2022: Celebrating New Hampshire Black History Month

When Black History Month arrives some are”passive celebrators” as if we think we are not connected to this portion of shared history. New Hampshire has been home to Africans and African-Americans for more than 350 years. The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire’s web site states that “the first known black person in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, came from the west coast of Africa in 1645…” [you can read the details at the Black Heritage Trail web site]. Continue reading

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New Hampshire’s Christmas Cow

Photograph of cow owned by Renee Wesoja of Highwayview Farm in Boscawen NH. Courtesy of MacKenzie Lorden.

Does your moooo-d change for the worse with the approach of the holiday season?  Are you noticing that December’s loss of daily sunlight makes you feel grumpy? There is a cure.

Drive away the winter blues and consider creating a cow-themed Christmas tree.   There are plenty of local shops and businesses that sell cow-related items of all sizes and sorts–or you can make your own. Continue reading

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New Hampshire Glossary: Excise

Advertisement for Excise on Liquors found in the New Hampshire Gazette, 6 May 1757, Portsmouth NH, Issue 31, page 2.

ON EXCISES
Excise, a Monster, worse than e’er before
Frighted the Midwife, and the Mother tore;
A thousands Hands she has, a thousand Eyes,
Breaks into Shops and into Cellars pries;
With hundred Rows of Teeth the Shark exceeds,
And on all Trades, like Casawar, she feeds;
Chops off the Piece, where’er she close the Jaw,
Else swallows all down her indented Maw;
She stalks all Day in the Streets conceal’d from Sight,
And flies, like Bats, with Leathern Wings by Night;
She wastes the Country, and on Cities preys;
Her of a female Harpy, in Dog-Days,
Black Birch, of all the Earth-born Race most hot,
And most rapacious, like Himself begot,
And of his Brat enamor’d as she increast,
Revel’d in Incest with the Mongrel Beast.
–From Weekly Rehearsal, May 14, 1733 Boston MA
Continue reading

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October 11 2021: Indigenous Peoples’ Day in New Hampshire

Carved stones photographic print, 1901. One of two mounted photographic prints of a collection of twenty smooth stones, each with a figure crudely scratched into the service. Written on back of photos: “Indian Relicks from Procter, Franklin Falls, NH, March 27, 1901.” From NH Historical Society Online Catalog.

No, sadly you won’t find Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the official New Hampshire State calendar of holidays. Though the topic has been brought more than once before our State’s General Court, legislation to either change Columbus Day or to add Indigenous People’s Day to the same date as a holiday have failed. (There are a few cities and towns in New Hampshire who do officially celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day).

I could give you many reasons why “Columbus Day” should be dropped from the calendar, though I’m sure you’ve heard them all before. But what if … it turns out that Columbus is not Italian at all? Would that change anything? Would Italian-Americans still insist that this man, who is by many considered a tyrant and murderer, deserve a holiday in a country where he never set foot? And perhaps I should mention that he actually did not discover America. Continue reading

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Merrimack New Hampshire Post Office History and Its First Woman Postmaster.

Sketch of woman and man in a post office, from “The Postmaster,” by Howard Heath and Joseph Crosby Lincoln, 1912; Internet Archive

New Hampshire has a long and interesting post office history dating back to 1673. This story is specific to the area that is now the town of Merrimack in Hillsborough County. For New Hampshire’s early post office and post road history SEE “New Hampshire’s Post Road and Post Office History.”

In Merrimack’s earliest years, there were no post offices. Those who wanted to leave “mail,” documents or packages for someone in the town could leave them at one of the town’s taverns or meeting-places for the person to pick up when they next visited. The Farmer’s Monthly Visitor published by Isaac Hill in 1852 says that “As late as 1777 there was but one Post Office in New Hampshire, that at Portsmouth…while in 1852 there are 360 Post Masters in the State!Continue reading

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