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Exeter NH writer releases book celebrating Exeter s past and present
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Historically Speaking: Exeter NH Trade and Carnival Week was one epic party
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By Barbara Rimkunas
“Our little quiet village today, is alive, there is a circus in town, and the railroad annual meeting meets here today, which brings people from all parts, some for amusement, some for Business, some to get money, and some to get rum, I have heard and saw more intoxicated today than I should want to see in a long life.”
It is clear, from her diary entry on September 8th, 1852, that Hannah Brown was not a lover of frivolity. As a small shareholder of the Boston and Maine railroad, she attended the annual meeting and not the circus. What is not clear, from her diary, is whether the drunkenness she so disapproved of was the result of circus goers or rail investors.
Historically Speaking: Soap Box Derby in Exeter
By Barbara Rimkunas
In 1951, the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Exeter sponsored the town’s first Soap Box Derby. Racing down Town Hill, eleven boys competed in the distance race: Robert Sargent, Stephen Pluff, Scott Carlisle, Dan Carlisle, Victor Rogers, John Rogers, Ralph Landry, John Anderson, Robert Lowther, Robert Taylor and Kenneth Linscott.
Lowther, Landry, and Anderson won the race, earning them $5, $3, and $2, respectively. The VFW garnered some publicity for their building fund and pledges for the Red Cross blood drive. All around, it was a fun event. The Exeter News-Letter noted, “Judging by the enthusiasm of the boys and the spectators, the committee feels that the Soap Box Derby was a success. It is hoped to have a bigger and better Soap Box Derby in the spring.”
Historically Speaking: Park Street Common in Exeter
By Barbara Rimkunas
Exeter’s early records include the following: “On March 30, 1682, it was enacted by general consent that the piece of land between Edward Sewall’s fence, Christian Dolloff’s fence or land, John Bean’s fence, Henry Magoon’s fence or land and the way that goes from Henry Magoon’s land to Pickpocket mill, which said piece of land now lying common, shall lie perpetually common for the use of the town, either for a common field or for what else shall be thought convenient for the town.”
Nancy Merrill would write, in 1972, that this was the first reference to a triangle of land later referenced as “lower plains,” “plains common,” and the current name “Park Street Common.” Since the 1680s, the flat open piece of land has been used for a variety of purposes.
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