MILFORD – As the town entered the new year of 1912, French and Heald, Milford’s largest manufacturing plant, was going great guns.

No one knew that less than a month later the sprawling furniture factory, one of the largest in New England, would burn to the ground. It was probably the worst disaster in Milford history, and on that cold day of Jan. 26, 1912, Hannah Catherine Langdell wrote about it.

Langdell’s three sons all worked at the factory, and Cate, as she was called, “overheard all the conversations” between her husband and sons and recorded what she heard in her diary, said Polly Cote, her great-granddaughter and former president of the Milford Historical Society.

Cote is in the process of transcribing the diaries into her laptop, and they tell of the three sons working at “the shop.” George Langdell, Polly’s grandfather, was in bookkeeping (he eventually became the treasurer), and John Langdell and Charles Langdell worked in the plant.

“Their entire lives revolved around working at French and Heald,” Cote wrote in her introduction to the diary entries about the fire.

Cate’s sons not only worked at the factory, Charles Langdell, was a photographer and took many photos of the fire as well as photos of the new plant built later that year.

One hundred years ago Milford was known as a “furniture town” and French and Heald, located on the west bank of the Souhegan River near the Swing Bridge, produced solid maple furniture. Nearby, where Cumberland Farms is now, was the McLane factory, which built post office equipment.

According to the story in the Feb. 1, 1912 Cabinet, the morning of the fire “the frantic blowing of the big whistle warned the men, and many had narrow escapes, some jumping from the windows and some sliding down boards.”

The French and Heald Co., employed about 125 men at a time when Milford’s population was only about 3,000, said Cote, so the whistle also signaled financial hardship for many during a time when there was no unemployment compensation.

Nearly every able-bodied man was employed either at French and Heald or McLane or in the granite industry.

On Friday, Jan. 26, 1912, Cate recorded the morning temperature as 12 below zero at 7 a.m. before she wrote “it has been a hard day. Just before 9 o’clock the whistle at French & Heald Mill sounded its death knoll and it was soon all in flames and burned to the ground.”

All the workers got out alive, she wrote, except for Homer Proper, who made the unfortunate decision to return to the plant to collect his belongings.

Cate Langdell’s diary entries were restrained, but the family’s shock and worry show between the lines.

On the day after the fire, she wrote; “We have not any of us felt very strong today. Chas said that he did not sleep much last night. They found some of Mr. Proper’s remains.”

Two days later Langdell reported that “it is rather hard work to keep up under the strain of circumstances but I must (God helping) for the sake of the other.”

Within six weeks, however, their spirits must have lifted.

Langdell wrote that “they have come to an agreement if the people can raise the amount of money specified,” referring to the $50,000 bond townspeople agreed to raise to help the company build another plant.

The owners quickly bought a lot on Nashua Street, where County Stores and the Edgewood Plaza is now, and ground was broken on April 5, 1912.

Cote said she had always believed that the new factory wasn’t built until 1913, but the diary reveals that it all happened in one year. French & Heald continued to be a major employer in Milford for another 40 years,

Cate Langdell’s diary of 1912 also corrects an error in the town history, “The Granite Town,” which says the date of the fire was Jan. 6.

In 1935, during the Great Depression, declining furniture sales led to the plant closing, but the company revived during World War II when it began manufacturing oak furnishings for merchant marine ships. In 1954 the Sprague & Carleton Company of Keene bought the plant and in 1967 the owners closed the Milford plant and moved most of the machinery to Texas.

For more about the French and Heald fire, see the Jan. 26 issue of The Cabinet.

Kathy Cleveland can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 21, or kcleveland@nashuatelegraph.com.