marlow history in the news
The Civil War Journal of Marlow’s Ezra George Huntley
By Maria M. Baril
Nov 3, 2022
Editor’s Note: Marlow’s Maria Baril reached out to this editor a few months ago regarding a rather extraordinary accomplishment for a small-town historical society. A Marlow man by the name of Ezra George Huntley had kept a beautifully written journal of his days as a Civil War soldier... complete with the cursive flourish of the era. After painstaking transcription of the piece with help from Alan Rumrill at the Historical Society of Cheshire County and the Dartmouth College Rauner Library amongst many others, a 2-year project has culminated in a new book. Read more...
The E.G. Huntley house was last occupied by Frank Pollard (1908-1995) and was torn down in the 1980s. It stood on the west side of Old Newport Road near the end where it joins Route 10.
Also on November 23, 2022 The Keene Sentinel published the same article with additional photos in their ELF Magazine. You can read it here starting on page 14.
In the preface of his book The Life of Billy Yank, author Bell Wiley
says of the Union soldiers who fought in the Civil War that: “Absence
from loved ones caused lowly folk who rarely took pen in hand during
times of peace to write frequent and informative letters, and to keep
diaries, and thus to reveal themselves in rare fullness.” Read more...
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A moment in local history: The Keene, Marlow and Newport Electric Railroad
by Alan F. Rumrill
Jul 2, 2022 Updated Aug 8, 2022
In the late 1800s, before the widespread use of automobiles in our region, almost every town of any size in New Hampshire developed plans for a street railway. Many of these lines never got beyond the planning stages as the automobile soon became more practical and reliable for passenger travel. Read more...
A stock certificate for the Ashuelot Valley Improvement Co., created mainly to build a trolley from Keene north to Marlow. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Cheshire County
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A moment in local history: Granite State Evaporators
by Alan F. Rumrill
Jan 2, 2021 Updated Feb 8, 2021
Marlow has been the home of several unusual but successful business ventures over the years. One of these businesses was the Granite State Evaporator Co., owned by Perley E. Fox. Fox was born in Marlow in December of 1833, and attended the Marlow Academy. He traveled to the Midwest in 1857, where he taught school for several years. Fox returned to Marlow in 1862 and in 1869 purchased the stove and tin business of James Fisher. Read more...
Granite State Evaporator Co. was a mainstay of Marlow manufacturing until it burned down in 1916. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Cheshire county
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A moment in local history: The Great Marlow-Stoddard Fire
by Alan F. Rumrill
Mar 28, 2020 Updated May 4, 2020
As we look back now, almost 80 years later, it seems almost inevitable that Cheshire County’s worst forest fire ever was about to occur in April of 1941. During that month, the state had experienced the highest average temperature and lowest average rainfall of any month in 70 years. Read more...
Smoke from the state’s largest forest fire in recorded history could be seen well away from its center, in Marlow and Stoddard. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Cheshire County
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A moment in local history: Marlow’s ink and extract manufacturers
by Alan F. Rumrill
February 22, 2020
One of the most unusual and least remembered industries in the town of Marlow was the ink and extract factory operated by the Farley family. Bethuel Farley, born in Marlow in 1794, and his son Lucius and grandson Frank ran the business for more than 50 years. Read more...
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A Moment in (Local) History: The bungling bank robbers
by Alan F. Rumrill
Oct 6, 2019 Updated Nov 11, 2019
At about 9 p.m. on the evening of June 11, 1850, Abijah Larned and an accomplice broke into the bank at Charlestown. By midnight they had loaded nearly $12,000 in gold, silver and bills into their carriage and drove peacefully out of town. Eleven miles to the south they came to the long hill between Drewsville and Marlow. The pair decided to get out of the carriage so that their horse would have less weight to carry up the hill. Read more...
A carriage stops by the home of Horace Gee
in Marlow. The night of June 11, 1850, another horse and carriage
visited Gee, the carriage filled with stolen loot from a Charlestown
bank. Courtesy photo.
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A Walk Back in Time
Marlow Village Cemetery Marks 100 Years
Story and art contributed by Marlow Historical Society
Oct 31, 2019
Looking for something to do that will raise your spirits? On Sunday, Nov. 3 at 10:30 a.m. there will be an All Souls’ Day cemetery walk held in the historic Marlow Village Cemetery on Church Street. This free event is open to the public and is co-sponsored by the Marlow United Methodist Church, the Marlow Historical Society and the Marlow Cemetery trustees. Read more...
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Hometown diva: Marlow students create book about opera singer native to town
By Meg McIntyre
Sentinel Staff
Oct 7, 2018 Updated Apr 18, 2024
Students at the John D. Perkins Sr. Academy in Marlow didn’t have to look too far for their latest history project. Last school year, Leah Giles’ 3rd- and 4th-grade class began researching Calista Huntley Piccioli — also known as Maria Calisto — a renowned opera singer who was born in Marlow in 1841. Read more...
Students in Leah Giles' class at John D. Perkins Sr. Academy, along with Giles and historian Tracy Messer, hold copies of the book they wrote on opera singer Calista Huntley Piccioli. Courtesy photo.
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Marlow Historical Society to open new museum space to the public next month
By Meghan Foley Sentinel Staff
June 11, 2018
MARLOW - A few years ago a person could walk through the double wooden doors of Murray Hall into a cozy foyer and then cavernous, dreary hall that had been left to the passage of time. Today, a person can enter the same historic building and be amazed by the hall’s transformation into a museum showcasing the town’s history. Read more...
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'Hope Diamond Mystery' enthralls audience at historical society
By Steve Gilbert
Sentinel Staff
Oct 20, 2017 Updated Nov 26, 2017
The silent film’s plot is convoluted, outlandish, “a very confusing story,” says Larry Benaquist, film studies professor emeritus at Keene State College. Scratchy, blurry, black and white, and sliced into 15 parts, the serial movie’s intertitles are sometimes difficult to read. A blue tint is injected in some of the frames, the first vestiges of color in film. It was actually a state-of-the-art technique back then, used in this instance to highlight the Hope Diamond, centerpiece of the storyline. Read more...
Main Streets and Back Roads of Cheshire County, NH
Cheshire County just might be as "New England" as it gets.
Updated: 8:00 PM EST Nov 17, 2017
Boston WCVB 5's Chronicle feature on Cheshire County with a segment on Marlow including interviews with Tracy Messer, Charlie Strickland, Bucky White, and Misha Golfman, founder of Kroka Expeditions. You can watch it here.
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Marlow's book of poems an ode to its history
Posted: November 20, 2016 in The Keene Sentinel
by Steve Gilbert
Sifting through the town’s rich historical archives, members of the Marlow Historical Society occasionally come across homegrown poems, hymns and lyrics. They are snapshots of history, scattered in the troves, spread through time. Thus, Maria Baril, president of the historical society, woke with clarity and an idea at 3 a.m. one day in late September: Why not arrange the town’s history in a book of poems, as composed by Marlow’s own residents, past and present? Read more...
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Opera diva's birthplace in Marlow discovered
Posted: Tuesday, August 16, 2016 in The Keene Sentinel
By Tracy W. Messer, Marlow Historical Society
Over the years, historian David Proper wrote about the remarkable life of Calista (Huntley) Piccioli (1841-1929), the “celebrated concert artist and operatic diva” who was born in Marlow. As 2016 marks the 175th anniversary of her birth, the time had come to solve a forgotten mystery: Where, precisely, was Madame Piccioli born? Read more...
Also on August 16, 2016 The Keene Sentinel republished the following column, about Calista Piccioli that was written by David R. Proper and published in The Sentinel in 2007 as one Proper’s regular pieces about the history of the Monadnock region.
Born in Marlow, a talented prima donna's tale
Posted: Tuesday, August 16, 2016
by David R. Proper
Among the celebrities born in the Monadnock Region, Marlow’s celebrated concert artist and operatic diva, Calista (Huntley) Piccioli is recognized as one of the most talented prima donnas of the last century. Calista Maria Huntley was born in Marlow on April 11, 1841, daughter of Russell and Amy Huntley...Read more...
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WMUR's NH Chronicle - Thursday, April 28, 2016 - The Great Marlow-Stoddard Fire
Remembering the great Marlow-Stoddard forest fire, seventy five years after it scorched four towns over four days. You can watch the archived video here...
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A super-sized mystery in Marlow
Posted: Monday, August 17, 2015 in The Keene Sentinel
by Meghan Foley Sentinel Staff
MARLOW - Local lore has it that sometime around the 1840s an elephant and her trainer came to town. The elephant’s name was Lady Betsey, and she came all the way from Calcutta, India. But where Lady Betsey went after her rumored visit to Marlow remains a mystery including whether she left the town at all. Read more...
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Marlow history buffs see new beginning in old building
Posted: Saturday, July 25, 2015 in The Keene Sentinel
by Meghan Foley Sentinel Staff
MARLOW - It was once a grand hall owned by the local grange, whose members hosted dinners, dances and meetings there. Before that, it was a church where Methodists - then Universalists - gathered. Starting in the 1980s, it housed a storage area and workshop for a computer business that has since become a Fortune 1,000 company. Read more...
From left, Marlow Historical Society Director Joe Baril; Ed Thomas, volunteer and selectman; historical society Vice President Maria Baril; historical society President Joanne Thomas; and historical society Director Barry Corriveau.
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The Way We Were: Marlow monument remembers 'The Great War'
Posted: Tuesday, June 16, 2015 in The Keene Sentinel
by the Marlow Historical Society
MARLOW - At the heart of Marlow village, in front of historic Jones Hall, stands a unique hand-sculpted granite World War I monument. In her will of Feb. 14, 1927, Agnes Grant Phelps left $1,900 to the town of Marlow for the creation of a soldiers monument. Read more...
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Murray Hall a building sought to be preserved in Marlow
Posted: Tuesday, June 17, 2014 in The Keene Sentinel
by Maria Baril and Tracy Messer, Marlow Historical Society
MARLOW The town of Marlow underwent a pronounced population shift in the 1830s and ’40s as hillside farms were sold and the young sought employment at the mills along the Ashuelot River. This prompted the Methodists to relocate their building, the First Methodist Church, which had stood on Marlow Hill since 1827, to its present site down in the village. The decision was so controversial that, in 1849, the remaining members on the hill put up one of their own - the Second Methodist Church. This was the first iteration of the building residents now call “Murray Hall.” Read more...
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Marlow students study history, act out town's beginnings in play
By KAITLIN MULHERE
Sentinel Staff
May 26, 2013 Updated Apr 18, 2024
Grace Stankimas was nervous, and her mood ring showed it. The 3rd-grader’s jewel turned purple before the Thursday evening performance of “Coming to Marlow,” a play about the first families that came from Lyme, Conn., to settle in the small, rural town. Perkins School students and teachers spent months reciting lines, making props and learning songs to teach the audience about the town’s history, and Grace wasn’t alone in her nerves. “It’s so hard to be up on stage with all the people looking at us,” said kindergartner Kylie Wollschlager, who played a cow. Read more...
Perkins School students perform “Coming to
Marlow” earlier this month.
The play, written by local historian
Loisanne Foster, chronicles the town of Marlow’s
first settlers, and
features three original songs by teacher Kelly A. Snair. COURTESY PHOTO
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By Joanne Thomas
Marlow Historical Society
Dec 20, 2011
MARLOW — Although it is located in an out-of-the-way spot, for those interested in early New Hampshire history, Marlow’s West Yard Cemetery is worth the drive. Surrounded by wooded land, enclosed by a stone wall, this cemetery is on a steeply pitched hill on the corner of Gustin Pond and Jay Allen roads. Many of the stones are now pitched by the frost, and a few are broken, but most are upright and still quite legible. Read more...
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By Maria M. Baril Marlow Historical Society
Apr 26, 2011
MARLOW — Perley Fox and his forefathers would find much to like if they saw their homestead now. The stately old brick house at the top of steep Fox Hill Road has aged gracefully through the decades. Three generations of the Fox family held title to the property from the time it was sold to Peter Fox in 1812. Read more...
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A Fence Marks History In Marlow
Posted: Tuesday, January 18, 2011 in The Keene Sentinel
by Maria Baril and Mary Blank, Marlow Historical Society
The Tinshop Pond fence in Marlow has a long history in town. The Marlow Historical Society aims to launch a restoration project this spring.
MARLOW - Modest and content in its supporting role at the foot of the acclaimed historic buildings, Marlow’s Tinshop Pond fence is often overlooked and taken for granted. Yet it is certainly an integral component of the much-photographed Marlow landscape. Read more...
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THE WAY WE WERE
By Mary M. Blank
Marlow Historical Society
Dec 21, 2010
MARLOW — Sitting on the banks of Tinshop Pond, the Methodist Chapel is the smallest of Marlow’s treasured historic buildings. Under the umbrella of the Methodist Church, it is currently owned by the Women’s Fellowship of Christian Service. The first records of this organization go back to 1879 when it was called the “Lady’s Society.” It changed its name to “Ladies Aid Society” in 1905, and in 1915 it became a New Hampshire voluntary corporation occupying what had been the Temperance Society building on the banks of the pond. Read more...
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THE WAY WE WERE
By Maria Baril
Marlow Historical Society
Nov 9, 2010
MARLOW — Standing on a knoll overlooking the village pond, Marlow’s Odd Fellows Hall boasts a distinguished academic history. In 1850, it housed the Marlow Academy, which had a well-established reputation for excellence, competing with schools such as Andover and Phillips Academy in Exeter, and the Walpole and Chesterfield academies. It drew scholars from surrounding towns, but also from Delaware, Massachusetts and Vermont, and as far away as Ohio. Read more...
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French Canadian Meat Pie | Best Cook Penny Despres
This recipe for French Canadian meat pie — also known as Tourtiere — not only melts in your mouth, it keeps a family tradition alive.
“Moose” (Raymond) Despres had his first meat pie when he was 4 years old. That would be as soon as he could remember anything. “1944, New Year’s Eve,” he recalls. “They’d bring out the meat pies at midnight; that’s how we always did it. And then we’d all go for a sleigh ride afterward.” Read more...
Penny Despres - Photo Credit - Kalinowski, Matt
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From factory girl to world-renowned diva
by David R. Proper
Aug 7, 2007
A Monadnock Music Concert in Marlow, Saturday evening, Aug. 11, together with a pre-concert dinner and dessert buffet at the town's landmark Christmas Tree Inn is reminiscent, perhaps, of Marlow's celebrated concert artist and operatic diva, Marie Huntley-Piccioli. Among the celebrities born in the Monadnock Region, she is recognized as one of the most talented prima donnas of the last century. Read more...
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Community news briefs, 9/27/06
Sep 27, 2006
MARLOW - The Marlow Historical Society celebrates its 30th anniversary this year with the planting of 16 Liberty Elm trees in the village. Since the project was announced in May, the society received more than $2,800 in donations to purchase and plant the American Elm, a Dutch elm disease-resistant variety, developed by The Elm Research Institute in Keene. On Oct. 1 at 2 p.m. a dedication ceremony will be held on the village green at the site of the planting of a 19-foot American Elm and the setting of a liberty memorial plaque.
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Film focuses on Marlow’s ’41 ring of fire
by David R. Proper
Apr 18, 2006
The town of Marlow often inspires artists and photographers seeking to capture the prototype of New England character. It is, indeed, one of the region’s most picturesque towns, located on the border of Cheshire and Sullivan counties and highlighted by its white church, old Grange town hall and quiet village pond. Read more...
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Staying alive was a struggle during fever
by David R. Proper
Jan 10, 2006
Advances in science and medicine during the 20th century largely freed us from one of nature’s deadly scourges, the epidemic. Nevertheless, the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 became one of the most deadly of modern times, and the spread of infantile paralysis in the 1930s terrified a generation. Diseases once dreaded and which swept through entire regions are today hardly recognized. Read more...
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Up in Smoke - On the lookout for fires
Posted: January 10, 1984 in The Boston Phoenix
by Neal Clark
In this high-tech age of computers, telecommunicators, and sophisticated monitoring devices, manned fire towers are supposedly obsolete and are going the way of most lighthouses. They're being displaced by more modern (and impersonal) detection systems. Forty years ago, New Hampshire, for example had some 30 state-maintained fire lookouts. Read more...
