From The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches by Lyman S. Hayes, Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, Rutland, VT., 1929, page 193:
CAPT. GREEN AND COL. FLEMING PLAYED WHIST FOR CHOICE OF RESIDENCES
Recent changes relating to the Rockingham Hospital property, whereby the hospital has two entrances to its grounds, one from Westminster Street where it has always been and a new one from Saxtons River Street at the top of the terrace, brings to the recollection of a few of the older citizens some interesting facts relating to the hospital building and the adjacent one now owned by James H. Williams.
These two prominent and sightly buildings were built by Capt. Henry F. Green and Col, Alexander Fleming, who, under the firm name of Green & Fleming were many years the agents for the management interests of the Bellows Falls Canal Company, under the Atkinnson ownership, and many years connected with the early paper manufacturing of the village, owning and managing the large paper mill that was the only one here a century ago. Both married daughters of John Atkinson, the Englishman who built the canal. In their business relations they were very intimate, as well as in family relations.
A century ago, in the year 1829, they built the two residences, long known as the "Two Mansions," as they were the most sightly and expensively built of any here in those days. They built the two houses exactly alike, and with the firm's money. Not until they were completed was it known which one each would occupy. When ready for occupancy they agreed between themselves that the question of occupancy should be settled by a "rubber of whist," to which the gentlemen [194] sat down. Capt. Green won the game and so was entitled to the first choice between the homes. He chose the one now occupied for the hospital, and it has had important improvements and additions made to it. So conscientious were they in dividing their property that where one had more land in front of his house the other had more in the rear, each having a right of way around the other's house, and a portion of this right of way has recently been made a regular highway in order to reach the hospital through the Williams property, so the entrance is available now from Saxtons River Street. The original deeds provided that a right of way should be kept open from the "Basin" in the rear , 'wide enough for a yoke of oxen to pass."
Both these buildings had very high and large pillars in front which were turned by hand in the old saw mill that then stood about where the present Claremont Paper Company's mill stands under the hill. The turning was done by Powers Crossett, father of the late Augustus P. Crossett, who was the toll gatherer at the bridge from 1837 to 1849. The pillars on the Williams residence are the same ones, but those of the hospital were replaced by new ones in 1900, while the place was used as the residence of the late John W. Flint. In 1900, when digging the cellar for the hospital ell, an immense brick cistern was discovered, built in the shape of a bottle, 10 or 12 feet deep, and a similar one was found near the stable, now used for the Nurses' Home. Both were used for the storage of rain water in the dry seasons of early times, to be used for domestic purposes.
In early days there were several flights of stairs running down the terraces, in front of what is now the [195] hospital, which were kept nicely painted and made a material addition to the locality. One of the first picctures of Bellows Falls, of which there are two or three still in existence, "From Nature and on Stone, by Mrs. Webber," shows these two mansion houses as the prinncipal feature of the landscape, although the perspective is faulty to a great degree.
Captain Henry F. Green received his title from having been captain of various ships engaged in commmercial business and became a resident of Bellows Falls about 1819, while Col. Alexander Fleming earned his title by service in the War of 1812, and came to Bellows Falls two years before his warm friend, Capt. Green. The Fleming homestead north of Immanuel church was erected in 1826, and became his home in his later years. It is still in the ownership of his great-grandson, Richard F. Barker. Col. Fleming was clerk of the Bellows Falls Canal Company 47 years, and died here in 1867. Green & Fleming were the owners of the old paper mill which was burned in 1846, and from that time Bellows Falls had no paper mill within its limits until William A. Russell came here in 1869 and organized the Fall Mounntain Paper Company, which was merged into the Interrnational Paper Company in 1898.