Four More Manchester (NH) High School Graduates of 1888

Posted on 18 February, 2014 by Janice Brown

In November of last year, I wrote about four graduates of Manchester (NH) High School of the class of 1888.  So that I do not repeat myself, please see this link for the history and a photograph of that high school. For now I will focus on revealing only what happened to these four female graduates–Maude G. Fifield, Ethel G. Lamprey, Sarah G. Sawyer, and Alice M. Stuart.
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Valentine’s Day in New Hampshire, 1872

Posted on 14 February, 2014 by Janice Brown

Farmer’s Cabinet (Amherst NH) Vol 70, Issue 31, Page 2; Wednesday, February 14, 1872

To day, (the 14th) is known in the calendar as St. Valentine’s Day. Many believe valentineantiqueSt. Valentine a myth like Santa Claus; but this is an error. St. Valentine had a history, although historical authorities differ. According to some ecclesiastical writers he was a bishop, by others a prebyter, who was beheaded in Rome in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, A.D. 270–Wheatleigh says that St. Valentine “was a man of most admirable parts, and so famous for his love and charity that the custom of choosing valentines upon his festival took its rise from thence.” Others derive the custom from birds supposed to select their mates on the 14th of February; others again from a practice prevalent at ancient Rome at the festival of the Lupercalis, being during the month of February, when, among other ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from where they were taken by young men, according as chance directed. There are frequent references to St. Valentine’s Day in Shakespeare. In this country the day is observed by sending ornamental, illustrative or comic missives to friends and foes alike.

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Portsmouth NH 1846: Customs of Valentine’s Day

Posted on 12 February, 2014 by Janice Brown

From: Portsmouth Journal of Literature and Politics (Portsmouth NH) Vol LVII, Issue 7, Page 3  — Saturday, February 14, 1846flower opening

VALENTINE’S DAY — It is a popular superstition that the first two single people who meet in the morning of St. Valentine’s Day (February 14th) may have a chance of becoming married to each other. St. Valentine’s day has long been imagined the day whereon birds pair, and hence it has been considered peculiarly ominous to lovers, so that billets doux sent on this day, have received the cognomen of the saint.  The custom of choosing Valentines is an old one; it was practised in the houses of the gentry of England as early as 1476, and is referred to in the Harleian MS by John Lydgate, the monk of Bury, in a poem written by him in praise of Queen Catherine, wife of Henry V.:

 “Scynte Valentine, of custom yeere by yeere
 Men have an usuance in this regioun
To loke and serche Cupides kalendere,
And chose theyr choyse by grete affeccion.
Such as ben prike with Cupides mocioun,
Takyng theyre choyse as theyre sort doth falle;
But I love oon which excellith alle.”

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An 1876 Valentine Rejection

Posted on 10 February, 2014 by Janice Brown

And we think Valentine’s Day is too commercialized…

JOHN’S VALENTINE–It was the evening of Valentine day when he called on her, and mailing a valentineshe stuck her head out of the door as he knocked, and sobbed, “If you had sent me a fifty-cent one with two hearts on it, I might have been all the world to you. John; but for a five-cent one, never-r-r.” And he sat down on the steps and wondered if girls would ever understand the depression in business.

— from: New Hampshire Sentinel (Keene NH), Thursday, April 13, 1876, page 4

 

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New Hampshire Missing Places: The Wizard Tree of Intervale

Posted on 5 February, 2014 by Janice Brown

 

View of Lake Winnipesaukee- old postcard

View of Lake Winnipesaukee, showing typical young white birch trees in New Hampshire – old postcard

New Hampshire has long been renown for its picturesque birch trees.  Most often I think of these tall, pale, and often slightly bent trees in a scene combined with a mountain or a crystal blue lake in the background, reminiscent of tourist brochures.

The so-called Wizard Tree of Intervale, New Hampshire (a village partly in the towns of Conway and Bartlett) was unusual in its appearance, and by 1904 became one of the most frequently photographed and promoted trees in New Hampshire.  How did that come to be? And where is it now?

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Posted in History, N.H. Missing Places, Oddities, Accidents and Crazy Weather, Poetry, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments