Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/80

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��TRAVELING ACCOMMODATION'S IN" HOPKINTON.

��Roads and attendant accommodations were multiplied with the growth of the local settlement. On May 12, 1766, it was voted to build a boat in the Con- toocook river, said boat to be as large as Deacon Merrill's boat in Concord, for the accommodation of people passing be- tween Hopkinton and New Auiesbury (now Warner). On March 2, 1772, a vote was passed appropriating thirty pounds in labor for the construction of a bridge across the Contoocook.

The increasing need of facile inter- communication between more distant lo- calities at length led to the establish- ment of better public thoroughfares. In 1805 the present communication between the two villages was established, by building the road from Putney's Hill to the meeting-house, relieving people of the necessity of climbing the southern brow of the hill or taking the easterly route leaving the lower village just north of the blacksmith shop of Horace Ed- munds, and thence running to a point just west of the house of S. B. Gage, where it connected with the present highway at this spot. In 1815 the road known as the "turnpike" was con- structed. It was a main line to Con- cord, avoiding the toilsome Dimond Hill road on the east. In 1827 the so-called "■new road" from Hopkinton village to Dunbarton was built. This was to ac- commodate a public stage route between Boston and Hanover, which, south of Hopkintontooka westerly direction. The well known Basset Mill road was con- structed in 1836. The so-called " new road" to Concord was built about 1841. This was also in accommodation of a stage route between Hopkinton and Con- cord and more distant points.

HOTELS.

Among the first taverners in Hopkin- ton were Benjamin Wigginand Theophi- lis Stanley. Several persons quite early were engaged in hotel keeping on the site of the old Perkins House. The most notable of these earliest landlords was Mr. Wiggin, who was justice, postmas- ter and trader also. He came to this town from Stratham, N. H., and became established as a landlord as early as 1774, which date was inscribed upon his old-

��fashioned swinging sign-board, one-half in each upper corner. On the bottom of this sign-board was the significant an- nouncement, " Entertainment by B. W." This sign-board also bore a painted rep- resentation of a man on horseback fol- lowed by two dogs. Never were worse proportions delineated. The man's waist was shrunk up to comparative nothing- ness, while his lower extremities en- larged into feet of enormous proportions. Benjamin Wiggin's hotel is still stand- ing, being the house next westerly to the Episcopal Church. In front of this situ- ation the Rev. Mr. Cram, the third min- ister in town, was ordained out of doors in the month of February. A reception was given to General Lafayette in the same place, on his visit to this country in 1824. Mr. Wiggin died in 1822. He was a man of much public spirit and social generosity. After his death the tavern stand was sold to Benjamin Greenleaf of Salisbury, N. H. Subsequently it has passed through various hands.

Capt. Birnsley Perkins' tavern was for many years a hotel par excellence. It was the grand hotel of all this region. It stood on the site of the late remodeled " Perkins House." In the days of its highest prosperity there were three lines of stages passing through the town. Hopkinton was then one of the shire towns of old Hillsborough county, and for a time the capital of the State. Here came the old legislators — John Langdon, John Sullivan, Daniel and Ezekiel Web- ster, and a host of others. Great times were seen here on public days. The best fare was always to be had. Although Capt. Perkins was the most noted ruler of this house, he was. not. its first land- lord. Public house was kept here by several persons previous to him. It is not definitely known to us when the tavern was erected, but once a piece of plaster fell from a wall, reveling the date 1786 on the lathing. When the old meeting house was burned in 1789, it was kept by a Mr. Babson. Subsequent to the burning a town meeting was called at this tavern, and the gathering being large, it was adjourned '• to Mr. Babson's barn yard," where important business was transacted. Being the principal

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