Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1906-06-21
Letter From the Editor.
llillsborouga Beige, N. H
I ~ 1Ol.n

of New H I'M 2shire paying a Wis.
it to Mrs Foster, whom we
found enjoying god health
this SUNNI ". She says for the
Times t,say to al her friend:
in Mo Valley that she would
like to b. i'm that good town
with them. This is about the
quaintest town or towns we
ever git into. There are four
post Off :es an four postmas-
tiers in this little town. They
have Hillsborough, Hillsbor-
ough Uppar, Hillsborough Cen
ter and Hillsborough Lower
town, and each part of town
has post Office of it's own. An
other peculiar feature about
this town is the number of old
maids and widows here. We
had COUNTED up for US a list of
63 old maids and 81 widows.
We have already written to a
couple of our old Norman
friends in Salt Lake that Hills
borough would be the place for
them to locate. Tho men seem
TO be opposed to marrying and
when they do marry they die
off and leave the widow. 1t
must be in the water. This
town is about $50 years old, but
the people keep their houses
painted up so nice that it looks
like a new town. They have a
a queer way here of building
their houses and barns togeth.
or. Almost every house you
see has the barn built right in
to the house. We should think
this would be a great place to
sell perfume in the summer
time, if one didn't like the
smell of a horse. The sur
rounding country is the most
beautiful imaginable, mountains
covered with timber on every
side, and little streams running
down from every direction, but
when it comes to making a
farm here we would like to be
excused. 1t takes about three
generations to get the stones
off the land before the farming
can commence, and then they
get crop of about 8 to 10 bu-
shells of oats to the acre, and
perhaps four or five bushels of
corn. What do you suppose a
Missouri bottom farmer would
think of that. We visited the
old home where Ex-president
Franklin Pierce was born in
1906, and the same paper is on
the walls that was there
101 years ago. Think of a Mo.
Valley paper hanger putting
on paper that would last 1Ol
years. Just across the street
is Franklin Pierce's old law
office with the sign, "Pierce
Bros" over the door. We also
visited the first church built in
this town in 1920, and it still
stands, we'll preserved. There
is an old fashioned sounding
board over the pulpit put
there so all the congregation
could hear damnation preached
as it was in those days. There
is an old parsonage standing
that was built in 1773, and it is
a good looking house yet. OF
all the queer old places we ever
saw, this New Hampshire town
is the limit. Among the curl
osities shown the visitor is an
old stove oven President Pierce
had erected in which a whole
OK was roasted and fed to Mr..
Pierces' friends after he was
elected President. This is a
E'mill town. as they call it up
here, there being one big WOOL
en- and wooden underwear mill
here, employing 300 hands be-
tween them, which makes the
town lively. Around this place
there are many old farms that
have been deserted and a per-
son can have the use of the big
old fashioned farm house free
if they will move into it. The
old owners have died off and
the younger generation have
gone west where they can raise
more than eight bushels to the
acre. and no stone fences to
build. Great country this. We
visited Manchester today for
two hours and found that a
great manufacturing town.
Here is where all the Merri-
mack muslin and Blood locomo-
tives are made. 1t is a hust-
ling town of $4,000 inhabitants.
Our next letter will be from
Newport. the richest resort in