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PEAVEY FAMILY of TUFTONBORO by Albert H. Dow Joseph Peavey Line Sources of information: Stackpole's History of N.H., Charlton's History of N. H., History of Wolfeboro, History of Carroll County. Genealogy furnished by Harold Peavey of Springfield, MA. All the above authorities are in substantial agreement with respect to one thing, that among the earliest settlers of Tuftonboro were Phineas Graves, Benjamin Bean and Joseph Peavey and that they settled at or near what is now Tuftonboro Corner. Also there is agreement that when they arrived in Tuftonboro in 1780 there were no other white men in the locality but that the adjoining towns of Wolfeboro, Ossipee and Moultonboro had substantial settlements at that time. At this point let us mention Peter Livius briefly, a resident of Portsmouth, a friend of Gov. Wentworth and a man of considerable wealth. He came to Wolfeboro with the Governor and as early as 1768, perhaps earlier by some accounts, he built a home at what is now Mirror Lake, near the current home of Carl Johnson. The story of Peter Livius is an interesting one and should become the subject of study by this society. He left Tuftonboro about 1775 and his home was destroyed, some say by his enemies. He was almost certainly the first person to establish a home in Tuftonboro. When Joseph Peavey came to Tuftonboro he was a lad of but fifteen years. He was a son of Edward Peavey of New Durham or Epping. Who fought and died in the Revolution. At this time we have no further information about Edward nor of his ancestors. Joseph worked hard, was frugal and saved his money. By 1795 he owned his own sawmill, cattle, horses and other equipment for cutting and hauling lumber. In 1791 he married Abigail Canney. Their children were William, Edmund, Joseph, James, John and Abigail. Most of these settled in Tuftonboro. Joseph was a farmer as well as a lumberman. In 1802 he built one of the first two story houses or early Federal type with a distinctive front entrance and paneling of the North bedroom designed and executed in excellent taste. At this time let us trace in outline the first religious services in Tuftonboro, held in 1804, conducted in the parlor of the Peavey house, the minister being Rev. Calab Dustin. Also about this time Rev. Jacob Cram of Hopkinton visited Tuftonboro as a missionary and later recorded in his diary that ?Toustonborough was a very stupid place.? Joseph Peavey died in 1837. From 1825 until 1838 his son John conducted Peavey House as a Tavern. John also maintained two stage routes, one from Portland to Plymouth and one from Dover to Conway. The routes crossed at Tuftonboro Corner. In 1838-9 Amos Wingate bought the property and operated it as a farm until 1866 when he sold it to David M. Smith. We have very little knowledge of either Wingate or Smith but the latter served the town as selectman in 1879-80. Smith conveyed the property to Charles E. Ham on January 8th, 1881. In 1825 John Peavey had added a wing to his house. Smith at some time during his ownership had moved the barn from across the road to its present position. Charles Ham died in 1928. His widow lived until 1937. In 1947 Clarence Mixer and I bought the property with the intention of razing the buildings. I made a careful examination of the house, discovered the fine old paneling under many layers of wallpaper and decided to restore the house. Mr. Mixer wanted no part of this and I purchased his share in 1948 and started the work of restoring the house at once. How was Joseph Peavey able to build this house in 1802? He came to Tuftonboro as a near penniless boy of fifteen in 1780. Twenty two years later he had completed this beautiful home, worthy the name of mansion on every count. He had cleared and subdued the land from its primitive wilderness state, which in itself was no mean job. He had married and reared four children up to the time the house was built. He had worked for fifty cents a day. He was not a carpenter himself. What man planned and executed the exquisite mantles and the delicately moulded paneling? Who designed and built that doorway? I daresay there is not a carpenter living today who could do it. If such a doorway were to be realized in this year of our Lord, very carefully executed drawings would first have to be made and the work would be carried out by highly trained cabinet makers in a shop fully equipped with expensive machines. The front doorway on our central school was produced in this manner. The men on the job could not have done it. The main chimney contains no less than fifteen thousand brick and weigh at least thirty tons. Where did they come from? They were not delivered by trainload nor truckload. They had to be hauled over the roughest of roads for many miles by ox or horse team. The foundation stones are split granite up to ten feet long. They weigh nearly a ton each. There is no such stone within twenty miles and only two places in the county where it could come from. These men had only tools which they made themselves. The carpenter for instance made the wood body of his plans and the local blacksmith made the blades. Some of these early tools are intricate beyond belief. We can only speculate and wonder how these frontiersmen, for that is what they were, could accomplish these near miracles. It is interesting to note that the householder of today could not possible do what these men did. Such a house in these times would only be built by highly trained men possessing the most expensive and extensive equipment. The Peavey house was destined to come into the possession of John Peavey, the fifth and youngest son of Joseph. He was born in the new home in 1804. He was one of the most industrious and remarkable men of his or of any other time. I am indebted to the late Judge Sewall Abbott for this sketch of John Peavey's Life. I quote him in full. John Peavey, youngest son of Joseph and Abigail Canney Peavey was born in the Peavey house in Tuftonboro, June 9, 1804 when everything was new and called for men of action and energy. Mr Peavey at an early age became absorbed in business and while many of his age were in school he was working and employing others in his business transactions. He established himself at the Corner as a trader in 1823 and continued merchandising until 1850. He did not confine himself to local trading and before long he was the chief actor in all the varied branches of commercial activity in the town and even in Carroll County. He employed many men and was engaged in lumbering, mill building, tanning, farming, stage driving and any and all things that offered a field for financial ability and boundless energy. In this way he was one of the fathers of the town furnishing the means for the support of many families. Tuftonboro around the turn of the century (nineteenth) was a flourishing community and grew space. In 1790 its population was 109. Ten years later in 1800 it was 357. In 1825, about the time that John Peavey entered business, it was 907. That is one and a half times the present permanent population of the entire town. Mr. Peavey established a stage line from Dover to Conway and another from Portland to Plymouth with branch lines from Portsmouth and Alton. On these routes he used thirty to forty horses. For some years he was associated with his older brother, Joseph Peavey and with William Pickering in trade at Melvin Village and in connection with Jacob Nutter, carried on the manufacture of shoes near Union Wharf. It is believed that he transported goods both ways across the lake. Mr. Peavey was early in public life. In politics he was a Democrat until the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, after which time he was a Republican. He was elected moderator of town meetings of Tuftonboro at twenty-two years of age and held that office for twenty-eight consecutive years. He was postmaster of Tuftonboro from 1825 to 1858. He represented Tuftonboro in the N. H. legislature. From 1832 until 1838 and while a member of this body he brought about the division of Strafford County and the establishment of the new County of Carroll. He engineered the incorporation of the Wolfeboro Bank and served as New Hampshire Bank Commissioner for several years. He was Justice of the Peace for Strafford County from 1833 to 1840 and subsequently for Carroll County. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1858 at the age of 46. John Peavey was active in the military affairs of New Hampshire and at sixteen was appointed sergeant in the first company of light infantry in the twenty-seventh regiment and at twenty-five was commissioned captain by Gov. Benjamin Pierce and at twenty-seven was commissioned lieutenant colonel of the same regiment. In 1863 Mr. Peavey removed from Wolfeboro and in 1864 moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. He practiced law in that state for a quarter century and lived to be nearly ninety retaining his physical and mental strength to the end. And so comes its conclusion the amazing career of this extraordinary man. His public and business life extended over a period of more than seventy years. In religion he was a Methodist. In 1825 he married Hannah Thing of Ossipee. Seven children were born of this union: Emily, Mrs. George S. Canney, Frank, who became a prominent educator of Detroit, Charles C., of Battle Creak, John L., who spent much of his life in Wolfeboro, Lyford, who left the University of Michigan in 1861 to become first lieutenant of company C the first regiment of Michigan volunteers and died shortly afterwards in Maryland, Zebedes, who was also a soldier and died in the service and Lafayette who became a lawyer and newspaper man in Montana. Many stories and anecdotes are told of John Peavey. He was a stern Methodist as we have seen and a strict teetotaler but this did not prevent him from owning and conducting a bar room at Peavey house for many years. His many employers were not allowed to drink on their jobs and this was strictly enforced but on Saturday nights we are told that the men would gather at the Tavern where they partook generously of good old New England rum. In this way much of their earnings found its way back into the Peavey coffers of the astute employer. One story told of Mr. Peavey will hear repeating. One day in the woods he discovered that some of the men had liquor with them. He asked them to destroy it. They at first refused. He ordered them to do so at once or he would take it from them by force. There was much grumbling but they complied. It has been said that John Peavey was six feet six inches tall and weighed two hundred fifty pounds and that he never met his superior in Physical strength. Of Mr. Peavey?s children we have considerable information of only one, the third son, John L. He was born in Tuftonboro, July 15, 1835. He attended academies at Northfield and Lancaster, N.H. and gained practical knowledge of merchandising and lumbering from his father. At nineteen years he started the lumbering business on his own. He became the leading operator in Carroll County. His operations extended from Lake Winnipesaukee to the Saco. He owned five thousand acres of valuable timber land in Albany alone. He had portable mills in several towns and engaged in the manufacture of pine and hemlock lumber and oak for barrel stock and piling. After 1885 his son Forrest W. joined him in the work. They employed as many as 150 men. Seventy to one hundred horses and kept two hundred freight cars in use. His work was not confined to lumbering. After 1887 he lived in Wolfeboro and owned a general store. He built the Glendon House on the site of the present post office and conducted it in person for seven years. This is said to be the only project of his which in the end did not succeed financially. He built the Peavey Block now owned and occupied in part by Howard Avery. At the corner of South Main and Union Streets, opposite the town hall he built a sixteen room house which was the wonder of its time. It was typical Victorian mansion with gingerbread everywhere and had a dining room sixteen by twenty-four feet with a marquetry floor of maple and walnut in intricate pattern. Mr. Peavey married Mary F., daughter of Aaron Wiggin of Tuftonboro. Three sons were born to them: Forrest W., Herman L. and Harry B. and a daughter Florence. Forrest married Edith Hayes of Rochester and was postmaster of Wolfeboro for many years. They had two children, Harold F., and Bernice. Harry B. Peavey after graduation from Brewster worked for a short time as grocery clerk in Wolfeboro then went to Boston where he found employment with S. S. Pierce Co., as stock boy. He stayed with Pierce for forty years and became a vice president and head of the purchasing department. He never married. Bernice Peavey did not marry and has lived in Wolfeboro all her life. Harold Peavey was graduated from Wentworth Institute and has been an automotive engineer all his life, most of the time with Indian Motorcycle. He married Georgianna Murlin of Jackson, N. H. They have two sons, John Forrest and William Langdon and daughter Molly Bracket. John F. was a Lieut. Col. In Word War II, is plant engineer for John H. Breck Co. of Springfield, Mass. They have three sons and a daughter. William Langdon was a sergeant in the war and is now in charge of aircraft gear design of Perkins Company of Springfield, Mass. He married Doris Maling of Cambridge and they have a son and three daughters. Molly Brackett married Edward M. Ford of New York. Thus it would seem that the Peavey family will continue on for some time yet; an outstanding example of continuity of family history. There remains one thing to be told about the activities of the Peaveys. Some of you know that Canaan Brook rises in the upper reaches of the ravine between Mt. Shaw and Bald Mountain, No doubt you also know of the steep and beautiful falls not far below the source of the stream. A visit to this spot is worthwhile. Just below the falls someone long years ago built a dam of natural stone about five feet wide and running along side the brook for a distance of several hundred feet. At the lower end of this flume is the foundation of a large building in a good state of preservation. It seems entirely probable that one of the Peaveys built the dam and also built and operated a sawmill at this site. The flume served an undershop water wheel. I have heard my mother say that John Peavey took the lumber off the Ossipee mountains and hauled much of it to Portsmouth and Dover. It probably was not Joseph Peavey as he found plenty of timber nearer his homesite and it certainly was not John L. Peavey, otherwise there are several men still living who would have known of it. There are many anecdotes and stories told of this famous family. One concerns a blacksmith, a somewhat wayward member who ran afoul of the law. In due time he was nominated to spend some time at a well known institution in Concord, not the state capitol. The superintendent on learning he was a smith, set him to work making horseshoe nails. He proved to be an ornery old chap and refused to make more than three nails per ten hour day and nothing they could do would prevail on him to increase his production. I figure he was the first sit down striker. You will be interested to know that Bert Blaisdell is the authority for this yarn. One of the Peaveys made an outstanding improvement to the old fashion cant dog and it became known as a peavey. Each member of the Peavey family now has a peavey hanging above the fireplace in his house as a sort of family trade mark. View of Original Documents HOME ALPHABETICAL INDEX
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