Freedom Historical Society Annual Report
Another successful year has passed for the Freedom Historical Society (FHS). Our success is due to a dedicated Board of Trustees, the town of Freedom, and our members and volunteers. Many hours are given by our Board of Directors to keep FHS moving forward and expanding our services. Most of all, the Board appreciates the support of our membership, over 200 strong, and the Town of Freedom for their support and trust in the FHS Board to keep Freedom’s history alive. The Board works tirelessly to meet the FHS mission.
Over the past year we introduced many new projects and events, which you can read about in the following summary of our 2023 activities. Most importantly, we got things done, carried out our mission, and increased our membership. We also took care of our buildings and completed two priority projects: the post beetle eradication in the Works Barn and a new security system funded by a generous FHS “Heritage Circle” Member. We had an increase in visitors this year from 400 to 475, and many, many positive comments. Some visitors returned for a second or third time to enjoy the experience of the Freedom Historical Society.
Our special opening of the 2023 Exhibit was “Celebrating the Historic Businesses of Freedom Village”, and “Opening Day” was Saturday, May 27. In addition, we introduced a new exhibit on recent new acquisitions to our Museum Collection, published the 2024 FHS Calendar on Freedom Artists, and had our second Wine Tasting Event at the Museum. Most importantly, we had our first Future Fund Concert in July, launching an Endowment for the Future. We continued to celebrate Old Home Week with expanded opening hours, a float in the Old Home Week Parade, and the Margie’s Lunch Event. Our gigantic yard sale on October 7 was a huge success, and turned out to be one of the biggest money-maker events this year. We finished the year with our annual participation in Freedom Rings, celebrating the holiday season event on November 17 & 18. We want to express a very special thanks to our members whose contributions made it all happen.
A review of the Society’s activities in 2023 and our plans for 2024 were presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting on November 14. Click on the image below to view our detailed presentation.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “The Capital Crime of Witchcraft: What the Primary Sources Tell Us” on Wednesday, October 11
Freedom Historical Society’s final speaker program of the 2023 season will be “The Capital Crime of Witchcraft: What the Primary Sources Tell Us”, presented by Margo Burns. The program is made possible by a grant from New Hampshire Humanities and is free and open to the public. It will be held upstairs at the Freedom Town Hall, 16 Elm Street at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 11.
On first impression, the witchcraft trials of the Colonial era may seem to have been nothing but a free-for-all, fraught with hysterics. Margo Burns explores an array of prosecutions in seventeenth century New England, using facsimiles of primary source manuscripts — from first formal complaints to arrest warrants, indictments of formal charges to death warrants, and the reversals of attainder and rescinding of excommunications years after the fact — demonstrating how methodically and logically the Salem Court worked. This program focuses on the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and 1693, when nineteen people were hanged and one crushed to death, but also examines a variety of other cases against women in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Margo Burns is a 10th-generation great-granddaughter of Rebecca Nurse, who was hanged in Salem in 1692 on the charge of witchcraft. She is the project manager and an associate editor of Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press. This work is the definitive collection of transcriptions of the legal records of the episode.
Burns is also a life-long fan of cartoons and formally studied animation at the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been leading computer animation projects with middle and high school students since 2001 at UNH’s Tech Camp in Durham. She recently retired from St. Paul’s School as the Director of the Language Center, where she was also the advisor to a student club which tapped her personal library of more than 750 animation titles.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome and invited to attend this free presentation. Refreshments will follow the program. For more information or questions, please call (603) 491-8347.
Freedom Historical Society’s Annual Yard Sale on Saturday, October 7
The Freedom Historical Society is gearing up for our annual yard sale and fundraising event on Saturday, October 7 from 9 AM to 2 PM. Members and community volunteers are organizing this event to help raise funds needed to maintain the preservation of Freedom’s history. Items for sale will include furniture, kitchenware, glassware, pottery, household items tools, artwork, and books.
This year, the yard sale will coincide with the end of our 2023 season – the last day the Museum is open to the public in this year. Proceeds from the yard sale will be allocated to the maintenance of our museum collection. Thank you to all who are contributing to this effort!
Prior to the official yard sale event, the FHS will be open for drop-off donations on Wednesday, October 4 from 10 AM to 1 PM, and on Friday, October 6 from 1 PM to 4 PM. Please, no electronics. Our rain date will be Sunday, October 8 from 9 AM to 3 PM.
The Freedom Historical Society is located at 28 Old Portland Road in Freedom, NH. If you have any questions about the event, please contact Co-President, Roberta MacCarthy at fhsociety28@gmail.com.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “Remarkable People of Freedom – Celebrating Freedom’s Artists” on Wednesday, September 27
Freedom Historical Society (FHS) continues its 2023 speaker series on September 27 with a program entitled, “Remarkable People of Freedom – Celebrating Freedom’s Artists,” which is the theme of FHS’s newly published 2024 calendar. The program will include discussion of some of the artists in Freedom’s past. Also, this year several of the artists featured will participate in a panel discussion format at the Freedom Gallery located at 8 Elm Street in Freedom.
Throughout Freedom’s rich history of remarkable people, professional artists have been present in Freedom and inspired by its beauty and tranquility to each create their own unique visual stories through fine art. Some of the artists featured have experienced national and/or international recognition and awards. All paintings created have been enjoyed and “collected” by people of each artists’ respective generation.
The public is welcome to join FHS members at the gallery on the 27th at 6:30 PM for a reception followed by the program at 7:00 PM. Topics the panel of artists will discuss will include inspirations for painting, favorite mediums, what brought them to Freedom, etc. The evening is planned to be very informal with an interactive discussion which will include audience participation. Each artist on the panel will be displaying some of their artwork not included in the calendar. Pieces of art newly acquired by FHS featuring the works of historical art figures of Freedom such as Sam Warren and Alice Macy Miller will also be showcased.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome and invited to attend the presentation. The new FHS fund raising calendar for 2024 highlighted at the event will be available for purchase. For more information or questions, please call (603) 491-8347.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “New Hampshire’s Indigenous People – Past, Present & Future” on Wednesday, July 26 at 7 PM
Freedom Historical Society continues its 2023 speaker series on July 26 with a program entitled “New Hampshire’s Indigenous People – Past, Present & Future” presented by Paul and Denise Pouliot, members of the Cowasuck band of Pennacook-Abenaki People. The program is free, open to the public and will be held at the Freedom Town Hall located at 16 Elm Street at 7 PM.
This program will review elements of the history of indigenous peoples in the Lakes Region including life after colonial contact, village life, trails and trading routes as well as the story of Pennacook Chiefton – Passaconaway.
According to literature from the Pennacook-Abenaki People, “There is a growing effort to bring history back into focus and to correct many misconceptions about the founding of the United States. We were not all killed off by disease or warfare and did not disappear with the colonization of this country. We are among you, working beside you in all walks of life. Unless we told you who we were, you would probably never know us.” Hear about the numerous current programs in the field of education and social activism that have been developed to change the narrative and image of New Hampshire’s indigenous people.
Paul and Denise Pouliot are affiliate faculty members of the UNH Native American Indigenous Studies program as well as co-founders of the Indigenous New Hampshire Collaborative Collective. They recently were keynote speakers for the annual NH Lakes Congress. The Cowasuck Band of Pennacook-Abenaki organization is based in Alton, NH.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome and invited to attend. The program will begin at 7 PM. For more information or questions, please call (603) 491-8347.
Celebrate NH Gives with the Freedom Historical Society!
Hosted by the NH Center for non-profits, NH Gives is the state’s largest day of Giving. The event begins at 5 PM on June 6 and ends at 5 PM on June 7. Please donate to the Freedom Historical Society online by following this link: https://www.nhgives.org/organizations/freedom-historical-society.
All donations go to support the FHS new Climate Control Room Project. A Challenge Grant is provided by the FHS Board of Directors. Your generous participation will have an enormous impact on the Freedom community, future generations, and the history of small towns in New Hampshire. Thank you in advance for your support to safeguard our archival and artwork collection.
If the timing of the NH Gives Campaign is not convenient, consider clicking on the donate button at the top of this page or send a check to FHS, Box 548, Freedom, NH 03836. Please note that the donation is for the Climate Control Room.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “The Geologic History of the Ossipee Mountains” on Wednesday, June 28 at 7 PM
Freedom Historical Society continues its 2023 speaker series on June 28 with a program entitled “The Geologic History of the Ossipee Mountains,” presented by G. Nelson Eby, Professor of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell. The program is free, open to the public and will be held at the Freedom Town Hall located at 16 Elm Street at 7 PM.
The Ossipee Mountains are a classic example of a ring complex. These types of igneous intrusions form in environments often associated with continental rifting. In this presentation, the geology of the Ossipee Mountains will be described and placed in the context of geologic events that started 240 million years ago when ancestral New England was part of the Pangea supercontinent. Every rock has a story, and geologists use these stories to construct a geologic history. The Ossipee rocks are eager to tell their story of the formation of the Ossipee Mountains.
Nelson Eby is a faculty member of the Department of Environmental, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at UMASS Lowell. His general area of research is geochemistry, but he has interests that range from forensic geology to archaeology. Recent projects include characterizing the glass (Trinitite) produced during the first atomic bomb test; using tree-ring cores to map environmental change and volcanic eruptions; and the origin of rare-earth element ore deposits. He has investigated many of the Mesozoic age intrusions found in New Hampshire.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome and invited to attend. The program will begin at 7 PM. For more information or questions, please c
Freedom Historical Society Presents “Freedom Artifacts and the Stories They Tell” on Wednesday, May 17 at 7 PM
Freedom Historical Society continues its 2023 speaker series on Wednesday, May 17 at 7 PM with a program entitled “Freedom Artifacts and the Stories They Tell.” The program will be presented by Bob Cottrell, local historian and Curator of the Conway Public Library’s Henney History Room. The program is free, open to the public, and will be held at Freedom Town Hall (16 Elm Street).
This in-person presentation will explore some of the hidden treasures in the collection at the Freedom Historical Society and how these artifacts tell stories about life in Freedom in years past. Many of the artifacts are in the Allard House or Works Barn Museum but not on exhibit. Bob is a fun, engaging storyteller and for this program will explore a variety of ways in which some of Freedom’s remarkable collection of historical artifacts can tell stories through exhibits, living history demonstrations and online activities.
Bob Cottrell has a Masters degree from the Winterhur Program in Early American Culture in Delaware and has worked in the history/museum field since 1980. He has worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., the Crowley Museum and Nature Center in Sarasota, FL, the St. Petersburg Historical Museum also in FL, the Connor Prairie Museum in Indiana, and at Bilikent University in Ankara, Turkey. In 1996, he became the founding Director of the Remick Country Doctor Museum and Farm in Tamworth, NH.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome and invited to attend. For more information or questions, please call (603) 491-8347.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “Writing Your Family History” on Wednesday, April 26 at 7 PM
The Freedom Historical Society continues its 2023 speaker series on April 26 with a program entitled “Writing Your Family History” by Kyle Hurst, Senior Genealogist of Newbury Free Press/New England Historic Genealogical Society. The program is free and will be presented via ZOOM at 7:00 PM. Click on the ZOOM button below to register.
(This Zoom program has already occurred.)
The program will cover the process of turning your raw data into a written narrative suitable for sharing with your family. Topics include: determining your audience, organizing your materials, choosing a genealogical format, adding citations, enhancing your narrative with stories, and decision-making before publishing.
Kyle holds a B.A. in both History and Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin and a Master’s certificate in Museum Studies from Tufts University. For the culmination of this program, she completed a semester-long internship at the National Archives in Waltham, MA. Her book Ancestors and Descendants of Charles Le Caron and Victoire Sprague won the 2020 National Genealogical Award for Excellence in the Genealogical and Family History category. Her areas of expertise include genealogical research in the mid-Atlantic, Midwest, New England, and various European countries.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome, and are invited to register in advance using the ZOOM button above. Be sure to join the meeting prior to the 7 PM start time on April 26. For additional information, call 603-491-8347.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “New Hampshire on Skis” on Wednesday, March 22 at 7 PM
The Freedom Historical Society continues its 2023 monthly speaker series on March 22 with a program entitled “New Hampshire on Skis” by E. John B. Allen. Made possible by a grant from New Hampshire Humanities, the program is free and open to the public. It will be presented via ZOOM at 7:00 PM. Click on the ZOOM button below to register.
(This Zoom program has already occurred.)
First, take Scandinavian and Austrian immigrants, the Dartmouth Outing Club, the Cannon Mountain Tramway, the muscular Christian, amateur tinkerers, and Professor E. John B. Allen. Cover it with snow and shake and you have the makings of a unique New Hampshire history! Join us and learn about early skiing in the state, the importance of jumping, the mechanization of skiing, and how New England and New Hampshire fit into the big picture of America’s ski culture.
Professor Emeritus of History at Plymouth State College, John Allen was awarded the International Skiing History Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2009. He serves as historian for the New England Ski Museum in Franconia and is the author of several books including: From Skisport to Skiing: One Hundred Years of an American Sport; The Culture and Sport of Skiing from Antiquity to World War II; and A Historical Dictionary of Skiing. More recently he has published: Skiing in the Eye of the Artist (Vienna 2021) and Travelling the Old Ski Tracks of New England (2022). John has served as a consultant to several ski history documentary films.
Members of the Freedom Historical Society and the general public are welcome, and are invited to register in advance using the ZOOM button above. Be sure to join the meeting prior to the 7 PM start time on March 22. For additional information, call 603-491-8347.
Freedom Historical Society Presents “Moved and Seconded: Town Meeting in New Hampshire” on Wednesday, February 22 at 7 PM
(This Zoom program has already occurred.)
The Freedom Historical Society is opening the 2023 monthly speaker season on February 22 with a program presented online via Zoom by author, storyteller, and humorist Rebecca Rule. This entertaining program entitled, “Moved and Seconded: Town Meeting in New Hampshire” is made possible by a grant from New Hampshire Humanities and is free and open to the public.
Drawing from research for her book of the same name, Rebecca Rule has regaled audiences with stories of the rituals, traditions and history of town meetings, including the perennial characters, the literature, the humor, and the wisdom of this uniquely New England institution.
She has hosted the “New Hampshire Authors” series for 10 years and now hosts “Our Hometown” on NHPBS. She also writes the monthly “AYUH” column for New Hampshire Magazine. Her latest book is “That Reminds Me of a Funny Story.” She writes fiction, essays and reviews from her home in Northwood, NH.
Please register in advance using the Zoom button above, and be sure to join the meeting prior to the 7 PM start time on February 22. For additional information, call 603-491-8347.
**The Freedom Historical Society Museum is OPEN**
Welcome to the Freedom Historical Society Allard House and Works Barn Museum, 28 Old Portland Road. The 2023 museum season continues through October 7 with hours every Wednesday from 10 AM to 12 Noon, and Saturday from 10 AM to 1 PM.
Our 2023 feature exhibit is a refreshing update of our popular 2022 exhibit on the Historical Businesses of Freedom Village, offering new perspectives on the entrepreneurs and businesses that made Freedom such a special place over the years. The Allard House has new works of art in our Freedom Painters, 1970 to 2020 Exhibit, as well as a New Acquisitions Exhibit spotlighting recent donations to our collections. Plus, we are introducing informative Guided Tours of Freedom Village every Saturday, starting at 12 Noon, leaving from the Freedom Historical Society. All this, together with the other relics of historic Freedom and our wonderful Archive Resource Room, makes our Museum a great summertime visit!
Freedom Historical Society & Museum 