1999 Technology Shows a Hollis, NH Minuteman S Home and Story

“1999 Technology Shows A Hollis, NH Minuteman’s Home and Story”

The Nevins Family of Hollis and the residence of William Nevins, Sr. and Sons

WRITTEN HISTORY

Samuel T. Worcester in the earliest known full History of the Town of Hollis 1879 relates the following story about April 19, 1775. pp. 146,47

“A story is told in the same connection of five brothers of the name of Nevins, then living in the north part of the town, all of whom were afterwards in the army, which illustrates the spirit and promptness with which these minute men met this alarm. Early in the afternoon of the 19th of April three of these brothers were at work with their crowbars in digging stone for a farm wall at a short distance from their home. At the coming in sight of the messenger, they had partially raised from its place a large flat stone embedded in a farm roadway. Seeing the messenger spurring towards them at full speed, one of the brothers put a small boulder under the large stone to keep it in the position to which it had been raised, and all stopped and listened to the message of the horseman. Upon hearing it, leaving the stone as it was in the roadway, with the little boulder under it, they hastened to the house, and all three of them, with their guns and equipments, hurried to the Hollis common to join their company. One of those brothers was afterwards killed at Bunker Hill; another, the spring following, lost his life in the service in New York. As a family memento of this incident, this large stone, with the small one supporting it, was permitted to remain for more than seventy years afterward, in the same position in which the brothers had left it on the 19th of April.” In 1898 this same stone was moved to the Town Common and dedicated as a memorial to the 92 Minute-Men who left from Hollis on that day. The stone, irregular in shape 9” thick and 3 by 6 feet, remains today in the same position as on April 19th with the small boulder beneath and a bronze plaque on its surface listing the 92 individuals. The edge of the stone is inscribed "The Nevens brothers were at work on this stone, on the farm, April 19, 1775, and left it in this position at the Minute Men's alarm to join their comrades on this common."

FARM LOCATION AND BUILDING HISTORY

The farm of the Nevins brothers is a little over 3 miles to the north of the Common in a section of Hollis once part of Monson. (Monson Center some additional 3 miles away has recently been preserved and some archeological work is hoped to be done in this abandoned village.) A one story house was built at what is now South Merrimack and Nevins Roads by William Nevins, Sr. in about 1743. The accompanying photograph of the house shows the house, barn and el as they were in 1920 before the house burned about 1930. The barn was destroyed in a series of suspicious fires in 1983. Captain James Wheeler, the next owner after Nevins enlarged the house in 1817 and his son again enlarged it in 1870 also adding a large barn. Today although the site is overgrown it is still open land with a visible foundation of rough stone. Adjoining is additional foundation of cut stone likely from the later additions of enlarged house and barn. The enlarged Nevins-Wheeler house as seen in the 1920 photo was colonial style with double ranked windows, a large central chimney and a front door with side lights. It faced South toward Nevins Road with its gable end toward South Merrimack. The gable end had two attic windows, three on the second floor and an asymmetrically placed door with side window and two other windows on the first. The el which ran north south connecting the house and barn was two stories for approximately 10 feet nearest to the house and a story and a half for another 30 or so feet. The barn's main entrance was on the West on South Merrimack Rd. Each barn end had a transom window over its door two windows to its south, two windows on the second level and one on the third. It also had a cupola with windows. Attached to the barn were a hen house to the east and ice house to the north. The lower level of the barn was used for manure etc. and opened to a barnyard enclosed by the house and el. The height of the barn was great enough to contain a 35 foot silo within it. A line of quince still blossoms next to the house foundation although the lilacs have been lifted by various scavengers. As late as the 1920s open fields lined with stone walls, elms and sugar maples surrounded the house and Nevins Road did not exist. A carriage house was to the north of the barn running east west. This structure was dismantled and moved to the section of Pepperell Road off Rt. 130 near the Brookline, NH line.

CURRENT SITE

Across South Merrimack Road is Truell Hill with its overgrown sledding hill on an old pasture sloping from west to east toward the house site and well walled with large granite stones. This north part of Hollis has more granite than shale. This hill is valued on the Town Master Plan. At the southern edge of the slope is a spring, one of several on the farm. At the northern edge is a wood road still well opened by logging which is thought to be the original site of the Nevins Stone now on the Common. The stone is believed to have been in the road about 150 feet from South Merrimack Road and was, as noted, left in place for seventy years by the family as a memorial to the two sons who died in the Revolution. Looking at the stone on the Common one notices that the spelling of “Nevins” has gone through some alteration; half of ‘Nevins’ Road is spelled in that manner the other half is spelled ‘Nevens’. The history books refer to the Nevins family by both spellings although ‘Nevins’ seems preferred and is in the earliest iterations. The memorial stone is engraved with the Nevens spelling, but the memorial obelisk a few feet away shows Phineas Nevens and William Nevins. Much of the Nevins farm is still open land. It passed from Nevins to Wheeler to Milton Glover and is currently owned in two parcels 7.71 and 17 acres by John and Anna Gelazauskas.

FAMILY HISTORY

A little elaboration on the family history is somewhat illustrative of the life of the time and the life of a Hollis Revolutionary War soldier. The grandfather of the Revolutionary War brothers, Thomas Nevins, fled from Northern Ireland in 1710 to Nova Scotia with his wife, Margaret. They had a son, Thomas, Jr. born on shipboard in 1711. William was born in 1719, and David in 1723 in Nova Scotia. Thomas, Sr. returned to Ireland on business and was lost at sea when his ship sank with all aboard in 1735. Margaret and her sons, now all grown, moved from Nova Scotia to Newton, MA and then bought land in the south part of Monson in 1735 from Joseph Blanchard. At that time Monson was part of Dunstable MA. Hollis including Monson did not become separate from Dunstable until 1738. Deeds of land in Monson-Hollis made before 1741 (Worcester p. 33) show grantees as David Nevins, carpenter, widow Margaret Nevins of Bedford and William Nevins of Newton husbandman. Margaret and sons moved to Monson sometime between 1735 and 1738. Widow Margaret appears on the tax rolls in Monson (later Hollis) until 1743 when she remarried and moved to Hanover NH. The only women’s names on the tax rolls were those of widows. All 3 of her sons then left the homestead, married and settled in various parts of Monson-Hollis.

The eldest son, Thomas became a deacon in the Hollis church, “served in the French and Indian War as a Sergeant and returned home to become Selectman in Monson in 1759 after the dissolution of Monson he moved to Hebron NH, Hanover, NH and Vermont dying in Hanover, NY at 93 in 1804.” (Tinkelpaugh p. 170, 171) He married Bridget Snow and together they had Bridget, Thomas, Sarah, Henry, Lucy, Hannah, Tamasin, and Fanny.

The third son, David married Lois Patch and built near Long Pond (Silver Lake). David, a carpenter helped build the two first Hollis Meetinghouses. He left Monson which had no church or school and took his family to Plymouth by 1760 prior to the Revolution.

Margaret’s second son William remained in Hollis. He married Mary Hastings and built a house in the section of Monson just south of Pennichuck Pond on what was to become South Merrimack Road. He was in husbandry and probably, as other settlers of the time, had a farm of about 800 acres. He served as town moderator, ran the farm, and with Mary Hastings had five sons and four daughters: William 1746, Joseph 1748, Benjamin 1750, Mary 1752, John 1755, Phineas 1758, Lydia 1760, Elizabeth 1762, Rebecca 1765, and Nathan 1770. After Mary’s death he married Mary Woolrich. Records on Rebecca and Nathan’s parents vary. Of the daughters little is known but in 1775 Mary had been married 2 years and it appears the others were at home. The five brothers, sons of William and Mary, were to be part of Hollis legend.

So on April 19, 1975 Thomas and Margaret’s grandson and William and Mary’s son Phineas age 17 was at work with his brothers in his father's field clearing stone for a wall important to contain fields as well as to clear land. John was 20 and later fought in the Battle of Bennington 1777. Benjamin 25 had married Annis Mooar in February and was to have a child that December. Joseph 27 was married and had two children although one was to die that July and another was due in May ‘75. William, Jr. 29 was married to Rebecca Chamberlain 1768. Their only child Susanna was born in December 1775 and never knew her father. The record is unclear as to where these couples were living. But the sons were on the family farm helping each other and their father with rocks and walls.

The list of those who signed with the troops for 8 months described Phineas as light complexion and 5' 6"". He was killed at age 17 at the battle of Bunker Hill that June. Further records of the troops show that the loss of his possessions at that time were: coat, shirt, breeches, gun valued at $8., cartridge boxes, knapsack, blanket, tumpline (strap across forehead to assist in carrying a pack on one's back). He, as others who signed on for 8 months, later received a bounty of a military coat, the value of this was given to his father, William. Phineas as a private received pay for this duty at 24¢ a day and 1¢ a mile for travel. The distance from Hollis to Cambridge was 42 miles so the travel payment was 84¢. The family lost another son, William, in the battle for NY city where he was captured and died aboard a British prison ship in the harbor. The accompanying data shows that the other sons signed up at different times for service. Joseph had a baby due in May following the April battle in 1775 and returned home after a few days in Cambridge, perhaps because his wife had lost their first baby and childbirth was dangerous. Washington was still marshaling the troops and NH was not very far away, Joseph was to return to the army at a later date. For details on each brother’s service and family see the data base.