History in towns: Haverhill Corner, New Hampshire

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 2004 by William Nathaniel Banks

During the Revolution Johnston served with distinction as lieutenant-colonel of the twelfth regiment of the New Hampshire militia. He fought at the Battle of Bennington under the command of the rustic hero General John Stark, who, as we have seen, was one of the early sojourners in the upper Connecticut River valley; and Johnston played an important role in winning the crucial battle. There are several versions of his most extraordinary exploit. In a highly dramatic, though somewhat implausible, account Bittinger wrote that:

detailed by Gen. Stark to carry an order from one division of the
American forces to another division ... [Johnston] was compelled to pass
through a woods which was made dangerous by the enemy having his scouts
there in ambush. Col. Johnston pressed forward with only a stout staff
which he had cut, when suddenly he was commanded to halt by a Hessian
officer with drawn sword. In an instant the sword was struck from the
enemy's hand ... and pointing it at the Hessian's breast he commanded
him and his companions to surrender as prisoners of war on peril of
death. The Hessian ... and his scouts were led captive into the American
lines. (13)

However embellished this account may be, proof of the capture is provided by an elaborately decorated Hessian sword that has been handed down through generations of the Johnston family.

After the war Johnston, who was generous as well as public-spirited, worked assiduously for the enrichment of Haverhill. He presided at twenty-four town meetings; he was elected selectman twenty-one times; and he was town and county treasurer for many years. He was the first deacon when the First Congregational Church of Haverhill was organized in 1790, and in 1801 he was instrumental in securing a charter for the Haverhill Social Library.

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Johnston's most consequential contribution effected the ascendancy of Haverhill Corner over the other villages of the township. In 1793 he gave land on the north common and instigated the erection of a large frame building to house an academy. The petition to the state legislature for a charter stated that the object of the academy was

to promote religion, purity, virtue and morality, and for the
instruction in English, Latin and Greek languages; in writing, music and
the art of speaking; in geometry, logic, geography, mathematics and such
other branches of science as opportunity may furnish. (14)

In 1794 the legislature granted the charter, creating one of the four earliest academies in New Hampshire. At the same time Johnston made the courts of Grafton County an irresistible proposition. Since 1774 the Court of Sessions and the Court of Common Pleas had occupied the courthouse in the northern part of the township, but the offer of free space in the new academy building secured the courts for Haverhill Corner. Johnston's masterstroke established the village as an educational and legal cynosure in northern New Hampshire.

Because of their new prominence and growing prosperity the townspeople were building increasingly splendid houses and taverns. Most of the structures that give the Corner its gracious character were built between 1790 and 1820. In 1791 Charles Johnston conveyed his early house to his son Michael (1764-1842) and built a frame house on the northwest corner of the common (see Pl. II). The new house, with an entrance with sidelights and paneled pilasters, is more commodious although somewhat less elegant than Johnston's previous home.