Excerpts from the Hamptons Union, July 1, 1899

Volume I - No. 3

Miscellaneous Notices

[Only some are reprinted below. Click here for critera for inclusion]

James Smith the genial clerk at The Whittier has received from Haverhill two handsome pure white kittens. They are now at liberty in the stables and are fine mousers.

Congratulations are being received by Mr. and Mrs. Parker Blake on the birth of a baby boy.

Mrs. Abagail Williams, the aged mother of James Freeman Williams, was stricken with paralysis on Thursday.

Joseph Joslin is painting the interior of Whittier stables a bright red.

Gen. S.H. Gale makes the welcome announcement that the shoe factory will be put in operation to its full capacity, as soon as help can be secured.

Mr. Clarence T. Brown, whose buildings were last week destroyed by lightning, has practically decided to rebuild the house on the same site. An expert has located a vein of water flowing under the site of the barn, and it is believed to have attracted the lightning. Another site will consequently be chosen for the new barn.

Caterer Tanner of Haverhill has secured the catering privileges at the new pavilion being erected at Hampton beach by the street railway company. He intends to conduct the place on a first-class scale, and will immediately begin the work of furnishing the pavilion.

The new pavilion at Hampton beach, which is being erected by the Exeter, Hampton & Amesbury Street Railway company, is progressing rapidly, and will be a large, commodious and delightful resort. Its piazzas are wide and are one-fifth of a mile in length, overlooking fine views of ocean and country. It is a prominent feature of the southern part of the beach.

Marston's railway waiting station will be open all night July 3. He has a good supply of Fourth of July goods.

The life saving station is not in active service and will not be until August 1. At that time six men, under Capt. Smart, will patrol the beach from Little Boars Head to Hampton river.

Miss Addie M. Merrill will enter the employ of M.W. Cole as assistant postmaster on Monday, July 3rd.

The Home and Foreign Mission society of the Advent church has put up in a conspicuous place in the postoffice a very attractive rack for papers and tracts published in the interests of the Advent church. It is a good idea. One of the publications to be found there is "The World's Crisis."

Orders have been received by John Stone in charge of the steam shovel, to leave the Hampton pit and begin operations in a new pit at Scarbrook, near Portland. Both Mr. and Mrs. Stone, who are well known, will be greatly missed for they have made a large number of friends during the three summers they have spent here.

There being no 4th of July observance in Exeter, says the Gazette, almost everybody will be planning an excursion to Hampton beach. To please the crowd the Electric company announces a band concert for all day and during the evening, with dancing afternoon and evening. A fine display of fireworks is also promised, thus rounding out a day full of entertainment.

Mrs. John Stone goes today to her old home in Salem, Mass., to remain until after the Fourth. Mr. Stone is the engineer on the steam shovel which is situated half a mile east of the Hampton depot. He has been in Hampton for three summers, and with Mrs. Stone make their home with Mrs. E.D. Berry on High street.

F.E. Benden will open on July 1 a billiard and pool room on Boars Head bluff. He is having the present building on that site remodeled and made into a first class pleasure resort, with a modern bowling alley and billiard and pool tables.

Tuesday Clinton Eaton, chief of police, notified Fred Blake and Morris Lane that they could have until Saturday night to pay for the destruction of glass by the discharge of the big cannon in front of the G.A.R. building some weeks ago. These two young men have in some way become suspected of having been the parties who placed and fired the charge, and the notification of Chief Eaton was on the authority of the Perkins post, G.A.R., which is responsible for the damage done, and would be content to drop the matter if payment of this damage were made. Both Blake and Lane profess entire innocence in the matter and say that they can prove they were in bed throughout that night. One piece of evidence which was at first thought of value as a clue to the perpetrators, was the purchasing of fuse in Joshua Lane's store, by one of the suspected young fellows; but this statement is denied by Joshua Lane, who says that they did not purchase of him. Thus far neither Lane or Blake have made any move toward settlement.

The Hampton base ball nine will play the Exeters on the latter's grounds today.

A Native of Hampton

Milo W. Carter of Chelsea met death in a shocking manner last Monday. Mr. Carter lived at 14 Lambert avenue, and for some time past he had been bothered by cats killing his chickens. Early Monday morning he found one cat prowling around his yard, and succeeded in catching it. Mr. Carter then carried the cat over to a vacant lot on Sagamore avenue, and placing her on the ground fired at her a charge of shot. The shot wounded the cat, but did not kill it.

Mr. Carter laid his gun down in the brush wood, and picking up a stick proceeded on his work of finishing the cat. When he got through he took up his gun, but the trigger caught in some brush, and the charge in the second barrel exploded. The charge struck Mr. Carter in the breast and killed him instantly. The body was not discovered until some time afterward by Charles Warren, who lives on Sagamore avenue. The body was taken to the undertaking warerooms of H.H. Carter, where it was viewed by City Physician Guild, who gave his opinion that accidental shooting was the cause of death.

Mr. Carter was 31 years old, and was born in Hampton, and had lived in Chelsea a number of years. He conducted an express business between Chelsea and Boston. He was married and left a widow and one child.

The funeral was held on Wednesday afternoon, Rev. J.N. Bradford officiating, and the body was interred in Hampton cemetery.

Leonia's Growth. What Four Years Have Wrought In The Way Of Evolution

Likely, no other house along the New England coast, that is open to the public, makes a fairer bid for patronage than the Leonia, on the North Beach road, Hampton.

Folk ever have demanded the conveniences of the city with the bucolic atmosphere of the country; at the Leonia the conveniences are always at one's hand. Nor should the position of the hotel be confounded. T'were a misnomer to call it a country hotel; for that is significant of poky, ill-ventilated rooms, a board that can tempt only a famishing appetite, and the rendezvous of the village historians. Neither can it be termed a distinctly sea-shore hotel for, to strike directly at the point, it is an extremely happy amalgamation of the two, having all the advantages of both, and the disadvantages of neither.

One window shows pine woods, the vista from another shows on a height, a group of fish houses, and a third looks directly on the ocean. The Isles of Shoals are to be seen on one hand while the generous curve of Cape Ann is just discernible on the other.

Then, too, a United States Life Saving station has a place in the scene. And, in a revery, looking far out over the breakers that come out of the satiny blue expanse, one marvels at Nature.

Mine host, whose youngish face quite unprepares one for the deep courtesy and quiet dignity of the man, delights in his stable, and, in fact, his delight is surely pardonable. Nobler horse flesh is found in few private stables.

Sky High, a black gelding, high stepper, formerly owned by O.H.P. Belmont of New York, is the pride of the stable. The horse has captured thirty-two prizes at the New York horse show. He is driven tandem with 1492, another prize taker.

Zaza, a mare quite as emotional as Mrs. Leslie Carter, leads in four-in-hand, Merry Monarch, Prince Pro Tem and Yankee Doodle. These four horses captured all of the valuable prizes at the Boston horse show last year when Eben Jordan, of Jordan & Marsh, the dry goods dealers, owned them. A few others that have yet to win honors, comprise the stable list.

The harness room is a revelation. Harnesses from Ziefer, of Parks; Lee, of New York, and Cross of London greet the eyes, dazzling in their immaculate keeping.

From here one is ushered into the carriage house, where, among other vehicles, are a brake, a station wagon, a Stanhope and Surrey, all as immaculate as the harnesses.

Almost encircling the house is a broad veranda and a shady spot may always be found. Going into the office, passing a parlor on either hand, one finds that the house is managed by a system. As in the largest city hotel, each employee has his own work to perform, and he does it.

Perhaps it is as well to relate the writer's surprise on visiting the house for the first time in four years. Mr. Crosby had taken hold with determination to bring it to the front rank, and the evolution was apparent in the smallest detail; and remarkable when the new house was compared to the old.

Dusk had fallen when I arrived at the house and only the fragrance of flowers told me that a landscape artist had been at work, although I saw afterward that the grounds had been improved to the limit of possibility.

In the parlor, men and women were discussing the latest caprices of society, and planning fall voyages to Europe. In the dining room, a few belated persons were dining, while the strains of an orchestra led me to the newly added ball room, where one of the latest dances was in progress. The clicking of ivory caused my next surprise. It led me into an excellently fitted billiard room, and just off this is the card room. A game of whist occupied the attention of a group of men. Going through the house, I found that a pleasant surprise lurked in every corner.

Gone was the old country house of four years before, gone were all the crudities and inconveniences, pleasant for association's sake, and on the memory was built a hotel, equipped in modern fashion and peopled with bright, wholesome, up-to-date persons. I was a new Rip Van Winkle.

My stay at the Leonia, in the early part of this season, was short, but pleasant in the extreme. I found that between the guests and the host, something always was on hand for entertainment, and the succession of the season's dances, each brighter and more successful than the one before it, were only a part of these entertainments.

My pen would commend the Leonia's table, but my palate says more eloquently and more briefly, "Try it!"

List of Hampton businesses with ads in this issue

  • The Franklin House hotel
  • Marston's Railway Waiting Station
  • John H. Page, dealer in fancy fish and clams
  • Hampton Carriage and Smith Shop, N.J. Norton blacksmith
  • C.A. Johnson, house and sign painter
  • Edward B. Towle, dealer in dry and fancing goods
  • John S. Gilman, watches, clocks, jewelry, spectacles, etc.
  • E.G. Cole & Co., General Merchandise
  • D.O. Leavitt, dealer in pure drugs and medicines
  • T.N. Chase, Department store
  • George Collum, dealer in tinware, stoves, furnaces, etc.
  • The Boston Store, grand closing out sale in our millinery department
  • J.A. Lane & Co., dealers in dry goods, groceries, etc.
  • Mrs. Ellen I. Brown, clairvoyant
  • Abbott Norris, insurance agent
  • C.M. Dearborn, agent for Victor bicycles
  • Dr. Ward
  • Irving W. Marston, hair dresser, cigars, tobacco
  • Wesley Dearborn, carpenter and builder
  • Batchelder's food market
  • The Post Office store, M.W. Cole
  • John W. Locke's Hampton Beach Store
  • George H. Elkins, manufacturer of harnesses
  • The M.W. Brown pianos
  • Wheelmen's Retreat, bicycle repairing, C.L. Garland, North Beach