Category: Q&A

A look at New Hampshire 12,000 years ago

Dr. Robert Goodby is a Professor of Anthropology at Franklin Pierce University. He earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Brown University and will be presenting his program “12,000 Years Ago in the Granite State” on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Peterborough Town Library, about an archaeological survey for the new Keene Middle School that brought to light one of the oldest Native American sites in New England. Goodby’s book A Deep Presence: 13,000 Years of Native American History is available from the Harris Center for Conservation Education (harriscenter.org).

How far back do human settlements go in New England?

The site I’m going to be talking about is the oldest dated site in New England. The date we have, it’s a radiocarbon date, is 12,600 years ago. The sites from this time period are relatively rare. We call this time period the Paleo-Indian period; it basically means old Indian period, and it’s the first period of human occupation here. … Of all the sites that we know about in all of New England, there are maybe one or two sites that are as old as the one in Keene that I’ll be talking about, but none that are older.

Are there any sort of indications that would lead you to think that a spot possibly contains an older human settlement?

You have to sort of work with geologists and recreate what the landscape was like at the end of the Ice Age and sort of understand it from that perspective. In Keene what we had was a nice high, dry, sandy terrace overlooking a river that would have given people a really good view to the south where they would have been able to watch the movement of game animals, particularly caribou, who were here at that time. There are some basics. All people need water, so the sites are close to water. Nobody likes to live on wet ground, and so you’re looking for nice dry sandy soil. Nobody likes to live on a slope or on land covered with boulders. So you look for the level dry, more or less rock-free areas that are close to water, and that’s where the sites tend to be.

What artifacts can be found at a site?

…We have stone tools, and we have over 200 of them. We also have burned pieces of animal bones, some of which have been identified as caribou. … [W]e think this was a wintertime occupation, and the winters back then were brutal, so people would have been hunkering down in their tents, eating food that they had stored up during the fall and just waiting for spring to come.

Is there anything that you’re still looking for? Something you hope to find?

That’s one of the things I love about archaeology is every time you’re looking at a site and starting to do excavation you really have no idea what might turn up. It’s really sort of the surprises that make it special and the idea that you don’t always know what you’re going to find. …

Anything else you’d like to mention about the talk or ancient sites in New Hampshire?

Just that we have a very long Native American history in the state and it hasn’t ended yet. We still have people here who are descended from the original inhabitants. And so it’s a very interesting story that’s still unfolding. The people who were here when the Europeans arrived, and the people who are still here, are the Abenaki. … [T]here is no evidence in that more than 12,000 years that the Native Americans here ever abandoned this area or that they were ever pushed out by someone who came from somewhere else until the Europeans arrived. So the more archaeology we do, the more we see that we just have continuous Native American presence here from, you know, almost 13,000 years ago all the way up to today. …

—Zachary Lewis

“12,000 Years Ago in the Granite State”
Hosted by Friends of the Peterborough Library
When: Thursday, Nov. 7, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Peterborough Town Library, 2 Concord St., Peterborough
Info: Contact Rebecca Enman, 924-8040. Visit nhhumanities.org/programs.

Featured image: Dr. Robert Goodby. Courtesy photo.

How power changed rural New Hampshire life

Steve Taylor is a lifelong scholar of New Hampshire agriculture and rural life. He has been a daily newspaper reporter and editor, freelance writer, dairy farmer and for 25 years served as the state’s commissioner of agriculture. He was the founding executive director of the New Hampshire Humanities Council and in recent years has been an active participant in its Humanities to Go program. Steve spoke to the Hippo about his program “Late in Arriving, How Electricity Changed Rural New Hampshire Life” that he will give on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. at St. John Episcopal Church Parish Hall in Dunbarton. The event is hosted by the Dunbarton Historical Society.

Can you give a brief overview on what you talk about regarding electricity in rural New Hampshire?

The period between World War I and the middle of the 1950s was a time when there were two distinct civilizations in the state of New Hampshire: those who had electricity and those who didn’t. Those who didn’t lived almost the same as people would have lived in the 1890s. That means having to fetch water, run kerosene lamps, use privies, wash clothing by hand … as late as 1936, nine out of 10 rural residents of New Hampshire did not have electricity. But the coming of the New Deal with the Rural Electrification Administration addressed that problem. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was campaigning in 1932, promised that the federal government would get behind electrification of rural United States, all over the country. … what is now known as the New Hampshire Electric Co-op … came in December 1939 in the little town of Lempster in Sullivan County. And it’s very, very amazing today to think how they accomplished so much, given the difficulties of the wartime economy, shortages of labor, shortages of materials so that by 1950 rural New Hampshire was largely wired and served by electricity.

Did the rural communities and people without electricity want electricity? Did they know how beneficial it would be to their lives?

Certainly, yes, the majority of people did. There were some holdouts. There were guys who milked their cows by hand and they said that was good enough for them. There were people who cut ice from the local pond and put it in an ice box and they thought that’s all they needed. Some people heated and cooked with wood. … But the majority of people jumped at the chance to have electric service brought in. And it was very remarkable because in order to qualify for an REA loan you had to have three potential customers signed up per mile and in order to sign up they had to put up five dollars … but there were some people that just couldn’t come up with five dollars and they did it with IOUs; eventually got it done. …

Does access to the internet mirror the issue with electricity?

There are echoes of that time today where you have people that don’t have high-capacity broadband service if they have any broadband service and that is a big, that’s a defining thing for many rural residents. … [I] n the little town where I live and the next town over they’ve gotten together and they’re getting some kind of grant support to have a company come in and string the fiber optic cable to get that service level raised.

Do you know the last place that got electricity in New Hampshire?

Hart’s Location in the White Mountains, a very, very small town, the last town to be wired was 1968.

Would you want to speak on New Hampshire Humanities?

We got it started back in the ’70s. It was just a little tiny venture in the early days… There’s a lot of emphasis on history, on literature, well some of it is more sociology I guess you’d say, but it’s a very remarkable organization what they do. I specialize in rural and agricultural history.

—Zachary Lewis

Late in Arriving, How Electricity Changed Rural New Hampshire Life
When: Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m.
Where: St. John Episcopal Church Parish Hall, 270 Stark Highway North, Dunbarton
Info: nhhumanities.org; Alison Vallieres, 774-3681

Featured image: Steve Taylor. Courtesy photo.

Maintenance Supervisor

Andy Vachon is the Maintenance Supervisor for the Parks division of the Manchester Parks and Recreation Department. Anyone interested in maintaining the landscape of the Queen City with Andy, or other Department of Public Work careers, should check out manchesternh.gov/Departments/Human-Resources/Employment.

Explain your job and what it entails.

I am the Parks Maintenance Supervisor. I oversee the maintenance crews for the Parks. … So the Recreation [Department] has a supervisor that oversees the recreation portion of it. Cemetery has a supervisor that oversees the cemetery portion, and I oversee park maintenance. We have 16 employees. Of those 16 employees, we also have a dedicated tree crew. So the City of Manchester Parks Division is responsible for maintaining a safe right of way for any trees or limbs that were to happen to fall into the road … 13 of them work for us mowing fields, preparing athletic fields for game plays, mowing, trimming parks, passive parks, active parks. We oversee pickleball courts, tennis courts. Playgrounds, we have 55 play structures across 36 parks that we inspect and maintain….

How long have you had this job?

I’ve been in my current position now for six years. I’ve been with the city for 23 years.

What led you to this career field and your current job?

I graduated college in ’97. I have a business administration degree with a concentration on golf management. So I was a golf professional at Derryfield Country Club for three years. Derryfield is owned by the City of Manchester. … I worked at McIntyre Ski Area in the winter. They were looking for a manager for the ski area and that’s where I started in 2001. I was the general manager for McIntyre Ski Area for 10 years. .

What kind of education or training did you need?

Fortunately, with golf, I took agronomy courses in college, learning about how to grow grass, how to mow grass and how to maintain equipment. That definitely helped me, as well as my management skills, being able to manage employees, being customer service oriented as well.

What is your typical at-work uniform or attire?

There is a lot of mowing, so hearing protection, safety glasses, pants when you’re running power equipment, chaps, helmets when you’re running chainsaws. Our staff gets short-sleeved T-shirts with the city logo on it to identify them. Ours are green for parks. I wear a golf shirt with the city logo on it. We try to brand ourselves so people know who we are and what we do.

What is the best piece of work-related advice you’ve ever received

Well, for us, it’s all about the users and the constituents in the park. If we make a safe, clean environment for people to be outside and recreate, that’s what makes us happy. Being outside and getting fresh air for people and doing it in a safe and clean environment is something that we strive for. — Zachary Lewis

Five favorites
Favorite book: One Base at a Time by David R. Mellor. It’s a great, great book.
Favorite movie: Caddyshack
Favorite music: The Grateful Dead and Phish
Favorite food: Backroom chicken tenders, man.
Favorite thing about NH: Every season is different. Winter, spring, summer and fall.

Featured photo: Andy Vachon. Courtesy photo.

S.C.A.R.E. NH wants every kid to have a costume

S.C.A.R.E., Secondhand Costume Annual Redistribution Effort, brings Halloween costumes to those in and around southern New Hampshire who would otherwise go without dressing up for the holiday. They also hold a free haunted house called Spooksville, which opened on Friday, Oct. 18. Jesse Palmer is the “Head Hauntcho” of S.C.A.R.E. and spoke about the charity organization. Visit scarenh.org.

What is SCARE?

SCARE is a 501c3 nonprofit charity that collects Halloween costumes and then we give them to families in need all over New Hampshire for no cost.

How did SCARE get started?

I was out shopping one day and I overheard a little girl ask her mom to get a costume, and mom said, ‘We can’t afford that.’ So when I was checking it out, it was a $20 costume, I was like, wow, that kind of sucks for the family that, unfortunately, this is out of their budget. And so I was talking to my wife about it. My son had started to outgrow his costumes. So we were looking for a place to donate our costumes to so that somebody else could use them. And we couldn’t find one. And after about six months of searching, she told me, well, I do have that option of maybe trying to start one myself, and so I did.

Are there any particular costume items you’re looking for more than others, or is everything just great to have?

Everything is great to have. We give out costumes to everybody, infants all the way up through adults. So even 2X, 3X, if we have them available, they’re welcome to take them if they need them. We do seem to go through a lot more of the large and extra-large kid sizes. …

What is Spooksville?

Spooksville is our haunted house. So we have a group of home haunters who all love Halloween but don’t necessarily have enough stuff to do something on their own or they don’t have a place to do it or they’re just a bit older and they don’t want the hassle of doing everything. So we’ve gotten together and we do a home haunt that we offer freely to the public. … And we change our theme every year. This year it is ‘nightmares.’ So once they make it through the haunted corn maze, they’ll finally get into the haunted house itself, where everything that goes bump in the night is waiting for them.

Where is it located and when can people visit?

At 1 Cheshire St. in Nashua. It’s about five minutes off of Exit 6 to head toward Hollis. There’ll be signs and everything, once we put them out you really can’t miss it at that point. On Fridays, we run 7 to 9. On Saturdays we run 6 to 9. Halloween will also be 6 to 9. And then we do kid-friendly Sundays, …and that goes 10 to 2. We’ll have costumes available here at the house for anybody that’s still looking to get costumes for Halloween.

If people are interested in donating costumes, where can they give them to you?

We recommend that they come and check out the Haunt…. So they get a two-for-one deal, they can drop off their costumes and they can check out the haunted house. If not, they can just message us at [email protected], which is the email that we use for the charity, and we make arrangements for a pickup or a meet-up or something of the sort. They can donate all year round. They can volunteer all year round. We do Halloween all year round.

What are some of the more interesting costumes at SCARE that have been donated?

The more interesting stuff comes when it tends to be homemade versus store-bought So we’ve had one that came in that looked like Thomas the Tank Engine. That was a homemade costume. We have some various adult costumes that are like Medusa or a crazy doctor … They tend to be a lot more gory when they’re homemade. — Zachary Lewis

Get SCAREd
Spookville Haunt 2024
1 Cheshire St., Nashua
Fridays: 7 to 9 p.m.
Saturdays: 6 to 9 p.m.
Sundays: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Halloween night 6 to 9 p.m.
Free

Costume Distribution
Manchester Police Athletic League
409 Beech St, Manchester
Monday, Oct. 28, from 3 to 6 p.m.

Featured image: Courtesy photo.