Request for Proposals

The Haverhill Historical Society has issued a Request for Proposals, seeking a professional who can assist the Society with inventorying and cataloging its collection.

You may read the details here.

If you know of qualified individuals, please help spread the word.

Pike Manufacturing Program

The Historical Society will sponsor a program about the history of the Pike Manufacturing Company on Sunday, December 8 at 2:00 PM. It will be held at the Pike Hall, and will be free and open to the public.

The program will be presented by Wayne Fortier, a native of Pike, and will be based in part on research conducted by John Page, the late president of the Haverhill Historical Society. The program is dedicated to John Page’s memory. It is part of a series of programs celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of Haverhill and Newbury.

In the nineteenth century, Pike Manufacturing began producing whetstones from the local deposits of mica schist. It was the first supplier of commercially available natural sharpening stones in North America, and eventually it became one of the largest suppliers of such stones in the world. Founded by Isaac Pike, the company grew to international success under the leadership of his sons Alonzo and Edwin, and eventually merged with the Norton Company in 1932.

It is remembered today as one of the premier industries in Haverhill history.

Historical New Hampshire

The Fall/Winter 2013 issue of Historical New Hampshire, the magazine of the New Hampshire Historical Society, is now available. The issue is dedicated to the memory of John Page, longtime president of the Haverhill Historical Society, and its lead article is "Myra Montgomery's World: Haverhill, Boston, and Beyond," by Kimberly S. Alexander.

The issue's cover features a painting by Myra Montgomery. 

Dr. Alexander has posted about her article on the blog SilkDamask, where she begins:

"In a quiet corner of New England, in a large but unassuming Georgian home, during the early years of the new nation, lived a young woman whose life was typically New England—and, yet, surprisingly unfamiliar to most New Englanders. Her name was Myra Montgomery."

You may read the rest of her post here.

You may order copies of the magazine from the New Hampshire Historical Society here.

Haverhill and Newbury on NHPR

New Hampshire Public Radio has run a story about the sesquicentennial celebrations in Haverhill and Newbury.

The story begins by noting that Haverhill's history has resulted in the development of a number of distinct villages:

"If you ask people from Haverhill where they’re from, you may not get the simple answer you’d expect to get . . . "

You may read or hear the story here.

Haverhill / Newbury Railroad Program

Boston, Concord, & Montreal RR locomotive @ Haverhill, circa 1860

The Haverhill Historical Society will sponsor a program about the history of the railroad in Haverhill and Newbury on Sunday, October 13 at 2:00 PM at Court Street Arts/Alumni Hall in Haverhill Corner. Jay Barrett will present “Newbury and Haverhill: A Railroad History of Two Transportation Towns.”

The program will be free and open to the public. It is part of a series of programs celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the two communities.

The histories of Newbury and Haverhill have been shaped by all forms of transportation, but none has been more colorful nor had greater impact than the railroads. For more than one hundred years, numerous major railroad lines crossed both towns and junctioned at the villages of Wells River and Woodsville. Upper Valley historian Jay Barrett will explore this rich and vibrant history with a profusely illustrated talk featuring many rare and seldom seen historic images.

BC&MRR locomotive on the Wells River / Woodsville Bridge

An architect based in White River Junction, Vermont, Barrett serves as a member of the Fairlee Selectboard and a trustee of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation. He is a regular speaker throughout the Upper Valley on the history of the railroads and their influence on the region. His home is the restored former Boston & Maine Railroad station in Ely.

Program Cancelled!

The Historical Society regretfully announces that the program scheduled for Sunday, August 11 on the lives of Henry and Frances Parkinson Keyes has been cancelled. 

If it becomes possible to reschedule the program for a future date, we will post an announcement here.

The Politician and the Novelist

The HHS will sponsor a program about two of the Haverhill/Newbury area’s best-known historical figures on Sunday, August 11 at 2:00 PM. “The Lives of Henry and Frances Parkinson Keyes” will be described by two of the couple’s grandchildren at Court Street Arts/Alumni Hall in Haverhill Corner. Admission is free and open to the public.

Presenter Peter Keyes is a retired teacher now living in Newbury and the proprietor of Oxbow Books. His cousin Frances Keyes Keidel lives outside Philadelphia, but spends much of her time at the ancestral family home, Pine Grove Farm in North Haverhill. They will discuss the lives and careers of their well-known grandparents.

Henry Keyes was born in 1862 in Newbury and settled at Pine Grove Farm after graduation from Harvard. He was a founder of the Woodsville Bank and served in both branches of the New Hampshire legislature and as Governor of New Hampshire for one term, 1917-1919. He is best remembered as a three-term U.S. Senator, representing New Hampshire until 1937. He died in 1938.

His wife, Frances Parkinson Keyes, was twenty-two years his junior when they married in 1903. She published her first novel in 1919 and became well known for a series of articles in Good Housekeeping magazine, “Letters from a Senator’s Wife,” about life in Washington, DC. She would go on to publish over fifty books and become one of the most popular novelists of the mid-twentieth century. Many of her books were bestsellers, and Life magazine named her one of the “three queens” of fiction in the U.S. in 1950. She died in 1970.

Keyes and Keidel will display books and memorabilia related to the lives of their grandparents. Their program is part of a series celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of Haverhill, New Hampshire and Newbury, Vermont.