Relief Maps

Frances Richardson recently donated a remarkable series of relief maps from the 1930s along with a complete set of molds used to make them and archival papers documenting their history.

Her father, Rodney Woodard invented the process. He made these small "Pocket" size maps for Mount Washington (Pinkham Notch), Crawford Notch and Franconia Notch. He also made a wide variety of related flat maps, photo maps, map post cards and so on. 

Plaster forms used to make metal dies. 

Metal dies to mold the plastic sheets into relief maps. 

Print blocks to print labels and map features onto the plastic. 

As always, if you would like more information on this subject let us know through a comment or contact us at the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room. 

Back to the Future Again

No, this is not a sketch of a space ship for the upcoming Star Wars movie. 

These drawings are actually over one hundred years old. They date back to the middle of the 19th century. They are from a file labeled "inventions" in the Samuel Bemis papers at the Henney History Room of the Conway Public Library.

If you have a guess as to what they might be about, please drop us a comment!

They certainly are mysterious and intriguing. 

Some insight as to their intentions may be surmised by learning about the life and times of Samuel Bemis. While they look like they might be for ray guns, spy satellites, hover board motors, or flying cars, they are probably more likely related to the work he did with watches, cameras and dental tools. 

 

Tomorrow is “Back to the Future” day. It’s a time to celebrate and reflect upon what we had imagined would have come to pass by now. For more on this event and other bits of "the history of the future" send us a comment or call us at the Henney History Room of the Conway Public Library at 603-447-5552.

 

Conway Water Cures All

Without the watchful eye of the FDA, advertisers in the past could promote their products any way they wanted. In an earlier post we mentioned the Conway Mineral Spring as an early tourist attraction. Actually there were several mineral springs in the area. The one at Pine Hill seen in this advertisement card was the largest. (click on the image of the card to see it better).

You can see they made outrageous health claims for this water. The water came packaged in specially sealed barrels with a ready to use keg tap. On the back of this card under directions, it reads "As a curative, in most cases, use two goblets on retiring and two on rising, and one with each meal. If the stomach is weak, warm it at meal time." So now you have it, warm bottled water with a meal. Just in time for flu season!

Spirits of Meeting House Hill

Opening ceremony Founders Park, October 1, 2015

Last week Conway officially opened its newest “old” place to visit; Founders Park in the Redstone area. Ushered in by dignitaries at a great ceremonial event that included a wonderful birthday cake and the unveiling of a 250th souvenir history booklet, the new park offers some interesting insights into local history.

In the spirit of the season, as we approach Halloween, I wanted to share with you some stories about the ghost town on Meeting House Hill. A certain “spirit” pervades the area. By “spirit” I mean several different things. First there are the ghostly spirits that are said to linger there due to old graves buried under the road. Then there is the spirit of the past and the history of the original Meeting House and burned bridges. There was the dream of a town center or “green” and other plans that did not come to pass here. Finally, there is a new “spirited” educational program designed to teach about the meaning of the pioneering spirit of our early settlers and the lessons we can learn from their experience of building a town and creating a community.

Let’s start with the historic landscape. The new Founders Park is located at 35 East Conway Road. Some people consider it to be a scary place just because of its location next to the Conway Police Station and NH Circuit Court. It is in kind of a sketchy neighborhood. It’s not the most scenic part of town. Approaching it from Route 16, one drives past an abandoned granite quarry that was recently looted and vandalized, rusting railroad tracks, warehouses, industrial buildings, and oil and propane storage tanks.

Nearing our destination you pass an extensive junk yard on the left and high tension power lines draping through thickly wooded wetlands on the right. In contrast to this blight, an early map shows that this was once intended to be Conway’s center piece. There are actually three versions of this map at the Conway Public Library - on paper, parchment and linen.

Plan of Conway on linen, Conway Public Library

A detailed study of these maps reveals this unrealized, discontinued dream. Comparing these maps with a variety of topographical and relief maps help explain why this was at first settled as the center of town and why it later became bypassed by history. Even a quick cursory view shows that Conway was originally conceived of as a square with sides of six miles each. Natural features on this map include the Saco River, Conway Lake and the open area north of the center represents the location of Green Mountains. A detail of the center section shows lots laid out for the the “Centre Square,” or Town Green and the Meeting House, our first Church.

Detail Plan of Conway, on linen, Conway Public Library

The new commemorative sign at the park tells the history of the Meeting House. A portrait of the first long time preacher, who started service in 1778, Dr. Nathaniel Porter is hanging at the Conway Public Library. Some say he looks stern and spooky with kind but sad and haunting eyes.

Dr. Nathaniel Porter, Conway Public Library

Near the Meeting House was the “resting place” of the early settlers of Conway. Tradition says that some of the remains were not reburied, but just paved over, when the new road was put in.

The new Founders Park is also the beginning of a short trail that leads to another Conway Park that reveals more of the story. Both ends (start and finish) of this short trail are anchored by distinctive sentinel or story trees. One a pine, the other a maple.

You can see the large branches of the so-called “wolf” or “pasture” pine on the left side of the photo of the opening ceremony above. Notice the contrast between the tall straight “mast” type trees on the right, that were specifically preserved in the charter for the King’s Royal Navy with the

massive white pine “wolf” tree on the left.

If you know how to “read” the landscape these wolf pines tell you that they were originally born in a sunny open field or pasture and that they were twisted into a scary shape when a pine weevil nibbled on its terminal bud over and over again. A sunny field like this can be seen just around the corner as you make your way down Meeting House Hill Road.

Green field Meeting House Hill Road

A field like this represented the hopes, plans, dreams of the early settlers. For farmers making their way past fields like this for church services, open fields like this were practical emblems of worldly bounty and prosperity in this life and symbolic of a spiritual resurrection from death and eternal life seen both in the green grass and the trees tinged with Autumn colors.  

Maple tree, Smith-Eastman Park

At the end of the road on a spot overlooking the Saco River is a massive gnarled and twisted maple tree. It is a sentinel tree, proclaiming, hundreds of years of service, annually providing sweet sap for settlers to boil to make maple sugar and syrup. Nature was the grocery store for our early settlers.

Nature also provided challenges. While the Saco helped restore the fertility of fields with periodic flooding, it also needed to be crossed for civic and commercial travel. The Smith-Eastman Bridge seen in the painting below once stood at this location.

Smith-Eastman bridge, painted by Ernest Brown, on display at the Salyards Museum, Conway Historical Society. On loan from Margaret and Sut Marshall.

It was burned in the 1970s. 

Burned remains of Smith-Eastman bridge (Bob Duncan photo)

Today only blocks of cut stone are left as evidence to testify to its important historical role.

Remains bridge support

To help explore more about the history of Conway and to understand the skills and knowledge required to build a town and create a community, the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room is offering a series of free educational programs that will offer hands on, interdisciplinary lessons that will cover a wide range of topics.

To learn about the pioneering spirit program or for more history on this or other White Mountain topics contact the Curator at the Conway Public Library’s Henney History room.

Littoral History

Next week Conway will celebrate its 250th birthday as a Town. Chartered on October 1, 1765, our early history is literally written on the rocks of Meeting House Hill overlooking the Saco River and the wetlands to the west.

The new marker on the left was carefully chosen to match the size and shape of the earlier marker, creating a sculptural continuity of space and time. Archival photos from the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room show some of the celebrity the original marker has received.

Similar to "Plymouth Rock," our new granite marker will bear witness to Conway's history, only with more accurate supporting documentation.

A lot of history can be found along the shore of the Saco as it was a key factor in shaping Conway's history. Through a combination of maps, photographs, field work, newspaper clippings, town records, and other archival treasures folks can learn about the legacy left to us from our earliest settlers. We hope you appreciate this gift of history to the Town and visit the Henney History Room to learn more!

Lessons from the Land: Reading the Historic Landscape

Yesterday, I was honored as a historian to be part of three separate ribbon cutting events at Conway historic sites: the Marshall Conservation Area, the Abenaki Encampment and the Redstone Quarry. Along with the soon to be opened Kennett High School covered bridge each of these sites will offer new opportunities for research and education through a new initiative of the Conway Public Library’s Henney History Room.

Marshall Conservation Area

Beginning this Fall, we will be offering free history education programs and curriculum support to all area schools and educational groups, such as home schools, boy scouts, girl scouts, etc. The program will involve three main approaches; research at the Henney History Room, outreach programs at the schools and guided field trips to historic sites.

Abenaki Encampment

Building on the archival resources at the Henney History Room such as historic photos, deeds, land records and surveys, aerial photos, old maps and business records, activities can include power point programs, web based projects, hands on and interactive displays of artifacts, reproductions, and photographs, trail maps and interpretive signage.

Redstone Quarry

For more information contact the Curator at the Conway Public Library's Henney History Room.

Covered Bridge on its way to Kennett High School

On the Boulder Trail: A Case of Mistaken Identity and the Search for a Mysterious Missing Rock

For a small library in largely rural New Hampshire, the Conway Public Library has some unique treasures and quite a few curiosities. In the ornate reading room in the original section of the library one can lounge in large comfortable leather arm chairs in the shadow of a remarkable fireplace.

The woodwork in the room is a veritable encyclopedia of classical motifs. Carved in quartered oak with highly polished rays and flecks there are acanthus, broken pediments, corbels, dentilations, egg and dart patterning, Greek keys, lamb’s tongue, acorn pendants, tobacco leaves, rosettes, scrolls and volutes.

Around the rooms there are stained glass windows honoring famous figures such as Plato, Cicero, Socrates, Longfellow, Emerson, Herschel, Silliman, Humboldt, Shakespeare, Edison, Franklin, Morse, Pasteur, Watt, Webster and Wren.

Over the fireplace in gilt letters edged in burgundy is stenciled Emerson’s transcendental quote that “Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series.” And so it is.

Enshrined on the mantle within a decorative frame of fielded panels is a series of four photographs. With everything else going on in the library, its easy to excuse that the fact that few patrons probably take the time to notice them, and of of those who do pause, even fewer could mine their meaning and understand their significance.

Most over mantle images are colorful and decorative landscapes intended to express the grandeur of the owner's wealth and taste. These are indeed landscape images of a sort. They are an odd and rare documentation of a bit of industrial history, showing the process of quarrying the “Washington Boulder.”

The caption reports that “From this rock, ‘THE WASHINGTON BOULDER,’  located about a mile and a quarter north of this spot, the foundation wall-stones of this building were quarried A.D. MDCCC.” The cornerstone of this brick edifice was laid on this foundation in 1900 and the library opened to the public in 1901.

We will come back to this photo array later, but now let’s follow another clue to the story in the form of a small oil painting located 350 miles away in the Luce visual storage and study collection at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. There one may find Aaron Draper Shattuck’s painting titled, Madison Boulder, Conway, New Hampshire ca. 1858.

Library volunteers and staff are currently researching these images, as well as a number of other White Mountain geological formations, such as U shaped valleys and V shaped notches, basalt dykes, prows, sheep backs, whale backs, pot holes, basins, devil dens, cirques, cathedral caves, ravines, eskers, watering troughs, well covers, stone walls and cellar holes. 

This is part of a larger project on the lure of nature and the role of the White Mountains in the beginnings of today’s eco-tourism movement. This in turn is evidence of the long and ongoing tradition of yankees selling of air, water and rocks to flatlanders, yielding insights into the history of tourism and recreation, changing tastes for using and “consuming” the views, and even the interesting role of religion, politics, poetry and science in our understanding of nature.

Many early attractions with given names designed to appeal to Victorian tastes in politics, religion, classical antiquity and Romantic poetry and the then fashionable science of geology (Diana’s Baths, Cathedral Ledge, Devil’s Den, Wizard Birch, Washington Boulder, etc.)

Geologists of the period were like today’s rock stars, drawing thousands of people to their lectures.

In doing research on this subject, we have found evidence of a number of exotic lost natural tourist attractions such as serpentine and donut trees, the wizard birch, buttermilk hollow and the often mistaken location of the original cathedral woods, etc.

Most references go over the head of millennials unless they google the terms (which they should).

As part of all this, we think that the Brooklyn painting is certainly not the Madison Boulder, but instead may be a rare artistic rendering of the rock pictured in our overmantle pictures, the Washington Boulder, which is long gone but not forgotten.

The Washington Boulder was in fact a once famous tourist attraction, featured in numerous period guidebooks. This was before the now popular zip lines, Saco River outfitters, shopping outlet centers, Valley Original restaurants, vacation condos and so on.

Even then one of the guidebooks reports that Conway was “visited by people who wish to enjoy quiet rest and pure mountain-air, and who dislike the brilliant display of N. Conway (North Conway).”

Back to the boulder question. A comparison of the Brooklyn painting above with a number of photos from numerous collections concludes it’s clearly not the Madison Boulder.

Madison Boulder

Washington Boulder

First of all the Madison Boulder is not in Conway, it’s in nearby Madison, NH. so there is some kind of a mistake there in the title. Secondly the Madison Boulder was not discovered until well after 1858. We have asked the Brooklyn Museum for more information to find out why it has that title and date and await their reply.

But what makes us think the Brooklyn boulder is Conway’s lost tourist attraction, the Washington Boulder? In part it has to do with the unique shape and size of the rocks as well as their history.

Compare the size of the person in each image with the size of the rock. The Madison Boulder is clearly much larger than the Washington Boulder was. The overall shape of the two rocks are also quite different. The Washington Boulder was shaped something like a football, the Madison Boulder is more rectangular like a shoe box.

We can do a little field work and find the Madison Boulder easily. It’s preserved at 473 Boulder Road as part of the State Parks and Recreation system. But what can we find of the Washington Boulder?

To continue our story, let’s flashback to the summer of 2004. I spent part of that summer at Kay Morgan’s teacher institute. As part of our final assignment, I chose to work on field trip options at the site of the soon to be built Kennett High School (Where later our son graduated from, and where our daughter is currently entering her senior year).

They were planning on building a road from the north as the entrance to the new school and were exploring the site of the White Mountain Mineral Spring where the school was to be built.

Consultants had been hired to do architectural, historical and archaeological research on the spring house and bottling plant that had been there.

Spring House, Mineral Springs

In my research I became interested in the long abandoned and overgrown road that had come to the site from the south when the mineral spring was a popular tourist attraction. It was along this path that the famous Washington Boulder stood.

My next stop was of course to our friendly neighborhood archives, the Conway Public Library’s Henney History Room. When I asked the archivist, David Emerson, if he knew the exact location of the Washington Boulder, he coyly replied “its around here somewhere, let’s go see”

I was soon to discover he meant that when we were sitting in the middle of the Henney History Room in the library’s lower level, we were literally surrounded by the Washington Boulder in its quarried state as the foundation blocks forming the walls of the room.

True to his nature, he only revealed his meaning after a tantalizing and twisting journey. David was always full of Moxie. We put on our imaginary pith helmets and took the elevator up to the photo array mounted over the fireplace where he told me the story of how the rock was quarried.

Then he led me down the secret steel stairs, where the massive granite foundation blocks are exposed revealing the distinctive manufacturing tool marks of the period. Then back to the archives, where he unfolded period maps and books to reveal more details about the rock’s history as a tourist attraction. So now we know where the Washington Boulder ended up!

There is a lot more to this story. For a fuller backstory on this or other subjects shoot us a comment.

Rock on Conway! And remember, life is short, don’t take anything for granite.