Two Firsts

Exhibit at Tracy Library

On Tuesday, September 24th, we installed a new temporary exhibit at Tracy Memorial Library entitled "Views at the Four Corners." Reprinted historic images show buildings that stood at the intersection of New London's Main and Pleasant Streets, once the center of town; they also show earlier states of the existing Kidder Building and Lake Sunapee Bank. This exhibit will be displayed through October.

We look forward to covering other topics in the future, including the public library itself (excluded this time for lack of space). Let us know if you have suggestions that might be of general interest.

On the following day we were pleased to host the New Hampshire Archives Group's fall workshop on strategies to build awareness and support for the collections held by libraries, archives, and historical societies around the state. The all-day session was well attended and well received; it finished with a tour of the New London Archives. Thanks to Tracy Memorial Library for use of the Meeting Room and to Hole in the Fence Cafe for catering the event.

Hybrid Vehicles

Moxie is an acquired taste. First developed as a patent medicine by Dr. Augustin Thompson of Maine (but practicing in Lowell, Mass.) after the Civil War, this bitter product of the gentian root was transformed into a bottled, carbonated beverage in 1880s. The drink's iconic status, however, was more a product of its marketing than its taste. Unlike many "medicines" of the time, Moxie did not contain alcohol and was advertised as beneficial for all ages, especially the temperate.

Early Horsemobile at B.F. Sargent's store in New London.

Subsequent marketing efforts included the horse-drawn Moxie Bottle Wagon of the late 1880s. Around 1905, an early automobile was outfitted with distinctive Moxie lettering. These two concepts were fused into a new hybrid vehicle around 1915 — the Moxie Horsemobile. With its gas and brake pedals extended to the stirrups, and its steering wheel protruding from the horse's withers, the rider/driver was perched some five feet above the roadbed.

The prototype proved dangerously unstable and was soon replaced by another version based on a Dort Motor Car chassis and a light-weight, paper-mache horse, obtained from a defunct tack and harness shop. Over the next couple of decades, new Horsemobiles were constructed from Buicks, LaSalles, and at least one Rolls Royce.

Three Horsemobiles at Kidder's Garage.

Moxie's fleet of Horsemobiles was dispatched to parades and pubic exhibitions throughout New England and as far west as Ohio. Photographs in the town's Archives show that Horsemobiles visited New London on at least two unidentified occasions.

Once a national brand, the cash-strapped Moxie was forced to limit its advertising in the 1930s and lost its market share. Moxie remains the official drink of Maine, but it's no longer distributed beyond the New England states.

You can visit the only remaining original Horsemobile at Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln, NH, and maybe sample a cold Moxie while you're there.

Sugaring Time

"Sap House" at Low Plain

Maybe next year... Here it looks like an early spring, with no snow on the ground at sugaring time. Taken on April 1, 1892, the Sap House was photographed at the end of a winter in which just 20.8 inches of snow fell at Dartmouth's Shattuck Observatory in Hanover—lowest on the record from 1866 through 1958.

The two men gathering sap are identified, perhaps tentatively, as Ellie Farwell and Jesse Melendy. Reo Ellsworth Farwell, born in Springfield (NH) in 1862, resided on the Penuel Everett farm at Low Plain, taught school several terms, and served as town clerk. In 1897, he moved to Lynn, Massachusetts. The younger Jesse Melendy, also a Low Plain resident, graduated from Colby Academy in 1897 and entered Brown University. Both are listed in Myra Lord's History of New London, New Hampshire (1899).

The photographer, William A. Farren, was settled as minister of New London's Baptist Church in 1889. He preached "truth without fear or favor" for the next decade, according to the History of New London. Reverend Farren brought a keen interest in photography and took images of the town throughout his tenure. The archives holds a collection of over fifty of his New London prints.

Right now there's well over a foot of snow on the ground, but today was the best yet for collecting sap—clear, cool, and sweet.