Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts

Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts



 


Tree: Noyes Family Genealogy

Latitude: 42.7761100, Longitude: -71.077780


Media

Photos
Peaslee Garrison House postcard (1)
Peaslee Garrison House postcard (1)
790 East Broadway, Haverhill, MA

This house is in Haverhill, Rocks Village area. Rocks Village is on the opposite side of The Ferry Lane aka Bridge Street, West Newbury (divided by Merrimack River).

Built before 1675, the house was used as an armory at one time and was constructed with bricks imported from England. During King Philip's War the home was used as a garrison house where soldiers were stationed and people could run for protection.
Peaslee Garrison House (2)
Peaslee Garrison House (2)
Haverhill, MA
Peaslee Garrison House (3)
Peaslee Garrison House (3)
Haverhill, MA
Rocks Bridge, East Haverhill, MA postcards
Rocks Bridge, East Haverhill, MA postcards
History of Bridge:
Seat's Ferry was in operation on or near this crossing in the early 18th century; in 1794 the Massachusetts Legislature incorporated the Merrimack Bridge proprietors and approved construction of a bridge on this site. This was apparently built within the next year. The original bridge had been destroyed by 1828 when the legislature approved construction of a new bridge on the old foundations, to be 22 feet above high water at the Haverhill end. In 1862 the County commissioners were authorized to relocate and reconstruct the draw (implying that a drawspan of some kind has previously been in use here) and the present iron spans 2 & 3 were the result (the bridge had been made public in 1868). The County Commissioners were authorized to build a new iron westerly span and new abutments in 1894; the result is the structure of span 1. From 1868-1909, the towns of Haverhill & W. Newbury split the maintenance on the bride; in 1909 the County assumed full responsibility. The Legislature approved construction of the 3 eastern steel truss spans (spans 4, 5, and 6) to replace the two old wooden spans between the draw span and the West Newbury shore in 1913.
Rocks Bridge, East Haverhill, MA - modern photo
Rocks Bridge, East Haverhill, MA - modern photo
Structure Type:
Span 1: riveted Pennsylvania through truss, built 1895. Span 2: riveted, 2 intersection Warren pony truss, built 1883. Span 3: Rim-bearing, swing, through truss built in 1883. Span 4: riveted Pratt pony truss, built in 1914. Span 5: riveted Pennsylvania through truss, built in 1914. Span 6: riveted Pratt pony truss, built in 1914.

Timber decks of spans 2 and 3 apparently replaced several times, the last time between 1959 and 1965, with new timber planks and stringers.

Original timber stringers and deck of span 1 replaced in 1914 with steel stringers and a reinforced concrete deck. A new bituminous concrete wearing surface was placed in 1952.

Plans show a brick wearing surface on spans 4, 5, and 6, however this was replaced by 1941, when a bituminous concrete wearing surface was placed. Piers and abutments have been generally rebuilt. The oldest is probably the center pier under the swing span as well as the pier between spans 2 and 3, both probably dating from 1883. The swing span fender has been heavily rebuilt several times.
Pentucket Cemetery front gate
Pentucket Cemetery front gate
Pentucket Cemetery
Pentucket Cemetery
Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts
Haverhill, Essex, Massachusetts
Tarring and feathering of Ambrose Kimball
Tarring and feathering of Ambrose Kimball
While most in Massachusetts supported the Union from the beginning of the Civil War, there were many who were ambivalent about the conflict and many who supported the Confederate states’ right to secede. In the first year it was especially dangerous to speak out against the war or for the South. Those who did often faced vigilante justice.

Throughout the North, groups attacked newspapers they deemed secessionist or disloyal. One notorious incident took place in Haverhill, Massachusetts on the night of August 19, 1861, when a mob literally tarred and feathered the editor and publisher of a local newspaper and ran him out of town on a rail.

Ambrose Kimball and a friend had founded the Essex County Democrat in 1859. Kimball was from an old New England family, but as the name of the paper would suggest, he was a firm Democrat. In the lead-up to the war and during the first months, he published editorials in his paper against the Republicans and Lincoln’s war policy and in support of slavery. According to newspaper reports, Kimball’s friends had encouraged him to stop publishing these editorials, but he persisted. Eventually, a large group of Haverhill’s citizens decided to put a stop to it.

According the Haverhill Gazette, the attack on Kimball was planned in advance: “There was the most perfect order and system ever saw in such a tumultuous assemblage.” Kimball, as well, knew that there was something afoot. At 8:30 that evening, he had several friends accompany him in carriages to his home, where they were met by a mob that had followed them. The police failed to disperse the group; as historian Michael J. Connolly suggests, they were either feared for their safety or they agreed with the mob. Two of Kimball’s friends pulled out guns, but the crowd quickly disarmed them and badly roughed up one of the men.

The crowd then pulled Kimball from his house. He drew his gun, but the crowd was also well armed, and he quickly surrendered. They dragged Kimball to the Eagle House, a local inn, and demanded that he acknowledge and apologize for his anti-war statements. When he refused to reply, they demanded that he remove all of his clothes except for his underwear. The crowd then covered Kimball with tar and feathers and hoisted him on a wooden rail. They next marched him to his newspaper office and demanded that he give “three cheers” to the American flag waving overhead. After doing so weakly, they marched him around town, to the next town and the residence of one of his friends, and then back to the Eagle House.

At this point, when the mob demanded that he recant his position, Kimball complied. Kneeling and raising his hand, he swore, “I am sorry that I have published what I have, and I promise that I will never again write or publish articles against the North, and in favor of secession, so help me God.” From there, they returned him to his house, forced him to give “three cheers for the Union” and then left him alone. His friends spent the night helping him clean up, and the crowd chopped up the rail for souvenirs. Kimball returned to his newspaper the next day, but deeply embittered, he closed the Democrat the following October.

This was not yet the end of the incident for Kimball and the people of Haverhill. Early the next year, the district attorney indicted six members of the mob. The city leaders were appalled, and called a citizen’s meeting. There they authored a resolution asking the DA not to push for a trial and an 11-point petition defending the community and its actions. “We believe that in the absence of a quick remedy by the ordinary courses of law,” they wrote, “this instance if any, in its circumstances and its nature, justified the application of law by the hands of the people.” They compared their actions to those of the Boston Tea Party and they called for Kimball to be imprisoned for treason. Kimball attended most of the meeting and sat listening while his neighbors continued to vilify him. He left early, amid hisses and insults, but managed to keep his composure.

The story seems to have ended there; there is no record of further action taken in the case. Not surprisingly, Kimball could not remain in the Haverhill community. He and his wife moved to Iowa and he died of tuberculosis in November of 1866.
Pentucket Cemetery
Pentucket Cemetery
Haverhill 1708 residences
Haverhill 1708 residences
from the book "Red Sunday" by Francis W. Cronan

Documents
Haverhill map
Haverhill map
Haverhill seal
Haverhill seal

Headstones
1708 Haverhill Massacre monument
1708 Haverhill Massacre monument

Rev. Benjamin Rolfe
Mehetabel (Wainwright) Rolfe
Mehetable Rolfe
Capt. Samuel Ayer
Capt. Simon Wainwright
Lieut. John Johnson
Katherine (Skipper) Johnson
Ruth (Wiliford) Ayer, wife of Thomas Ayer
Ruth Ayer, daughter of Thomas Ayer
Ruth (Bradley) Johnson, wife of Thomas Johnson
Hannah (Frame) (Hartshorn) Smith
John Hartshorn, Jr.
John Hartshorne, III, son of John Hartshorne, Jr.
Thomas Hartshorne, son of John Hartshorne, Jr.
Jonathan Hartshorne, son of John Hartshorne, Jr.
Joanna [Hartshorne], step-mother of John, Jr.
John Dalton

Several soldiers from Salem also died in this massacre, among them:
William Coffin, husband of Sarah (Ahorn)
Veren Lindall
Samuel Sibley, husband of Sarah (Wells)




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