Sunday, August 03, 2003
By LYNN TRYBA Telegraph Staff
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Nashua's Changing Neighborhoods
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Others keep a watchful eye at all times, maintaining that despite initiatives such as a neighborhood watch and a police substation, French Hill remains a crime-haunted area that provides a haven for drug dealers.
Meanwhile, those who possess a culinary curiosity or who long for a taste of home say there"s no better place to indulge in authentic ethnic food.
Whatever one"s perspective, the Hill contains common threads that date to the early 1800s. Immigrants have always made this compact neighborhood their home, including struggling farmers from Canada, persecuted Jews from Russia and, most recently, Latinos fleeing the violence and poverty of their homelands.
The mill comple" at the base of French Hill has played an essential role in the life of the neighborhood, providing a steady source of income as its products shifted from te"tiles to high-tech over the decades. But the most defining feature of the Hill is the majestic Catholic church, St. Francis "avier, which towers over the neighborhood from its perch on Chandler Street.
The church is symbolic of perhaps the most important thing to this hard-working community: faith. Faith not just in God, but that a better life is within reach.
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Since the beginning, these houses of worship have served as the backbone of French Hill, fulfilling basic needs, cementing social and business ties and serving as spiritual homes for the faithful.
Center of power
When you look at the Unitarian-Universalist Church on Lowell Street, what you"re seeing, in part, is the history of the Nashua mills. The movers and shakers of the early township belonged to this church, the city"s oldest standing religious structure. Not only did they erect the building in 1827, they built the mills and everything else that propelled this once-agrarian community toward their vision of an urban, industrial future.
Asher Benjamin, a famous Boston architect, designed the church in a style suggestive of Greek architecture with massive columns, each formed from a solid tree. Benjamin also laid out the city"s streets and the canals that powered its mills.
While he was a key figure in the birth of industrial Nashua, his Boston colleagues referred to his time here as "Asher Benjamin"s lost years," said Alan Manoian, the city"s assistant economic development director.
If there is one thing to be said about the men who shaped Nashua"s destiny, it"s that they recognized a good idea when they saw one. After studying the te"tile mills in Lowell, Mass., attorney Daniel Abbot realized the Nashua River would allow a similar venture here. In 1822, he persuaded some associates, including law partner Benjamin French, merchant Joseph Greeley and tavern owner Moses Tyler, to help him build a te"tile-manufacturing township modeled after the one in Massachusetts.
At a glanceHISTORY: With its relatively affordable housing, the Hill has always been a place where newcomers to the city could get their start. BORDERS: Chandler Street and Atherton Park to the east, Orange Street and Granite Street to the west, Laton Street and Girouard Avenue to the north and Canal Street to the south. HISTORIC LANDMARKS: St. Francis "avier Church on Chandler Street, completed in 1898, which was closed in March by the Diocese of Manchester; The statue of Maj. Gen. John Gray Foster, at the corner of Orange and Lock streets. Foster is the highest-ranking military official in city history. He attended West Point with Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, and served in the Me"ican and Civil wars. CURRENT LANDMARKS: BAE Systems on Canal Street; St. Francis "avier on Chandler Street; Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua on Lowell Street. SCHOOLS: None. PARKS: Atherton Park, Tolles Street Park. HOUSES OF WORSHIP: Tolles Street Mission, Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua. UNIQUE FACTS: French HillÕs most notorious resident was Linda Kasabian, who was a follower of Charles Manson, the leader of a California cult who convinced his followers to murder seven people in 1969. Kasabian received immunity and was the prosecutionÕs star witness during MansonÕs trial in 1970. After the trial, she lived on Chandler Street for a time, and she now lives in Washington, according to various Manson-related Web sites. -Lynn Tryba |
The congregation contained the most prominent citizens of the time, many of whom had strong links to the mills. The last names of those who worshiped here " the Hunts, Spaldings and Greeleys " should be familiar to city residents, as they left their legacies behind in the form of street names, parks and historic buildings.
The Nashua Cemetery, located behind the church, was created in 1835 when the aging founding fathers realized they would soon need their own burial ground.
"If you were in the Who"s Who of Nashua, this is where you would be," Manoian said. "Those who had business relationships in life were buried next to each other."
Many soldiers are buried there, as well, including Israel Hunt, who fought in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and Maj. Gen. John Gray Foster, the highest-ranking military official in Nashua"s history.
Some of the cemetery"s 19th century monuments are quite elaborate: physician Elijah Colburn"s reaches about 20 feet tall. The over-the-top award goes to Leonard White Noyes, whose monument is positioned at the crest of the hill.
Noyes, the store agent for the Nashua Manufacturing Co. and a selectman, seems to have held a high opinion of himself, Manoian said. Not only does his monument sport his bust, but its inscription reads: "By the purity of his life, and the exercise of his many virtues, he laid up treasures beyond the reach of moth and rust and erected a monument more enduring than marble or granite."
His wife, Anna, gets a brief mention. She"s described as an "ornament to society" and an "example of true womanhood."
While the Unitarian Church is associated with tolerance, the early Nashua branch sometimes reflected its times. Not only were segregated pews provided for African-Americans, the church also denied a request from the Anti-Slavery Society in 1838 to host a sermon about slavery.
The church merged with the Universalist congregation in 1956 to form the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua.
Today, the church continues its tradition of liberal Christianity, which encourages people to think for themselves and arrive at personal philosophies that make sense to them. People of all sexual orientations and belief systems including atheists are welcome.
Parishioners are passionate about "accepting everyone as they are and the individual right to find the truth as you see it," said church member Ann Libby, 70, who grew up on French Hill.
She recalled an acquaintance once complaining about how hard it was to follow the many guidelines of his faith. She replied that at least he believed he would be rewarded in heaven if he followed the roadmap.
"With my religion, I don"t have a roadmap," she said. "I have to search for my own. That"s hard, too."
Clinging to memories
Seven senior citizens cluster in front of St. Francis Xavier, the recently closed Catholic church that has been a city landmark since 1898. While they pray on a recent weekday evening, most face the massive church, a castle-like monument of Vermont blue marble that presides over French Hill from the apex of Chandler Street.
The Catholics pray on the sidewalk. After more than a year of struggle to keep the church doors open, they have been shut. No amount of vigils, fund raising, protests and prayers has persuaded the Diocese of Manchester to change its mind about the structure, which needs more than $1 million in repairs.
While a City Hall-appointed task force meets to consider the building"s fate, a core group of about 12 parishioners gathers almost nightly at the church to say the rosary and pray that the doors reopen. They know the city is exploring the concept of turning St. Francis into an arts center and, while they aren"t crazy about the idea, they hope occasional church services might be reinstated. A weekly Mass would be nice, says Claire Berthiaume, 65, a church member for 50 years.
After the last Mass was celebrated in March, the group, which had been meeting since last August, continued going to the chapel and parish center to pray. After they were told in June that they could no longer use the facilities, they took their prayers outside to the front steps.
"I say to myself, "I"ve got to get over this." I can"t," Theresa Santerre says.
She shrugs and smiles, no longer at war with herself. She has a relationship with the church, one that began with her baptism in the church 73 years ago. She isn"t going to let go without a fight.
"It"s like having an old bicycle," Bob Daigle says. "It"s old, but it"s yours. And then bang, somebody steals it from you. French Hill is the part of Nashua that everyone seems to have forgotten about. There are no playgrounds. They"ve taken away our church."
St. Francis got its start when the Jackson Co. at the base of Chandler Street donated land for the church building. Despite their poverty, the early French-Canadian mill workers faithfully gave hard-earned nickels, dimes and quarters to build the Norman basilica-style church.
"They were going to make sure it made a French statement," Manoian said, pointing to the imposing church during a walking tour last spring. "This is saying, "We"re not here as immigrants. We"re not here just temporarily to work in your mills." "
Religious scholar Carl Dudley, a professor at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut, said the Nashua French-Canadians "built a substantial worship building with a lot of pomp and circumstance."
The French-Canadians believed the faithful should worship God in God"s glory, Dudley said.
"In strictly dollars-and-cents formula, it doesn"t make sense," he said. But in terms of how it inspires people to order their lives, it can be quite important, he added.
Daigle hasn"t forgotten the sacrifices of those who came before him. He considers the laity as much a part of the church as its hierarchy.
"Our attitude has always been that we"re looking for God"s will, to understand it and to do something. We"re not young," the 77-year-old says. "But we can pray."
That they can.
The worshipers start their almost-daily ritual on French Hill by crossing themselves. Rosaries of different colors and styles hang from weathered hands that have endured and celebrated 70, 80, almost 90 years of life. They begin reciting the rosary, keeping track of the meditation bead by bead. The mind could wander easily with so much repetition. But the group brings freshness and focus to each line. It"s as if they are contemplating the prayers for the first time.
Despite their advanced age and the fact that some are stooped or hard of hearing, they mostly stay on their feet for the rosary, which takes them about 30 minutes to say. Their steady and persistent Hail Mary and Our Father prayers are sometimes drowned out by music booming from low-slung cars and rattling pickup trucks. Faces, some hard, some just curious, stare out at the small knot of believers, who pray with their eyes closed in concentration. One passerby toots her horn in solidarity. Another yells out a mocking "Jesus Christ!"
As old fingers slip from one rosary bead to the next, a Jeep drives by with a license plate that reads "MEMEME." The message is at jarring odds with this circle of Catholics, who repeat words like "God," "Mary" and "Jesus" over and over.
When they open their eyes, they look as if they have woken from a refreshing catnap. Church talk begins. They discuss how the St. Francis statue from the church"s interior has been moved to St. Louis de Gonzague, where the Manchester Diocese has asked St. Francis parishioners, many of whom were Hispanic, to attend.
"At least he"s not alone in there," says Claire Berthiaume"s sister-in-law, Estelle Berthiaume, nodding toward the church, which soars more than two stories high inside.
Russell Jubert, 86, who has lived on French Hill"s Norton Street for more than 50 years, recalls seeing another St. Francis statue, the one that still looks over the neighborhood from the steeple, getting hoisted to the roof in 1927.
"I remember this being all full of staging," he says, gesturing to the front of the church. "I was standing at the corner watching the guys work."
He glances at his wife, Cecile, 84, who sits on the front steps. It reminds him of how each class from the former school at St. Francis Xavier used to pose for annual pictures.
In addition to attending school at St. Francis, Jubert got baptized and married there. His family was so poor that they paid a quarter a week for his confirmation suit. He remembers standing in the street all dressed up when the woman who sold his family the suit stopped to exclaim over his wonderful appearance. It was all thanks to her, he said.
Claire Berthiaume talks about how her grandfather used to drive her mother to St. Francis in a horse and buggy from their Hollis dairy farm. The church"s third pastor, Father Fabien Deshaies, healed her mother"s eyes, which couldn"t tolerate light and forced her to stay in a dark room for more than a year, she says.
The prayer group, mostly of French-Canadian descent, reminisces about the Polish and Jewish kids with whom they used to share the neighborhood. As they talk, their eyes light with joy. They joke that they can recall 40 years ago better than the day before.
"It only seems like yesterday," Santerre says, almost apologetically.
"You can"t forget," Estelle Berthiaume reassures her. "You can"t throw it out."
She isn"t just talking about the beautiful building behind her. Her comment encompasses everything the structure represents.
It"s about what went on inside its walls for more than a century. It"s about belonging. It"s about sharing memories and lives and faith. It"s about love and community.
"You go into another church and you can"t feel the closeness or camaraderie," Claire Berthiaume says.
Jubert nods. "This was home."
First in the state
Peel away the vinyl siding on the French Hill Community Center at the corner of Cross and Lock streets and you"d probably see stars of David embedded in the woodwork.
That"s because this unremarkable two-story structure, erected in 1899, was the first synagogue built in New Hampshire.
Organized Jewish life began in Nashua in 1892, when a minyan " or quorum of 10 Jewish men " began meeting in the home of Aaron Borofsky on Ferryalls Court. Within a few years, the city"s approximately 30 Jewish families created the Agudas Achim Lodge, which became the Bace Abraham Society with the building of the temple.
The synagogue"s name was spelled "Bace" Abraham because that was how those from Eastern Europe pronounced "Beth," said Mark Finkel, the rabbi of Temple Beth Abraham on Raymond Street.
The city"s early Jewish population came from New York, Boston and Eastern Europe, particularly Russia. Many fled that country during the late 1800s to escape Czar Alexander II, who allowed pogroms against them.
According to synagogue records, Nashua"s first Jewish residents became involved with recycling scrap metal, paper and cloth, and quickly became established merchants on French Hill and Main Street, Finkel said.
There"s no question the new immigrants looked out for one another. The temple was established not only to fulfill its members" spiritual needs, but their social ones, as well.
Such mutual-support systems were commonplace among minority places of worship in turn-of-the-century "isolationist America," said Dudley, the Hartford Institute professor. Houses of worship were not just religious institutions, they were "centers of the social community," he said.
Services were held in the upstairs sanctuary on Friday nights and Saturday mornings, with the men and women divided by a railing according to the Orthodox Jewish tradition, said 81-year-old Bernie Pastor, a former synagogue president. The first floor hosted meetings of the Hebrew Ladies Aid Society and the Hachnosath Orchim, organizations that provided immigrant families and needy travelers with food, clothing and money.
Pastor"s parents, who came to America from Russia in 1905, met during a social function at the temple. The family bought a home at 112 Tolles St. when Pastor was 5. At the time, the majority of the neighborhood was French-Canadian, but there were also Poles and Lithuanians, many of whom worked at the Jackson Mills.
Like many enterprising immigrants, Pastor"s father, Harry, worked at the mill before opening a small grocery store with his brother-in-law at the corner of Tolles and Lock streets.
"Most that came over didn"t come over established, they worked for someone else, then found their niche," Pastor said.
Harry Pastor opened a larger grocery store at the corner of Tolles and Whitney streets after the first store"s success. He learned to speak five languages to communicate with customers, while his son learned French to better bond with his French-Canadian friends.
Father and son would often deliver groceries to Shantytown, the neighborhood around the Koppers Co. wood preserving plant on Hills Ferry Road. There, another religious community was springing up under the direction of one of the city"s first African-American families, the Newmans, who brought their Pentecostal church to French Hill in the 1950s after the city condemned their neighborhood.
Pastor remembers several Jewish junkyard owners on the Hill. One of them was Aaron Mirsky of 38 Jefferson St. Thanks to a niece"s family tree project, Pastor recently learned that Mirsky was one of the men who signed his father"s petition for naturalization to become an American citizen.
Pastor, who now lives in the North End, recalls the old neighborhood with fondness and remembers it as a place of integration, not separation. He always felt welcomed in the homes of his friends, most of whom were Catholic. He and his friends would visit Francoeur Baking Co. at 116 Tolles St. at night when the next day"s bread was being baked and wait to be given the loaves that hadn"t turned out perfectly. The kids would butter and eat the bread while it was still hot.
Pastor sometimes even accompanied his best friend and next-door neighbor, Paul Boire, to confession at St. Francis. The Nashua Airport was renamed Boire Field in 1945 in honor of Pastor"s buddy, the first Nashua pilot to be killed in World War II.
"We were very integrated. There were no ethnic problems," Pastor said. "I was at Paul"s house as much as my own."
It was there that he got his first taste of bacon and ham, forbidden in his family"s kosher home.
A major turning point for the Beth Abraham congregation occurred in 1927 when the temple was remodeled. At that time, the synagogue transitioned from Orthodox Judaism, which is a strict, literal interpretation of Jewish laws, to Conservative Judaism, which believes Jewish law can change and adapt to modern life while remaining true to its values. After this, men and women were allowed to sit together.
The synagogue outgrew its location in 1960 and a new place of worship was established on Raymond Street in the North End. In a procession marking the opening of the new temple, Rabbi Bela Fischer led the congregation through the streets of French Hill, the men carrying the Torah scrolls in their arms.
Today, the original synagogue is known as the French Hill Community Center and continues to play an important role in the life of the city. Young girls go there for after-school programs run by Girls Inc., and those in need can get affordable dental care at the Greater Nashua Dental Connection.
Lynn Tryba can be reached at 594-6402
This story was originally published in the The Telegraph of Nashua, N.H., all rights reserved, nashuatelegraph.com.
All rights reserved, nashuatelegraph.com