Robert Frost in AllentownIn the summer of 1896, aspiring poet Robert
Frost (1874-1963) and his wife Elinor spent a
belated honeymoon in a rented cottage near
the Suncook River in Allenstown. Carl Burell,
a high school friend and avid naturalist, was
foreman at the Moulton box shop at Buck Street
dam. Botany walks with Burell awakened Frost
to the natural world, coloring his later writings. Frost recalled these walks in "The Quest of the Orchis" (1901). Burell's 1896 injury in a mill accident inspired Frost''s poem, "The Self-Seeker."
Buck Street Mills
A bridge was butlt at "Buck Street," by the
1750s. Natural falls were dammed to power saw
and grist mills before 1767. The 19th c. added
a water powered fulling mill for cleansing wool
cloth by 1813, a bedstead shop by 1845. a
spoke shop in the 1850s and twine mills. By
the 1890s, the dams powered Charles Fisher''s
axe handle factory and Reuben C. Moulton''s box
and trunk shop. Then Known as East Pembroke,
the area had a post office, store, blacksmit!h
shop, houses and workers tenements.
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