summer calendar highlights
TRANSCRIPT
PO Box 965 179 Little Sunapee Road New London, NH 03257
Late Spring 2018
Notes from the Co-Presidents Spring seems to have finally reached New London and the New London His-torical Society has shaken winter off and is full of exciting events and activi-ties! We have our Young at Art show coming up in May. In June we will once again celebrate alongside the town during the Strawberry Festival. This year, our Hands on History Camp, which takes place in July, will include even more workshops offered not only for students but preschool age and adults as well! Our new Executive Director is bursting with fun ideas for the entire family, so watch our website for other upcoming events such as family picnic night in the great field. We are busily preparing our grounds, buildings, and collections and look forward to a very busy and fun summer.
Rosanna Eubank Long and Linda Jaggard
Update on Raise the Roof Fundraiser for roofs and building maintenance
Total Raised: $ 18,075!
You did it! Thank you for coming through to fund the re-roofing of the
Country Store and the Schoolhouse! We couldn’t keep the Village alive
without your significant support. Thank you so very much!
Notes from the Executive Director
It’s been a wonderful winter at the Village, but I’m not sorry to see it leave. The days of planning have passed and now we are ready to open for the sea-son and have fun with history.
We are increasing our focus as a living history museum—adding demonstra-tions and hands-on activities. We’ve welcomed several new volunteers this winter—thank you to all the volunteers and docents! We can’t do it without you—our Village does ‘take a Village’ so I hope you’ll consider joining us, as a guest or as a volunteer, as we move backwards in time to the 1800s.
At NLHS, we celebrate the people came here before—who lived and worked and created the foundation of the community we now enjoy. We demon-strate some of the differences between our daily lives and theirs; through the living Village we encourage curiosity about those times.
I hope you’ll come by this summer. I look forward to meeting our members and friends.
Kathryn Butler
Summer Calendar Highlights
Summer Hours, Sundays 1-4 PM
First Saturdays in the Village June 2 and July 7 —Go back in time to the 1800s—demonstrations and crafts
Strawberry Festival, Sunday, June 24 from 1:00-4:00 PM-: make and eat homemade strawberry ice cream, see the alpacas, and tour the Village
Hands On History Camp July 16-20 and July 23-27—something for everyone! Take a workshop, spend the day, or come for the week
Inkel Weaving workshop with Bill Burris, Thursday, August 23, 9am to noon. Learn this distinctive style of Swedish weaving
Harvest Sunday, October 7
Chili Fest Cook Off
Inside this issue
History Camp ................ 2
Help Us by Saving Stuff! . 2
Grants Received ............. 2
New London Grange ..... 3
2018 Business Partners .. 4
Save Stuff for Camp
Crafts!
Fun crafts need lots of
fun stuff!
We need:
plastic bags
cores from paper tow-
els
scraps of cloth
rubber bands
newspapers
Contact Kathryn to
schedule a time to drop
by with your stuff!
Activities include spinning, hearthside cooking, paper mache animals, playing with
clay, printmaking, bird houses, corn husk dolls, putting food by, games, singing, danc-
ing, and so much more!
For adults, make a paper mache tray or a stained glass sun catcher or bring your
young child, age 3-6, and make a project together.
Download the brochure--call with questions or to register or use our online registra-
tion. Call or email for more information.
There are so many ways you can help NLHS!
Teach a History Camp Workshop
If you enjoy working with children, please volunteer for a couple hours to teach a work-
shop in the history camp. We have several openings—no skill required. All materials will
be prepared and ready to go. It is a fun way to help others and support our mission of
educating and bringing history to life. Thank you for considering this!
************
We are pleased to announce that NLHS has been
awarded a CAP Grant (Conservation Assessment Pro-
gram) to fund an assessor to review our collection and
develop a report on conservation needs. We were
able to hire Marc Williams of Connecticut, who has
worked with our collection in the past. The meticulous
attention to detail in the restoration of the Albany
Sleigh and the Concord Coach?...This is Mark’s handi-
work.
The Byrne Foundation has continued their support of
our ‘Hands on History’ camp . Their generous donation
of $5,000 will allow us to expand the camp offerings
and to offer more scholarships to campers.
*****
NH Humanities provided funding for one of our speak-
ers this winter—Adam Boyce of Vermont—who gave a
interactive talk on old-time fiddle competitions.
History Camp
2
As we expand our living museum with more
historic trades, we are thrilled we were given this
shoemaker’s bench. We hope to use it in the
future to demonstrate and to teach the craft of
shoemaking. Gift from the estate of Jay Wilson
Grants Received
Register Now!
Come as a weekly camper--
or for a day--or just for a workshop!
Historical Tidbit:
According to the shoemakers at Old Sturbridge Village, the term ‘cobbler’ was considered derogatory.
It implied something that was cobbled together; the preferred term was shoemaker. Many small New England towns filled
orders from larger city shoe makers, who couldn’t keep up with the demand. Shoemakers sometimes worked as a team,
repeatedly performing one task such as cutting out the leather, punching the holes, or stitching.
There is something for everyone:
Age groups: 7-9 years old, 10-12 years old,
an adult with a child 3-6 years old, or adults.
One of Our
New Acquisitions
3
Recently listed for sale, New London’s Grange Hall has been the home of Dufault & Dufault Law Offices since 1992. The hall was constructed in 1895 opposite the Baptist Church on land purchased from Colby Academy. It was both highly visible and centrally located, and housed not only the Grange but other entities like the New London Public Library.
The National Grange, officially the Patrons of Husbandry, was formed in Washington, DC, in 1867. The organization offered small farmers support: political, economic, educational, and social. It first took hold in the agricultural Midwest and South, and later in the Northeast. New Hampshire's first Grange was formed in Exeter in 1873. Over the next 25 years, 261 local Granges followed, with a combined membership exceeding 20,000 New Hampshire men, women, and youth over age thirteen.
New London's own Grange was established in 1883, a decade after the short-lived New London Farmer's Club. The Grange's secret rituals alarmed some citizens, as Freemasonry had done earlier in the century. Nevertheless, 22 men and women signed the charter of the state's 95th Grange. At its close in 1980, just three years short of its centennial, the local Grange recorded 86 members, though only a handful carried on its work.
James Eli Shepard transferred his membership from the Wilmot Flat Grange and became first grand master in New Lon-don. Extant membership lists from 1925 to 1963 show that women always outnumbered men, who never exceeded 45% of a membership which declined steadily from 162 to 89 over the period.
Before its building was constructed, the Grange met in the Armory, a room located in the attic of the old Town Hall. In October 1885, the Grange sponsored its first annual agricultural fair at the Town Hall, and in 1900 the Grange orga-nized the town’s first Old Home Week.
The new Grange Hall was also used by the Grand Army of the Republic (which had previously shared the Armory space). In 1899, the town paid $12 rent for a first floor room to house the New London Public Library, successor to the private Social Library of 1801. Open only on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons, the library soon moved to the new Central School building at the Four Corners in 1907.
In 1939, the League of New Hampshire Arts & Crafts opened a store in the Grange Hall, providing a retail outlet for lo-cal artists, bakers, and woodworkers. After World War II, the first floor became a Christian Science Church & Reading Room, and still later the Episcopal Church met at the hall during winter months. A side entrance provided direct access to the steep stairway leading to the second-floor meeting and function room, with its deacons benches, raised stage and upright piano.
At the turn of the 20th century, seeing a threat to farmers, the State Grange endorsed Progressive reforms aimed at reducing the corrupting influence of trusts and railroads. It advocated for rural mail delivery and then electrification. It also lobbied for anti-margarine laws in New Hampshire, which joined Vermont and West Virginia in requiring added pink food coloring in order to distinguish margarine from real butter — until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled adversely in the case of Collins v. New Hampshire.
In 1970, the New York Times reported a poll showing that 60% of metropolitan adults would prefer to live in the coun-try. The clipping was faithfully pasted into the Grange scrapbook as its 90th anniversary approached in 1973. Lighting the stage with oil lanterns, members celebrated the anniversary by reenacting the inaugural meeting.
The New London Grange disbanded in 1980. Afterwards, the building warehoused furniture and fixtures from shuttered Grange halls around the region until the State Grange auctioned off the accumulated contents and sold the building to the Dufaults in July 1991.
By Jim Perkins, May 2018
New London’s Town Archives
New London’s Grange Hall
Echo Communications, Inc.
New London Barn Playhouse
New London Hospital
Bar Harbor Bank & Trust
Mascoma Savings Bank
On Track Design
Pleasant Acres Property Maintenance
SooNipi Publishing Co.
Benjamin F. Edwards & Co
Colby Insurance Agency, Inc.
Lake Sunapee Region Visiting Nurse Association
Lauridsen Auto Body
LaValley Building Supply
Ledyard National Bank
Old Hampshire Designs, Inc.
Clayton A. Miller Inc.
Allioops! Flowers & Gifts
Ausbon Sargent
Barton Insurance
Belletetes
Chadwick Funeral Service
Four Seasons Realty
Hashem & Simms
Maple Hill Farm
Marshall's Garage
Milestone Real Estate
New London Area Bookkeeping Service
New London Inn
Summercrest Assisted Living, LLC
Sunapee Harbor Riverway, Inc.
The Hair Station
Winni Construction
PO Box 965
179 Little Sunapee Road
New London, NH 03257
603-526-6564
www.newlondonhistoricalsociety.org
ECRWSSPostal.Customer
Business Partners 2018
We are so pleased with the re-
sponse to. our Business Partner
Membership program. We hope
you’ll take advantage of the bene-
fits you receive: Use of the Village
for staff meetings, retreats, and
picnics; complimentary passes to
special events; and complimentary
memberships to share with your
staff. Thank you so much— we
really could not exist without the
generous support we receive from
all of our members and friends.