North Conway New Hampshire: Hotel Randall–Before It Was Eastern Slope Inn

Posted on 28 July, 2016 by Janice Brown

Photograph of Hotel Randall, North Conway, N.H. [Between and 1910, 1900] Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. (Accessed April 18, 2016.)

Photograph of Hotel Randall, North Conway, N.H. [Between 1900 and 1910] Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. (Accessed April 18, 2016.)

Built prior to 1864 on the spot where Eastern Slope Inn now sits, was first a small summer boarding house of Jonathan Melvin Seavey, a Conway NH carpenter. In 1864 this structure was sold to James T. Randall. In 1888 James T. Randall passed the reins of management to his son, Henry Harrison Randall.

In 1902 the boarding house burned, and now with Henry H. Randall as full owner, he built a “three-story Colonial Revival building with a fifteen-foot-wide, wrap-around piazza and flared gambrel roofs.” (see photograph directly below). “Among the hotel’s features were a long ell and a first floor dining room with views of the Saco River and White Mountains. Continue reading →

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The Lost Faces of World War One — Part Twelve

Posted on 26 July, 2016 by Janice Brown

This is the continuation of a series of stories about men who died in World War 1, and whose photographs appeared in a publication called “Our Nation’s Roll of Honor.” The original post and explanation can be found at this link.  There will also be a complete listing of all the names researched at that same blog post.

LOST FACES OF WORLD WAR ONE: Our Nation’s Roll of Honor — Part Twelve

KACZOR Joseph Junction City WIS
Sergeant Joseph Kaczor
Junction City, Wisconsin
Died of Wounds

Joseph Kaczor was born about 1882 in Austria, of Polish descent.  He died in France May 14, 1918, of wounds received in battle, while serving in the American Army, 1st Brigade Machine Gun Battalion, 1st Division. Continue reading →

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New Hampshire Tidbits: Potato Cheesecake On The Menu

Posted on 24 July, 2016 by Janice Brown
Graphic from Common birds of town and country, National Geographic Society, 1914, Cornell University Library on Flickr

Bird sitting on a cake, from “Common birds of town and country,” National Geographic Society, 1914, Cornell University Library on Flickr.

When you see the word, cheesecake, you think of the modern sweet dessert, made from a mixture of soft, fresh cream cheese (cheese or cottage cheese), eggs, and sugar on top of a crust of crushed graham crackers or other slightly sweet mixture.

But cheesecake was not always made this way. On 5 July 1859 the Weekly Union newspaper of Manchester, New Hampshire printed a recipe for POTATO CHEESECAKE. It would seem natural to me, that someone from the state where the first potato in New England was planted, would concoct such a strange but practical cake. Oh sure, there are tons of sweet potato cheesecake recipes, but I doubt you have seen one quite like this. Continue reading →

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The Lost Faces of World War One — Part Eleven

Posted on 22 July, 2016 by Janice Brown

This is the continuation of a series of stories about men who died in World War 1, and whose photographs appeared in a publication called “Our Nation’s Roll of Honor.” The original post and explanation can be found at this link.  There will also be a complete listing of all the names researched at that same blog post.

LOST FACES OF WORLD WAR ONE: Our Nation’s Roll of Honor — Part Eleven

JOHNSON George Brookly NYPRIVATE GEORGE JOHNSON
Brooklyn NY
Killed in Action

BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE, dated 14 Aug 1918
KILLED IN ACTION
*Private George Johnson 486-A Seventeenth Street, 165th Infantry Continue reading →

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Inventor of the First American Alarm clock: Concord New Hampshire’s Levi Hutchins (1761-1855)

Posted on 20 July, 2016 by Janice Brown
A likeness of Abel Hutchins, from his autobiography

A likeness of Levi Hutchins, from his autobiography

First, lets be clear–Levi Hutchins did not make the world’s very first alarm clock. He did however appear to make the first American alarm clock. Earlier alarm clocks include one made by Leonard Da Vinci, and those made in later Germany and other European locations.

The “alarm clock” created by Levi Hutchins in 1787 was a 29 x 14-inch timepiece that included a cabinet made of pine wood containing the inner mechanism of a large brass clock, and having a mirror on the door. This clock was limited–the alarm rang only at a specific time and you couldn’t reset, change or turn it off. The minute hand of the clock tipped the pinion at 4 AM (when Levi wanted to get up) and it set a bell to ring. Continue reading →

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