George Adams, brother of Thomas, removed to Boston, and became the well known and successful founder of the Boston directory. He returned to Plymouth in 1846, and occupied the old store. He married in 1829 Hannah Sturtevant, daughter of Ephraim Harlow, and had George W., 1830, who married Mary Holland of Boston; Hannah, 1832, who married Dr. Edward A. Spooner of Philadelphia; Sarah S., 1840, and Theodore Parker, 1845, who married Ellen B., daughter of Joseph Cushman. He died October 4, 1865, at the age of fifty-eight.
In 1835 Henry Howard Robbins moved his hatter’s business to this store, and it was later occupied by John Perkins & Reuben Peterson, hatters, Weston & Atwood, clothiers, and Wm. F. Peterson and others.
My first recollection of the Old Colony Memorial was when it was located in one or both rooms over the two stores just mentioned. James Thurber was then the publisher, and Benjamin Drew was one of the type setters. The paper was ready for the press by seven o’clock every Friday evening, and T remember well how much I enjoyed as a boy the permission to go to the office after supper and help fold the papers. The machine used in printing was the old Washington hand press which, tended by two men, could print one side at the rate of two or three hundred in an hour. Today a Hoe press is furnished with a roll of paper more than four miles long, and will print fifteen thousand complete newspapers in an hour.
The next store was in 1834, occupied by James G. Gleason as a barber’s shop, to which was attached a small room for the sale of soda and ice cream. Up to 1828 the barber shop of Jonathan Tufts, which stood on Church street, where the office of Jason W. Mixter, now stands, was the gathering place where the gossips of the town exchanged their news of the latest scandal. His shop had been for many years the place of deposit for curiosities which shipmasters collected in various parts of the world. Both the gossip and the curiosities were inherited by the Gleason shop, and finally descended to the shop of Isaac B. Rich and John T. Hall, Mr. Gleason’s successors.
Sometimes practical jokes were played in the shop more entertaining to the lookers on than to the victims. One of the habitues was William Bradford, a manufacturer of cotton bats, a man of humor, always ready to play a part in any prank. One day while Mr. Bradford was in the shop, Mr. Gleason went out on an errand and a countryman came in to be shaved. Bradford with a wink at the crowd said, “All right sir, your turn next, sit right down.” He gave the man a bountiful lather, and pulling off the towel said to him, “This is all we do in this department, you will have to go into the next shop to get your shave. When you go in don’t mind the old fellow in the front room, for he is a queer chap, a little off in his head, but go right through into the back room where they do the shaving.” Daniel Gale, the tailor, occupied the next shop, using the front room for cutting out work, and the back room for the sewing women. Mr. Gale was astonished, and so were the women, but when the angry countryman returned, Bradford had left, and Gleason had to bear the brunt of his mischief. Mr. Hall occupied the store until he purchased the Dr. Warren house on the west side of Main street, which he occupied until his death, September 21, 1885. Among those who have since occupied the store were, Mrs. Mary F. Campbell and Frederick L. Holmes.
CHAPTER XVII.
The last chapter closed with a mention of the various occupants of the building on the east side of Main street, formerly occupied by John T. Hall, and now occupied by a provision store.
The next store was a one story building, which was occupied during my early youth by Deacon Solomon Churchill for a crockery store, and for some reason, good man as he was, the boys selected him as a victim of many of their mischievous acts. They would, after tying his door handle, throw gravel against his windows, throw a cat dead or alive into his store, or capturing one of their comrade’s caps, toss it inside his door, where a good spanking was the only condition of its release. Deacon Churchill, son of Amaziah and Elizabeth (Sylvester) Churchill was born in Plymouth in 1762, where he married Betsey Bartlett, and died in Perry, Ohio, April 10, 1835. Daniel Gale, the tailor, already referred to, succeeded Deacon Churchill, and occupied it many years. Further mention will be made of him as an occupant of a house on the west side of the street.
The next store standing by itself was also a one story building, in my youth occupied as an apothecary shop by Dr. Isaac LeBaron until 1835, when he moved to the corner of Main and North streets. Dr. LeBaron was succeeded by Joseph D. Jones, tinman, who has been already referred to in connection with Market street. The above two one story buildings occupied the sites of the present Leyden Hall building, and the Hubbard building.
After the erection of Leyden Hall building its early occupants were, Joseph Cushman, Alderman & Gooding, on the North side, and Jameson & Company and Benjamin O. Strong on the South side. Mr. Cushman, son of Joseph and Sally (Thompson) Cushman of Middleboro, came a young man to Plymouth and opened a dry goods store on the corner of Main street and Town Square, whence he removed to the Leyden hall building, and continued in business there some years. In December, 1849, he sailed from New York for California, and became a permanent resident on the Pacific coast. He finally settled in Olympia in Washington territory, where he engaged in the lumber and general mercantile business, and held the position of receiver of public moneys. He married in 1835 Sarah Thomas, daughter of Barnabas and Triphena (Covington) Hedge of Plymouth, and died in Olympia, February 29, 1872. Two of his daughters, Mary A., widow of Alfred E. Walker of New Haven, and Ellen Blanche, who married Theodore Parker Adams, live in Plymouth.