Tom Plant was an orphan. He and his brother, William, were raised in an orphanage in Maine. Little of their youth and establishment in business is known as family tradition. William invented a shoe stitching machine, which Tom made the basis of a company in Massachusetts, the Queen Quality Shoe Company. They successfully defended their company against patent infringement law suit from the newly formed International Shoe Company. In 1910, while American industrial manufacturing was being financially reorganized by J. P. Morgan and other bankers after the panic of 1907, Tom sold his shoe company for $20 million (according to family tradition) and retired from business. After divorcing his first wife, he traveled to Europe. On the trip over, he met Olive Dewey, a young woman who had just graduated from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. As in all satisfying stories ... they fell in love and eloped. They married in New Jersey.
Tom wished to build a retirement home for himself and his young wife. One family story says that they "traveled the world" looking for a suitable location, but found nothing to satisfy themselves. Then one day, while vacationing and fishing from a boat on Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire, Tom spied a small mountain, pointed to it, and said he would build his retirement home there. He formed a group of separate companies and quietly began buying land in the Ossipee mountains and the land between the mountains and Lake Winnipesaukee, eventually over 8000 acres.
The origin of the name "Lucknow" is not documented. The most credible family tradition, which comes from John Dewey, Olive Plant's nephew, claims that Thomas Plant always said that he named the estate after a country home of Napoleon's.
Unlucky investment of his fortune eventually ruined Thomas Plant financially and brought sadness to his last years in his beloved mountain top home. The crisis hinted in the letter below probably refers to his finances. When he died, he left his widow destitute. Olive returned to her family in Illinois. Later, she lived in a nursing home in California, supported by her brother, Phil Dewey. Olive left most of the furnishings and decorative items in Lucknow. After being held by banks, Lucknow was purchased in 1943 by Fred C. Tobey, a New Hampshire land developer and lumberman.
Being an orphan, Tom Plant's immediate family was limited to himself and his brother, William. Tom had no children by his first marriage, and Tom and Olive also had no children. But the family of Olive Dewey was large and would fill Lucknow with the excitement and concerns of family and children. William also had a son. Lucknow was the primary residence only of Tom and Olive, but the frequent visits of her family prevented it from being a quiet retreat. William lived in a separate house on the estate. Olive had three brothers - Mills Dewey, Maurice Dewey, and Phil Dewey. Maurice worked for Uncle Tom as a time keeper for the Italian stone masons, who shaped the building stone and lived on the site. Maurice, attending Dartmouth, also worked in building Lucknow. Later, their children often visited their aunt and "Uncle Tom" in their castle on the mountain top.
As a boy and a teenager, John Dewey, the son of Maurice Dewey, visited Lucknow in the 1930s. In the letter below, given to John by his maternal grandparents, John's aunt Olive writes to her mother and father in Toulon, Illinois, about the visit of John and his father, Maurice to Lucknow in 1940. Maurice was in New Hampshire for his 20th reunion at Dartmouth College (in Hanover). Olive's detailed description gives a wonderful vision of the boys' Lucknow - the endless forest, the wildlife, and the outdoor sports and play.
Thomas Plant, Olive Dewey Plant, and William Plant at Lucknow
[photo courtesy of Dale Martin and Christine Dewey Martin,
from John Dewey]
Sunday June 23 [1940]
Dear Mother and Father,
If you have seen Toodles you know that I am not on my way home with the boys. I am terribly, terribly sorry to disappoint you and my self about not coming now, but I could not help it. The woman that I was going to get to stay here, has been sick for several weeks with rheumatism and flu and is still not able to work although she is getting better. I think in a few weeks she will be all right again. She is the wife of the man who lives in our stable house. Perhaps it is just as well that I did not try the motor trip, although I intended to, but the boys went to the fair (which they could not have done with me) and I prefer the train. I get tired on not-very-long motor trips, and I don't believe I would have lasted out to Toulon. Even Maurice was rather dreading the long pull home. Then, too, (which is most important) our affairs seem to be reaching a crisis, and I cannot be away until they are settled somehow.
If things do not clear up within a few weeks so that I can get away, and this nice weather holds, you will have to take a trip and come to see me. After you have been at home long enough so that you get the itching foot again, you can come this way for a change.
The boys made me a nice visit. I enjoyed so much having them, and I think they had a good time. I was rather about John's being able to amuse himself, especially while he was here alone, but I needn't have worried. If there was anything he did not do or any place he did not go and look into , I don't know where it was. He looked for wild animals, and he saw a fox, two deer, porcupines and woodchucks. Tom gave him a rifle and I told him he could shoot porcupines and woodchucks and he got one porc., two chucks and a crow. He had a canoe on our pond and he went all over that more than once. He fished by himself and although he did not know how to throw a fly and did not have any bait, he fixed a sinker on a fly and pulled it around the pond. The first time he caught four, then he and Maurice went out and he caught five more, one of the biggest I have ever seen taken out of the pond, and Maurice did not catch any. So we had a nice mess of trout for lunch. The boys cleaned them and John thought it was more fun to catch them, and I don't really believe he like to eat them very well. He ranged all over the place, down the stream, up the mountain roads, down to the MacDonald place two or three times (after woodchucks), and into every old building and shed on the place. While he was here alone, I saw him only at meal times. He played pool alone and with Maurice and with Tom, and the last night they were here, we all played. He examined all the country around, and the heavens above, through the telescope and told me what he could see. When Maurice was not here, he helped me with the dishes; made his own bed, washout is socks, pressed his clothes; he was up and out with his gun before breakfast and after supper. In fact until the last day or two I don't know when [where] he was still except when he was in bed and riding in the car. He and Maurice went up to the tops of our mountains one day, in our mountain car. They got stuck in the mud on a soft road and Maurice had quite a time to get the car out [the rest of the sentence is indecipherable].
The day Maurice went back to Hanover was a lovely day and I thought I would like the ride so John and I drove him over. It took us two and a half hours, we stopped and looked around the college [Dartmouth College] for about an hour and then John and I came home. We got to Plymouth about 7 P.M. (that is 30 miles from here) so we stopped there and had supper. This was on Friday, and Maurice did not come back till Monday. John went after him, but I did not go, as I had a lot to do and was going to have some callers in the afternoon. One night we went to Laconia to the movies, as I wanted to see "Waterloo Bridge", but we were disappointed, as it is long drawn out and very tragic. Maurice and I took a short drive one day partly for errands, and once we went over to Center Harbor for lunch. There is a small hotel there that serves very good meals; Tom was in Boston. But he would not have gone anyway, as he prefers to stay at home and help himself if I am not there. He came back that afternoon late and we all went to Meredith to meet him.
I had a letter from Aunt Jule inviting us to stop off at Van Hornesville to see them, and perhaps we would have done so if I had gone along, but Maurice said he could not spare the time to stop.
They left yesterday morning for Boston, and were taking the shore road so John could see the ocean. I suppose they saw the Deweys last night and this morning, but Maurice intended to drive to New York today. He plans to spend two days at the fair [New York World's Fair] and get home Friday night or Saturday. I hated to see them go. We got along nicely with the work. Maurice washed the table dishes for me every meal and helped around in other ways as he could or I wanted. He is very good help.
I hope you are settled by this time, and are not trying to do too much. Maurice said he thought you had a good girl [hired domestic help], and I hope you still have her. I hope you are having pleasant weather, and that it is cool. So far we have had queer weather, due to the war, I guess. The last two or three days have been actually cold, and I have had to put my winter clothes back on. I just took them off. We have had a very few quite warm days. There were actually snow flurries a day or so ago in northern New York state. We have to keep the fireplaces going.
Don't feel badly about my not coming now, for I intend to see you very soon, one way or another, and we never [indecipherable]. Much love to you and all.
Olive
[Letter courtesy of John Dewey, September 1996.]