Newmarket Historical Society & Museum
Stone School Museum. Granite St
Newmarket, NH 03857
Open Thursdays 2-4pm in Season
603-659-7420.

For 30 years we intended to visit , but never quite got there. The New Market Historical Society is open to the public just two slim hours a week -- and our hours in the riverside town never quite coincided. But it was worth the wait.

L. Forbes Getchell himself gave the tour. A former Newmarket dentist, now in his 80s, Getchell was among the society founders in 1966, and also created the 1st Newmarket Colonial Milita that meets here still.

Back then the old stone church and schoolhouse at the top of the steep.t hill in the center of town were for sale. The Stone Church became a restaurant and bar, and for a dollar, the two-sotry 1843 stone school became home to the historic society and museum.

Like most, the Newmarket museum is a "gramma's attic" of artifacts, documents, furniture, tools, whatnots and curios. The center of the room is filled with chairs ringed with glass cases. A printing press hunkers by the door. We poked through old Edison audio cylinders, postcards, maps and portraits. Getchell produced an ancient light bulb and we found a perfectly new "old" child's shoe. You name it, the museum has it -- somewhere. Remnants of the old factory town fill every shelf and drawer.

Upstairs what used to be the school bathroom is now brimful of ancient clothes. Next door is the large classroom named in honor of Getchell, whose wife is curator and author of the Newmarket town history. The second floor is crammed with tools, wagons, old household appliances, an early boat, drums, signs -- even a fearsome hair curling machine from the dawn of electricity. The ceilings are tin, with a leak here and there, and the old blackboards are still on the wall. In one corner, a mannequin teacher presents an endless lesson to two doll children. You could wander through the museum for days, and not see everything. That, in time, is exactly what we hope to do. -- JDR

All photos by J. Dennis Robinson. Copyright (c) SeacoastNH.com
Originally posted 2001