Lindsay Jones, daughter of Gordon and Marion Jones of Chichester
was named to the Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH, Dean’s
Honor List for the 2010 Spring Semester. Lindsay is a Junior
majoring in Environmental Science.
Happy Birthday to Karen Michael on July 4 and Derek Duford
on July 6.
Would you like to participate in the Old Home Day Variety
Show on Thursday, August 19th? It will be held at the school
this year, with rehearsals at the Grange Hall. Contact Jaan
Luikmil at 798-4987 (home) or 545-9087 (cell) for further
information.
There are just a few spaces left at Carpenter Park for
booths on Old Home Day, August 21. Contact Jaan Luikmil at
798-4987 (home) or 545-9087 (cell) if you would like to reserve
one.
The baking contest for Old Home Day this year is double
crust apple pie. Contact Carol Frekey-Harkness at 798-5443 for
further information.
The theme for this year’s Old Home Day is “Halloween in
August.” Again this year there will be cash prizes for floats in
the Parade on August 21. Contact Jaan Luikmil at 798-4987 (home)
or 545-9087 (cell) for further details.
Hot weather is a good time to take it easy and read. The
following titles have been recently added to the adult fiction
section of the Chichester Town Library: The Last Child by John
Hart, The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova, The Crimson Rooms
by Katharine McMahon, An Irish Country Girl by Patrick Taylor,
Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke, I Know This Much Is True
by Wally Lamb, Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad, Die for You
by Lisa Unger, Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper, Boot Camp by Todd
Strasser, and Deadline by Chris Crutcher.
Invitation to Vacation Bible School for children going into
grades 1 thru 6th July 12-16, 2010, from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00
p.m.
Located at Epsom Bible Church, 398 Black Hall Road,
Epsom, NH.
Call 736-9354 for more info or to sign up or just
come and join us!
Bible stories, crafts, games, food and lots
of fun!!
Chichester Historical Society Annual Picnic
July 12, 6:30
p.m.
Pack the picnic basket, grab a chair and head for Depot
Road Bridge, known locally as “Thunder Bridge.” It’s time for
the picnic to celebrate this historic site listed in the
National Register of Historic Places. Please note the time
change to 6:30 p.m., Monday, July 12th. Beverages and dessert
will be provided by the Historical Society.
The Society’s new
2011 barn calendar, “The Other Side,” is now available for
purchase. The calendar sells for $10.00 and can be seen at the
Historical Society Museum, 49 Main Street. The Museum is open
from 9 a.m. to noon every Tuesday. Also available are
refrigerator magnets featuring Thunder Bridge for $1.00. The
magnets are packaged with information on the history of the
bridge. The calendars and magnets will be available for purchase
from our booth at Old Home Day on August 21st.
Please stop in
when driving by the museum to view our garden featuring
plants that would have been found in early New England gardens.
A brief background and medicinal history of the plant is
provided. The garden is a work in progress and we will be adding
to it over time. The stone hitching post from the torn-down
Hutchinson property will be placed in the garden at a later
date.
So mark your calendar NOW for the annual picnic at
Thunder Bridge, Monday, July 12th, at 6:30 p.m. Hope to see you
there.
Congratulations to the Chichester Minor Girls Softball Team for
taking first place in the Suncook Valley Baseball Tournament.
Congratulations to the Chichester Minor Boys 1 Baseball Team for
taking first place in the Suncook Valley Baseball Tournament
Amy
Eldridge Troy Of Chichester Massage Is 2010 Humanitarian
Award Recipient
The NH Chapter of The American Massage Therapy Association has
chosen Amy Eldridge Troy as our 2010 Humanitarian Award
Recipient. For the last 13 years Amy has been noted to give of
herself tirelessly. Over the past several years she has been
involved with many AMTA volunteer events including National
Massage Therapy Awareness Week, Legislative Day, The NH Nurses
Association, The American Family Physicians Conference, and was
featured in NH at the Extreme Home Makeover Event. Through her
business, Chichester Massage & Bodywork Center, she supports
many local organizations by offering food drives, donating
services, and helping with fundraising. Chichester Massage also
participates in local races and events to raise awareness for
charities like The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, The American
Cancer Society, and The Payson Center for Cancer Care. Amy
is always looking for ways to give back to the community. She
believes that we prosper by giving to others. Her work ethic and
attitude benefit us all. Congratulations to Amy Eldridge Troy!
The American Massage Therapy Association
represents more than 57,000 massage therapists throughout 51
Chapters in the US and in over 25 countries. AMTA works to
establish massage therapy as integral to the maintenance of good
health and strongly encourages public service. For more
information visit
www.amtamassage.org
Out
of Your Attic Thrift Shop News
Submitted By Carol Hendee
We have been receiving some super donations -summer clothes,
shoes, etc. We have some interesting items - what can you use a
suitcase for besides travel? How about a great storage container
for Christmas items, crafts, etc. We have several to choose
from. We also have older quilt and knitting magazines. There are
some great chef aprons for the barbeque, 2 Mr. Coffees, and
doggie steps and a large dog blanket.
Two items that are
frequently requested and we are in need of are child car booster
seats and baby swings.
Thank you for your donations. Stop by
Tues., Wed. or Thurs., 8-4 or Sat., 10-4. We’re on Rte 28,
Blueberry Plaza, Chichester.
Surprise 75th Birthday
Jewel Emerson Murphy was guest of
honor on June 20th at a surprise 75th Birthday celebration held
at the home of her sister, Esther Emerson Riel, Pleasant Street
in Chichester.
The party was given by her children, Dick
Miller and Ethel Sebastion.
Over sixty people attended and
among them, in addition to her children, were her sisters,
Esther, Cliftine Murphy, Verna Conway, and Laura Stevens; nearly
all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as many
other relatives and friends.
Chichester Historical Society
Vanished Town Officials - Part
III
By Walter Sanborn
For the first 200 years the only
fuel for heating and cooking was wood. Many farmers had woodlots
on their farm and cut their own firewood. Not everyone lived on
a farm and they had to buy wood from someone else.
Not
everyone who sold firewood was honest like people are today and
were sometimes short on their measurements to their customers.
In any event the General Court found it advisable back as far as
1791 to pass An Act to prevent fraud in cordwood exposed for
sale. This act defined the measurement for a cord of wood as
four feet wide, four feet high and eight feet in length closely
packed. It also required each town where cordwood as sold
to elect a “Corder of Wood.” His job was to measure all
cordwood bought into town for sale and to certify to its
measure.
Wood was not only the primary source of fuel in the
early nineteenth century but was also the principal material for
building.
Here again was an opportunity for fraud and need
for standardization for the measurement of lumber. Many
towns had their own sawmills where there was a convenient source
of waterpower of which Chichester had several sawmills. In
1785 the General Court passed an act regulating the sale of
shingles, clapboards, hoops and staves and required the town to
elect a Measurer of Boards, (later Surveyor of Lumber) and
Culler of Staves. The act goes into detail as to the kind and
quality of lumber to be used, and the finished dimensions of
boards, shingles, clapboards and items such as hogshead staves,
barrel staves and hogshead hoops and shooks from which wooden
boxes were made. For example all clapboards shall be five eights
of an inch on the back or thickest point, five inches wide and
four feet six inches long and they shall be straight and well
shaved.
It was the job of the Surveyor of Lumber and Culler
of Staves to view applicable lumber and see that the law was
rigorously enforced. In 1794 Lieut. John Hilyard, John Morrill
and Capt John Langmaid were elected Surveyors of Lumber in
Chichester and John Moulton Culler of Staves.
Early
containers of liquids and dry grains and fruits and vegetables
were made of wood such as scoops, measurers, kegs, barrels and
boxes. Apples, potatoes and other fruits and vegetables were
stored and sold in wooden barrels and boxes.
Cider, vinegar
and other liquids were stored and sold in heavier barrels with
each end sealed and only a hole to fill the barrel and a bung to
fill the hole after filling.
The Culler of Staves was to see
that these containers were properly built.
These containers
had to meet a required measurement of standard size. This
required another town official called a “Sealer of Measure”.
Although Chichester had a “Sealer of Measure” there was no
name recorded. Today this job is taken over by the State
of New Hampshire and is regulated by the Department of Weights
and Measures.
My next article will be about re-establishing
some of these vanished town officials in the future.
Obituaries
George L. Blackman
Chichester - The Rev.
George L. Blackman, 90, died Wednesday, June 23,
2010.
George was rector of the Church of Our
Savior in Brookline, Mass., for 30 years. After
he retired in 1987 and moved to the family
homestead in Chichester, he continued to preach,
take services and occasionally serve as interim
at churches in New Hampshire Episcopal Diocese.
He was known for his compassionate, pastoral
counseling and his eloquent, extemporaneous
sermons. For many years, he was also active in
the Concord Victorian Society’s Gilbert and
Sullivan productions, as both director and
actor.
The eldest son of Floyd and Helen
Blackman, George grew up in Brookline, Mass.,
and loved his summers spent in Chichester. He
graduated from Harvard in 1941 and then served
as a lieutenant on a sub chaser in the Pacific
in World War II. His war experiences led him to
choose ministry in the Episcopal Church. He
graduated from the Episcopal Theological School
in 1948 and received his Ph.D. in church history
from Emmanuel College, Cambridge (U.K.) in 1953.
It was while studying in England that he met and
married Maeve Hardie from Glasgow, Scotland.
They were married in 1952. Over the next four
years, he taught history at EDS and at Emmanuel
College, where he became one of the few
Americans to be elected a fellow of the college.
In 1957, he answered a call to the Church of Our
Saviour. He was also a lecturer and author.
Faith And Freedom, his history of U.S.
theological education, was published in 1957. He
was a president of the English Speaking Union,
an elected Brookline Town Meeting member and
chairman of Commissions on Aging and Human
Relations. He helped organize and lead the
Diocese of Massachusetts contingent that
participated in the famous Civil Rights March
from Selma in 1965. His spiritual vision, deep
compassion, and his sense of humor and
infectious laugh will always be cherished by all
who knew him.
In all things, he was partnered
and supported by Maeve, his loving wife.
In
addition to her, he is survived by his brother,
Arthur; four sons, Harry, Tony, Hamish and Ian;
and seven grandchildren.
Memorial services
will be held July 10 at noon at St. Paul’s
Episcopal Church, Center Street, Concord, and at
the Church of Our Saviour sometime later in the
summer.
Memorial donations may be made to St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church, Center Street, Concord
03301; or to the Church of Our Saviour, 23
Monmouth St., Brookline, Mass. 02446; or to The
Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, 322 Eighth
Ave., 7th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10001.
Bennett Funeral Home, Concord, is in charge of
arrangements.
Messages of condolence may be offered online
at
bennettfuneral.com.