker of Queen Anne’s time. The clock was given about the year 1880 to Mr. Farwell by his friend Alfred Sully of New York City. Mr. Sully’s agents are said to have scoured Europe to fill the order for a valuable antique tall clock, and when landed in New York it cost him $1000. For 80 years the clock had been in a Dutch admiral’s family.
5. Trinity Episcopal Church, Broad St. (L), a neo-Gothic structure of wood, has several stained-glass windows of interest, that over the altar having been designed by Harry Kensington Lloyd, a native of Claremont.
6. The Stevens House (not open) (R), Broad St., a Doric-styled southern Colonial brick house, was the home of Paran Stevens, who was at one time the proprietor of the old Tremont Hotel, built by his father. In 1843, Mr. Stevens was asked to take charge of the New England Coffee House, in Boston, built in 1846, and supposed at that time to be the most elegantly furnished and equipped hotel in the country. He later became general manager of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York City; the Continental, Philadelphia; the Battle House, Mobile, Alabama; and the Tremont House, Boston. He has been called ‘the father of the American hotel system.’ His gifts to Claremont made possible the Stevens High School.
R. from Broad St. on East St.; R. from East St. on Pleasant St.
7. ‘Father Endeavor’ Clark House, 108 Pleasant St. (R), a two-story frame house, was the boyhood home of the Rev. Francis E. Clark, D.D. (1851–1927), the adopted son of the Rev. Edward W. Clark, minister of the Congregational Church. In 1881, while pastor in Portland, Maine, Dr. Clark founded the Young People’s Society of Christian Endeavor and was affectionately termed ‘Father Endeavor’ by members of that organization.
TOUR 2 — 2 m.
W. from Tremont Sq. on Main St.
8. The Sullivan Machinery Company, Main St. (R), Claremont’s most important single concern, occupies a number of brick buildings. It was organized in 1851, but since 1891, when it was consolidated with the Diamond Prospecting Company of Chicago, it has specialized in the manufacture of air compressors, coal mining and rock drilling machinery. One of its best-known products is the Diamond Drill.
L. from Main St. on Central St.
9. Four Southern Houses, Central St. (L), brick structures, Doric in style and built in 1835 and 1836 by Charles L. Putnam, Simeon Ide, Ormon Dutton, and Henry Russell, are now owned by the Roman Catholic Church. Two of them are occupied by St. Mary’s Parochial School, opened in 1890 under management of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary, who were replaced by the Sisters of Mercy in 1896. In 1921, a high school was added. While the interior of these buildings has been changed, the outer structure has been left intact.
10. The Swasey House (not open), 5 Central St. (R), a Doric-styled southern Colonial frame house with northern Colonial roof, was built in 1780 by John Swasey on land under a 99-year lease. The oldest daughter married Captain Henry Partridge, who founded the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1802 and later sold it to the U.S. Government. When Captain Partridge was actively engaged in warfare in Turkey, he rescued an Armenian boy, Colvocoresses, by throwing an American flag over him. Later the boy was brought to America and grew up in Captain Partridge’s home. He married Swasey’s youngest daughter and became a captain in the U.S. Army.
L. from Central St. on Walnut St.; R. from Walnut St. on Myrtle St.
11. The Ball House, 31 Myrtle St. (R), was the home of the inventor Albert Ball. At Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1863, he devised his first invention, a combined repeating and single-loading rifle, popularly known as the Springfield rifle. Coming to Claremont in 1868, he formed a partnership with James Upham to manufacture another of his inventions, a diamond drill channeling machine for quarrying stone, especially marble. In 1873, Upham, Ball, and others organized the Sullivan Machinery Company, Ball becoming the chief mechanical engineer. Among his many inventions in mining and quarrying machines was a diamond four-core drill, capable of boring a mile deep, that was first used in opening up the gold fields of the South African Transvaal. Ball received 135 patents for various inventions.
L. from Myrtle St. on Walnut St.; R. from Walnut St. on Sullivan St.
12. The office of the Claremont Daily Eagle (established in 1834), Sullivan St. (L), is on the Site of the Birthplace of Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–94), 19th-century author, among whose books are ‘For the Major,’ ‘Jupiter Lights,’ and ‘East Angels.’ Miss Woolson’s grandfather made the first successful cook stove in America about 1818.
13. The Dexter House (1810), North St. (NE. from Tremont Square 0.5 m.), has unusual architectural interest. A five-bay, gabled frame structure, its doorway and cornice have superb ornamentation. Instead of the dentils customary in a house of this type, a sub-frieze of varied yet harmonious motifs surmounts the doorway and is repeated in the main cornice. Small-paned windows in the first story have reeded and denticulated caps. Giving an impression of delicate sophistication, the parlor is elaborately ornamented, with reeding in the baseboards, door trim, and cornice. The cornice also contains fine dentils. The fluted mantel is enriched with elaborate moldings of fruit clusters and urns.
Outstanding Points of Interest in the Environs:
Halfway House, 0.75 m. W.; Tory Hole, l m. N.; Town Hill, 1.5 m. W.; John Tyler House, 1.5 m. W.; Union Church (1768), 1.75 m. W.; First Roman Catholic Church in the State (1823–25), 1.75 m. W.; High Bridge, 2 m. W.; Lottery Bridge, 4.5 m. W. (see Tour 11); Birthplace of Judge Salmon P. Chase, 6 m. W. (see Tour 4A).