The Little Tinsmith Shop
At the corner of the Morrill Highway and Old City Falls Road is a small detached building on what was for many years the property of Arthur and Selena Robinson. It now sits empty and a little forlorn adjacent to the recently renovated farmhouse nearby awaiting a new owner. Like most older buildings, this little building has stories to tell.
In the 1880s, Frank West's tinsmith shop was located here —at the corner of the Morrill Highway and Old City Falls Road,
It started out as a residence 3/4 of a mile up Old City Falls Road, some 175 years ago, built by Alferd Bacon and then moved to its current location sometime in the 1870s.
The original tinsmith shop started out as a residence 3/4 of a mile up Old City Falls Road
By the 1880s, it had become Frank West's tinsmith shop at the corner of what was once familiarly known as "dublin corner." ["Dublin Corner," by the way, was so named because Old City Falls Road was so steep that a second team of horses was needed to get wagon-loads all the way up to Vershire, hence, 'doubling up.' (see Dublin Corner, SHS website, 9/9/'21, by John Freitag.]
Dublin Corner
Diane (Robinson) Tensen whose family's residence included the tinsmith shop has provided background details on the tinsmith, Frank West, who was born in Strafford in 1852. He learned the tinsmithing trade in Arlington, Massachusetts, but while there, in 1895, decided to enlist in the 7th Cavalry and was deployed to the Dakota Territories. After mustering out, he remained out West, herding cattle, driving supply wagons and prospecting for gold. In 1883, Frank, upon the death of his brother, Arthur, who had also seen service in the West, returned to Strafford, settled down and took up tinsmithing.
Tinsmith pail and tools
In the days before Amazon or Walmart or even the Sears catalogue, common everyday items were sometimes hard to obtain and Frank West skills were needed to replace syrup equipment and cans, sap buckets and skimmers as well as many other necessary household items. In 1886, Frank married the local minister's daughter, Julia Scribner. According to Diane Tensen's essay, the Wests by all accounts 'were kindly and unassuming, obliging and pleasant neighbors with a fund of quiet humor...which made them agreeable companions." While far less exciting than the Wild West, wrote Tensen, "those must have been happy times."
This story was adapted from two White River Herald articles by John Freitag.