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Granite State News on Friday, August 7, 1941 PEAVEY�S RIFLES OLD PROTECTORS Veteran of Company K Tells of Martial Array on Wolfeboro Front 60 Years Ago By Grover Laud This article was retyped by Barbara DeMarco for your ease in reading �Talk about defense of America,� remarked Joseph Abbott, sitting with his cronies in the open door of his barn beside the Moultonville Millpond. �Why all Carroll County was safe when Wolfeboro Bridge was guarded by Peavey�s Rifles.� �You fit in that army?� inquired Long Ed Eldridge, peripatetic philosopher. �I was in Company K,� mildly replied Joe. �And we were always ready for attack to land or water.� �You and who else?�,put in Herbert White, retired Postmaster. �Well, there was our first Captain Joseph Lewando,� answered the impeturbable Joe. �He was a partner of Will Mattison in a grocery. After him came Captain Charlie Horne of Mill Village where brother, Dana, was a Lieutenant. Like their father, they were both painters. �Then there were George Brushingham, a fireman at the box factory of Libby, Varney and Thompson and Elmer Wiggin, son of Albert Wiggin. His farm was bounded by High Street and Sewall Road. Must be 200 households on it now. Another was Frank Folsom, also a Wolfeboro Farmer.� "Now, Major," began ye Correspondent. �Just Private please,� interrupted Joe. �Private Abbott, then?� the scribe resumed. �How did Peavey�s Rifles get called that?� �Named for their patriotic and illustrious sponsor, John L. Peavey,� Joe cheerfully explained. �He was a sawmill operator. It was he who provided the lumber and erected the town�s first shoe shop over on Factory Street. He also built the Peavey Block on South Main Street, where Herbert Haines has a grocery, one of the oldest businesses in Wolfeboro.� (Peavey Block was at 9-15 Main Street and Haines was in Brewster Memorial Building). Asked when this crack outfit of State Militia was organized, Joe was apologetic. �I don�t exactly remember,� he said. �I was then just past my middle teens and I�ll be 77 on the 27th of next November. Many things about Company K I can�t rightly recall and I do want to be truthful about it. Maybe some of the other folks in Wolfeboro can splice in the missing strands. �Perhaps our tour of Federal service will help place a date,� Private Abbot went on. �We got aboard the cars, a hundred strong and went to Washington to be in the honor guard for Grover Cleveland at his first Inauguration for President of the United States. That must have been March 4, 1880. (More likely 1885) �We marched along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House, bands playing and colors flying, in honor of President Cleveland. He was a Democrat, the first to be elected to the Presidency since the Civil War.� �Along with us as sort of a mentor on this trip was a veteran of the Union Army, Charles Hoyt, a carpenter who had moved from Moultonboro to Wolfeboro to work in John L. Peavey�s sawmills �Charles guided me around the public buildings in Washington where he was especially welcomed because he was a veteran and over to Mount Vernon to the home of General Washington. There we went further into Virginia to go over battlefields where Charles had fought. �We stood amid the tangled swamp beyond Chancellorsville and Charles told me the terrible story of the Battle of the Wilderness in May, 1864, the year I was born. Then at Fredericksburg we saw the monument to Stonewall Jackson, the Southern General whose own men killed him by mistake in the night.� Crossing New York City on the way home to Wolfeboro, Peavey�s Rifles were treated to a ride on the then comparatively new Ninth Avenue Elevated Railway. The trains were drawn by small charcoal burning engines, later replaced by third-rail electric power. The structure has now been torn down. �Now what about the Battle of Wolfeboro?� Ye correspondent was trying to stir up Private Abbott again. But he failed. �We never had any battle there or anywhere,� returned Joe pleasantly. �I guess it was because we were always preparing and prepared. Y�see we drilled regular every week in our armory on Railroad Avenue. It was in Joseph Goodwin�s block which has since been divided up into offices like Judge Will Britton�s. �We did close order marching, plain and fancy and the manual of arms and we had bayonet practice. Sometimes we would shoulder our Springfield rifles and go out to our range on Pine Street and shoot at our targets on Thompson�s Ledge.� �Hit �em occasionally?� ventured the scribe. �Oh, we had our sharpshooters,� Joe responded placidly. �And the old Springfield was a mighty smart gun, single-shot, breech-loader, clean-sighted and balanced neat. Yes, it had a kick to it but I never so much as saw a man wince.� �But that wasn�t all we did?� Joe continued. �Every year for two weeks we were mustered over to Concord and camped out in tents on the Fair Grounds with the whole brigade of State Militia. Colonel Patterson commanded our regiment which was infantry. We wore blue uniforms with white stripes for officers. �Other branches were there, too, batteries of artillery and troops of cavalry. Besides holding evening parade and mounting guard, we had combat exercises, deploying and skirmishing and winding up with a slam-bang sham battle, cannon roaring, musketry rattling and soldiers charging afoot with bayonets and a horse with sabers. �On the last day the entire brigade passed in review before the General and the Governor and no line kept its line straighter than Old Company K of the Peavey�s Rifles.� Private Abbott paused for a breath. His eyes had a far-away look as he added: �We ate well. Fed on contract, so much a man. They cooked 10 bushels of dry beans to a time in a hole in the ground. I�ll never taste such beans again as long as I live.� �That reminds me,� Spoke up Herbert White. �Supper time,� amended Long Ed Eldridge. �I�m hungry, too,� admitted Ye Correspondent. But Private Abbott did not seem to hear them. �Good old Company K. Good old Peavey�s Rifles,� he was murmuring. �My Heavenly days!� Notes by Harold Peavey in 1965 �Pa� (Charles) Hoyt had Confederate lead in his leg the rest of his life. Joe Abbot was a teamster for John L. Peavey and lived on the south side of the hill about half way between Goose Corner and Hersey Cemetery. �High Street� is now �Pleasant Street�. Sewall Road did not .�Wolfeboro Inn� was A.W.W.S. farmhouse (built by Nathaniel Rogers) and the property extended to Hanson Place (now N. E. Marina). |