March 2010
Winter Issue
FIFTY YEARS & THREE GENERATIONS IN DOWNTOWN MUNSONVILLE by D. Asa Bennett
about daily life aboard one of these great ships and narrated officers barking commands to sailors setting sails to change course while being violently buffeted by wind and thrashed by white topped waves crashing against the creaking wood hull as they braved the waters off Cape Horn. Jack, in his raspy voice, sang some of the salty old sea shanties learned from men of varying nationalities. Ron Lyon recorded some of this narration and song and, I believe, they are filed in the Library of Congress. The mill ruin at the outlet of Granite Lake was still dominated by the 100 foot brick chimney which stood as a silent monument to the several owners and many workers who had produced a variety
Volume 27, No.1
REMINDERS ! Nelson School District Meeting is on Friday, March 5,7:00 pm Polls - voting is combined with Town Meeting voting on Tuesday.
n the shore of beautiful Granite Lake in downtown Munsonville, Nelson Town declared the radio commercial for Meeting Lakeview Restaurant on the east shore of the lake, around the early 1970’s. Tuesday, March 9, The restaurant and cabins had been in 7:00 pm existence for many years, but new owners Polls open 11:00 noon were raising the standards of the restaurant to 7:00 p.m. and advertising to grow the patronage. Joe and Maxine Dobson managed the Granite Lake Country Store in 1959, and of goods and products for years using Maxine was the post-mistress. The Route 9 Granite Lake waters as its power source. by-pass had been rumored for ten years An iron water wheel still lay on its side and the lake road not plowed all the way below the dam at the lake outlet. Bricked around the lake during winter since there underground waterways, even today, lay were few if any year-round residents on the under the site which probably gravel road. The fed water turbines to drive the Chapel-By-The-Lake had a mill machinery. It was a sort-of cupola but no pointed landmark of Munsonville, as spire with a cross on top. well as, a monument. Square in One of our first visitors, cross section, tapering smaller after we moved into the “Old as it rose to 100 feet tall with Fisher Place” in September of panels and a rim near the top to 1959 was a crusty old gent lend some style. An estimated named Jack Sherrard. He 40,000 red bricks used in its stopped by to warn us about construction in about 1880, corrupt politicians and to tell were probably produced mostly us tha t w hen w inter in one or more brick yards approached all the summer folk within the town of Nelson. left the town to the squirrels Many of these bricks were cast and the natives. with the name “Keene” in a Jack claimed to be the last recess in one face of the brick living sailor to have crewed on and became collectors’ items. a square rigger sailing around Lakeview Lunch, Munsonville, NH, on the east side of Granite Lake. (continued on page 9) the Horn and he probably was. He related first person stories Picture from a postcard from late 1920s or early 1930. Car is a 1927 Buick.
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