New Hampshire Books

Four-color printing on heavy, stain-resistant paper that is approximately 2 feet wide and 3 feet long (unfolded). One side is a beautiful map of New Hampshire showing all the covered bridges in the state, interesting facts about bridges and their designers, a key that lists each bridge with its corresponding town, and labelled watercolors of 24 of the bridges. The opposite side shows the various types of bridge trusses and lists all the state's covered bridges by town. Each entry gives the date the bridge was built, information about its design and construction, directions to the bridge, and its official New Hampshire bridge number.

This is a beautiful and informative map, and I intend to buy another so I'll have one to use and one to display. I will also look for other guides by this talented group. Very nice -- and what a deal!

New Hampshire Folk Tales was first published in 1932 and was a compilation of legends and stories handed down from mother to daughter.They were published so that they would not be forgotten or lost. The "Story of the Linden Tree" recounts how the real Josiah Bartlett, yes there was one before television, brought an inverted cone-shaped tree to his hometown of Kingston after signing The Declaration of Independence. Bartlett was the last President and first Governor of New Hampshire. The tree is situated in front of the Bartlett residence. There are tales of witches, ghost, encounters with Indians, tales that grandmothers told of pioneer life, all done without gruesome detail, but one's imagination can wander can't it?

Very interesting look at the the makeup of the New Hampshire primary and interesting facts and history.

The definitive study of one of most significant events in any presidential election year. Palmer's easy prose and elegant wit, married with theoretical depth and perceptive sharpness have never been shown to better effect. Do whatever it takes to get a copy of this book!

Finally a comprehensive map book of all of New Hampshire. Like all American Map products, it is well put together and easy to read. Important tourist destinations are highlighted. Now if American Maps can just do one book for all of Ct. all will be convered in New England.

In the late nineteenth century, an American cultural center that arose in New Hampshire Village became known as the Cornish Colony. A summer retreat of the famous sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens, the Colony became the center of an American renaissance that lured notables in the arts, literature, music, and theatre such as Maxfield Parish, Paul Manship, Witter Bynner, Walter Damrosch, Isadora Duncan, Marie Dressler -- and even President Woodrow Wilson. From the 1880s to the 1920s, the Colony comprised an elite center of cultural communication but in the remainder of the twentieth century it was largely ignored by cultural historians. Fortunately, especially for lovers of the arts and history who live far from New England, Fern Meyers and James Atkinson have collected a stunning set of photographs that evoke the ambiance of a community of artists inspired by a setting in the high hills alongside the broad Connecticut River. Their detailed comments encapsulate the history and ethnography of the Colony with an intimate view of residents' personalities and activities at work and play. Men and women artists are given equal time, and even children get a share in the description of their pageants and plays, one of them directed by Ethel Barrymore. A delightful collection of photographs depicts a remarkable group of talented individuals and families in "the Gilded Age" of American culture. Highly recommended for cultural historians, critics, and all lovers of the arts.

Peter Randall is a New Hampshire native whose gift for capturing his local surroundings on film are only enhanced by his use of a panoramic camera. Using a special camera which records onto a 2.5 by 6.5 inch film, the author has collected images of the local scene which stop the casual browser and command close reading of the details within his compositions of farm, forest, and ordinary town scenes. This is a book to spend a quiet evening examining and exploring what someone with love of place and skill with camera can do

The Indian captivity narrative is one of the oldest genres of American literature. The earliest narratives were often Puritan ministers' retellings of captives' tales, sometimes in the form of a sermon, with predictable results: Native American captors were portrayed as Satan's spawns in the pay of their "Papist" masters in New France and the experience of captivity was seen as an arduous trial of faith. Likewise, late-18th and early 19th-century captivity narratives are frequently stylized and sentimental to an extreme. Written to make a moral point about virtue and trust in God, these narratives not only distorted the ordeal of the whites themselves, but also contributed to the misrepresentation of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages.

However, narratives from the middle of the 18th century, around the time of King George's War, are in general more realistic and present a straightforward and fairer view of Native Americans and the experience of captivity on the colonial frontier. A pitfall of reading redeemed captives talk about what they underwent is that we can easily forget that there were thousands of whites who consciously chose not to return to the society they were born into and thus were unable to express their opinion in print. The existing literature of captivity, therefore, is generally one-sided. "North Country Captives" collects eight narratives from Vermont and New Hampshire that by and large give a more balanced view of the captivity experience.

For example, in a time when rape and abuse were common in white society, Isabella McCoy, abducted by Abenakis in New Hampshire in 1747, would have preferred to stay among her "captors" if it hadn't been for her children back home. Nehemiah How, seized in 1745 and marched across the Green Mountains into Canada, wrote consistently about the "very civil" treatment he received from the Abenakis and the French. It is also interesting to note that there were African-Americans adopted into Indian society, where they did not encounter the kind of racism prevalent in the colonies.

Being kidnapped was always a traumatic experience, at least initially. However, these narratives help correct the one-sided view that being "dragged off to the woods by savages" was universally "a fate worse than death".

I found this book at a library sale. I was sucked right in. What a wonderful bit of nostalgia.

My family has been going North to NH for all of my 41 years. Characters like the ones in Mr Tolman's wonderful and light book, bring back the wonderful memories of my youth. When you went to the local store, the McCormack spinster sisters ran the show and clearly weren't there for the money. Old timers sitting near the potbellied stove smoking pipes and cigars, told deer hunting stories or whatever the local gossip was. Always friendly.

Mr Tolman tells us about his life and adventures over by Keene NH somewhere back in the 30's through the 60's. He seems to convey that having fun is what it's all about and seems to spend most days birdhunting with his accomplished wife and other local characters. It really reflects priorities in a slower but changing age. All the local characters and their often amusing and sometime sad tales are told in a wonderful conversational style. Even got a story about a monkey in a tree in the middle of the NH woods. A monkey? How'd it get in the NH woods...Very good!

Loved it and read it in a day and read it again another day.
Really shows the way NH Yankees and their villages were, not so long ago. Wonderful.

This was an excellent book, a great keepsake.