Welcome to Horse Haven Farm

pp. 405-08

From the Tillotson mill site to the center of Orfordville there were no mills. Then at Orfordville more activity began on Jacob's Brook. In 1811 Dr. John Dame bought land between the road and the brook west of the present Orfordville church where he built a gristmill worth $24. In 1824 it had depreciated to $6 and Dr. Dame, then living in Lyme, sold the land and mill to David R. Beal. Dr. Dame's interests were not confined to milling and doctoring. While still in Orford in 1820 he won prizes at the Grafton County Fair for the best breeding horse and the next best piece of linen cloth, being edged out of first place by Nathaniel Mann's piece of linen cloth.

David R. Beal, to whom Dr. Dame sold his mill, came to Orford from Lyme and operated Dr. Dame's old gristmill until 1833. Four years later, in 1837, he established a chair factory worth $300 on the gristmill site. David Beal's sons, Royal and Rufus C. Beal, learned the trade from their father and the firm became known as D. R. Beal & Sons. After the death of David Beal and later of Rufus, the firm was joined by Royal Beal's son, Frank. The 1895 issue of the United Opinion says of the Beal factory, "At first the chairs were made by hand. At length a turning lathe was introduced and a large and wondering crowd of people were present to see it operate. Royal Beal was from boyhood of an inventive and original turn, and he remembers when Capt. Samuel Morey invited him to examine some of his designs. Mr. Beal was the first to discover, apply and use the band saw [in 1838 at the age of nineteen]. He took four old saws, brazed them together and used them in the same way and for the same purpose as the band saw is used today. That was before the art of spring tempering steel had been perfected, and his great difficulty was that the quality of the stock he was obliged to use was not equal to the test. He solved the principle [but was laughed out of applying for a patent and in later years was disheartened to see the band saw perfected by another who received the credit he might have had. Apparently he knew nothing of the band saw invented by the Englishman, William Newbury, in 1808]. He also invented a machine for turning chair rounds several years in advance of its use by the large manufacturers. In 1882 a disastrous fire swept out their place, including all of their valuable machinery and patterns and a large part of their stock, a total estimated loss of $10,000, which was reduced about $4,000 by insurance. They rebuilt on the same site the next year, adapting their machinery more exclusively to the manufacture of furniture. They had previously manufactured bobbins quite extensively. Some two years since, they put in machinery for the weaving and manufacture of wire beds, which they ship to various pacts of New England. They have a large retail trade in this section and their name is a guarantee of first class goods and fair dealing." The Grafton County Gazetteer of 1886 states that R. Beal & Sons' bobbin factory turned out 500,000 bobbins a year. On a night in September, 1903 fire destroyed the Beal spring and mattress factory under the proprietorship of Royal Beal's sons, Frank J. and Fenner L. Beal.  Thus ended the Beal enterprises in Orfordville. The model of Royal Beal's band saw was in the possession of his son, Fenner L. Beal, in 1915.

In 1826, soon after coming to Orfordville, David Beal purchased property adjoining his mill site from Daniel Tillotson, Jr., and built a new house whose exterior was faced with wooden panels measuring 18 by 24 inches and giving the impression of stone blocks. Two tall columns extending above the second story and supporting a small portico were made of solid wood. The upstairs front room was used as a large music room and equipped with a pipe organ from Boston. People came from miles around to hear concerts by the musical Beal family. A band organized in the late 1800's was sponsored by the Beal family and performed from the Orfordville bandstand. Fenner Beal was at one time a music dealer in Boston. His sister, Abbie Ellen Beal, was an accomplished musician. At the age of four she was playing passages from one of Palestrina's masses. At eleven she took over the duties of the father, Royal Beal, as church organist at Orfordville. Later she studied music in Boston under James W. Hill. In 1874 she married Herbert E. Morey, a well-to-do business man of Malden and with him went to Africa, Asia and Europe in 1877. A fifty four page letter was sent to the Franklin family in Orfordville from Abbie E. B. Morey dated January 20th, '77 at Munich, Bavaria. She tells a fascinating story of Cairo, of pyramids and mosques, of tropical sun and sand in which their carriage wheels sank nearly to the hubs. She tells of a six hour steamer ride by canal from Ismalia to Port Said. "Of course," she says, "we must always sing, and sing we did for two or three hours." Embarking the next day for "Joppa", they arrived to find the "so-called streets" of this place in miserable shape. "Street in Joppa," says Abbie, "is only another name for sewer ... I can assure you it would have been out of the question for us to have made the tour of the town unprovided with strong smelling salts." The letter also tells of beautiful and strange sights, of a tour on horseback through Palestine, of resting after luncheon "comfortably rolled up in a rug, Moslem fashion, on the ground", of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, of wading in the Dead Sea and being nearly taken off her feet by the buoyancy of the water. The last pages of the letter are written at Leipzig, Germany, where she was to "commence [music] lessons immediately." The trip was the first of several visits to Europe where she studied theory under such teachers as Reinecke and Kullak. She organized and directed a choral group and orchestra in Boston. Their successful concerts earned her the distinction of being the first woman conductor of music in America. Five children were born to Abbie and Herbert Morey. Abbie, not wanting to neglect her family, refused all offers for extended concert tours. She gave organ recitals for churches in and near Boston and trained advanced music students at her own studio.

The Beal home in Orfordville was destined to degenerate in its use during the last years of its existence, long after the Beal ownership. In the prohibition era its owner reputedly, or ill-reputedly, sold bootleg liquor to the public, as well as another commodity better left unnamed. The house was destroyed by fire in November, 1927. Another house, moved to the property from across the road, is today the home of Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Butman. There are no Beals now living in Orford, although Mrs. Evelyn Beal owns a house on Dame Hill standing empty and for sale. It is the first house on the left going up the hill and was built in 1817 by Ezekiel Bailey, tanner. Mrs. Beal has in her possession some chairs from the old Beal factory and a basket in which the first mail was brought to Orfordville.