Manchester: The Mills and the Immigrant Experience

By Gary Samson

This fascinating and moving book brings to life the industrial and immigrant experience which gave birth to Manchester in the nineteenth century and continued to shape the city's destiny well into the twentieth century. More than a hundred years ago, thousands of immigrants from Europe and Canada were drawn to the mills of Manchester by the promise of a better life. In stirring photographs and text, Manchester: The Mill and the Immigrant Experience examines the aspirations, the struggles, and the everyday adventures of Manchester's immigrant families. Reaffirming the power of photography to move and inform us, Manchester: The Mills and the Immigrant Experience creates a vivid picture of life during nearly a century of rapid industrial change. We join the bustle of Elm and Hanover Streets in the 1880s, witness children working at the mighty Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, enter a Greek coffeehouse in the early 1900s, get caught up in the bitter labor strikes of the 1920s, and meet unusual local figures such as the Hermit of Mosquito Pond.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Oct 30, 2000
• ISBN: 9781439627440

Gary Samson

Gary Samson is an accomplished fine arts photographer and New Hampshire Artist Laureate whose work has been exhibited internationally. He chaired the Photography Department at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. He is professor emeritus of photography at the Institute of Art and Design at New England College. He is photographer for Talking New Orleans Music: Crescent City Musicians Talk about Their Lives, Their Music, and Their City, published by University Press of Mississippi.

Book preview

(LC)

One

MANCHESTER AND THE MERRIMACK RIVER

Throughout the history of mankind, water has served as a gathering place for the peoples of the world. The Merrimack River is no exception. The water source that eventually powered the Industrial Revolution in New Hampshire also gave sustenance to the Penacook people and their many divisions prior to their discovery by early European explorers. Unfortunately, few sites on the banks of the Merrimack have been the subject of professional archaeological studies. As a result, there is a minimal amount of information with which to reconstruct the lives of these native peoples of the Northeast.

It is known that the Penacooks and the Abenakis, for the most part, shared the territory from northeastern Massachusetts to Maine, with the Penacooks occupying most of New Hampshire. This northeastern confederacy, the most powerful east of the Mohawks, was led by Passaconaway and consisted of the Agawan, Wamesit, Nashua, Souhegan, Amoskeag, Penacook, and Winnipesaukee tribes. Like all New England Indians, these two tribes belonged to the Algonquian family. They were also divided into smaller, local groups along the Merrimack, with the Penacook tribe predominating in the area of Concord, New Hampshire.

Passaconaway spent part of each year at the Amoskeag Falls. The Amoskeag, or Nemaske, Falls derives its name from the fact that it was a great fishing center for the Indians. Namaos, meaning a fish, and auke, a place, well described the importance of this area to the original inhabitants, for even if their harvests and traps failed them, Namaske, the fishing place, never did. The Falls were considered the best fishing grounds between Pawtucket and Winnipesaukee.

In preparation for the fishing season, a weir was constructed consisting of a line of sturdy stakes extended across the river at 10- to 12-foot intervals. These were interwoven with birch tops and other brushwood in order to form an effective barrier. A narrow passage was left on one side of the stream so that the fish were free to pass through. Historians are relatively sure that a scientific pamphlet published in London at the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, mentions the Falls, so we do know that subsequent visitors knew of them.

Boating on the Merrimack. Photographer unknown, circa 1870. (RBP)

The first explorations of the river were motivated by the desire to find its source. Four explorers, including Captain Simon Willard and Captain Edward Johnson, were dispatched in 1652 by the Massachusetts General Court. They discovered that the Merrimack River flowed from Lake Winnipesaukee.

The early explorers of the river valley encountered small Indian villages. According to John and Anna Lovewell, two of the first settlers in the Nashua area, approximately twenty-five inhabitants of Dunstable (as Nashua was then known) were massacred by Indians between 1673 and 1724. In 1725, the Treaty at Casco Bay, Maine, finally settled these violent conflicts between the Native Americans and the European settlers. The battle leading to this treaty was immortalized in folk song and in the following poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

LOVEWELLS FIGHT

Cold, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast

That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast,

As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear,

Sighs a requiem sad o’er the warrior’s bier.

The war-whoop is still, and the savage’s yell

Has sunk into silence along the wild dell;

The din of the battle, the tumult, is o’er,

And the war-clarion’s voice is now heard no more.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As the towns along the Merrimack River grew and prospered, the uses of the waterway increased. Fishing continued to play an important part in river life. In addition, the river was used to transport both passengers and commercial goods. Ferries operated across the river to Hudson and Litchfield from 1729 until bridges were constructed. Pleasure boats and freight barges were also part of the river traffic.

A portion of Blodget’s old lock and canal system, which fell into disuse upon the opening of the steam railroad. In June 1855, the state legislature granted the Amoskeag Company permission to discontinue operation of the locks. Photograph by A.D. Stark, circa 1875.