NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
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THE PASSING OF AN OLD LAND-MARK—THE FRANKLIN 
BUILDING, AT MANCHESTER. 
By Georce Forster ALLEN. 
The Old Corner Store is now out of 
sight, and many are the expressions of 
regret over its extinction. It has a_his- 
tory which may well be worth presery- 
ing. 
It was erected about 120 or 125 years 
ago by Col. Lee, who was the owner 
and who occupied the building which 
stood where Mr. Rabardy’s block now 
is, and who was a prominent citizen of 
the town. 
Major Eleazer Crafts, a soldier of the 
Colonial and Revolutionary Wars lived 
on the lot where the town library build- 
ing now stands. He and Col. Lee were 
rivals and were not on the best of terms 
with each other. Crafts wanted the 
land adjoining his homstead and was 
about to buy it. In the meantime Col. 
Lee learned that his neighbor was about 
to buy that strip of land, and forestalled 
him and bought it himself. This is the 
piece of land upon which the Old Corn- 
er Store building was erected. 
. Col. Lee immediately began the erec- 
tion of a building to be used as a ware- 
house. After the frame was up ready 
for boarding an interesting incident; as 
told to the writer by a grand-daughter of 
Major Crafts, occurred. 
Major Crafts kept a tavern and was 
popular with the people in general, es- 
pecially the young men, while Col. Lee 
was not. $80 onthe eve of the day when 
the framed building was erected, the 
young men of the town went into the 
tavern and one of them said, ** Now 
Major it will be high tide at 12 o’clock 
tonight, and if you say so the frame-work 
near you will go out with the ebb-tide.’’ 
But Major Crafts was not the man to 
approve of, or consider such action. 
A few years after this Col. Lee died, 
and Crafts bought the building and prop- 
erty. He converted the building into a 
dwelling house, or a part of it. He 
made a home for one of his step-daugh- 
ters, and his wife, known as ‘“‘Granny’’ 
Crafts, kept store there. After his de- 
cease and that of his widow, the property 
came in possession of his son, Captain 
David: Crafts. 
It was still used asa dwelling house 
and the writer’s grandfather was an oc- 
cupant of it for several-years, and the 
writer's mother and one of her sisters 
were married there. 
In the years following it was used for 
various purposes. _ Shoe making in the 
upper part. A tailor’s shop below. The 
widow, Elizabeth Lee made. children’s 
clothes, and also clothes for women, at 
one time employing several girls, one of 
whom gives the orrgin of the name 
~“ Franklin,”’ 
She relates that one day they were talk- 
ing, as girls will, and said, ‘‘ Let’s have 
a name for this building.’’ Another 
said, ““What shall it be.’’ After full 
discussion one said “‘Let’scall it ‘Frank- 
lin’,’’ and they all consented. As time 
went on ‘‘ The Franklin’? was used for 
GeorGE ForRsTER ALLEN 
various purposes such as reading room, 
restaurant, barber shop, andagain as a 
tailor’s shop. 
Later it was converted into a cabinet 
shop and used as such for several years 
by John Perry Allen, who carried on 
that manufacturing business for many 
years. ‘The building next came in pos- 
session of Captain B. L. Allen, who in 
1849 leased it for the term of ten years 
to the grocery firm of Burnham and 
Gentley, who occupied it as such until 
the expiration of their lease. 
Burnham & Gentley remodelled the 
building and converted it into one of the 
finest equipped stores of its kind in any 
town in Essex County. It was also ar- 
ranged and finished asa dwelling place 
for offices, several doctors having oc- 
cupied it for that purpose. At the ex- 
piration of their lease Burnham & Gent- 
ley dissolved partnership and were fol- 
lowed by Burnham & Crafts, who in 
turn retired from business. 
In the meantime Capt. B. L, Allen, 
the owner of the building, died, and by 
his will it became trust property for the 
use and benefit of his neice, Miss Han- 
nah Lee Allen, during her life, and at 
her decease to go to her heirs. 
During the Civil War it was occupied 
and used by different parties as a grocery 
and dry goods store, 
In April, 1869, the writer, who was 
then and had been in business on the 
same street, near the outlet of Saw. Mill 
Brook, moved into the building with a 
stock of goods consisting of dry goods, 
boots and shoes, crockery ware, wall 
papers and gents’ furnishings. - The 
other end of the building was used by 
Mr. John Little as a grocery store. Mr. 
Little not long after left and Mr. Chas. 
H. Sheldon putina provision store there, 
and it was while he was there that the 
county commissioners were called to 
widen the county road and the building 
was moved back 15 feet from its original 
foundation. 
The next movement of occupants was 
that of Mr. Sheldon, who found the ac- 
commodations too limited for his busi- 
ness, and the writer then became the oc- 
cupant of the whole building. 
In June, 1877, the writer brought his 
family into the building and made it his 
home till Sept. 20, 1909. He also made 
it his business home from: April, 1869, 
to Oct. 18, 1907. 
In reviewing the past the writer finds 
much that was sad, sorrowful, disap- 
pointing and hard to bear up under. But 
in balancing these with those of bless- 
ings, at times but dimly discerned, it is 
plain to see and realize that the latter far 
exceeded the former. 
In leaving the home of so many years, 
where so many gatherings in great var- 
iety, especially those of family and other 
friends, also, those of the church and 
society, anniversaries, etc., and seeing it 
demolished and made oblivious was a 
struggle not easy ro overcome. But 
** all is well that ends well.’? So recog- 
nizing the leadings of Divine Providence 
the writer gave himself into His hands. 
The Hollis Street Theatre. 
Grace George will be seen at the 
Hollis Street Theatre for only another 
week in her new play, a three-act com- 
edy entitled ““A Woman’s Way.”’ 
The time of the play is the present and 
the action takes place in a house on 
upper Fifth avenue, New York, over- 
looking Central Park. 
The novelty of the play comes in its 
treatment of the old divorce question. 
It tells how a young wife wins back her 
husband after she has apparently lost 
him to a rich and fascinating widow. 
It might be entitled a comedy of com- 
mon sense, for the wife announces to 
her husband when discussing the scandal, 
** she is a woman—and I am a woman— 
you areaman. If I cannot hold you I 
do not want you. We will invite her 
here and see.”’ 
The board of assessors have spent sev- 
eral days in Boston this week going over 
the books of the bank and corporation 
commissioners looking for “‘wrongly as- 
sessed’’ stock that should be assessed in 
Manchester’ s favor, 
