Date: July 18, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Location:
Newmarket Town Hall
Main Street
Newmarket, NH
Fee: None. Donations greatly appreciated!
Veteran Jockey Henry Wajda, age 39, died of injuries sustained when he fell from his horse and was kicked in the chest at the start of the second race at Rockingham Park on July 28, 1973.
Henry was honored in 1960 by the New England Turf Writers Association for the life-saving aid he gave to a fellow jockey during a trackside fall. Henry was well known to racing enthusiasts throughout the New England Area, and set a world’s record at Rockingham on September 5, 1958, covering a mile and 60 yards in the time of 1:39.5 aboard the horse “Mark Anthony”. That record held for almost 13 years, broken in 1971.
His niece Cathy Zocchi and friends Karen Otash and Janine Landroche Eliot will tell his story and their attempts to have a memorial marker placed in town in his honor.
Date: August 15, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Location:
Newmarket Town Hall Auditorium
186 Main Street, Newmarket
Fee:
Mr. Fred Day has granted us access to the Frost Family letters, photographs and papers of his great-great grandfather, the late George W. Frost.
Mr. Frost (1824-1879) was the last of the Salem Mill Agents for the Newmarket Manufacturing Company.
He came with his bride Isabella Taylor on his honeymoon to visit his uncle, Mill Agent John Webster in 1849.
The visit ended with an employment proposition. George accepted and the couple moved into the Agent’s House and remained here for 30 years, he was Mill Agent from 1855-1879.
The program touches on Colonel Frost’s contributions to the NMCO., and his military achievements — his skyrocketing rise in rank from Private to Lt. Colonel.
Selections will be presented from the diaries and letters home from another of Newmarket’s Civil War veterans — Alanson Haines in his 1900 recollection of the Colonel in “A trip from Newmarket to New Orleans in 1862” of his deployment in December 1862” . This recollection was recently transcribed by our presenter Greg Crumb.
On display will be the family photographs, letters, diaries, and clippings of the colonel’s family. The program tells the stories of his children and step-sister who grew up in the Agent’s House and attended schools here. For three decades he and his wife were involved in the community, church, political and social affairs of the town and of Rye Beach, NH where they had a summer home at Little Boar’s Head.
The large orginal print of the Newmarket Manufacturing Company millyard was donated to the museum by Fred Day who found the piece among the possessions of his great-great grandfather. It is a composite of three photographs taken prior to 1879 and glued together with the overhead walkway manually attached.
Greg Crumb, serves on the Board of Directors of the New Market Historical Society. Greg has been transcribing some of the Civil War letters currently in our collection.
Date: October 17, 2022
Time: 7 p.m.
Location:
Town Hall Auditorium
Main Street
Fee: None (Donations greatly appreciated!)
(photo: the old Elm Block in 1905, at the corner of Elm Street & Nichols Avenue, a scene of adultrous rage, revenge, and bloody murder)
will range from:New Market Historical Society Board Member Michael Provost will dig deep into his collection of the peccadilloes of former Newmarket residents and share some of their stories. Michael is a longtime Newmarket resident, local historian, and is noted for his walking tour of “Murder, Mischief, Mishaps, and Mayhem: Tales of Old Newmarket”. Special thanks are extended to John Carmichael, who has also caught the “spirit” and continually adds to Michael’s collection as he pursues his own research on local history.
Date: December 3, 2022
Time: 11 a.m until 3 p.m.
Location:
Stone School Museum
3 Granite Street
Newmarket, NH
Fee:
Holiday Open houseThe Stone School Museum will be open to public with a special display of our antique Christmas toys, clothing and “Gifts from Yesteryear”
Join us for the holidays, complimentary refreshments [cookies, hot chocolate and s’mores] and pick up a few stocking stuffers —
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Photo from 2018 Open House, Bottom left George Walker talking to Bucky “Santa” Bailey. Bucky had been Santa, sitting in his sleigh on Grant Years for decades listening to the holiday wishes from countless Newmarket youth.
