| The 1895 Kittery Prophecy of Ben Frisbee |
VINTAGE NEWS
Prof. Richard Candee discovered a copy of this rare and brittle publication that we had never seen before. The following article offers a view of the future by Kittery Point “prophet” who wrote in 1895 what he imagined might happen to his town 60 years in the future. Read the entire transcript below.
BEN FRISBEE’S PROHPECY
A prophetic vision of Kittery Point and vicinity sixty years hence
November 27, 1895
Transcribed exclusively by SeacoastNH.com
It is a bright morning in June, in the year 1955, that we near the mouth of the Piscataqua on board of an ocean steamer four days from Liverpool. As BoonIsland and the Isles of Shoals are past, with the harbor and the land on either side in view, the scenery is beautiful in the extreme. An immense tower looms up on Whalesback, one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea, which at night shows an electric light of great brilliancy. WoodIsland soon comes into view on which is a steel fortress covering the entire island. A bridge of solid masonry, steel clad, connects the fortress with the earth works on GerrishIsland. On top of this bridge is a covered archway built of steel, bombproof, where troops can be taken from one fort to the other without exposure in time of battle. This bridge forms a breakwater for the inner harbor, which was long needed. Inside of Wood island a wharf is built out from Black rock to deep water, where the largest steamer can land with safety. GerrishIsland is said to be one of the most beautiful places in New England. It represents one immense park. Many beautiful residences and two large hotels grace the waterfront. A beautiful macamamized road. Four rods wide, called Goodwin’s Boulevard, encircles the island and is lighted by electricity. This boulevard makes one of the finest drives in New England. Every afternoon in fair weather can be seen some of the finest turnouts in New England.
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In the morning the boulevard is said to be alive with equestrians and with bicycles run by electricity, which is said to be a great improvement on the old treadmill fashion of locomotion; there are no bent forms and unnatural positions, but with full control of the electrical power, the person sits erect and glides along with the speed of the wind if desired. There are other attractions on this beautiful island. In sight of the sea is a beautiful park open to the public, with several fountains sending their spray high in air. Great Swamp has been dredged and made into an artificial lake; other swamps have been filled in and built upon until the whole island has become a thing of beauty which the visitor can only look at with wonder and amazement. But to return to our ship, entering the harbor after being visited by the custom house officers and port physician, we steamed to Lawrence Point, which is the landing place of a branch of the White Star line of steamers, an iron pier being built along the water front. Taking an electric car, we go to the Pepperrell House, which is said to tbe the oldest hotel in town, being built in the early seventies of the 18th century. As I am to stop here several days, I will relate what I see in my rambles about town. There are two lines of ocean steamers running to this place, being drawn here by the great depth of water and nearness to the sea. Soon after the railroad as built to Canada, connecting with the west, which has its terminus at Kittery Point. What was once Canada is now a part of the United States, it having been annexed in 1920, as you doubtless know, thereby bringing five new states into the Union -- Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba, Quebec and Arcadia. The Star Spangled Banner now waves from the frozen north to the island of Cuba, which gained her independence in 1896, was annexed to the United States in 1898. Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands was annexed to the Union the same year.
CONTINUE BEN FRISBEE 1895 PROPHECY
Frisbee's 1895 Prophecy (Continued)
Kittery Point has a continuous line of wharves along its water front; Pepperrell’s Cove has been dredged to a depth of twenty feet at low water, its ledges blown out and removed. On Seaward’s Island is situated the electric plant that supplies the power to run the electric road and to light the streets. The electric cards run along the northern side of Chauncey’s Creek, through Phillips Avenue to York Line, returning through Harbor Avenue (once called the Harbor Road) by Kittery Point, making a continuous circuit.
Along Harbor Avenue are some fine residences. On Tennios Hill is a large hotel, five stories high with four hundred rooms. On top of the hotel is a telescope of great power, through which the view is grand and picturesque. The eastern part of the town is thickly settled, it has grown very fast since the electric cars has run. The neighborhood that used to be called BridgeTown and DogTown, and several other kind of towns as a reproach, is now the finest and most fashionable part of the town.
The newspaper of the town is THE ISLAND AND HARBOR ECHO published here in one of the finest buildings of the town six times daily and it has a circulation of 533,140 daily. The town has had its being since 1930, when it came off from Kittery proper Spruce Creek making the dividing line. All on the easterly side of the Creek taking the name PIscataqua for the noble river which flows along its shores. The town grew very rapidly after the division, its men of wealth seemed to vie with each other in their efforts to beautify the new town. One man presented the town with land for a park in that part of the town once called the back city and it is now one of the finest parks in New England. Another man presented the town with a building for a town hall. Several other rich men built a reservoir on the highest part of Juniper Hill and presented it to the town, with all the pipes to supply the town with water. FortMcClary was sold to private parties a few months after the division, with all the land attached, and it is now the business center of the town.
The main street, that runs from the extreme point to Hutchings’ Corner, is called Decatur Street, forming a junction with Harbor Avenue and with Wilson Street, which runs to the northern part of the town. There are many cross streets and are mostly all named for the early residents. On the right of the old Congregational church is a large stone building which is the most fashionable church in town. The pastor is paid a salary of five thousands dollars a year. In place of an old wooden bridge at the Point, is a modern steel bridge forty feet wide. The electric cars runs over this bridge to the city of York, which under the old adage that “what once has been will be again,” is true in her case. The city of Gorgeanna being the first incorporated city in New England, then becoming a town and taking the name of York, and now after several centuries is again a city with a population four months in the year of forty thousand.
Spruce Creek has wharves built on each side to the head of tide-water and is a place of much commercial value, a draw having been made in the railroad bridge, that I am told, was first built without one, through the stupidity of somebody. It is said that the few people at Kittery Point, who were the most interested in getting the railroad at that time, were like Josh Billings in the war between the north and south, who expressed himself as willing to sacrifice all of his wife’s relations in putting down the rebellio, while these sordid-minded men were willing to sacrifice everybody’s land and interest but their own.
Barters Neck has several large factories and a steam brick kiln. It has one street from the extreme point to Wilson Street, called Crockett Avenue. All the streets in town are lighted by electricity. IN Clarkson’s Grove is a large building used as a female seminary. The town has a population of fifteen thousand and there are strong hopes of it soon being a city.
Newcastle, which is now a part of Portsmouth, is known as a great freight depot, a continuous line of wharves along the river front where large steamers are loading and discharging cargoes. A railroad runs along the wharves which connects with the west. IT has one of the greatest grain elevators in the world. FortConstitution is steel clad and said to be one of the most formidable forst on the coast.
Portsmouth proper has grown largely of late, I am told, and is now the largest city in the GraniteState. She has many factories but is chiefly noted for her shipbuilding, she having two large steel shipbuilding plants and sending out some of the fastest steamers afloat, with an average speed of thirty miles an hour, fire and water proof; they are built with two bottoms and eight water-tight compartments and no connection below the passenger deck. No doors to be always open in case of accident.
A great help to Portsmouth in her shipbuilding interest is from the government having built one of the largest dry docks in the world near the navy yard proper, between two islands, where nature seemed to help the design.
Kittery is a progressive town, she has many shoe factories and a steel shipbuilding plant at Badger’s ship yard.
A daily steamer runs to Boston from PIscataqua six months in the year, her average speed is thirty miles an hour. She touches at Newcastle and GerrishIsland.
The town of Piscatqua, the original Ktitery Point, has excellent schools and fine school buildings. It has four churches, one in the back part of town, lately built.
The Christian Society has a new and larger church in place of their chapel and, strange to say, they have a bell, which the old people here say they have tried to make up in size and tone for the many years they have been without one, the bell being so large and heavy that a derrick had to be erected to place it in the belfry, and its tone can be heard five miles away.
The people in the town are a church-going people. There is less talk of creed than formerly. The kind of religion that consisted in a measure, in talking of their neighbors faults, in envying their prosperity and rejoicing at their downfall and thanking the Lord they were better than other people has passed away, and a better religion has taken its place, which consists in speaking only of the good qualities of their neighbor, to rejoice at his prosperity and to feel sorrowfull at his downfall and to ask the Lord to help them carry out the golden rule, or in other words to vie with each other in doing good.
"By their efforts to make the world better,
In spirit and in letter,
That when the final end shall come
They may feel the spiritual emotion of a great victory won.”
Benjamin Randall Frisbee, The Prophet of the Alumni.
Transcript provided courtesy of SeacoastNH.com