by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 9, 2023.
Exeter doesn’t have a town common like many New England towns. In most, the town common is in the center of town surrounded by public buildings and churches. Exeter’s town center is the commercial part of town. If there is any place in the downtown area that we might think of as a gathering place, it would be Swasey Parkway, which was only laid out in 1930. Our town common is located about a mile away from all the current action in an area known as ‘the Plains.’
The Plains can reasonably be defined as the area surrounding Park Street – although its exact boundary is hard to determine. It’s what might be called a vernacular zone, defined by the people who live there. The early town records state: “On March 30, 1682, it was enacted by general consent that the piece of land between Edward Sewall’s fence, Christian Dolloff’s fence or land, John Bean’s fence, Henry Magoon’s fence or land and the way that goes from Henry Magoon’s land to Pickpocket mill, which said piece of land now lying common, shall lie perpetually common for the use of the town, either for a common field or for what else shall be thought convenient for the town.” That would have been land large enough to stretch from Epping Road (including some of Main Street) all the way to outer Front Street. Over time, the common area was reduced and today it is only the triangle of land on Park Street that is considered town land. The area, however, retained the name “the Plains” even after it was no longer used for cattle grazing and the annual militia training.
The original meeting house in Exeter was built on the Plains. There’s a marker at the base of Summer Street, just by the railroad tracks, that remembers the old meeting house. John Wheelwright, who we claim as our town founder, was granted his homestead in the area during the four years he lived here. Today’s Park Street was once called the Mast Way as huge pine trees harvested for use by the British Navy were hauled through to the river for transportation. People so resented having to give up these big trees, that a group of them met at the Gidding’s Tavern on the Plains, and planned an attack on the King’s agents, who were in town to investigate. The Mast Tree Riot of 1734 – more a bunch of local guys roughing up a bunch of excise men than a riot – was a highlight of Plains history.
In 1857, the town jail was erected on Forest Street. The previous jail, on Chestnut Street, had a reputation of being highly permeable. By that time, there was no longer a meeting house near the plains. A fine new church and courthouse stood a mile away on Front Street. The plains were now thought of as the outskirts of town. The sandy soil was not great for agriculture. Putting the jail out there seemed like a good idea. There was also a spring nearby to provide drinking water. Behind the jailhouse stood the Wiggin and Clark brickyard on land that was probably an old burial ground. In 1891, prisoners from the jailhouse came to the rescue of Constable Edmund Thurston, who was trying to put down a fight between Italian brickyard workers and their overbearing supervisor. The workers themselves were housed in the jail until their trial. The jail was closed in 1910 and the building today is residential.
The Plains had one school for decades. It was a dark brick building erected in 1832 with two interior rooms, no indoor plumbing, and no interior lighting. On bright days, the students were able to adequately see their books. The air inside was stagnant and prone to smoke from the wood stove. Without running water, the kids drank from a shared water pail and had no place to wash their hands after using the outhouse. The school was all there was for the Plains elementary students until 1902, when it was razed and replaced by a school that formerly stood on Winter Street. It was an improvement, although still a hand-me-down. This was one of the reasons the area was sometimes called ‘Poverty Plains.’ Despite its noble ancestry as the oldest part of settled Exeter, the area had become known as a broken-down unproductive part of town.
Annie Conner, in 1976, remembered her childhood in the ‘Poverty Plains’ on Forest Street. “Every person in the neighborhood had a garden where they’d try to raise enough vegetables for their own families and some of the families were large ones.” She remembered happy times playing with neighbor children and picking raspberries. There were two Black families on the Plains during her childhood. The Thomas family and the Walkers. The youngest Walker child was Isabel. “Isabel was blind and she went to the Perkins School and while she was there she taught them knitting and things of that sort. She was really an expert and Mrs. Mildred Leavitt told me a short time before she died that every Christmas Isabel used to send her a brand new sweater with a new stitch in it.”
Annie doesn’t mention the events that took place on the commons. It was the location of frequent bonfires during campaign rallies. There’s a notice in the July 22, 1904, Exeter News-Letter that, “Mr. Arthur H. Gray gave a pleasing phonograph concert on the Plains common Wednesday evening.” Imagine everyone gathering on a hot summer night to listen to the tinny sounds of an Edison phonograph. After the new Swasey bandstand was built in the downtown in 1915, the rickety old wooden one was sometimes moved to the Plains for concerts.
Today, the Plains area is still a vibrant neighborhood. The Park Street Commons is used for recreation – there’s a ball field and playground open year-round and a skating rink in the winter months.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Image: District #2 school – the Plains School (sometimes called Park Street School) was built in 1831 and was known for its poor conditions. No indoor plumbing or lighting, the students tried their best to study in the dim schoolroom. It was razed in 1902.