Editor’s Note: Rollstone Mountain was also the inspiration for a contra dance tune written by Ralph Page. It was recorded in 1975 by Rodney Miller (fiddle), Randy Miller (piano) and Peter O’Brien (harmonica), on one of the first local recordings of dance tunes: “Castles in the Air“. It was arranged for the Nelson Town Band [...] [...]
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Sophia Newell (or possibly an imposter) in front of the Gad Newell home, on Cemetery Road. Editors note: This is the third and final article in a series relating the founding of the first ministry in Packersfield. The first detailed the many efforts to acquire a minister for a small, remote community. Several ministers came for [...] [...] |
Frank Upton’s gone now, along with his kitchen. But, it wasn’t long ago that Barry often went down the road to Frank’s farmhouse to sit around his kitchen table. As Frank got older, Barry said that he was just checking up on the old man who then lived alone, but there was clearly something more. [...] [...] |
The Town of Nelson Archives has recently received notice from the State Librarian, Michael York that a FY 2012 Conservation License Plate Grant in the amount of $5,322 has been awarded to the town for its proposed project “Nelson Town Records.” This grant will conserve, microfilm and digitize five books containing town records from 1802 [...] [...] |
Hey Nelson Folks: If you’ve spent time in the Town Hall you might have noticed a nice collection of pictures from Old Home Day of many years ago. This is a treasure, and wouldn’t it be nice to create an updated version (to supplement, not replace)? So, here’s what we’ll do – on Old Home [...] [...] |
[ August 11, 2011; 5:00 pm; ] There will be a 2 mile hike leaving at 5Pm touring old town roads and cellar holes north and east of Woodward Pond. Meet in the Village and carpool. Sponsored by the Nelson Trails Committee and co-led by Rick Church and Kathy Schillemat. [...] |
The Nelson Trails Group recently explored the old class six road to the “Hart Lot” with its extensive foundations and mill site. The site was home to a sawmill operated in the early nineteenth century. The mill location on a falls in Bailey Brook provides habitat for numerous wild flowers; wild ginger graces the Osborne [...] [...] |
The Reverend Jacob Foster served the town of Packersfield for ten years from 1781 to 1791. During that time twenty-seven families joined the church. We do not have census data that exactly match the years Foster served, but the population of Packersfield in 1783 was recorded as 511 and in 1790 as 721. The census [...] [...] |
Editors Note: In case you haven’t had enough winter, this article from Karen Tolman should satisfy you. I’ve just lugged a couple of green plastic chairs up to the top of the Jack Rabbit, a hill overlooking Tolman Pond and the 1790′s vintage Farmhouse, which was cleared for skiing in the 1920’s – we’re told [...] [...] |
The Reverend George Whitefield did not (as far as we know) ever preach in Nelson, but he was a contemporary of Treadway and Foster, of whom no portrait is known to exist . The original charter of Monadnock Number Six stipulated founding a successful town in accordance with the king’s requirements. The charter contained requirements to [...] [...] |
New England’s ancient Town Pounds are seen near the center of most towns even today. Substantial, square and made of large stones, town pounds are New England’s most enduring and emblematic features of our agrarian past. Most towns have one that survives; Nelson has two! They were built to hold the largest and most agile [...] [...] |
The charter granting Monadnock Number Six to its proprietors required that a central place be set off and reserved for public purposes and that a meetinghouse be built. Breed Batchellor laid out ten acres of common land in the center of the town at the location of the village cemetery today. With the population increasing, [...] [...] |
or . . . A STRANGE CONVERSATION WITH DUCK Two things brought this story together: Remembering a funny event and an assignment from Wednesday Academy mentor, Bonnie Riley, to write a story using only dialogue – which is included at the end of this piece. Thus a little bit of town history emerged – the party [...] [...] |
For the first hundred years Nelson seems to have built and repaired its roads using hand and ox-drawn tools also used on farms. Perhaps the earliest equipment specifically designed for highway maintenance was the use of snow rollers for clearing roads in the winter. The town kept its roads open in the winter with men hired [...] [...] |
Editors Note: The images in this article may be clicked, and a larger version will open in a separate browser window. The images displaying hand writing were scanned from our town archives. Nelson’s earliest roads were made and maintained by hand, using men and teams of oxen — the same methods that cleared farms. Road [...] [...] |
The charter granting Monadnock Number Six to those early proprietors required that they provide the basic necessities for the new community’s viability. Of necessity, building roads came first. Breed Batchellor was the town’s first resident, settling as early as 1766. He moved into an early structure built by Josiah Billings just over the east line of [...] [...] |
[ June 13, 2010; 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. ] Open House of One Room Schoolhouses and Academies The Monadnock Historical Societies Forum, or Roundtable Forum, is hosting an open house of many of the remaining one room schoolhouses and academies in the region. The public is invited to visit each site to learn what it was like to attend school during the 19th and early [...] [...] |
The foundation of the saw mill on Center Pond Brook Settlement in Monadnock Number Six came quickly once it got started. A list of settlers in the Masonian Papers in 1770 showed 5 settlers. In the three reports on settlement produced in 1773 and 1774 there were fifty-four different family names identified as moving [...] [...] |
On Saturday, March 27, 7:00 pm, in the Town Hall, Nelson will again celebrate itself at the Hotel Nelson “Revisited”, in an adaptation from the 1997 original Hotel Nelson: the wonderful musical theatre performance, written and staged by, for and about our town; and facilitated by composer Larry Siegel of Tricinium Limited. At that time, [...] [...] |
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