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Muti-cache through Historic Exeter, New Hampshire.
As part of a joint project between the Exeter Historical Society, The Robinson Trust and the Exeter Region Cooperative School District, 8th grade students from the Cooperative Middle School (CMS) created five separate multi-cache challenges to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's speech at Exeter Town Hall in March of 1860. Each of the five multi-caches represent a theme from that time period. The narratives and clues were developed and written by 8th grade students at CMS and edited by historians at the Exeter Historical Society.
Original Location
Amos Tuck was a friend of Abraham Lincoln. Tuck is considered one of the founders of the Republican Party.
Amos Tuck was born in Parsonsfield, Maine, in 1810. His family was originally from Hampton, NH, but they moved to Maine in hopes of finding better farmland. Tuck himself was never interested in farming and wanted to pursue a more educated lifestyle. He begged his parents to send him to a tuition school but his family finances couldn’t allow it. Tuck taught school, worked in the fields, and tutored students to earn money. He was offered scholarships, but he turned them down because they all required him to join the ministry. His father regularly discouraged him from further education. He thought it would prevent him from earning an honest living.
Tuck was finally able to graduate from Dartmouth College in 1838 and he passed the New Hampshire Bar exams to become a lawyer.
He began practicing law in Exeter. He changed offices a few times while in town. This building was the one he used in his last few years of practice before taking up politics.
Clues to find next location:
North:
Take the number of letters on Amos’s last name and multiply that number by 2. Put this single digit into all the blanks.
42 deg 5 _ . _ 1 _
West:
Count the number of windows on the second floor of this building. Multiply that number by 11 and add 6 to the result. Insert that two-digit number into the spaces below.
070 deg 56 . __ __9
Location #2:
This building, called the “Squamscott Hotel” in 1854, was, according to numerous sources, the site of the founding of the Republican Party by Exeter resident Amos Tuck. In March, 1854, Amos Tuck and other like-minded politicians met here and formed the party because of their views on slavery. Tuck and another senator, John P. Hale, founded the party by uniting all of the reformist parties in New Hampshire.
Originally a Democrat, Tuck and his friends founded the Republican Party because they didn’t agree with the spread of slavery into the western territories.
A.P. Blake ran the hotel for many years before selling it to Phillips Exeter Academy in 1872. Although there is no proof, it has long been suspected that Abraham Lincoln stayed here during his visit to Exeter in 1860.
Clues to the next location:
North:
On the front of the building there is a plaque commemorating the naming of the Republican Party. Find that plaque, add 57 to the month when the Republican party was named by Amos Tuck. Insert those two digits below.
42 deg 58. __ __0
West:
Add 2 to the street number of this building. Insert that two-digit number below.
W 070 deg 57.__ __1
Location #3:
In 1853 Amos Tuck was successful enough to build himself this house. He and his second wife, Catherine Shepard, lived in the house with his surviving children.
It was long assumed that Abraham Lincoln stayed with the Tucks when he visited Exeter in 1860. Lincoln’s son, Robert, was attending Phillips Exeter Academy and often had Sunday dinner at the Tuck home. Amos Tuck and Abraham Lincoln had served together in Congress, so it would have been the natural place for him to stay in town.
However, Lincoln does not appear to have even visited the Tucks while in Exeter. Amos Tuck was out of town on business . Catherine later wrote that she did not attend Lincoln’s speech at the town hall. She’d been invited, but decided not to go without her husband.
Amos Tuck was a bit miffed that Lincoln didn’t even stop to say “hello”. He wrote, in a letter to Lincoln, “I very much regretted that I was absent when you were at Exeter, and was sorry you did not call upon my family, even in my absence.”
Clues to the next location:
North:
Take the street number of this house and insert those two-digits (in order) in the two blank spaces below.
42 deg 58.__ 1 __
West:
Take the street number of this house, subtract 1 and insert resulting two-digits (in order) in the two blank spaces below.
W 070 deg 5__.__35
Location #4:
This house may not look like anything special, but it was Amos Tuck’s first home in Exeter. Tuck and his first wife, Sarah Ann Nudd, purchased the house around 1836. Seven of his eight children, including Edward Tuck, were born here. Sadly, only three of Amos Tuck’s children lived past the age of five.
The house was built around 1750 and was old even when Tuck purchased it. Tuck’s first wife, Sarah, died in 1847. He later re-married and built a much more elegant home up the street.
Clues to the next location:
North:
42 deg 58.551
West:
Add 1 to the street number and insert those two-digits (in order) in the two blank spaces below.
070 deg 5 __ . __ 79
Final Location:
When Exeter voters decided to build a new boy’s high school in 1911, they under-estimated the amount of money needed to build it. A cornerstone was laid with great fanfare in October of that year, but funding to complete the building quickly ran out.
Edward Tuck, son of Amos Tuck, was contacted for a possible donation. Tuck had already given money to Exeter Hospital and Dartmouth College, but he was happy to oblige the Town of Exeter again. The school was named “Tuck High School for Boys” in honor of his father.
Tuck had become quite wealthy as a banker and lived in France.
Girls in Exeter attended the Robinson Female Seminary on Lincoln Street. William Robinson, a wealthy merchant who made his fortune in Georgia, donated the funds to build the Robinson Seminary. This strange system of gender-segregated education persisted in Exeter until 1955 when the two schools were merged
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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