Town History

Taken from the Town History Book of 1888 by William Little (copy at Town Library)

Reprints are available through Weare Historical Society at wearehistoricalsociety.org
 

    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 measures 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.

The Olden Times

    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.

Clinton Grove Academy

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.

CHARTER FOR THE TOWN OF WEARE