These postings are dedicated to gathering information, data, photographs, and impressions/remembrances of the days when Smith’s Corner served as a site for the National Guard Artillery. At the time, Salisbury was sparsely populated compared to its earlier days and today, but the area affected would also include Tucker Pond, Watson District, Couchtown Warner, East Warner, Scribner’s Corners, West Salisbury, and likely farther. Please add whatever you have to give us some sense of those days.
In an interview in 1988 by Paul Shaw (PS), later compiled in “They Said It in Salisbury”, Fred Courser (FC) recounts one citizen’s impression of the use of Smith’s Corner and Mt. Kearsarge as a firing range between 1922-1935.
One man’s view: p. 79-80
FC- “Sometime in the twenties, before we moved back, the 172nd field artillery of the State of New Hampshire National Guard made up their mind they wanted a target range and they just moved up to McAlister’s (Smith’s Corner), set up their guns and started firing, saying nothing to nobody. They scared a couple of horses over the mountain. Father had to pay $33 to get them back. They killed one of his .”…
FC- “It didn’t seem right, they came and shot up the land.”
At this point in the conversation, he seems to refer to a lawsuit.
-PS- “Did they keep coming in during the intervening years?”
FC- “Well, after they won the suit, they… Col. Morrril would come around and hire the open part of the pasture, and he hired part of the open part of the Sawyer pasture. They paid them a small fee for the privilege of shooting up in there, but there wasn’t supposed to be any cattle in there, although I can remember as a small boy going up and getting the cattle out and getting them over onto the Sutton side of the mountain”.
PS- “The first few years they shot, they used the 105 mm Howitzers, roughly a six-inch gun. The last of it, they were firing one-pounders”.’
FC- “The one-pounders were the ones that Lefty Harris and Jeb Harriman were fooling around with when they got stove up.” (shot up?)
PS- ” That was a small projectile about 1 1/2 in. diameter. These two boys from Warner were handling it when it exploded, and the Harris boy lost part of his hand.”