The Moving In Step Annual Meeting will be held this evening immediately following a community potluck.  This would be in place of the regular 1st Thursday Pot Luck Supper for September as The Nelson Community Forum would be held much too closely to our regularly scheduled 1st Thursday Pot Luck Supper, so it was decided to make this minor change.

All Moving In Step members, and interested members of the community, are urged to attend this Annual Meeting.  The location is TBA.

If you have any questions or concerns, please reply by email.

Friday, September 17, 5:30–9:30 pm through Saturday, September 18,  8:45 am–4:30 pm
(participants are urged to attend both days)

Please plan to join your neighbors for 1½ days of innovative thinking –
for good food and fun – for great company – AND to help identify
* where Nelson is –
* where we wish to go –
* and how we can get there –

This Is A Moving in Step Community Project
Facilitated by Antioch New England Institute
held at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music

Of course you have questions!
Please contact the Nelson Community Forum Committee by EMAIL (forumcommittee@movinginstep.org)

Friday, September 17, 5:30–9:30 pm through Saturday, September 18,  8:45 am–4:30 pm
(participants are urged to attend both days)

Please plan to join your neighbors for 1½ days of innovative thinking –
for good food and fun – for great company – AND to help identify
* where Nelson is –
* where we wish to go –
* and how we can get there –

This Is A Moving in Step Community Project
Facilitated by Antioch New England Institute
held at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music

Of course you have questions!
Please contact the Nelson Community Forum Committee by EMAIL (forumcommittee@movinginstep.org)

The Long Awaited “Donations Only Rummage Sale” Event is finally here!
Okay, that was dramatic, but true!

The Nelson Congregational Church will hold a Spring Rummage Sale on Saturday, May 15th, from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm.

One of the great things that makes this rummage sale so unique is a “donation box” for your free will offering when you purchase items.
So, take what you will use and give what you can.

Here’s how it works:
Your donations of clean seasonal (spring / summer) clothing will be gratefully accepted at the Nelson Congregational church during the week of May 10-14.

Donation tables will be set up in the Henry Melville Fellowship Hall of the church on Sunday, May 9th.

You may then drop off your clothing donations Monday through Thursday from 9:00 am – 7:00 pm.
The tables will be marked, and your help is needed to put your clothing donations on the tables indicated.
You will see the signs that will direct you where to put your donations on certain tables: (i.e. “children’s table”, “ladies table”, men’s table”, etc.)

Proceeds from this unique “Donations Only Rummage Sale” will help our local families in need.

Please come, donate clothing and buy some clothing!
Tell your family and friends.
We look forward to seeing you there!

In 1997, the people of Nelson raised funds from private donations, the Town of Nelson and the Nelson Congregational Church to sponsor The Hotel Nelson, a musical theatre that was created by, for, and about the Town of Nelson. Facilitated by Larry Siegal of Westmoreland, it was performed in the Nelson Congregational Church on August 14 and 15 to sold out audiences.

In 1840, The Nelson House was built to house the hotel, the post office, the library and a store.  The three-story brick building burned down in 1894!  So, for 54 years, sitting on the village common, it was literally the center of the town.
Thus, it is the metaphor from which our theatre, The Hotel Nelson, was born:

“When I built this hotel I put a porch on the front.  It was the best decision I ever made.  People come and sit out there, from the end of black fly season until the first snowfall.  Now granted, that’s not a very long stretch of time, but it’s enough time for some good stories to get told, and for more stories to get made.  The town goes by, day by day, and just when I think I’m getting to understand how it works, something happens and I realize I really don’t have it figured out after all.  But I love it here – this place, this land, these people.  I’ve found myself quite a home here….  Please… come in.  You might stay for a night, or for a summer.  And if you can’t figure out how to leave, well – you won’t be the first. “
Narrator in “The Hotel Nelson”
(from the opening scene)

From the above scene onward, songs were sung and stories were told by the same people who researched, wrote and composed them.  They covered some of
Nelson’s history and politics, some of its notables and characters, and many anecdotes past and present.

Some of the songs that were sung are simply too good to relegate to the archives, so we’re going to sing them again…with your help.

So, please join us on Friday night, January 29, 2010, 6:30 pm, at the Nelson Town Hall.

After a potluck supper (please bring something to share), we’ll have some skilled musicians teach us a few of the songs so that we can all join in.  But, if you don’t sing, that’s OK.  Just come to enjoy the festivities.

“The mud can’t get deeper on Old Stoddard Road.
My white car is brown: what a sight to behold.
I’d give anything for a driveway that’s dry,
And to taste the tart pleasure of fresh rhubarb pie.”
From “Sing Halleluiah!”

“The world is full of gladness, and joys of many kinds.
There’s cure for ev’ry sadness, each troubled mortal finds.
My little cares grow lighter.  I cease to fret and sigh.
My eyes with joy grow brighter, when she makes lemon pie.”
From “The Lemon Pie Song”

“When you’re a kid in Nelson you’re like a tall oak tree
Roots reach down into the past
Arms reach for eternity
Whether we’re playing baseball
Or biking through the square
There’s always something happening
And music fills the air”
From “Being a Kid in Nelson”

And, stay tuned for more:  On Saturday, March 27, 2010, we will incorporate the songs that we learn on January 29 with more of the original songs and many of the stories (and perhaps even some new ones!) into another evening out at The Hotel Nelson Revisited.

“There’s one thing certain about the future, which is — it’s always going to be there.  Some folks worry about it, some try to plan for it, some think it’s preordained, and some spend so much time thinking about it that today becomes tomorrow with nothing in between.

“Now the past is always there too.  And we might not worry so much about it, but people can get to dwelling on that too, and lose the present.

“I like it here in Nelson, ‘cause folks seem to enjoy the past, the present, and the future, all in good measure.

“When I’m away from here I tell people about this place.  And sometimes someone will ask – tell me, that town of yours, and that Hotel, is it real, or is it just make believe?

“And I answer:  yes.”
Narrator in “The Hotel Nelson”
(from the closing scene)

Severing the Last Colonial Ties

The close of the Revolution saw a much-changed Packersfield.  Breed Batchellor, the man who was ultimately the agent of His Majesty’s Royal Governor, had fled the town in 1777 to join the British Army and he eventually drowned in Nova Scotia. Thomas Packer, for whom the town had been named, had died in 1771, but after the Revolution his son, Thomas, began to sell the family holdings which included the land from the French’s Farm and the Warners all the way north and west to the Stoddard and Sullivan town lines including all we know today as Munsonville.

Parke Struthers and Samuel Wadsworth wrote that the original naming right had come with Packer’s promise to deed 500 acres to the town. His failure to fulfill that promise is said to be the reason the town began the effort to change its name, shedding any outward evidence of the early association. There is little direct evidence of Packer’s original promise. Book 3 page 249 at the Cheshire County Registry records that Thomas Packer sold Josiah Willard and Breed Batchellor 104 acres of land in the Northeast Quarter of Packersfield for five schillings on September 3, 1768 “ for the common public use of the inhabitants of said quarter.”  Five schillings was almost a gift, as the land was worth something in the neighborhood of ten times that. When he fled in 1777, Batchellor still owned the 104 acres; it passed out of his family in 1824 never having been put to public use.

Two other factors are possible motives for the push to re-name Packersfield. Packer’s agent in town, Breed Batchellor, had fled in disgrace. When Batchellor fled political support probably disappeared. Packer’s reputation for high handedness may have offended people. In 1768 Packer had pushed ahead the execution of a young school teacher, Ruth Blay of South Hampton, who was accused of killing her illegitimate child.  He is said to have rushed the hanging so he could have his supper. The governor’s stay of execution arrived too late.

For whatever reason the town wanted no more of Packer and at town meeting held January 29, 1778 voted to have the name of the town changed to Sullivan.  They were to try three times during the next thirty-six years.

The documentable record, of this process is not entirely clear. The effort in 1778 to name the town after General John Sullivan, New Hampshire’s highest-ranking soldier, was unsuccessful.  The current Town of Sullivan was ultimately formed from parts of Packersfield, Keene, Stoddard and Gilsum in 1787. But that was nine years later.

In 1783 Packersfield tried again. At a Town meeting held on March 31st the town “Voted to have the town of Packersfield called Groton.” The vote was 35-0.  There is a town named Groton in New Hampshire, but it wasn’t Groton at the time.  It had been chartered in 1761 as Cockermouth after Charles Wyndham, Baron Cockermouth. Cockermouth’s efforts to change its name began in 1788 when it tried to become Danbury. It had no luck, but did successfully petition for Groton in 1796 naming the town after Groton, Massachusetts home of one of its original proprietors.  There is no record of why the name Groton was chosen by Packersfield residents or why it got nowhere in the Legislature.

The final chapter is odd to say the least. Packersfield voters met in town meeting on the second Tuesday of March 1814 and “voted to instruct the selectmen to petition the General Court to change the name of Packersfield to Troy.” There is a flowery document in the Nelson Archives dated in June 1814 signed by legislative officials and the governor changing the name to Nelson effective in November 1814. The act signed June 13, 1814 said in part: ”Whereas the Selectmen of said Packersfield have petitioned the Legislature to have the name of said town altered to that of Nelson…..” The town of Troy was formed and incorporated in 1815, named after Troy, New York.

What happened between the March vote of the town meeting and state action in June?  There is no record of the Packersfield voters changing their minds. The Sentinel published in Keene at that time is silent except to record the fact of the state action.  The records of the New Hampshire General Court only record that they changed the name to Nelson on petition of the residents. The timing of the Packersfield petition and the 1815 incorporation of Troy is close enough to suggest the name “Troy” was already spoken for.

Nelson was probably named in honor of Admiral Lord Nelson, hero of the battle of Trafalgar (1807.) Trafalgar was a resounding naval victory by England over the combined fleets of France and Spain. Nelson died at the height of the fight. Parke Struthers explains naming our town after a British naval hero during a war with that country, by pointing to the Anglophile sympathies prevalent in New England at the time and the return to power in the statehouse in Concord of the anti-war, anti-embargo Federalist Party. Voters in New Hampshire had thrown out the pro-war and Francophile Republican Party.

Hardy family lore records another possible connection: Admiral Nelson died in the arms of his most trusted aid and flag captain, Captain Thomas Hardy. Nelson and Hardy had served together since Hardy served as First Lieutenant on Nelson’s ship Captain in 1797. Hardy was present at his wounding and death aboard the HMS Victory. Among the Admiral’s dying words were: “Kiss me Hardy.” The American branch of the Hardy family was an early settler of Packersfield, Noah Hardy arriving in 1779.  The family is still resident in Nelson in the person of Al Struthers.

There was strong feeling in Packersfield against the foreign policy of the United States at the time. The Embargo Act of 1807 outlawed trade with England and France. It was an attempt to forestall war and was ardently opposed by the trade-dependent New England states and keenly felt in Packersfield. There was much sentiment in New England to leave the union. On January 16, 1809 Packersfield voters approved a lengthy petition to the Congress of the United States that read in part:

“We are generally cultivators of the soil earning our bread by the sweat of the brow.  Many of us are in debt for our land or buildings; we have no means of paying our contracts or taxes, or purchasing necessaries for our families but by selling our surplus produce.  Of this modest payment we are deprived by the embargo restrictions. Impressed with the truth of those considerations we exercise the privilege granted us by our excellent constitution and earnestly pray that your honors would repeal the embargo laws and relieve your petitioners from its calamities.”

The resolution had passed 117 – 1. Clearly the townspeople were severely affected by the national policy.

One wonders what was the ultimate process that let to Packersfield being re-named Nelson . Perhaps a poke in the federal eye was just fine with a farming community so adversely affected by the hated trade embargo. With its early, difficult years behind them, settlers thus began the difficult job of building their town.

Sources: Nelson Town Records, New Hampshire State Papers: Town Charters; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; Samuel Wadsworth, Historical Notes with Keyed Map of Keene and Roxbury 1932, A History of Nelson New Hampshire 1767-1967, Parke H. Struthers, editor; Nelson a Personal History, Christopher Hibbert, 1994; and New Hampshire Town Names and Where They Came From, Elmer Munson Hunt, 1970; Harpers Monthly Magazine June-November 1921: The Town that was Strawberry Banke

Packersfield sent many of its young men to fight for independence and bought military supplies to support the effort.  A petition sent by vote of the town meeting reflected the commitment Packersfield was making to the war and its dread of Breed Batchellor, the Tory in their midst.

Town Meeting April 4, 1777
“Voted to send the following petition to Colonel Enoch Hale: [Hale was colonel of the 15th New Hampshire Militia Regiment.]
They [the citizens] are generally of a mind that as they are fighting their enemies they have one more dangerous to fight against at home than any abroad. Name by Major Breed Batchellor who from the very first appeared inimical to the People of America and has discouraged the cause thereof and threatened the lives and the health of the good people of this town so that some that have intended to have gone in the service are afraid to leave home and to have their families exposed to his resentment. The committee of the town have for above a year endeavored to have him brought to a proper trial but could not be heard.  And when the committee of other towns tried and condemned him in the goal, he was let at liberty without our knowledge to our astonishment. And all the information we could get after inquiring was that the goaler to your honor told us he was at liberty. And since we hear he has been tried at the General Court without the proper evidence which might have been produced if summoned which we think an arbitrary proceeding viz. so looked on by our neighbors. We are willing and have signed to abide by the order of the Continental Congress. We think the state ought to allow General Washington either to make them that are enemies swear to be friends or try them as foes.

And Breed Batchellor has had his name returned to you as a man to go in the service and has done nothing but still refuses. He is much the [reviled] man in this town. We have sent near half our number the first year and more than our proportion since and have lost a number in the war and there is but five young men left in town.  And they have bin in the war and we are poor, but we would see justice done us. We will do the utmost of our ability in the common cause.”
Signed,
Nathaniel Breed, Town Clerk

The meeting also voted that Lieutenant Amos Skinner go with Captain Eleazur Twitchell to carry the petition.

On June 17th the New Hampshire General Court issued what amounted to a warrant for Batchellor’s arrest: It voted that “the said Breed Batchellor and Robert Gilmore be confined to close keeping on some goal in this state, there to remain until further order of this Court or the Committee of Safety, or until they are otherwise liberated by due course of law.”

Samuel Wadsworth, in his Historical Notes with Keyed Map of Keene and Roxbury 1932, describes Batchellor’s final months in Packersfield:
“Being a staunch and outspoken Tory and a man of considerable wealth, public feeling against him was very strong. In 1776 and in the early part of 1777, to escape the wrath of the patriots, he hid himself for some three months in a cave south of his house where is wife supplied him with food. His hiding place becoming known he fled toward the Pinnacle followed by Patriots who forced him to the top of the hill where he was surrounded on all sides except the north. This being a precipice some 50 feet high, the patriots believed Batchellor could not escape but he knew a cleft in the rock, down which he made his way and afterwards went to Canada. Batchellor joined the British Army and in the battle of Bennington (August 1777) he was recognized by Richard Farwell, a former townsman, who fired at him, wounding him in the shoulder so badly that his arm was nearly useless afterwards and ending his active career.”

Breed Batchellor had come full circle. He had been born in Wenham, Mass. December 11, 1740.  At age 16 he joined the British Army serving in the Crown Point campaign of the French and Indian War. Afterward he learned the surveying trade. Wadsworth describes him as an energetic man of great natural ability. During his association with Packersfield, he bought 11,310 acres of land. When he fled to join the British Army in 1777 the remaining 3,516 acres including his home farm was seized by the state and sold at public auction. His wife Ruth had to petition the legislature to allow her to keep the homestead. She was successful and several of Batchellor’s sons lived in the area after his exile and death.

The family’s direct connection with Nelson ceased when the southeastern part of Nelson where the family lived was separated from Packersfield by the legislature in 1812.  With pieces of Keene and Marlborough, it became the town of Roxbury.  Ruth and her son, John, owned the original Batchellor farm comprising 260 acres in what had been the southwest corner Packersfield until they sold it in 1828 when Ruth would have been 82 years old. She moved to Keene to live with her daughter Bestey Chase at the Chase Tavern on Court Street. She is buried in the Court Street Cemetery.

Years later the town would change its name, severing its ties with Thomas Packer, too.

Sources: Nelson Town Records,   New Hampshire State Papers: Town Charters; Deeds of land: Cheshire County Registry of Deeds; Samuel Wadsworth, in his Historical Notes with Keyed Map of Keene and Roxbury 1932, and New Hampshire State Papers Volume VIII

It’s 1959 and Sandy Dumbrowski and Danny Zuko have spent their summer at the beach falling in love. With Sandy attending Immaculata private school and Danny attending Rydell High School, they don’t expect to see each other ever again.  When Sandy transfers to Rydell High, she’s surprised to find Danny isn’t exactly the guy she fell in love with.  With the guidance of The Pink Ladies, T-Birds, and friends along the way, Danny and Sandy learn what it means to be yourself and what true friendship is.  Join Keene High School for a rock n’ roll celebration of growin’ up,
cruisin’ with friends and goin’ steady.  The show’s many hit songs include “Summer Nights,” “We Go Together” and “Greased Lightnin’.”

Bonnie surrounded by many Nelson friends at the Award ceremony.

Bonnie was presented with the Monadnock Region Community Award, honoring her support of other women; for her work as a role model, organizer, motivator, and life-long educator; and for her community building for local women.  She has had an impressive career as a high school teacher and a post-retirement career as an educator at Westmoreland prison, the New England College LINEC program, the ConVal High School adult evening program, and Keene State. But the group that nominated her – the Tuesday Academy – was one she founded in 1981. The Tuesday Academy counts among its members women from 40 to 90: doctors, lawyers, teachers, musicians, businesswomen, and homemakers. They meet weekly to study a range of topics in literature, science, and social sciences, as well as dance. The Academy encourages its members to act on their convictions: Granny D’s now famous cross-country walk began as a Tuesday Academy discussion. Through the Tuesday Academy, Bonnie Riley has for decades inspired the women who inspire others throughout the region, and the Tuesday Academy has expanded to include a host of other adult-education offerings. Many members of Bonnie’s Academy were present for the ceremony at the college.

Bonnie was a dance teacher in New York City when she began coming up to Dublin to teach a summer program at the Dublin School. She provided extra-curricular activity by bringing  her students to the Nelson contra dances. She made the transition from “summer person” to year-rounder in about 1960, when she built a house on land above Lake Nubanusit. Except for a two-year stint in Nigeria, where among other activities, she used Ralph Page records to teach contra dancing to her local African community, she’s been in New Hampshire ever since.

Congratulations Bonnie!

Some information from this article was from an article written by Bonnie’s God-daughter, Lisa Sieverts (also of Nelson) for the Monadnock Folklore Society website. Click here to read that article.