The Old Stone Wall

Volume XI, Number 4 State of , Department of Cultural Resources Winter 2003-2004 Division of Historical Resources

Commissioner’s Corner: A New Life for the Old Man of the Mountain Good Grant News! Certified Local Governments After the fall of the Old Man the final phase will include the will soon be receiving grant of the Mountain on May 3, 2003, expanded museum, the large-scale packages for the 2004 grant cycle. Governor Craig Benson assigned replica of the profile and portable Grants are available for historic a task force led by former Governor exhibits. surveys, local inventories, Steve to find an appropriate New Hampshire artists are National Register nominations, way to revitalize this New Hampshire invited to submit designs for the building rehabilitation and other landmark. Among its recommend- Annual Profile Awards. The three activities aimed at preserving a ations were: awards will be given annually on community’s historical resources. If your community is a Certified · An expanded museum and May 3, the anniversary of New Hampshire’s loss of the Old Man of Local Government, you should exhibits at the Franconia Notch be prepared to submit your State Park; the Mountain. Visit www.nh.gov/ nharts for information about the application early this spring. · Viewfinders that recreate the Profile Awards. image from roadside parking areas; The Old Man of the Mountain Applications for the · Profile Awards, to be given to Revitalization Fund Inc. has been Conservation License Plate individuals, communities, and established and is developing a (Moose Plate) 2004-2005 grant organizations that have preserved fundraising plan. I am very excited program will be due April 30, their own special piece of New about this process and the potential 2004, and new guidelines will be Hampshire’s heritage or treasures; for us to turn the loss of an posted on the NHDHR web site important New Hampshire icon into soon. These grants are available · A traveling exhibit to teach about for the preservation and the geology and significance of the a way to celebrate what is so special about our state and our people. rehabilitation of historical Old Man; resources that are publicly owned. · The creation of an education Van McLeod program; and Commissioner For more information, call · an Artist Pathway around Profile the NH Division of Historical Lake. Resources at 603-271-3483. Governor Benson has accepted the recommendations of the task force and announced a project team, HIGHLIGHTS the Old Man of the Mountain COMMISSIONER’S CORNER 1 Revitalization Design Task Force, which I have been asked to lead. GOOD GRANT NEWS 1 During the first phase of the project, NATIONAL REGISTER 2 the viewing devices will be installed NH STATE REGISTER 3 and the Annual Profile Awards will CURATOR’S REPORT 4 be designed. The Artist Pathway and SHELBURNE BRIDGE PROGRESS 4 the curriculum program will be Old Man of the Mountain, April 30, 2003. VIEW FROM THE SOLARIUM 4 developed in the second phase, and (Photograph by Linda Ray Wilson)

Winter 2003-2004 THE OLD STONE WALL 1 Recent National Register At a time when vacant or NH Division of abandoned farms were being bought Listings up and used as summer residences, Historical Resources this house was an architect designed http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr summer home commissioned James McConaha expressly for Mrs. Nichols. As the Director & State Historic Preservation Officer years passed, however, Mrs. Nichols P. Russell Bastedo found it easier to stay with her sisters State Curator in Hollis Village and used the house Richard A. Boisvert less and less, finally conveying it to State Archaeologist her children in 1949. In the 1960s Edna M. Feighner the Beaver Brook Association was Historical Archaeologist & formed by family members and Hollis Review and Compliance Coordinator residents to utilize the property and Christine E. Fonda promote the conservation of Hollis’s National Register, Preservation North Conway 5 & 10 Cent Store, Conway NH. Listed natural beauty. January 5, 2004. (Photograph by P.B. Alcott) Tax Incentives & Covenants Coordinator Deborah J. Gagne The North Conway 5 & 10 Cent Program Assistant Store is a rare survivor of the 5 & 10 James L. Garvin Cent Store retail mode. The “Dime State Architectural Historian Store,” as it was also called, was the Elizabeth H. Muzzey invention of Frank Winfield Woolworth State Survey Coordinator who opened the first 5 & 10 in 1880. Christine Saint Louis Although F.W. Woolworth eventually Resource Inventory Technician became the largest chain of 5 & 10 Linda Ray Wilson Cent Stores, there were completing Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Meadow Bridge, Shelburne NH. Listed December 10, chains as well as countless independent 2003. (Photograph by James L. Garvin) [Vacancy] stores across America. The North Executive Secretary Conway 5 & 10 Cent Store was estab- The Meadow Bridge (1897) [Vacancy] lished in 1939. Generations of customers spanning the Androscoggin River in Grants Manager & Certified Local have enjoyed the history, ambiance, and west central Shelburne was erected by Governments Coordinator merchandise available here. the Groton Bridge and Manufacturing [Vacancy] The store is architecturally Company of Groton, . This Preservation Planner significant as an example of the Boom engineering landmark is a nationally STATE HISTORICAL Town Storefront. It is North significant example of the multiple- RESOURCES COUNCIL Conway’s only unaltered expression of span pin-connected through Pratt Jason Hoch, Littleton, Chair this false-front arrangement common truss. Once a common metal bridge Gail Nessell Colglazier, Londonderry to small frame commercial buildings type, it is now extremely rare. Sheryl N. Hack, Canterbury dating from the late 19th century. Meadow Bridge is also historically Duffy Monahon, Peterborough important in the tourism industry of David R. Proper, Keene th Carl W. Schmidt, Orford late-19 century Shelburne. Its David R. Starbuck, Plymouth, Vice Chair construction significantly improved David Watters, Dover access to the area’s resorts. It also has [Vacancy], Governor’s Designee associations with the Good Roads James McConaha, ex-officio movement, an initiative to improve [Vacancy], Secretary the nation’s roads and bridges. The DEPARTMENT OF League of American Wheelmen, CULTURAL RESOURCES Marion Nichols Summer Home, Hollis NH. Listed founded in 1880, was a strong Van McLeod, Commissioner December 10, 2003. (Photograph by Lisa B. Mausolf) proponent of greater investment in highway transportation. This group of The DHR is a state agency, supported by The Marion Nichols Summer the State of New Hampshire, by the bicyclists published a national federal Historic Preservation Fund Home (1935) is a well-preserved magazine and also lobbied successfully (through a matching grant administered summer home complex dating from to improve facilities across the by the National Park Service of the U.S. the early 20th century. Three hours Department of the Interior), and by country. The construction of Meadow donated funds and services. In addition from Boston by train, Hollis enjoyed Bridge was one of the first examples to its state functions, the DHR is also popularity as a summer home desti- responsible for administering the federal of this national effort at work in New preservation program in New Hampshire. nation from the late 1880s to the Hampshire’s North Country. early 1940s. Visitors were accom- modated in a number of ways – farms Christine E. Fonda and homes taking in boarders, National Register & Tax Incentives boarding houses, and inns. Coordinator

2 THE OLD STONE WALL Winter 2003-2004 New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources (DHR) is pleased to announce that eight more properties have been listed in the New Hampshire State Register Epsom Town Hall, Epsom: a quiet of Historic Places. Each is pictured th here. For more information on the and pristine reminder of 19 century civic life along the well-traveled First benefits of listing a property New Hampshire Turnpike. on the State Register and the application process, please visit our web site, http://www.nh.gov/nhdhr, or contact the office at either PO Box 2043, Concord, NH 03302 or 603-271-3483.

The DHR is also sponsoring a design contest for a State Register plaque for listed properties. Check our The Carroll County Courthouse, web site for all the details and our Ossipee: a local landmark, a fine example next newsletter for the results. of the Neo-Classical Revival style, and The Haley Homestead, Lee: owned the seat of Carroll County government by the Haley family for more than since its construction in 1916. 150 years, daily life at this Georgian style home was well-documented in the 19th century journals of family member S. Olevia Haley.

The Hildreth-Jones Tavern, Amherst: a center for county business, political discourse, news, entertainment and Clinton Grove Academy, Weare: commerce in the 18th and early 19th generations of Weare schoolchildren centuries, a time when Amherst was have passed through this local the county seat and among the largest landmark, built in 1874 to replace Sanborn Mills, Loudon: an intact towns in New Hampshire. the school where abolitionist Moses and well-preserved saw and grist mill Cartland first served as headmaster. complex that served 19th century Loudon Center farmers. These local Elizabeth Muzzey mills were once common in the state; State Survey Coordinator now only a handful survive.

www.mooseplate.com

The Moore-Scott House, Derry: built in the early 18th century by one of the town’s founders on an early road between Derry and Windham The Maynard-Gates House, and farmed for centuries by the Marlborough: built by yeoman Moore and Scott families. Jedediah Maynard in the 1760s, this The perfect all-occasion gift house is believed to be the earliest that keeps on giving! structure remaining in Marlborough.

Winter 2003-2004 THE OLD STONE WALL 3 Curator’s Report Shelburne Bridge Progress The View from Several Civil War projects are Efforts to preserve Shelburne’s the Solarium underway. First, the New Hampshire Meadow Bridge continue in the field After I gave my report at the National Guard plans to assemble and on paper. As reported in the and restore to working order four Summer 2003 Old Stone Wall, Meadow January meeting of the State Historical Resources Council, announcing that twelve-pounder “Napoleon” cannon, Bridge is a rare, multi-span metal truss made in 1863 and 1864. All four bridge that was built over the in the last four months we had lost over $70,000 in federal funds, had saw military service with the state’s Androscoggin River in 1897 (see First Light Battery. Members of the related story, page two). One of the four taken a 10% cut in our state budget, had lost 1/4 of our staff, were living General Court’s Heritage Collections piers that support the structure is being Committee are helping the New undermined by riverbed scour, causing under a hiring freeze, and had postponed the barn grant program, Hampshire National Guard with the two of the four pin-connected trusses restoration of the cannon and to lean and twist, and potentially one member asked, “do you have any good news?” fundraising. National Park Service and endangering both the historic structure West Point Museum personnel have and a 1984 bypass bridge just Well, of course there is good news, and lots of it. You are reading in this provided copies of drawings downstream. from ordnance manuals of the period Following strong expressions of newsletter and elsewhere of the progress being made in Shelburne to to aid in the work. The New public sentiment for preserving the Hampshire National Guard intends bridge, the New Hampshire Department save and restore one of the state’s most historic bridges. The Music Hall to install some or all of the of Transportation (DOT) developed reassembled and restored cannon plans to prevent the loss of the two in Portsmouth is receiving a $400,000 Save America’s Treasures grant. in its planned museum at Concord. endangered trusses. In November, 2003, The General Court’s Civil War DOT awarded a contract to Chesterfield The historic coastal defense structures at Fort Point are not only being saved, Memorials Commission is charged with Associates of New York to remove the erecting a monument to New two sections for storage on the shores of but the overgrowth at the site has been cleared for a public view not Hampshire men and women at the the river until rehabilitation plans can Battle of Antietam, Maryland, be developed. seen in decades. A bill in the legislature proposes to remove the September 17, 1862. The Commission Meanwhile, in July, 2003, a planning has narrowed a competition for the committee was formed after two public footnote that prohibits LCHIP funds from being used for historic sculptor to three finalists, all of whom meetings were held in Shelburne. In structures; and a new, permanent are nationally known sculptors of response to an offer made by DOT, funding mechanism for LCHIP is Civil War memorials. the committee is working to meet the being considered. Late in 2003 a Civil War silk challenge of raising 20% of the estimated The most important good news is regimental flag carried by Company H $1.4 million cost of permanently that communities all over this state of the First New Hampshire Volunteers rehabilitating the bridge. are creating historic districts and was mounted and is now on view with In November, the New Hampshire heritage commissions, putting the Civil War portraits on the State Charitable Foundation awarded the buildings and districts on the State House first floor. The flag was given committee $5,000 to develop plans to and National Register, fighting to save to the state by the family of Charles save the bridge and provide public and rehabilitate historic homes and W. Stevens in 1989. A knapsack and benefit from the preserved structure. commercial structures. The reservoir canteen belonging to a Hopkinton, The committee contracted with the of support for historic preservation New Hampshire veteran of the War North Country Council, the regional deepens with every passing day. Our of 1812 are displayed with our War planning commission, to draft the plan. challenge is to focus that support on of 1812 portraits, also on the State Following public comment, the plan the leadership of our communities, House first floor. These latter items will be revised and used as a vehicle for our state and our nation. were purchased for the state at raising the 20% non-DOT share of auction by the General Court’s Joint preservation costs and for developing Legislative Historical Committee recreational and educational facilities in January, 2003. around the preserved structure and its site.

Russell Bastedo James L. Garvin James McConaha State Curator State Architectural Historian Director, NH Division of Historical Resources NH State Historic Preservation Officer State of New Hampshire • Department of Cultural Resources • Division of Historical Resources 19 Pillsbury Street, P.O. Box 2043, Concord NH 03302-2043 603-271-3483 or 603-271-3558 • FAX 603-271-3433 • Voice/TTY Relay Access 1-800-735-2964 • [email protected] This newsletter has been financed in part with a federal ‘Historic Preservation Fund’ matching grant from the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior, to the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources/State Historic Preservation Office. Part of the cost of this newsletter has been paid by the DHR’s annual federal program grant. However, its contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior. Regulations of the US Department of the Interior strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination in departmental federally assisted programs on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, or disability. The State of New Hampshire (under RSA 275 and RSA 354-a) prohibits discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, creed, color, marital status, physical or mental disability or national origin. Any person who believes that he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility operated by a recipient of federal assistance should write to: Director, Office of Equal Opportunity, National Park Service, 1849 C Street, NW, Washington D.C. 20240. 4 THE OLD STONE WALL Winter 2003-2004