Finding connection in the most unlikely of spaces

By Dan Szczesny
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This column isn’t about hiking, but it is about taking a walk. It’s not about geography, but it is about history. It’s about a trail of life carved by people who came long before us here in southern New Hampshire and by the ancestors of our recent past.

Finally, it’s about a tower, and a rock.

Travel south on Interstate 93, through the area of Exit 3, and you may notice, amid all the pavement, new roads and chain stores, a tall tower in the middle of a cul-de-sac on a side road called Enterprise Drive off Route 111.

When the Interstate was built in the 1950s, few landscapes were changed as much as that area in Windham around Cobbetts Pond and Canobie Lake. Rolling farmland and dirt roads, along with the grandeur of Searles Castle, faded into history. But Route 111 used to be called Indian Rock Road for a reason, and that reason leads to our walk.

Today, the owner of that tower, Al Letizio Jr., the president and owner of the nearby sales and marketing firm that bears his name, is determined to honor both the turn-of-the-20th-century immigrants who built that part of southern New Hampshire and the First Peoples that lived, fished and farmed in the area.

“People and the past are too often forgotten to modern improvements,” Letizio said in a chat about his family and town. “I thought what I’d do here is take the opportunity — where this road is — and instead of having it be a dead-end street, to turn it into a central attraction to those who came before.”

When I visited Letizio’s tower, which he built and dedicated to his great-grandfather, Michel, we parked in the cul-de-sac and strolled back up Enterprise Drive to the other attraction Letizio wants to highlight. Tucked into a small wayside, just about a quarter mile from the tower, is a set of five enormous boulders called Indian Rock. According to the town history, the Pawtucket Nation used these rocks to grind corn. Grinding holes can still be found in the rocks. Back then, Cobbetts Pond could be seen from the rocks.

My daughter immediately identifies the tower as Rapunzel’s (she’s right, but more on that in a bit) and sets about naming the remaining four rocks. Clockwise from Indian Rock they are Cheese Rock, Pizza Rock, Mouse Rock and her favorite, Kitty Rock because that one looks like a cat head complete with two ears.

In 1933, the Town of Windham fastened a plaque to the front of Indian Rock that reads, “Over these rock-strewn hills and through these woods the Indians roamed on their hunt for game, on these waters their canoes were launched in their quest for fish, nearby fields yielded their harvest of corn and on this rock it was ground in to meal.”

To mirror that, Letizio bolted a plaque to the tower, to honor his own family — in particular, his great-grandfather Michel, who came from Italy and worked for Edward Francis Searles, the famous interior designer who built the castle that still stands on the other side of the highway.

“Back then, in the early days, New Hampshire was stripped, almost treeless,” Letizio said. “Windham was wide open. But Searles was a nature-lover and my great-grandfather’s main job was planting trees.”

Maybe even some of the trees that grace the area around Indian Rock.

Letizio has big plans for the area. He allows the curious to tour the tower, for example. Just stop by the sales building and ask during regular hours. And once up there, visitors will find an observation deck full of Rapunzel dolls! And even though the Indian Rock Wayside is land owned by the town, Letizio hopes to build a small parking lot nearby and construct some history signage for visitors. “This is foundational to me because there’s no way you can know where you’re going unless you know where you came from,” he said. “We should remember how we got our names, who came before us and their struggles and that some gifts we have in our life now came because of their struggles.”

That’s a simple message, of course, but built out of centuries of history. For me, as I watch my daughter crawl over the rocks of this tiny park, I remember that time and living are fluid out here, even amid the car exhaust and pavement. An ancient place of sustenance becomes an immigrant’s town of trees and finally a source of inspiration and delight for a little girl.

“There are micro stories woven into the fabric of the things that came before us,” Letizio said. “Our job is to tell our kids and grandchildren about it. That’s a gift we can give to the people who came before us.”

If You Go
Indian Rock and Letizio Tower
The quickest way to get there is to take Exit 3 off I-93, head west on Route 111, and then make a left on Enterprise Drive. Park in the cul-de-sac near the tower and walk back up the road about ¼ mile to Indian Rock Wayside on your right. If you’re there during regular working hours, stop in at the sales and marketing office and see if you might get a tour of the tower.

Featured photo: The author’s daughter sits on Indian Rock, just up the road from Letizio Tower.