Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/332

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302

��THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��deposits of the Savings Bank. April i, reached $534,392.79, with a guarantee fund of $13,358.15. Neither bank holds a dollar's worth of bad or doubtful paper.

No sketch of Littleton would be complete without mention of the insurance office of Barrett & Sons. The senior member, Hon. James J. Barrett, com- menced here in 1855, and has built up a larger insurance business than any other firm in Northern New Hampshire. They represent a large number of the heaviest American and foreign companies, and. in addition to insurance, have a large conveyancing and general office business.

In the hotel and summer boarding-house line, Littleton occupies a position in the front rank. Thayer's hotel, established by H. L. Thayer thirty-three years ago, has long enjoyed a national reputation, both among summer tourists and the general traveling public, while the Union house, under the management of W. A. Richardson, is largely patronized. The Oak Hill house, of which Capt. George Farr has been proprietor for the last eight years, has become a popular resort of summer boarders, and has been enlarged the present season to more than double its former capacity. It is delightfully situated upon an eminence which commands one of the finest views in the entire mountain region. The " Mountain Home," a cosy and attractive boarding-house, under the manage- ment of Mrs. E. D. Sawyer, is the favorite resort during the summer months of many literary people and others of quiet tastes, who would avoid the crowds of the larger houses. There are other private boarding-houses in the place, all well patronized during the season ; while there is also a prospect of the erection, in the near future, of one of the largest summer hotels in the State upon the summit of Pine hill, the charter for a company having been already obtained, the site secured, and exemption from taxation for a term of years voted by the town.

Littleton is the most important railway station on the line of the Boston, Concord & Montreal Railroad, so far as the extent of business, both freight and passenger, is concerned. The office of station agent has been filled by Alden Quimby since 1870. From 155 6 till 1864, H. E. Chamberlin, present superintendent of the Concord railroad, was station agent at this place. The postal business at this point is also quite large, having doubled in the last six or eight years. The money-order business alone reaches about $50,000 annually. P. W. Goold has been postmaster for the last fourteen years.

The village is supplied with pure water by the Apthorp Reservoir company, whose works were established in 1880 at a cost of $25,000, and are being largely extended the present season. There is no gas company as yet, but the streets are lighted at night by lamps, and a charter for an electric light company was obtained last year. A fire precinct, with a thorough organiza- tion, has been maintained for several years. The Littleton village library, Mrs. John Smillie, librarian, has about 1,800 volumes. Pleasant reading rooms, open to the general public, are maintained by the Young Men's Christian association. The Saranac Cornet band, of Littleton, is one of the finest organ- izations of the kind in the State. The Masonic and Odd Fellows organiza- tions are both well represented here. Burns Lodge, No. 66, F. & A. M., was chartered in June, 1858. The only surviving charter members are James J. Bar- rett, and Horace E. Chamberlin. The present membership is about 120. St. Gerard Commandery, instituted in 1868, has about sixty members. Lafay- ette Lodge, No. II, I. O. O. F., instituted October, 1876, has about eighty- five members, and is in a very flourishing condition. Littleton encampment, instituted April, 1879, numbers about forty-five members. Both the Masons and Odd Fellows have fine well-furnished halls, the former in Union and the latter in Tilton's block. There is also a Grand Army Post, — Marshall Sanders, No. 48, — numbering over eighty members.

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