Then and Now: A conspicuous manifestation of industry, 1890

The 1890 Victorian manse in the 1930s photograph at right sat on West Main Street in Conway Village for seven decades. It testified to the commercial success of Alpheus Crosby Kennett, who seems to have come by his ambition and business acuity honestly. His father, William Kennett, owned a prosperous farm near Madison Corner, but was extensively engaged in lumber operations and dabbled in construction as well. When Henry Metcalf came to Conway from Tamworth to start a spool factory, it was William Kennett who built it for him.

Crosby Kennett, as he called himself in his younger days, was born in Madison in 1859, and graduated from the boarding school then known as the New Hampton Literary Institution. Like Andrew Carnegie and several others who prospered fabulously in business during the second half of the 19th century, he started work at the age of 17 as a railroad telegrapher. The Portsmouth, Great Falls & Conway Railroad assigned him to the Salmon Falls depot, transferring him after a year to South Berwick as the depot master. There, in April of 1882, he married Carrie Gerrish, the daughter of a Berwick doctor, but she died before the year was out.