All Blog Posts Tagged 'Derry' (11)

The Derry Civil War Memorial is located in front of the First Parish Church in East Derry. The other war memorials to Derry soldiers are all located at MacGregor Park, next to the public library on Broadway.

According to T.J. Cullinane of the "Friends of the Forest Hill Cemetery" group, there are about another 100 missing names that should be on the Civil War monument. He is working on identifying all the Civil War tombstones in the Forest Hill Cemetery, which is located right…

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Born Fighting: How the Scots Irish Shaped America, is a new television documentary based on a book by Senator James Webb of Viriginia, who is a direct descendant of Ulster Scots who immigrated to America. However, this two part program was first broadcast in the United Kingdom yesterday on 1 February 2011 on STV. It is produced by Scottish and Ulster Television and the Smithsonian Channel.



Before the siege of Derry in 1689, Scots Presbyterians flooded Northern… Continue

Matthew Taylor and his wife Janet Wilson came from Northern Ireland in 1721 and settled in Nutfield, now Derry, New Hampshire.   Matthew was one of the original proprietors of the settlement.  He was born in 1690 and he died 26 January 1770 near Beaver Lake.  They had ten children and many descendants who lived in New Hampshire and Nova Scotia.  Matthew and his sons, Adam and Samuel Taylor, are buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Derry.

The descendants are planning a reunion for August…

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A story for the Fourth of July!

Fifteen or twenty years ago, when my daughter was in elementary school, we visited Philadelphia Pennsylvania. We toured the city, saw the Liberty Bell and Ben Franklin’s house, and ate some cheese steak sandwiches. Of course we didn’t miss Independence Hall, either. The tour was guided, and when we came to the room where the Continental Congress…

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It is well known that Nutfield was founded by a group of Ulster refugees, Scots Irish Presbyterians fleeing the violence of Northern Ireland for New England. They were not welcome to settle in Boston, so in 1719 a group came to settle in New Hampshire. They called their new home “Nutfield” after the abundance of nut bearing trees in the…

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On Wednesday 28 October 2009, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance announced the state’s annual “Seven to Save” campaign and the First Parish Church in East Derry earned a spot on the list. The First Parish congregation has been in Derry since the original Scots Irish settlers held a religious meeting of thanksgiving under a tree in…

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In New Hampshire we have a Lafayette Social Club in Manchester, started by the French Canadians, and a Lafayette Road along the seacoast, otherwise known as Rt. 1. There is a Mount Lafayette in the White Mountains, which rises 5,260 feet from the side of Interstate 93 in Franconia Notch. All of these were named in honor of General Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution. He made an extremely popular, triumphal tour of New Hampshire in 1824-25, in celebration of the 50th… Continue

The first American in space was born in Derry, New Hampshire in 1923. Alan Bartlett Shepard grew up on the family farm, which is now just a house on East Derry Road. He ran errands at Grenier Field (now Manchester Airport) when he was still just a Pinkerton high school student. The Shepard family attended the First Parish church in East Derry, and his father was the organist. He graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and served during the… Continue

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, taught school in Massachusetts, and died in Vermont, yet he will forever be loved as a New Hampshire Poet. He lived in New Hampshire between 1895 and 1938. His first book was title “North of Boston” and his fifth book was titled “New Hampshire”.

As another nod to his Derry residence, Frost’s eighth book was titled “West Running Brook” after the stream near his farmstead. This fame has caused a… Continue

Country Girls in the Big City



Years ago I took my Londonderry Girl Scout troop to Lowell National Park, to see how the mill girls lived and worked. The girls were about twelve years old, not much younger than some of the mill workers in the 1830s and 40s. We took a canal boat ride, and toured the noisy Boot Mill (a big hit for kids) and finally went into the boarding house. We earned a merit badge with some of our activities in… Continue

Pinkerton Tavern Ghosts



A Post for Halloween!



In October, thoughts of ghosts and witches come to mind. There were plenty of accused witches, even one who was found guilty in the 1600’s, and New Hampshire has its share of ghosts. When we first moved to Londonderry over 25 years ago, the first ghost we heard about was the one haunting the Pinkerton Tavern, in Derry. At the time, this building was an unfinished furniture store, and… Continue