Manchester Historic Associationpresents

Millyard Museumfun book

Mill yard Museum * 200 Bedford Street * Manchester, NHwww.manchesterhistoric.org

603.622.7531 Live free or Die

_________________________'s

Word ScrambleUnscramble the letters to discover what types of fish the

native people fished for in the Amoskeag Falls

People first arrived in the Manchester area about11,000 years ago, after the last ice age ended. Nativecampsites along the Merrimack River became wellestablished. Many tribes of Native people inhabitedthe region, including the Penacook, Algonquin, andAbenaki Indians.

Many tribes were drawn to this area because of the river. The waterfalls in this area of the MerrimackRiver were named "Amoskeag" which means place ofmany fish. The river was not only used for water andtransportation, it was a major food source. Manyvarieties of fish were found here and they supplied avery large number of native people with asustainable, constant supply of food . Water equalledsurvival, which is not very different from today.

The first inhabitants

1. myplera lee

------- ---

4. oslamn

------

2. rpac

----

5. gmtaoruhel sabs

---------- ----

3. uortt

-----

Hello there,I am General John Stark ( I'm kind of a big deal in New Hampshire). Iam going to be your tour guide through the Millyard Museum. Along

the way, we will learn about one the coolest cities in the world...Manchester!

Let's start from the beginning...

Answers: 1. lamprey eel 2. carp 3. trout 4. salmon 5. largemouth bass

Early European Settlers

Scavenger HuntFind the artifacts that these pictures camefrom. Use the information panels to learn

more about the objects and their role in earlyManchester settlement.

Most of the artifacts belonged to onevery special man. Can you guess who?

The story of the city of Manchester started in the1720s when the first European settlers came to thearea. They called this land Derryfield. They broughtwith them the knowledge of how to farm, fish andhunt. Local families also had other trades, includingbarrel making (coopers), chair making (turners),blacksmithing and weaving. Soldiering wassometimes an option, especially during the French &Indian War in the 1750s. One such soldier was JohnStark. John Stark was born in Londonderry, NewHampshire, in 1728. John Stark and his threebrothers were officers in the famous Rogers' Rangerswhich was a unit of the British army. John inheritedhis father’s farm, and established a sawmill on theMerrimack River, and went on to become NewHampshire’s greatest hero of the RevolutionaryWar. After the war, Stark retired to his Derryfieldhome with his wife Molly Stark, enjoying the townand home he loved. He was active in local business,hosting town meetings at his house and helping tobuild the local schoolhouse.

It's Gen. JohnStark again!

Now on to a differentperiod in Manchester'shistory, a time where

people began to branchout and rely on skillsthey had learned in

their native countries...can you imagine mostof Manchester being

farm land?

Samuel Blodgetwas very interested in industry and progress. After a trip to Manchester, England, he becameinspired by the Industrial Revolution alreadytaking place there. He was interested inimprovements in transportation, and especiallycanals. He had a vision that he could build acanal to bypass the Amoskeag Falls, which –along with other canals on the river, would thenallow river traffic to go all the way fromConcord New Hampshire to Boston. This was thegreat era of canal boating on the MerrimackRiver. Later the Blodget Canal was lengthenedand improved, becoming a power canal for theAmoskeag Manufacturing Company.After his death, Derryfield's name was changedto Manchester to honor Samuel Blodget's vision.

Now I’d like to talk about agood friend of mine – onewhose innovations made itpossible for big industry to

come to Manchester.

Samuel Blodget

Can you help the goods travel thecanals and safely arrive in Boston?

General John Stark Samuel Blodget

What powered the mills of the Amoskeag ManufacturingCompany?The major source of power for many years was the waterof the Merrimack River. The drop in the river atAmoskeag Falls would cause the water to fallapproximately 54 total feet. The pressure and weight ofall this moving falling water equaled about 36,000horsepower of energy. Here, at Amoskeag Mill No. 3, the rushing water from theUpper Canal flowed through an underground “penstock”and fell down into a horizontal water “turbine” beneaththe floor. This acted like the earlier water wheels thatpowered the saw and grist mills. The spinning turbine,through a series of gears, transferred this energy toshafts that ran up through the factory floors, thenthrough gears to leather belts that operated themachinery. The water continued flowing under thebuilding and downhill, into the Lower Canal andeventually back into the river.Waterpower was originally the only source of power inthe millyard.

Water Power in the Mills

WOW!!!! That's one big wheel! Did youknow the falls produced over 36,000

horsepower worth of energy...where doyou think they put all those horses?

Can you put the pictures in order from first tolast in order to create power for the mills?

6. Water flowing down theMerrimack River

1. Water spinning theturbine

2. Water exits back toriver

3.Water fills up thepenstocks and drops down

4. Water is diverted to thecanals

5. Turbine spins the belts,powering all the looms

Answers: 6, 4, 3, 1, 5, 2

Many thousands of people worked at the AmoskeagManufacturing Company.At one time, Amoskeag employed over 17,000 workers --well over half of the city’s working people. Most of theworkers were immigrants. Many were young women, wholeft their homes on farms to come work in the mills.

Mattie Knight was a factory worker from a very youngage. Mattie saw that everything in the mills did not alwaysrun smoothly. Steel-tipped wooden shuttles wouldoccasionally fly off their looms At the age of 12, sheinvented a safety device to protect workers from theseshuttles that fed string to the looms. She saved a lot of liveswith this invention. Among lots of other things,Mattie invented a machine for making square bottom paperbags. In her lifetime, she was responsible for over 80patented devices. Nearly all Margaret Knight’s inventionswere improvements for factory machines.

Mill Workers

One Awesome Girl

Connect the dots to discover just a few ofthe 100+ inventions that Mattie invented

Mattie's nick name was"Lady Edison", after thegreat inventor Thomas

Edison

Manchester was a planned city. This was quite unusual forNew England. The Amoskeag investors envisioned a citythat would support its manufacturing operations, andwould also be handsome, humane and livable. The plan wasto create a vibrant community – Manchester would be agood place in which to work and live. In 1838, Amoskeaghad one of its young engineers, 19-year old Ezekiel Straw,lay out the downtown area. Straw did this on a neat gridsystem, where the new wide main street – called Elm Street-- would be parallel to the new millyard. Amoskeag built its worker's housing on the streets abovethe millyard, between the mills and the main street. The new town attracted energetic entrepreneurs andskilled craftsmen. Retail development was encouraged,and a central business district quickly rose up in thedowntown area close to the new mills. Just as theAmoskeag planners had envisioned, a great industrialcenter was rising on the banks of the Merrimack River.

Ezekiel plans a city

What would your citylook like? Would youcenter it around one

street like Ezekiel did?Would you use a grid or

let it flow freely?Design your city in thespace on the next page,

keeping in mind howpeople would get fromone place to another.

The Great City of

Designed by the great city planner:

__________________________

The Fall of an EmpireThe end of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company came formany reasons including, southern competition and outdatedequipment. Through 1920 Manchester was known as the“strikeless city” beacause Amoskeag worked very hardto instill loyalty among its workforce. Despite its bestefforts, there were several strikes from 1919- 1934, some weresuccessful and some were not. In September, 1935 the millsshut down. On December 24, the company declaredbankruptcy. In the spring of 1936, there was a great floodthat made reorganizing difficult. The closing of the Amoskeag mills in 1935 was a major blowto the city. However, local business leadershad great success attracting small industries to themillyard. By the 1950s, over 125 small businesses wereoperating out of the millyard, thanks to the efforts of Amoskeag Industries.

The close of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Companywas not the end for Manchester. Rather, it was just the

beginning. Manchester is a city that thrives onadversity, accepts change, and moves forward. Every

time it seems to get knocked down, it gets back upbetter than before. After the mills closed in 1935,

private citizens worked together to bring life back to astruggling city. They reinvented themselves.

Manchester has gone through highs and lows but hasalways come out on top.This ability to survive and

thrive is a testament to the the people who loveManchester and call it home, both now and in the past.

Sometimes it takes drasticmeasures to make change

happen. The mill workers werefighting for what they thought

was fair. In the end, acombination of striking,

southern competition andtoo few mechanical updates

sent Amoskeag into bankruptcy.

Look at the map of downtown Manchester.What do you think has changed from the early

mill days? What do you think has stayed thesame? What buildings and landmarks can you

find that give clues to the past?

Time to think....

What was your favorite part of the museumtoday?

What would you have liked about Manchesterback then? What do you like about

Manchester today?