CANAAN

A short history of Canaan

Chartered in 1761 by Governor Benning Wentworth, the town was named after the hometown of many early settlers, Canaan, Connecticut, which had been named by Puritans for the biblical land of Canaan. It was settled in the winter of 1766–1767 by John Scofield, who arrived with all his belongings on a hand sled. The land was filled with rocks, making agriculture difficult. The town constructed a broad road for its main street on a stretch of level land.

In 1828 attorney George Kimball helped organize building the town's Congregational church. He was among the New England abolitionists who founded Noyes Academy in March 1835, one of the first schools in the region to admit students of all races. It opened with 28 white students, drawn largely from local families, and 17 black students; most of the latter came from outside the town and across the Northeastern United States. Many local residents opposed bringing blacks into the town. On August 10, 1835, five hundred white men from Canaan and nearby towns used "nearly 100 yoke of oxen" to pull the building off its foundation, then burned it. Fearing for their safety, the black students left town, as did Kimball, who moved to Alton, Illinois.

Canaan Union Academy was built on the site and was limited to white students; it operated for the next 20 years. After the academy's closing, residents sympathetic to fugitive slaves operated a station of the Underground Railroad to help the people reach Canada or settle in New England.

The Northern Railroad (predecessor of the Boston & Maine Railroad) was constructed to the town in 1847, spurring development. Water powered mills were built on the streams. By 1859, the population had reached 1,682, and Canaan had one gristmill, three lath and clapboard mills, and one tannery.

The Canaan train wreck occurred on September 15, 1907. Four miles (6.4 km) west of Canaan Station, the southbound Quebec to Boston express, crowded with passengers returning from the Sherbrooke Fair, collided head-on with a northbound Boston & Maine freight train. The accident claimed 26 lives, and 17 others were seriously injured. The accident was found to be due to a mistake made by a dispatcher, who mis-identified a train in one of his communications. It remains the train wreck with the largest loss of life in New Hampshire history.

On June 2, 1923, the Great Canaan Fire burned 48 homes and businesses, destroying the heart of Canaan Village (East Canaan).

Adapted (trimmed) from the Wikipedia article Canaan, New Hampshire, revision 1378522337 by its contributors, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.