Monadnock Moments

In 1745 the Cheshire County towns along the Connecticut River had been settled by families from towns further to the South.  These settlers were drawn by inexpensive land or were sent to protect the frontier against the Indians. In March of 1744 England had declared...

For more than 225 years the residents of the town of Langdon, New Hampshire have passed on a story of the “legend or the big elm.” According to the legend, the tale began during the French and Indian Wars of the mid 1700s.  It was during these confrontations that a...

Most of us have seen postcards of Keene’s Main Street overprinted with the words “the widest paved Main Street in the World.”  The development of this unique street can be traced to a single day in the autumn of 1736, just two years after the first settlers arrived in...

There is a legend about Granite Lake, a body of water that lies in the towns of Stoddard and Nelson.  This story offers us a picture of life in the region before white settlers arrived. According to the legend, the island in the lake was at that time inhabited by an...

Nathan Blake came from Wrentham, Massachusetts as one of the first settlers of Keene in 1736. He built a home here and began a family with his wife Elizabeth. Several years later, during 1745, war was declared between France and England.  The local Indians became...

On the corner of the John W. Day Educational Center, formerly the Keene Post Office, at 34 West Street, is a plaque which reads: “Near this spot Deacon Josiah Fisher was killed and scalped by an Indian, July 10, 1745, a pioneer settler of this town in 1734”. Josiah...

Most of the towns in Cheshire County take their names from prominent individuals, such as Colonel Ebenezer Hinsdale, Sir Benjamin Keene, and the Duke of Richmond.  The town of Gilsum, however, was named in a manner quite unlike any other town in the area. Gilsum was...