Bridgewright Horace Childs comes from a long line of Puritan Yankee stock. His fourth great-grandfather, William, was one of the earliest settlers of the New World. William arrived from England in 1630 and settled with his family in Watertown, Massachusetts. The family would remain there until Horace’s grandfather, Solomon Childs (1743-1827), and his wife,...
Frederick Whitney was born in Henniker on October 5, 1806. He was the third of six children born to Eleazer Whitney (1777–1838) and Alice Peabody (1779–1867) and was the only one of his siblings to live to old age. Little is known about Whitney’s childhood apart from a significant tragedy in 1819 when he...
Note: This article was amended in February 2024, after extensive research proved that the three bridges were not rebuilt in 1868 by the H. Childs & Co. Documents indicate that the bridges were rebuilt between 1888 and 1889 by the Concord Railroad. While this took away the excitement of having a piece of a...
