John and Mary (Gilman) Folsom emigrated from Hingham, England in 1638. Their first child Samuel was born shortly before they set sail, and they settled at first in Hingham MA. Sometime before 1655 they relocated to Exeter. The youngest of their eight children, Ephraim Folsom (1654-1709) was the first member of that family to settle in what would become Newmarket. He died in an evening ambush in 1709—one of the many indigenous hostilities spawned by Queen Anne’s War.
One hundred years after Ephraim settled here, there were numerous Folsom descendants in Newmarket. Many of them fought for the independence of the colonies. One of them, Col. Jeremiah Folsom [1] (1719-1802) was an innkeeper in town, and he early espoused the cause of the patriots. The oppressive measures of the English Parliament were warmly discussed in the months immediately preceding the Revolution. Well before the Lexington and Concord conflict, Jeremiah and his eight sons joined the December 1774 expedition to take over and empty Fort William and Mary of its powder, cannons and small arms—some of which would be used at Bunker Hill.
Josiah FolsomJosiah Folsom (1774-1896) lived at the Crow and Eagle Falls homestead on Hersey Lane. He and his wife Abigail (Ham) had four children:
In 1822, Josiah purchased a handsome hall clock, built by a local clockmaker John Kennard. According to his Josiah’s grandson Channing Folsom:
Tradition informs us that when the Hersey Lane house was burned the girls of the family[3] (my aunts) carried the clock out of doors. The only information as to the date of the fire that can be found is the following extract from the clerk’s record of the Town meeting march 18, 1827: “Voted that Mr. Josiah Folsom have his state, county, town, school and highway tax for the years 1826-27 abated by reason of destruction of his property by fire”.
William and his brother Josiah both became physicians. Before studying medicine, William taught in the old one-room Wentworth Cheswill schoolhouse[4] at the corner of South and Main Streets. (In 1831, his list of students had 134 names on it. No wonder he changed professions.)
Dr. Folsom was a staunch supporter of temperance and believed that all alcohol should be abolished. He and Dr. George Kittridge were two of a dozen citizens who published an appeal to the Village for Total Abstinence in view of “the unholy traffic – that has been discharged this very week at our wharf, one hogshead of the Liquid Fire, directed to J.B. Creighton & Sons, to be dealt out as ’medicine’, of course, at the discretion of the Doctors Creighton & Jewell!”
In 1837 William married Irene Lamprey of Kensington; they had four children—all born here at 156 Main Street:
Dr. Folsom’s wife Irene died at age 38 in 1856, and he remarried the widow Martha (Garland) Dearborn. In 1866, with failing health, he sold his building and practice and retired to the old Folsom Farm, where he died later that year. Dr. Folsom, his first wife Irene and their daughter Martha are all buried in the old Folsom family lot off Hersey Lane. (Ten years later his brother Josiah, on vacation from his medical practice in Maine, died suddenly while visiting the old homestead.)
Channing Folsom, N.H. Superintendent of Public Instruction, 1898-1904
Wanting his son to have an excellent education, William sent Channing to Phillips Exeter and then to Dartmouth. But funds were insufficient and the young scholar was also handicapped by poor vision. After his time at Dartmouth, Channing became a teacher. His first brief stint was in his home town where he taught High School. Not yet having its own separate building, it was housed in the brick school built in 1849 (Site No. 10). But that was the least of its problems, as the Superintendent’s Report of 1867-68 shows:
The limited number of pupils qualified to pursue the branches usually taught at the High School, and the crowded condition of the lower grades, forced us to send to the High School pupils poorly qualified to attend even a Grammar School. Consequently the High School exists only in name.
After teaching in several Massachusetts schools, by 1870 he had returned to teach in Portsmouth, where he married Ruth M. Savage. Dover then hired him as principal of the Belknap School. Mr. Channing Folsom was making a name for himself as a successful educator, and Boston’s prestigious Eliot School hired him. For the next five years he served as a master at that school until returning to Dover in 1882 to be Superintendent of Schools. By then he and his wife were raising a family of five children (Henry—b.1871, Alice—b.1873, Arthur—b.1875, Emily—b.1876, Mary—b.1880).
It was during his tenure in Dover in 1886 that Diptheria broke out in Newmarket. Channing warned all his students and Dover townsfolk not to go to Newmarket. This naturally created a stir in town (Walking Tour Site# 45 Elm & Spring Steets & Nichols Ave).
After 16 years in Dover—during a time of many changes in both policies and methods—the N.H. Board of Education hired Mr. Folsom as Superintendent of Public Instruction. He set to work to raise the educational standards of the state, first working to arouse the support of the public. He realized that many communities could not support the kind of school they wanted because of limited resources. (No doubt his first teaching experience in Newmarket bore that out!)
In 1904 his term expired, and Channing Folsom was not reappointed—presumably in opposition to his progressive ideas. Several newspapers supported his continuation, noting that “The idea is absurd to displace a man from such an office for such reasons, a man who is acknowledged by his bitterest opponents to be amply qualified for the place. “ [5] Tributes to his work on behalf of New Hampshire education continued for decades.
At his passing in 1937, the Manchester Union published Dr. William Mandrey’s article, “Men Who Made New Hampshire: Channing Folsom.”
He advocated state aid to these communities. He drafted the so-called “Grange School Law” which called for an annual appropriation by the state of $25,000 for needy districts. His impartial and fair distribution of the funds won the support of those leaders who fought the proposal. He then labored to secure a better system of supervision of instruction in the poorer school districts and set achievement standards which high schools must meet to merit approval.
MR. FOLSOM was no “faddist”; he was a practical school man who insisted upon a mastery of the fundamentals. Realizing that tuition rates and the narrow limits of the curriculum deprived many students of a high school— education, he launched a vigorous campaign to eliminate tuition and advocated courses in business and industrial education. He fought for the enforcement of attendance laws, prosecuted callous employers who defied the child labor laws and encouraged the establishment of evening classes where young and old could learn after working hours.
His retirement from the State office brought the Honorable Channing Folsom back to Newmarket. He and Ruth settled on their Ash Swamp Road farm (not far from Four Corners). In addition to farm management, he became increasingly involved in town affairs:
Beginning in 1904, along with his son Henry and his brother-in-law John E. Savage, he was instrumental in the formation of Boston’s Newmarket Club – a group of Newmarket ex-townies who wanted to stay connected to the town, supporting and promoting it as much as possible. Many of the details and stories available to today’s historian come from their historical committee’s postings in the Newmarket Advertiser.
An active Mason, he is credited with the written history of the Masons in celebration of the Rising Star Lodge’s centennial in 1926.
His was a working farm, and Mr. Folsom regularly posted in the Newmarket Advertiser “Market Place,” selling pigs, cows, fire wood, apples, hay, and Barred Plymouth Rock cockerels. Sometimes he advertised for farm hands. He also used “Market Place” to advertise his “land and buildings on Hersey Lane” for rent. By 1930, they were no longer for rent, but rather for sale.
In 1930, the Honorable Channing Folsom was pulled into the first meeting of a new non-partisan group in town—the Citizens Party. It was formed to address the many town-mill issues arising due to the recent strike. Nominated over his protests to chair their first meeting, Folsom (at 82 years old) took the gavel. “His conduct of the meeting was fair, snappy and result-producing.” Toward the end of the meeting, he “then spoke from the chair and counseled his hearers to see that anything they did would redound [contribute] to the benefit of all alike…that it would be as disastrous to favor the Newmarket Manufacturing Company too much as it is to do the opposite.”[6] It seems that skills honed during decades in education and administration had come in handy.
These difficult times in Newmarket seemed to be reflected in Channing’s family life. In September 1929 Ruth—Channing’s wife of nearly 60 years—passed away. His daughter Alice Towle passed away the following September; and in January 1932, he lost his son Arthur.
At his passing in 1937, the Hon. Channing Folsom was survived by his two daughters Mary and Emily. His son Henry—who had been such an active part of Boston’s Newmarket Club—had met an unexpected end much earlier.
Mary’s father Washington Webster Hardy (1838-1916) had grown up in Dover, becoming a sailor while in his early teens. His obituary stated: “Capt. W.W. Hardy Circumnavigated the Globe Thirteen Times.” He was the captain for 11 of those voyages. W.W. Hardy’s mother (Mary’s grandmother) was Sarah Rust Folsom, born in Exeter, descended from Col. Jeremiah Folsom.
The cousin relationship between Henry Folsom and Mary Hardy was pretty distant: their fourth great-grandfathers had been brothers. But there was a Folsom connection; and both Henry and Mary grew up in Dover. Henry had attended Dover schools, (where his father was superintendent) and then graduated from Dartmouth College in 1892. Over the course of the next decade, Henry began as a teacher—for a time in Gardner, MA, and then later in the Boston area.
Henry and Mary married in 1898, and the young couple moved to Massachusetts. Henry was already living there, beginning to fill administrative roles in various Boston schools. At some point he had begun studies at the Boston University School of Law. By the time of his marriage, he was listing his profession as “lawyer” even though he continued to work in education for several years into the 20th century.[7]
By 1914 Henry was a partner in Powers, Folsom & Powers law firm. Among his civil and social memberships, he was also chairman of the Somerville School Board, and had been active with Boston’s Newmarket Club.
In his family life, however, there were some difficulties that centered on his wife’s mental health. These did not become public knowledge until Henry’s death that June.
“Henry H. Folsom…met a tragic death last Saturday afternoon at Exeter, N.H. when he was shot and instantly killed by his wife, Mrs. Mary Hardy Folsom, while driving from the railroad station in Exeter to his farm in Newmarket, N.H. “
Reaction to Henry’s death was intense and widespread. The mayor of Somerville ordered flags on public buildings to be flown at half-mast. It was reported that about 500 people attended his funeral—the Newmarket Congregational Church must have been bursting. Delegations were there from the City of Somerville and the Somerville School Committee, from Dartmouth College, from the Masons, and from the Massachusetts Bar Association. Although he had not grown up in Newmarket, Henry Hubert Folsom was laid to rest here.
A description of Mary’s actions—and of the rest of her life—could be the stuff of fiction.
Five years earlier, she had been confined in an asylum, suffering from “mental derangement.” She had remained there for over two years before her release back home. The following two years she appeared “perfectly normal to her friends.” The week before the shooting Mary again “manifested symptoms of insanity” and was taken to New Hampshire but was soon released.
The day before the shooting Henry received word that she was becoming violent. The next day Henry left Boston on the 1:15 train. Mary had called, telling him she would meet him at the Exeter station. As Henry drove the carriage back to Newmarket, Mary shot him with a gun she had purchased that morning. She told the police she killed her husband because she loved him and wished to keep him from marrying another woman.[9]
Mary was promptly committed once again to the N.H. Insane Hospital in Concord. Seventeen months later she managed to escape—in men’s clothing; however, she returned the next day, tired and hungry.
In 1919 (five years after her initial committal), Mary disappeared again—for eight years. On escaping a second time, Mary made her way to Troy, New York, and worked at various jobs until she had saved enough to open a small bakery. Her cakes, pies and cookies were tasty, and business took off, allowing “Mary Rust”[10] to move her business to the exclusive part of Troy. But the tragedy of the past weighed on her. Years after her arrival in Troy, her customers one day found the shop closed and their favorite baker gone. She returned back to her attorney’s office in Dover, and he persuaded her to return to Concord and turn herself in.
She was released from the hospital at least once after that. In 1930 she was living in New Durham, NH, boarding with Horace and Susan Neal. Her 1945 death certificate indicates that she died at the N.H. State Hospital in Concord, and had been there for eight years. Mary Rust Hardy Folsom is buried in Dover’s Pine Hill Cemetery with her parents.
Above and beyond the horror and heartbreak of this story, one wonders how Mary’s mental illness would have been diagnosed today. And it’s interesting that “Mary Rust” (who had never before worked outside the home) seemed quite sane and was financially successful during her time in Troy.
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Footnotes:
[1] Descended from Ephraim’s brother John Folsom
[2] The Museum’s earliest school report is for 1848-49. And Mary J. Folsom was teaching in 1848-49 at the Plains District School. She may well have been teaching during any of the twenty-odd years before that report. She is also listed in 1853-54 as teaching one term at the Pine Hill School and one term at Grant School. Twenty years later, she returned for five years to teach at the Pine Hill School (1872-1877). She would have been well into her 60s for that last stint.
[3] One of Josiah’s daughters, Abigail married Washington Haines. Over the next couple of centuries the hall clock was passed back and forth between various cousins within the Haines/Folsom families. Final possession was with Diana Kavanaugh Reed, a fifth-generation descendant of Abigail Folsom Haines. In 2018, Ms. Reed had the 1822 clock repaired, and donated it to the New Market Historical Society. It’s on display at the Stone School Museum, and it still works, keeps time perfectly and chimed in the new year 2023 in perfect pitch.
[4] See Site No. 10
[5] The Newmarket Advertiser, “Concerning Supt. Folsom”, August 19, 1904.
[6] The Newmarket Advertiser, February 6, 1930.
[7] The 1902 Boston School Report lists Henry H. Folsom as being both “Principal at Lyman School” and the “East Boston High School Assistant in Charge.” The 1902 City Directory lists him as a lawyer.
[8] Newspaper report.
[9] There is nothing published that supports this motive in reality.
[10] “Rust” was her great-grandmother Folsom’s maiden name.