Now on view through May 31, 2020

BY KATRINA HOLMAN

​

      AMHERST – The tradition continues! The debut of this unique

and popular collectible was merely delayed by a few

months – like so much else in this novel pandemic

season. But in compensation, this year’s glass

collectible – 32nd in the Historic Amherst series –

is especially pretty with purple color and fine

detail. The motif for the 2020 suncatcher is the

old tavern, with stage coach, at 244 Boston

Post Road, where now is Karen’s Cleaning.

This original design was commissioned by

Nipmugs, a local chapter of The Questers,

from a New Hampshire craftsman, Old

Hancock Glass works of Antrim, who hand-

presses each piece, giving the suncatchers

their special character. Proceeds from suncatcher

sales go to the preservation and restoration of

historic artifacts and buildings. The new suncatcher

costs $12 and can be bought at Mike’s Auto in Amherst

Village; or call Anne Krantz at 673-9684.

Tavern History

      There were four inns operating in Amherst in 1820, when John Farmer published his history of Amherst – and this must have been one of them. It is one of the oldest houses in Amherst, but when-exactly in the 18th century it was built is lost in the fog of the past. Its two-decades-plus span as a tavern can be documented from 1813 to 1836, split among five tavernkeepers aka innkeepers. Lying about one mile south of the Village Common on the old post road to Boston, it was close-enough lodging for those attending court sessions and it was an ideal spot for drovers traveling from Vermont or the towns along the 2nd N.H Turnpike to Boston market, who wanted to park their livestock nearby while they availed themselves of the multiple stores in this shire town. Edward D. Boylston (1814-1895), publisher of the Farmers’ Cabinet newspaper, in his memoir Sketch of a Busy Life (1892) recalled the great droves of cattle and sheep of his childhood:  “[The droves] afforded fine sport for the boys, and some benefit, for every lad had his whip, and was on the lookout for their coming, ready to aid in hurrying them down to French’s [226 BPR which was a tavern from 1801 until about 1807] or Rhodes’s [244 BPR], and always returning with a few coppers in their pockets.”

      With “about 80 acres of good wood-land, pasturing [and] a small orchard,” there was plenty of land for that peculiar early 19th-century fall and winter entertainment, the turkey (and sometimes goose or chicken) shoot of farm-raised birds. There was also a “brick yard” on the property, which explains the attraction of this particular property for a couple of the innkeepers here. They all had the dual occupations of innkeeping and farming – but some even had treble occupations.

      Jonathan Foster (probably c. 1773-1849) kept this tavern-inn, possibly as early as 1811, but definitely 1813-1817 and again 1818-1820. Foster organized “Turkey Shooting” for “sportsmen” held on 3 January 1814, with “thirty or forty turkies”. Foster was an experienced taverner, but bounced around. Foster resided in Milford Feb. 1806 before moving to Amherst to keep the inn of lately deceased Levi Adams in Danforth’s Corner at 107 Ponemah Road near the Hollis line, obtaining his first tavern-keeping license from Amherst Selectmen in Sep. 1806, until March 1809; occupied a tavern in Milford in 1810. Foster obtained another tavern license for Amherst in September 1811 – perhaps newly arrived at 244 BPR? – and was still innkeeper in Amherst until 1817. He resided for a year, 1817/8, in Hollis (where he was paid by Hollis selectmen to board a pauper). Foster returned to Amherst and again kept this tavern from April 1818 until 1820. Foster stayed in Amherst for only a few more years; he offered more turkey shoots somewhere in Amherst, on New Year’s 1821 and in  Dec. 1823 and in Jan. 1824.

      Eber Lawrence (1771-1855) kept this tavern for one year, 1817/8 (while he still owned homestead farm a couple miles down the road at 377 BPR and on Souhegan River). His stint here seems to have been his trial run at inn-keeping. In January 1823 he purchased the older tavern (now gone) on the south side of the Village Common and the store next-door, right next to the Means store, but within three years had run into such financial difficulties that he fled town to avoid the deputy sheriff and jailer.

      Eleazer Rhoads (Jr., c. 1771-1855) first obtained a tavern license in April 1820 and kept this tavern until 1830 during which time he also was a brickmaker & potter (e.g., making pots for baked beans) utilizing the clay pit on the property. Eleazer Rhoads in 1823 offered “sportsmen” the opportunity to shoot 50 turkeys, commencing at 9:00 a.m. on Nov. 21.  Afterward he continued with the clay-based occupations, buying the old Robert Read-Joshua Atherton House next-door north at 232 BPR on 24 acres in 1828, where he remained for the rest of his life.

      Stowell Bancroft (1799-1883), a brick mason before & after at Mont Vernon, kept this tavern from April 1830 to March 1832.

      Charles Eastman (1782-1836) kept the inn from April 1832-April 1836 and had sheds to keep teams of carriage- and wagon-pulling horses. During his tenure, there were only two other inns/hotels in Amherst:  the one on the south side of the Common (where now is empty green space) and Fletcher’s in the south part of town at 382 BPR. Eastman had been a blacksmith in Hollis before moving to Amherst, where he had a farm. Before making the career change to publican, he sold his Amherst farm and auctioned off his livestock including 2 horses, a variety of bovines and ten sheep, various farm wagons and sleds, as well as a complete set of blacksmith’s tools. Eastman died in Lowell, shortly after quitting this house.

      Surely it was the Temperance movement that brought an end to this house’s use as a tavern – together with the recent establishment of a rail line with station in the SW corner of Amherst, eliminating the need for teamsters to spend the night in Amherst.