Some South Berwick Events from Newspapers of the 1840s-1860s
"The Thursday Sketcher" Great Falls NH Thursday Evening 12/02/1847
Vol.1 #4Commerce of South Berwick. Vessels of different sizes have
occasionally been built at South Berwick, and then rigged and loaded at
this port. Two enterprising young men, Messrs Eben Goodwin of New York,
and Mark F. Goodwin of South Berwick, have just built, rigged, and are
now loading at Hamilton Wharf, South Berwick, a beautiful bark, build of
the best materials. She is a little short of three hundred tons, and is
not inferior to any vessel of her size. -Portsmouth Journal.The Old Bridge at Salmon Falls has been removed, and an elegant new
structure placed in its stead, a few rods farther North, to make room
for the foundation stones of the new Factory the Salmon Falls Company is
erecting.The Dover Enquirer
Published Every Tuesday Morning, By George Wadleigh, Washington Street,
Dover, New-Hampshire
Vol XXIII Tuesday Morning, July 17, 1849 No. 7The railroad bridge over the Salmon Falls river, which was destroyed
several months since by fire, has been rebuilt, and the cars now run
direct to Portland.
...
By a notice in another column it will be seen that the Cadets of
Temperance intend holding a Pic Nic in the Grove near the Railroad
Junction in South Berwick, to-day. This Society is composed of young men
who have associated together for the promotion of temperance. They
deserve encouragement in their laudable enterprise. We hope that all
will attend who can make it convenient.
...
Salmon Falls Co., &c.- The paragraph which we published yesterday in
relation to the dividends of the Salmon Falls and Sunapee Cotton Mills
was all wrong. The facts, as stated, we found in several of our
exchanges.--We have been authoritatively informed that the Sunapee
Cotton Mills make goods of medium fineness and have omitted but one
semi-annual dividend since their incorporation, June 1, 1847.--The whole
amount of dividends in this time has been fifteen per cent, or seven and
a half per cent, per annum. The Salmon Falls Company has not failed to
make a semi-annual dividend of at least four per cent, during the last
four years, besides keeping a handsome reserve. It is one of the most
successful companies in New England, composed of a small number of
proprietors living in Boston and Portsmouth.The capital is $1,000,000, and it distributes $18,000 a month by its
pay roll, among the antimonopolists of the Granite State and Maine,
besides making a demand for a vast quantity of farm produce in the
section of country about the factories, and enhancing the value of the
farms threefold. Within five miles square, there are now running at
Great Falls, Dover, and Salmon Falls, 142,000 spindles, owned by three
companies, with the capitals amounting to $3,800,000, of which the
proprietors live chiefly in Massachusetts. The original capitals of all
these companies have been once wholly lost except a part of the Salmon
Falls Company's, and the new capitals have been paid in. They employ
more then three thousand New Hampshire and Maine girls and men, and pay
them $58,000 a month, most of which is sent home. If every dollar which
goes through these channels, and the other factories in New Hampshire,
owned chiefly in Massachusetts, could be marked M. It would be murder
outright to some of the New Hampshire politicians
ns, who live by curing the corporations. Boston AtlasThe Great Falls Journal, Sat. Jan 16, 1869 Vol 3 No 3
An ox team was run into the other night by a train between South
Berwick and Portland. The cattle were killed, but the driver escaped.
On picking him up he exclaimed -"shut the barn door--it's getting
chilly."Return to the History Page
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