HERITAGE WALKING TOUR DOVER, WHOcir O00 TUTTLE SQUARE The Heritage Walk this year is really a study of past activities in Tuttle Square, which is that portion of Central Avenue where it connects with Silver, Church, Hanson and Court Streets. This area, formerly called “The Comer’, was the center of Dover's civic activities in the lata 1700s and early 1800s. The sketch above is looking across th Square from the front of First Parish Church sometime in the 1800s. On the left you see the Dover Hotel (where Century 21 Realtors is today) with the Per dexter-Vamey house behind it. Across Hanson Street from the Hotel front is Bellevue Hall behind the Courthouse (where the Mobil Service Station is today)The first settlers arrived at Dover Point in 1623. Ten years later a second (and larger) group arrived and they started moving north up Dover Neck. By about 1700 some settlers were at “The Corner’, now known as Tuttle Square. It was called “The Corner” because it was the junction of the road to Cochecho and the road to Barrington (later called Silver Street). This was the center of activity for the town for most of the eighteenth century. Some of the oldest houses that still exist in Dover are near this corner, including #17 Silver Street which is the oldest building still being used for a residence in Dover. The easiest way to get from “The Comer’ to Portsmouth in the eighteenth century was to go down the path (about where Hanson Street is today) to the river and row your boat to Portsmouth. Later the area became known as Tuttle Square. It was named for Tobias Tuttle, a Revolutionary War veteran, who bought eleven acres of land here in 1795. He later built the Tuttle Block on the southerly side of Silver Street, where Christina Otis Baker had formerly maintained an inn. In 1882 public transportation came to Tuttle Square when the Dover Horse Railway commenced operating from Sawyer Mills to Garrison Hill. Later in 1901 after the line had become an electric railroad, a loop was put in that went up Silver Street, over Arch Street, and down Washington. The electric railroad known as the Dover, Somersworth and Rochester Street Railway, ceased operation in 1926.Christine Otis Baker’s Tavern (No photo avaiable Now an empty lot) During the Cochecho Massacre of 1689, blacksmith Richard Otis was killed by the Indians along with two of his eleven ae His wife, Grizel, and two other children and three grandchildren were taken as captives by the Abnaki and marched to Quebec where the French goverment would pay the Indians a substantial bounty for delivering English prisoners. One of these children was 3- month old Margaret Otis. Upon her safe arrival in Montreal, Margaret was re- christened as Christine and raised by nuns in an Ursuline convent. In 1707, at age 18, Christine married Louis LeBeau and had three children with him (incl. one who died in infancy). LeBeau died in 1713 and Christine was a widow at age 24. In 1714, Deerfield, Massachusetts resident Capt. Thomas Baker was sent on a mission to Canada to negotiate with the French for the retum of some 150 English captives. There, in Montreal, he met and fell in love with Christine. The govemor of New France would not allow Christine to leave as she was a naturalized citizen and property holder. So six months later, Christine snuck away with Baker, leaving her two daughters, her aged mother, and her household belongings behind so she could retum to New England. Christine had been granted 500 acres of land in York County, Maine which she sold in order to buy land and build a home in her native Dover. In 1735, at age 46, she was granted a license to operate,a tavern at the comer of Silver and Central Streets. Thomas was in poor health by this time and Christine ran the business on her own. Her next door neighbor and minister, Dr. Jeremy Belknap praised Christine as “a pattem of industry, prudence, and economy.” The Royal Govemor, Benning Wentworth, always visited Christine’s establishment for “the reputation of her repasts” and the “good cheer’ he found there. The tavern was reported to be “trim, tidy, and efficient.” By 1790, the site of the tavern had become Toppan’s Variety Store. One account says that the building was then “moved off’ and another one constructed here. By the early 1800s, it was called the Perkins) Block, owned by hardware store owner Jeremy Perkins until circa 1883. Then the building became John E. Kennedy's Saloon until about 1909. In the twentieth century, the building was the site of the Wentworth Apartments. The structure bumed in a fire in the summer of 1968.