New Hampshire Magazine December 2024

Capturing Timeless Fashion at Castle in the Clouds

What’s Inside

YOUR DREAM RETIREMENT

Finding a home at Taylor means more than access to a stunning new cottage or apartment – it means receiving the keys to present and future peace of mind.

Taylor Community is located in the beautiful Lakes Region of New Hampshire with campus locations in both Laconia and Wolfeboro. Whether you prefer an active lifestyle lled with tness classes and an extensive lineup of social and recreational opportunities, or would rather enjoy a ne dining experience with friends after a day spent by the lake... Taylor is the place for you!

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New Hampshire Magazine® is published by Yankee Publishing, Inc., 250 Commercial Street, Suite 4014, Manchester, NH 03101, (603) 624-1442. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any mistakes in advertisements or editorial. Statements/ opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect or represent those of this publication or its officers. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, Yankee Publishing, Inc.: New Hampshire Magazine disclaims all responsibility for omissions and errors. New Hampshire Magazine is published monthly, with the exception of February and April. USPS permit number 022-604. Periodical postage paid at Manchester 031039651. Postmaster send address changes to: New Hampshire Magazine, P.O. Box 37900, Boone, IA 50037-0900

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December 2024

603 Navigator

10 Candlelight Stroll at Strawbery Banke

Behind the scenes of an iconic Portsmouth event

Photo by Crystal Ward Kent

14 A College Town

Without the College

Littleton’s funky vibe keeps it forever young

By John Koziol / Illustration by Peter Noon

18 Soup for You!

Warm up with a cup or bowl from these NH purveyors of brothy comfort food

By Kara McGrath

603 Informer

24 Crushing for Corduroy

Snow cat driver transforms rough terrain into trails fit for skiers and snowboarders

54 Winter Fashion

Amidst the sprawling wilderness surrounding Lake Winnipesaukee

sits Castle in the Clouds, a beautiful historic mansion turned museum, where we were honored to showcase local fashions inspired by the changing seasons.

By Chloe Barcelou, Photography by Jenn Bakos

64 High Aspirations

Dramatic tales from Portsmouth’s iconic North Church.

By J. Dennis Robinson

72 2024 Holiday Gift Guide

Delight family and friends with gifts from local shops and artisans that are perfect for every person on your holiday shopping list.

Compiled by NH Magazine Staff

SPECIAL

34

By Mike Cote

Photography by Joe Klementovich

28 In Their Own Words with Lissa Curtis “Nutcracker” Season

By Emily Heidt and Elisa Gonzales Verdi

30 What Do You Know Redstone Remains

By Marshall Hudson

603 Living

92 Warm up your Winter with Wassail

The heated, spiced holiday beverage celebrates the harvest and blesses the apple orchards

By Emily Reily

96 Calendar

Top holiday events around the state are waiting for you

Compiled by Elisa Gonzales Verdi

100 Connections

Off to the Races

By Lynne Snierson

102 Health

Midlife Career Crisis

By Krysten Godfrey Maddocks

104 Live Free

My Adventures with Grandmere By Brion O’Connor

Illustration by Peter Noonan

FIND WHAT MOVES YOU.

Winter by the Bowl

I swear you could taste the chicken and tomatoes

And the noodles and the marrow bone.

But it really wasn’t nothing but some water and potatoes

And the wonderful, wonderful soup stone.

— Shel Silverstein

SOUP HOLDS A SPECIAL PLACE AT THE TABLE in New Hampshire. Even a simple broth, paired with a crusty roll, brings us comfort from the stark chill of winter and the creeping darkness of December.

“Soup is good food,” Campbell’s used to remind us in TV commercials, hoping we would extend that sentiment to a can of minestrone.

While prepared soups have long been a constant in our cupboards, nothing beats homemade. My mom had two varieties in her repertoire: a carrot soup that featured a clear broth and a vegetable soup with a tomato one. She started them by boiling soup bones the corner grocer used to give away for free.

For my wife, Jeannie, making chicken noodle soup is a two-day project that begins with her picking meat from a whole chicken and boiling the carcass. My brief role is to hold a piece of cheesecloth over a pot while she pours the broth over it to remove the fat and “soot” before adding other ingredients. The hardest part is waiting another day to taste it.

In Shel Silverstein’s “The Wonderful Soup Stone,” a song recorded by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show in 1973, a magical stone transforms a pot of water into a hearty soup that keeps a poor family fed when times get tough.

Soup remains an affordable meal. When you crave homemade and don’t have time to make your own, you can turn to a local soup-maker. On page 18, Kara McGrath spotlights three New Hampshire takeout spots where soup is the star player.

M’m! M’m! Good!

Door to December

This month’s fashion feature, starring model Taylor Heath, epitomizes elegance, from the timeless local designs to the historic Castle in the Clouds setting (page 54).

For this year’s Holiday Gift Guide (page 72), assistant editors Elisa Gonzales Verdi and Emily Reily and Managing Editor Emily Heidi curated a must-have list of perfect presents and partnered with our featured merchants to make every one of those gifts available on New Hampshire Magazine’s online store.

Seacoast author J. Dennis Robinson, whose historical narratives are as entertaining as they are informative, chronicles 250 years of Portsmouth’s North Church (page 64).

Emily Reily celebrates the English tradition of wassail, the spiced holiday beverage associated with door-to-door singing, drinking and merrymaking (page 92).

Emily Heidt and Elisa Gonzales Verdi revisit “The Nutcracker” as performed by the Safe Haven Ballet for an “In Their Own Words” interview with Lissa Curtis, the company’s founder and executive director.

Marshall Hudson spins a historical tale about Redstone, a Conway village once home for a granite quarry business (page 30).

We also take a couple rides for this issue — onboard a snow cat groomer at Loon Mountain Resort with photographer Joe Klementovich (page 24) and with writer Brion O’Connor and his “grandmere” on a Manchester city bus (page 104).

Now our soup’s gone cold. Lucky for us, the pot is still simmering on the stove.

PHOTO BY KAREN BACHELDER

Please Drink Responsibly.

CASAMIGOS Tequila. 40% Alc/Vol.

Imported by Casamigos Spirits Co., LLC White Plains, NY.

Contributors for December 2024

New Hampshire Magazine fashion editor Chloe Barcelou styled this month’s winter fashion feature, “Timeless Elegance,” at the Castle in the Clouds. She is also the co-author of her new book, “Tales of a Not So Tiny House,” about her and her partner Brandon’s lavish custom steampunk caravan in the wilds of New England that became a TikTok sensation.

About | Behind

Assistant editor Emily Reily wrote this month’s Living section about wassail — the spiced holiday beverage that celebrates the harvest.

Crystal Ward Kent is a longtime journalist and Seacoast writer. She wrote this month’s Navigator about Portsmouth’s Candlelight Stroll.

Portsmouth-based photographer Jenn Bakos took the photography at Castle in the Clouds for our winter fashion story, “Timeless Elegance.”

This month’s feature about North Church in Portsmouth was written by Seacoast author J. Dennis Robinson, an expert in NH history.

the scenes at New Hampshire Magazine

John Koziol has been a journalist for three decades, from CT to NH. He wrote this month’s “Our Town” about the college-less college town, Littleton.

Kara McGrath is a Keene-based writer who’s been reporting on many topics for over a decade. She wrote this month’s “Food & Drink” section.

Capturing a Moment

The ski season was days away from ending in early April when photographer Joe Klementovich and I met with Casey Surette to accompany him on his nightly grooming run at Loon Mountain Resort. We were looking forward to December and how this feature (page 24) would help celebrate the return of snow and downhill thrills. During this stop, Surette connects a winch from his snowcat to a secure post on a black diamond trail. — Mike Cote

BY MIKE COTE

PHOTO

You will still find our hilltop hideaway at the end of the winding dirt road. Lighten your spirit as you step out of your world and into ours. Welcome to Pickity Place. Call us for dining reservations. Have a Pickity Day!

Spot FOUR newts like the one here hidden on ads in this issue, tell us where you found them and you might win a great gift from a local artisan or company.

To enter our drawing for Spot the Newt, visit spotthenewt.com and fill out the online form. Or, send answers plus your name and mailing address to: Spot the Newt c/o New Hampshire Magazine 250 Commercial St., Suite 4014 Manchester, NH 03101

You can also email them to newt@nhmagazine.com.

Last month’s “Spot the Newt” winner is Adele Goyette of Hudson. November issue newts were on pages 19, 21, 25 and 27.

Need a Good Reason for Spotting the Newt?

The prize is a gift certificate for $50 to use at the shop or restaurant of our choosing. Each month’s gift card will be different, which adds to the overall Newt fun. Let the hunt begin!

603 Navigator

Candlelight Stroll invites visitors to step into the past and experience 350+ years of seasonal and holiday traditions in the Puddle Dock neighborhood in Portsmouth.

Candlelight Stroll at Strawbery Banke

Behind the scenes of an iconic Portsmouth event

BY CRYSTAL WARD KENT / PHOTOS BY DAVID J. MURRAY

Every December, Strawbery Banke, a living history museum in Portsmouth, is transformed into a magical holiday experience during its popular Candlelight Stroll. The event spans the first three weekends of the month, running evenings Friday through Sunday.

Visitors are transported to the holiday celebrations of various time periods, from the 1700s up through the 1950s. They see the Abbott Corner Store, bravely decorated for Christmas despite the dark clouds of World War II; the Victorian Goodwin mansion glittering with holiday finery in anticipation of festive parties; and in a simple frame house, teens playing Elvis records under the glow of a flocked white tree.

More than 3 miles of lights set the historic village aglow, along with 200 luminaries (which must be refreshed nightly), candles in the windows, Christmas trees (where accurate) and other holiday decorations. Many buildings are bedecked with handmade garlands, wreaths, swags and bouquets, again according to what was done during that time period. Most of the botanicals come from the Banke’s own gardens, with dried flowers and plants achieving a “second bloom” as part of the stroll’s décor.

As soon as one Candlelight Stroll ends, the staff begins making notes for next year’s celebration. A number of key departments come together to plan and organize it, including landscaping, facilities, marketing, events and volunteers. The year-round staff puts in more than 2,500 hours of planning, installation, night-shift work and cleanup. More than 100 volunteers will help bring the event to life.

By October, the work is well under-

way, especially in the floral department. According to Matthew Kochka, manager of landscape horticulture, flowers destined for the stroll will be cut and dried in the fall, while foraging expeditions will be planned for items not grown at the Banke.

Volunteers create the fantastic botanical decorations, from simple swags to the lush arrangements found in the Goodwin home. Christmas was celebrated lavishly at this 1811 mansion, with trees and gorgeous mantel and table arrangements of greenery, flowers, berries and fruit. At the height of the botanical preparations, 30 volunteers may be working three days a week to be ready for the stroll.

According to Alex Cave, museum events manager, the Facilities Department strings all the lights up and down pathways, on certain buildings and builds the bonfire on the green — a favorite place to gather with cocoa or cider. They also maintain the pathways, install signage, make sure everything stays working and assist with the landscape elements.

Also busy is the Cider Shed, where visitors throng to enjoy hot cider and other refreshments. During the stroll, the Banke will go through 575 gallons of cider, provided by DeMerritt Hill Farm in Lee.

Étagère, in Amherst

Not all of the buildings open for the stroll are homes; some of them feature exhibits or demonstrations, including an exhibit on Puddle Dock, which looks at its history, the present-day situation and how the area may fair with climate change and sea-level rise. Last year, the Horticultural Learning Center presented a dried flower exhibit, and another building had a tinsmith selling his wares and demonstrating his craft.

from upper

Enjoy caroling, listening to costumed role players who share stories, customs and seasonal traditions, Ice Dance International’s Currier and Ives vintage Christmas skaters and more at this year’s Candlelight Stroll.

Clockwise,

left:

Making the stroll fascinating, but challenging, is the fact that not all the families of the featured homes would have celebrated Christmas.

“For these homes, there is no décor, and we focus on another aspect of the home’s story,” says Elizabeth Farish, chief curator.

“For example, in the Chase Home, which dates from 1762, our young role players were making pomanders of oranges and cloves in preparation for family visits. The Shapley-Pridham-Drisco house is a duplex; half of the building is presented as it was in 1790, which was a family home and store. The other half is presented as it was in 1950, as a private home.

“The 1790 story has our role players excited about new goods which have arrived and making barley candy, while the 1950 half shows a family immersed in Christmas, complete with bubble lights, white tree and color wheel,” she says. “It’s a wonderful juxtaposition of how things were at different times.”

Role players are an integral part of the Banke experience year-round, as they portray real people from the past. During the stroll, those who help year-round are joined by junior role players and professionals who play composite figures who lived

and worked in Puddle Dock; this creates a layered visitor experience.

In 2023, 10 professionals were brought in to create various casual encounters such as the town crier, Father Christmas, a fish monger and air-raid warden. Some of the museum’s role players, such as those portraying the Shapiro family and life in a turn-of-the-century Jewish home, have portrayed these characters for years and are fully immersed in their parts.

According to Katie Raynes, role-playing coordinator, the role players don’t memorize lines, but are given extensive background information on which to build their character and then prepare for typical visitor questions. Junior role players are young people who have attended the Banke’s twoweek summer camp and learned the art of role-playing. Participating in the Banke’s fall and holiday events is a highlight.

While the homes are beloved, Candlelight Stroll captures the sights and sounds of Christmas in myriad ways, with music and skaters in period dress on the Banke’s rink. Cave brings in as many as 19 musical performers during the stroll, ranging from fife and drum acts to choral groups. Impromptu performances occur in gardens, on street corners and on the green. Families

may skate on the rink when the professional skaters are not performing, and crowds are often three-deep around the rink as the pros gracefully whirl and leap — even in long skirts. The First and Second New Hampshire Regiments also did Revolutionary War encampments at the stroll.

Last year marked the 44th Candlelight Stroll, and the event saw nearly 13,000 in attendance over the nine nights, with visitors coming from 36 of the 50 states. In fact, the Banke added five nights in recent years to accommodate the escalating numbers. Tickets must now be purchased in advance and go on sale in early November. Veronica Lester, marketing director, sees numbers only going up.

“Portsmouth is a Christmas destination, and Candlelight Stroll is an essential part of creating that holiday magic. We partnered with The Music Hall and the City back in 2005 to create Vintage Christmas in Portsmouth and, for many, it’s not the holidays without visiting Portsmouth and Candlelight Stroll.”

For more information about Candlelight Stroll and Strawbery Banke, or to buy tickets, visit strawberybanke.org or call 603-433-1100. NH

Strolling for 45 Years

The Candlelight Stroll invites visitors to step into the past and experience 350+ years of seasonal and holiday traditions in the Puddle Dock neighborhood. Visitors call upon the many families who once lived in the waterfront neighborhood — portrayed by costumed role players — who share stories, customs and seasonal traditions.

Enjoy hot apple cider, a warming bonfire, an old-fashioned holiday shopping experience at Pickwick’s at the Banke, and Ice Dance International’s Currier and Ives Vintage Christmas Skaters for several performances each night of this treasured event. This year’s stroll is being dedicated to the memory of Carol M. Monte. Carol was a beloved, longtime friend of the museum who passed away on March 16, 2024. Carol and her husband, George, whose handcrafted tin lanterns and ornaments have been a staple of the event, spent each holiday season at the Museum for Candlelight Stroll.

Tickets: $8-$32.

Times: 4:30-6:30 p.m. and 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Fridays: Dec. 6, 13 & 20

Saturdays: Dec. 7, 14 & 21

Sundays: Dec. 8, 15 & 22

NEW! Accessible and Sensory-friendly Stroll: Sunday, Dec. 15 from 2-4 p.m.

A College Town Without the College

Littleton’s funky vibe keeps it forever young

STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY

BY JOHN KOZIOL / ILLUSTRATION BY PETER NOONAN

Frank Sinatra never made it to Littleton as far as we know. Had Ol’ Blue Eyes visited this Grafton County community, it would have been his kind of town, perhaps second only to Chicago.

Located on the banks of the Ammonoosuc River, on the northern edge of the White Mountains, Littleton has an eclectic funkiness that combines the arts with the outdoors, a sprinkling of high-tech manufacturing and allure of craft beer.

Although not a college town, Littleton feels like one because of its next-door neighbor, Franconia, which for a brief stretch from 1963-1978 was home to Franconia College.

When the liberal arts college was open, many of its staff and some of its students lived in Littleton. After the small school closed, some of both groups stayed to work or start businesses there.

Franconia College alumni Dan Salomon and his wife, Moocho, have owned and operated Northern Lights Music since 1978.

Dan studied bass and fingerstyle-blues

guitar at Franconia College, while Moocho — a variation of “Marjorie” — studied weaving and art but now plays ragtime guitar, ukulele, piano, flute and bass.

The couple, who are originally from Worcester, Mass., and Orchard Park, New York, respectively, are residents of neighboring Bethlehem, although they consider Littleton their true home.

Both Dan and Moocho have led and played in several bands, with Moocho most recently playing bass for the punk-tinged Not Your Mother.

Northern Lights specializes in guitars and is believed to be the northernmost business of its kind in New Hampshire. In addition to selling guitars, the Salomons also repair them, assisted by sons Ben and Asher.

The couple, on occasion, also provide information to fans of the late GG Allin, a punk rock musician who was born in nearby Lancaster. Dan at one time recorded with Allin, who died in 1993.

Today, Littleton’s music scene is slightly tamer but still vibrant, boasting The

Loading Dock, a nonprofit venue “dedicated to presenting original art from emerging and established artists,” and North Country Community Radio, which broadcasts at 99.9 FM.

Back in the mid-1970s, Littleton, although technically a town, “was the big city to go shopping,” Moocho recalls.

“The paper mill was still running then,” says Moocho, as was the Saranac glove factory. After those businesses ceased operations for the day, Moocho remembers seeing their uniform-clad employees walking past Northern Lights, which has been located at several addresses downtown, before settling into its current location on Main Street in 1982.

She believes some of those people looking into Northern Lights then “didn’t know what to make of the hippies when they came to town.”

Despite its success, which includes international customers, Moocho doubts that Northern Lights would have done as well in a larger community.

“This is a small, family-run business,” she says, and Littleton is the ideal place for it.

Littleton is centrally located, she said, and easy to get to via Interstate 93, which itself is not that far from I-91, and Vermont and Canada.

Dave Harkless, who is a longtime Littleton resident, and the owner of Littleton Bike & Fitness, took a different route to get to Littleton than the Salomons.

“I’m a Johnnie Whaler,” says Harkless, who earned a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales University.

He worked at restaurants on the seacoast of Maine where “we were slamming the lobster” before coming west and cooking in Lincoln and also in Waterford, Vt.

One summer, while looking for a parttime job, he met the then-owner of what is now Littleton Bike & Fitness, and found his true calling.

“I was a rough mechanic,” he says, but quickly learned the trade and to embrace his new hometown.

Harkless has served as an officer with the Littleton Area Chamber of Commerce and the Mount Eustis Ski Hill as well as PRKR MTN, a 25-mile network of mountain bike, hiking, skiing and running trails founded by Littleton native Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the state Department of Business and Economic Affairs.

Protecting Main Street

Harkless credits the Littleton Industrial Development Corp. for bringing new business-

es to town, and town leaders for protecting small businesses on Main Street by directing “big box” retailers to set up on Meadow Street, several miles away.

Littleton was a town built on sewing shoes, said Greg Eastman, a Littleton native. The owner of the Hunkins & Eaton Insurance Agency, Eastman said Littleton is growing all over, including in the Apthorp section, which includes Lahout’s Country Clothing, Ski & Snowboard Shop and the expanded Littleton campus of White Mountain Community College.

“Growing up, I thought this (Littleton) was a wonderful place, and it still is,” Eastman says.

The industrial park has grown, he said, and its tenants include two-Canada-based companies. Rotobec is a heavy-equipment attachment manufacturer while Genfoot America makes Kamik Outdoor Footwear and specializes in injection molding and sewing assembly.

Thanks to the town’s economic vitality, Littleton Regional Healthcare has expanded, Eastman said, adding that, “for a town of 6,000, it’s quite a facility. Our population is 6,000, but it can run up to 15,000 to 20,000 people a day” between workers and visitors.

Eastman attributes the rise of Littleton’s economy to skilled, local labor, of which there is a still a shortage, he said, but also to the fact that the town has its own water and power department whose rates are well below neighboring communities.

Littleton has a dynamic theater scene,

he said, and is home to several breweries, foremost among them Schilling Beer, which was founded by four men from Traverse City, Mich. The quartet, after some extensive market research, concluded that the northern bank of the Ammonoosuc was an ideal place to set up shop because of its proximity to four population centers: Boston, Burlington, Portland and Montreal.

Littleton’s secret sauce, however, is its volunteers, among them the late Dave Ernsberger, says Eastman.

A former IBM executive who came to Littleton to be closer to his family, Ernsberger opened a gift store on Main Street and was a force behind linking Main Street to what is now the River District.

Ernsberger, who died July 2, and his wife, Nancy, who predeceased him by two months, were world travelers who brought home much of the best they saw to Littleton, including pianos that are rolled out, weather permitting, onto Main Street for anyone to play.

Ernsberger was also the inspiration for Harmony Park, which, according to the town’s website, is an all-weather instrument park that allows “individuals of all ages, skills and abilities the chance to make sounds, tones and songs at five different musical stations embedded in the ground.”

John Hennessey, a Littleton native and a 1994 graduate of Littleton High School, is the president and CEO of the Littleton Coin Co.

The town has always had a “culture of volunteerism,” says Hennessey, past president of the Littleton River District Redevelopment Commission.

That group was followed by the creation of the River District Redevelopment Commission.

Dave Harkless, owner of Littleton Bike & Fitness and volunteer extraordinaire, at his business.

Standing next to a statute of the Pollyanna character, created by local author Eleanor Hodgman Porter, Veronica Francis holds a sign that promotes the theme of gladness that Pollyanna exemplified.

“I remember Main Street’s less-successful days,” Hennessey says, but gradually “there were a lot of people to do heavy lifting,” among them the town’s elected leaders.

Veronica Francis, who has promoted Littleton via GoLittleton.com for more than 20 years and runs the GoLittleton Glad Shop on Main Street, says Littleton is a “walkable community” that offers many amenities in a small area.

Littleton’s Main Street, she wrote in an email, “has won a Great American Main Street Award, been named one of the top 10 Main Streets in America and is a favorite spot to stroll. In the last few years, Main Street storefronts are full to capacity with unique shops, restaurants and a new old-fashioned ice cream shop — The Sweet Shop.”

Main Street is already home to Chang Thai Café, whose chef and owner, Emshika Alberini, recently opened a seafood-themed restaurant, The Catch, about a mile south.

Francis said three other restaurants are slated to open this fall, among them, one that serves Indian cuisine. Two others

The Salomon family poses for a photo at Northern Lights Music, their 46-year-old business in downtown Littleton. In front is Moocho (aka Marjorie), while in the back are husband Dan and the couple’s sons, Asher and Ben.

The entrance to Littleton’s River District from Main Street, with Northern Lights Music on the corner and the Schilling Beer Store and Tasting Room in the background.

Championing the Arts in Littleton

Littleton made national news in 2023 when the board of selectmen entertained but never formally acted on an ordinance that would have regulated art in municipally owned places.

The community responded.

Duane Coute, general manager of Littleton Chevrolet, helped draft a letter that was signed by more than 1,000 people — including several other prominent North Country businesses — that criticized the board’s handling of discussions about public art by and about LGBTQ+ people.

The New Hampshire Business Committee for the Arts recognized Coute in May with its Changemaker Business Leader award.

Coute says credit for the award should be shared with the town.

“This is not for me. This is a group of people, concerned citizens and the community, getting together that helped to change the narrative,” Coute told NH Business Review in May on the “Down to Business” podcast.

— Mike Cote

specialize in cocktails and tapas.

A “can do” town, Littleton is also New Hampshire’s “Be Glad” Town, in an homage to hometown author Eleanor H. Porter (1868-1920), who in 1913 created the character of Pollyanna. Francis calls Pollyanna “the world’s most optimistic character.”

A bronze statue of Pollyanna is on the lawn of the Littleton Public Library. On the second Saturday of every June, the town, and all of New Hampshire, celebrates Pollyanna Glad Day.

The Pollyanna book is “required reading” in Brazil, Turkey and Australia, says Francis, who downplayed criticism of people for being “too pollyannish.”

Anyone so labeled, she said, can get a special sticker at the GoLittleton Glad Shop that says, “‘Proud to be a Pollyanna,’ and we encourage them to cherish their optimistic outlook.”

“The Pollyanna spirit isn’t for everyone, and some still sneer at the idea of ‘being glad,’” Francis sums up, “but the amount of visitors coming to Littleton to just connect with the Pollyanna story is proof that the hundred-year-old story is still a powerful message.” NH

Colorful umbrellas form a canopy over the Pollyanna Gateway.

Soup for You!

Warm up with a cup or bowl from these NH purveyors of brothy comfort food

BY KARA MCGRATH

Nearly all of winter’s downsides — the cold, the darkness, the jam-packed holiday schedules — can be remedied by the season’s culinary staple: a relatively loweffort, great-as-leftovers vat of soup. Sure, you could spend hours simmering down your own — but better yet, let one of these three New Hampshire soup shops handle the stewing for you.

Seacoast Soups • North Hampton • seacoastsoups.com

Around 16 years ago, Dina Williams emailed 30 of her closest friends and family, asking if they’d be interested in getting soup delivered to their homes.

“I would send out an email on Friday, they could order by Sunday, and then I would deliver by Tuesday,” Williams says. It was a hit, and word spread quickly. “I

got to have about 500 people on the email list, and I realized I couldn’t do it out of my kitchen anymore,” she says.

Williams opened Seacoast Soups’ first brick-and-mortar location 11 years ago; back then, it was a one-woman show. Now the company has about 30 employees and more than 50 soups on rotation. The Spicy

Thai — a gingery, coconutty, curry broth with mung bean noodles — has been on the menu since day one and is still a bestseller.

“It’s spicy, but not too spicy,” Williams says. “We’re not trying to hurt anybody, but it definitely has a kick.”

Williams doesn’t have any formal cooking training and, as a native Californian, wasn’t really a soup person before she moved to New England. Williams says her cooking style — “throw a lot of things in one pot and see what happens” — is inspired by her Lebanese roots, specifically her grandmother.

“Every time I would visit her, I couldn’t wait for the food,” Williams recalls. “She never had a recipe.” Soups are particularly amenable to that type of improvisation.

Grandma’s lentil and lima bean soups on the shop’s menu were inspired by recipes Williams’ grandmother made. “(The lima bean soup) was my favorite dish that she made,” she says. “I was a young child begging for lima beans.”

Although you’ll find familiar flavors like chicken noodle and split pea on the menu, Williams says she tries to serve varieties you can’t get just anywhere.

“We have brought some flavors and acidity and spice that you wouldn’t typically get in New England,” Williams says. “There’s definitely an audience for it.”

She calls out the mulligatawny soup — red lentils, spinach, sweet potatoes, coconut milk and garam masala — as one that was unexpectedly popular. In December, they serve a beef stew Fridays, and it always sells out. Before committing, customers can sample as many soups as they’d like.

In addition to the four hot soups on the menu every day, customers can snag soups from the freezer along with take-home meals (think mac and cheese, shepherd’s pie, penne alla vodka), salads, wraps and baked goods. The shop also serves a variety of rolls, breads and crackers as sides, though Williams says the favorite is their honey-soaked cornbread.

Seacoast Soups is the only business in this story that’s open year-round and, Williams says, is a true family environment. In addition to the people that she’s related to — her husband, sister-in-law and husband’s uncle — there are two father-daughter teams and multiple sets of siblings on staff. “I think that transfers to the food,” she says. “We cook what we like, and we’re not afraid to serve whatever. We hope that people will find what’s good and trust us.”

The spicy thai, a gingery, coconutty, curry broth with mung bean noodles, is a bestseller at Seacoast Soups.

PHOTO COURTESY SEACOAST SOUPS

The Soupery • Portsmouth & Durham • juicery.com/soupery

A decade ago, Alex Vandermark was on a mission to fill the beloved 100-foot space where he’d opened the first location of his now-chain of smoothie and juice shops, The Juicery. “We had moved (The Juicery) next door, but I had so much love for this funky little space where I would hit my head on the ceiling,” Vandermark recalls. “I said, ‘I can’t let this go. I’ve got to figure something out.’” And so, The Soupery was born.

“I’ve always had an obsession with healthy food,” he says, but otherwise, Vandermark doesn’t have any formal background in food. He also wasn’t really a soup guy, but felt that it was the category that made the most sense for the small space he was working with.

When The Soupery first opened, they rotated 30 soups, stayed open year-round, and used to let people inside the space.

“I realized quickly that people don’t really

like soup in the summer,” Vandermark says. So they turned it into a seasonal takeout counter and honed in on the bestsellers. Now, they have about a dozen in rotation, with six available on any given day (you can see the day’s options on their Facebook page) all sourced from Hurricane’s Premium Soups & Chowders in Greene, Maine.

“They use local ingredients and no preservatives,” Vandermark says. “A lot of people are just obsessed with the soup.”

He says the ultimate fan-favorite is the Cajun sweet potato and chicken.

“That stuff flies off the shelf,” as does their popular two-alarm chili. There are plenty of vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free options as well. “People love the Hungarian mushroom if you’re going for vegetarian options (as well as the) Maine broccoli cheddar and creamy butternut squash,” he notes.

Vandermark bought the original Juicery off Craigslist in 2008 when, after college, “I couldn’t get a job in marketing,” he explains, when asked what inspired him to make the purchase. “I just got really lucky. Bootstrapped the thing, put a lot of stuff on credit cards.” Vandermark’s entrepreneurial instincts clearly paid off: He’s since expanded to 13 Juicery and two Soupery locations.

The Soupery is a seasonal business. They open in the fall and close around May, with one exception: At the Durham location, which is inside a Juicery and close to the University of New Hampshire, you can get one classic combo year-round.

“We continue selling grilled cheese up there, so we sell tomato soup through the summer,” Vandermark says. “We want (the students) to have their tomato soup and grilled cheese.”

The Soupery features a menu of various soup selections that rotates daily.

Collins Brothers Chowder • Nashua • collinsbrotherschowder.com

Thirty-five years ago, the Collins brothers opened a wholesale chowder business, distributing to local restaurants and stores. In 2005, they sold the shop to Bob Hughes and Dan Largy, who turned it into a grab-and-go spot for anyone craving soup.

As of 2020, the place is run by sisters-inlaw Tina Burke and Kimberly Poisson (Poisson’s maiden name, coincidentally, is Collins, but she has no relation to the original owners). Despite the ownership turnover, the seasonal takeout spot is still connected to its roots, serving up a variety of chowders while expanding its lunch options.

Though neither Burke nor Poisson has prior cooking experience, Hughes stayed on as a chef, working a few days a week to make old favorites and new special recipes alike. On a daily basis, there are 10 soups on the menu, including a rotating menu of specials. Burke says Hughes is particularly talented at creating soup versions of beloved

comfort foods: For instance, at the time of this interview, a beef taco supreme soup and chicken parmesan with cheese ravioli soup were about to hit the specials menu.

Open from September to May, Collins Brothers is strictly takeout; there’s no dining space and they’re cash only.

“A lot of people call it a little hole in the wall or a hidden gem,” Burke says. “It’s just a tiny little place in the downtown area of Nashua. People are in and out within 30 seconds.”

The most popular soups are, naturally, New England clam chowder and corn and bacon chowder; Burke says the chicken, vegetable and rice is also quite popular. On Fridays, they serve a Nantucket seafood chowder with clam, shrimp and haddock.

“Fridays tend to be our busiest days,” Burke says.

There’s no shortage of places to get clam chowder in New Hampshire, but Burke says

theirs frequently gathers accolades.

“(Our chowder) is thick and creamy. It’s loaded with clams,” she says. “We are considered gourmet ... We have been voted as a No. 1 chowder in the greater Nashua area.”

In addition to award-winning chowders, Burke and Poisson have expanded on the heat and serve meals the previous owners offered, adding a variety of mac and cheese options, lobster rolls, chili dogs, sausages with peppers and onions and different Italian pasta dishes. Crackers are included with the soups, but there are bread options for sale as well: crusty baguettes, cheesy garlic bread, honeymaple cornbread.

“We have people that we see every day that are just dedicated,” Burke says. “People will come in May when we close, and just stock up and freeze a bunch so they have soup throughout the summer.” NH

Collins’ beef stew is offered a few times a year at Collins Brothers Chowder in Nashua.

PHOTO COURTESY COLLINS BROTHERS CHOWDER

1 1-pound bag of brown lentils

2 tablespoons allspice

1 tablespoon cinnamon

21/2 quarts water

1/3 cup white rice

1 diced yellow onion

4 cloves minced garlic

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 lemon, juiced and zested

4 tablespoons salt, divided

1/2 10-ounce box frozen spinach

Over high heat, in a large pot, combine water, lentils, allspice, cinnamon and rice, and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45-60 minutes until lentils are tender, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, in a medium-size pot, heat olive oil over medium heat for 1 minute, then add onions with 2 tablespoons of salt, and sauté them for 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pan. (Onions should be caramelized and deep golden brown when finished.)

Stir in garlic and cook for 2 minutes.

Turn off heat and deglaze with vinegar, scraping up the bottom of the pan.

When lentils are done, add in remaining 2 tablespoons salt, lemon juice and zest, frozen spinach and caramelized onions.

GRANDMA’S LENTIL (courtesy of Dina Williams from Seacoast Soups)

PHOTOS BY ELLE TORRES

Espresso Martini

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with espresso beans.

603 Informer

A field of chunky snow unfit for skis or snowboards has been flattened and groomed, ready for first-chair riders.

Crushing for Corduroy

Snow cat driver transforms rough terrain into trails fit for skiers and snowboarders

BY MIKE COTE / PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOE KLEMENTOVICH

On a Friday afternoon in early April, photographer Joe Klementovich and I stand at the base of South Peak at Loon Mountain Resort in Lincoln, waiting for our snow chariot to arrive. After about an hour standing in the cold drizzle, I wonder how much longer we should wait before calling it a no-show.

My faith in Casey Surette is restored moments later when a mighty metal beast appears from around the bend with Surette at the controls, leaving a trail of belt tracks in the wet snow.

During the day, Surette shreds the blacks and blues at Loon on his snowboard. At night, after the lifts have ceased operating and his riding buddies are kicking back beers in the Bunyan Room, he joins the grooming crew to prepare the trails for the morning’s first chair, when early arrivals are rewarded with downhill runs on fresh corduroy.

“It’s a job I wanted to do since I was a kid,” says Surette, 44, a Thornton native who has worked for Loon for 12 years and lives in Lincoln. “Being able to snowboard during the day and work at night has always been a childhood goal.”

Surette’s rig, the Prinoth Bison X Wincher, weighs more than 20,000 pounds. With its front blade and tiller attachments, it stretches about 30 feet long and stands about 10 feet high. The Italian company that manufactures the groomer at plants in Italy, Canada and Germany prices the snowcat and tiller combo at $550,000 — second only to the ski lifts as the priciest ride on the mountain.

This year marks Surette’s eighth on the grooming team. During the off-season, he works in excavation and landscaping, counting down the time before he can return to

Loon, where in a good year — “good” being lots of snow — he’ll rack up more than 100 days on the mountain.

At the peak of the season in January or February, hitching a ride with Surette at 5 p.m. would mean traveling in certain darkness. This late in the season, we have enough time for Klementovich to shoot some daylight images before the temperature drops and the drizzle turns into snow.

The Bison is equipped with two passenger seats on either side of the operator controls — just enough room for our mission. The only sacrifice would be on Surette’s part: Since part of his role tonight would be narrating the ride, he would have to mute his usual soundtrack on the groomer’s premium sound system.

It’s easy to see why Surette might want to blast some tunes in the cabin while tackling these mountain trails, if only to drown out the rumble and hum. The drive feels like a carnival ride, especially when the rig is riding straight up and down black diamond runs, crushing chunky snow boulders in its path and flattening them into a surface pliable enough for skis and snowboards.

All the while, Surette is handling “joystick-in-joystick” and touchscreen controls that “allows simultaneous blade movement, making it easier for operators to push large piles of snow and cut razor-sharp edges,” according to its manufacturer.

The warmth of late winter can transform those steep black diamond runs into sheets of ice as the temperature drops below freezing at night.

“When it’s icy, it takes a couple of nights of us cultivating the snow, breaking it up. It depends on how icy it is,” Surette says as we make our way up the mountain.

To keep from sliding down, Surette

The rig’s front tiller chops up snow while the rear attachment leaves fresh tracks of

Surette inspects his rig during a stop.

accompanies Surette on his rounds at Loon.

PHOTO

Clockwise from top left: Casey Surette pulls a steel cable from the snowcat to secure it to a post on a black diamond trail.

corduroy.

Mike Cote, left,

tethers his rig to a stationary post anchored by the side of the trails, first on Jobber and later on Lower Twitcher, both black diamond runs. The Prinoth is equipped with an automatic winch that includes a giant spool of cable long enough to stretch all the way to the base of the mountain.

Surette doesn’t need that much length, but the distance he covers downhill before he turns the rig around to make his way back up underscores the level of care required to prepare Loon’s system of 73 trails across three peaks before each day begins.

This late in the season, when the early evening temperature is hovering around 35 degrees, ice has not been an issue.

“Springtime snow is just like driving around in mashed potatoes. There’s no real traction,” Surette says.

While he is plenty familiar with those trails, they can be disorienting at night, even with the assistance of plenty of lighting installed on the vehicle. One foggy night, he felt like he was upside down.

“Sometimes you can’t even tell where you are,” he says. “You have to take the spotlight and hunt for the sides of the trail. I think I’ve gotten lost in the middle of Grand Junction.”

But he always finds his way back down. These days, he’s working the 4-to-midnight shift. Plenty of time to get some sleep afterward and be back on the slopes for first chair. NH

‘Nutcracker’ Season

Lissa Curtis shares the healing power of dance with Safe Haven Ballet

BY ELISA GONZALES VERDI & EMILY HEIDT / COURTESY PHOTOS

For audience members, “The Nutcracker” ballet is a time-honored Christmastime tradition. For around two hours, they are transported into a magical world of beautiful, sparkling costumes and intricate choreography.

You can’t help but be swept up in the magic of the ballet, and spend the rest of your night with images of sugarplum (fairies) dancing in your head. What audiences don’t know, is that behind the glitz and glam of a full-scale production of “The Nutcracker” lies months of preparation.

“Nutcracker season,” as it’s called in the dance world, begins in August, when auditions are held and roles are cast. From there, it’s a mad dash to opening night. Each dancer learns the roles they were cast in, and

the choreography for other roles. Costumes are fit and tailored for each dancer, and new ones are designed and bedazzled by hand. Set pieces are refurbished, props are made, venues are booked, programs are made, merchandise is created and more.

Lissa Curtis, the director and founder of Safe Haven Ballet, is no stranger to the whirlwind of the season. Safe Haven Ballet, the first-of-its-kind, trauma-informed professional dance company, is embarking on an eight-city tour across New England with two full-length ballets.

Bringing the magic of the season to a city near you is no small feat, and Curtis gives us a glimpse behind the curtain into Safe Haven Ballet, and what makes the magic possible.

New Hampshire Magazine: Tell us a little about the history of Safe Haven Ballet. What has changed since we talked last in 2018?

Lissa Curtis: Safe Haven Ballet literally began because of a dream I had and a huge life-altering trauma that I endured at the hands of a previous ballet director 10 years ago. Very soon after, barely making it home from escaping from my perpetrator overseas, I had a dream with “Safe Haven Ballet” written on a brick building. I heard “You’re not done dancing,” and “I have things for you to build.”

It felt like God was speaking directly to me, but I laughed it off knowing how incredibly incapacitated and traumatized I was. I fought in and out of court for nine years for justice; now I’m the one laughing, because my dream became a reality in 2019 when I began free trauma-sensitive classes (ballet, art, paint, Pilates) in 2019 for survivors of sexual and domestic violence in Dover.

At that time, I was still in and out of court against my abuser, and beginning these classes was a way for me to give back and also find continued healing through leading the classes.

Fast-forward five years since we began Safe Haven Ballet, and we have expanded into a trauma-informed professional touring ballet company with 11 dancers, a professional ballet school for ages 3 and older, and we continue to run our weekly free trauma-sensitive classes that we began with years back.

We have created something that rarely exists in professional ballet: a healthy and safe environment where artists, students and survivors can thrive.

NHM: We know that you are in the process of ramping up for “The Nutcracker.” What goes into the staging of a production like this?

LC: I feel like I wear many hats when it comes to launching our Christmas Tour, which actually is two full-length productions: “The Nutcracker” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” This year, we have

Professional ballerina Lissa Curtis teaches dancers choreography during auditions for Safe Haven Ballet's production of "Romeo and Juliet" last spring.

an eight-city tour with 10 performances across New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I start about 12 to 18 months prior to touring with booking venues, theater tours and numerous production details. I’m very blessed to have amazing volunteers and staff around me who uphold our mission, and are pushing for growth and change in the ballet world.

NHM: How do you approach the set and costume design, and what is the creative process like behind these elements?

LC: Music is typically my No. 1 inspiration for everything, and second is the talented dancers that I get to work with. We try to keep our set designs on the minimal side, because we have to transport everything in a large U-Haul. We own a digital projector that goes on tour with us, and that has been one of our greatest investments to date.

With costume design, we typically have a trifecta of hiring in a designer(s), renting and purchasing. When Safe Haven Ballet began in 2019, three-quarters of the costumes were donated to us for “Nutcracker.” Each year since, we’ve budgeted to update certain sections of the holiday tour — this year the Dew Drop, Chinese and Soldier Doll costumes, to name a few, are being hand-designed and created.

NHM: What happens behind the scenes that people may not realize? Any unique or unexpected moments from past productions that stand out?

LC: Well, right now I am a wife and mom of four, in addition to still training and performing myself, and running Safe Haven Ballet. My husband and I have two children of our own and two foster children. So, I think honestly a snapshot behind the scenes is pretty hilarious, because in between mothering these precious kids I am choreographing, answering messages/ phone calls, running to meetings, making dinner and planning rehearsal prep simultaneously. Family is first, work second, and I hope to inspire my dancers that they can have a family and be a touring artist also. It’s possible.

And in terms of unexpected moments — I tell my dancers all the time to plan for the unexpected. It’s live theater, and all it takes is an illness, injury or emergency to change casting sometimes right before the curtain goes up.

NHM: What role do collaboration and teamwork play in bringing “The Nutcracker” to life, especially among the dancers, choreographers and production team?

LC: Teamwork and collaboration is huge at Safe Haven Ballet. Just looking back at the six seasons we have created ... it has taken so many people, groups, volunteers, dancers, guest artists and choreographers to make it possible. I am continually humbled by the doors we have seen open for us. I think the community truly loves how we support survivors, and we have been so blessed with many wonderful opportunities. My board of

directors is also incredible and they uphold me so much and keep me on track.

NHM: What is your favorite part about this production?

LC: For “The Nutcracker,” my favorite part this season in particular is that I have choreographed a new snow scene featuring twice as many dancers on stage — it’s now twice the magic! For “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” my favorite part is watching my ballet partner, and Safe Haven Ballet staff member, Joseph LaChance, play the Grinch. You will have to see for yourself, but he is insanely talented, hilarious and right up there with Jim Carrey.

NHM: What are you most excited for this season?

LC: This season I am thrilled to be bringing our holiday magic to three new cities, but for spring of 2025 I am creating a brandnew, original production of “Aladdin” which will feature our company dancers, students from Safe Haven Ballet and dancers from anywhere else that want to audition.

NHM: Are there any plans in the works that you can tell us about? Any future plans or initiatives that you have in store that you’re particularly excited about?

LC: Yes, we are opening up free tuition to our ballet school for any children in the foster care system. If you know of anyone, please have them reach out through our website. Movement heals. NH

Avalon Proctor and Nikko Limoli dance as "Clara" and "The Nutcracker." Visit safehavenballet.org for a full list of upcoming performances this season.

Redstone Remains

The Conway village was built as a company town for a granite quarry business

STORY & PHOTOS BY MARSHALL HUDSON

The rattlesnakes are now long gone, but their legacy remains. I’m exploring the woods on the southwest side of Rattlesnake Mountain in Redstone, NH. Rattlesnakes were once hunted here and sold for their venom, which was valued for medicinal properties.

This practice stopped about 1870, when a forest fire raged over the mountain, killing off the snake population, but leaving the dangerous-sounding name behind. Tragic for the snakes but good news for me, as I’m looking for the abandoned Redstone quarry, and not desiring to run into any rattlers.

Redstone is now a village within the town of Conway, but its origins are of a company town built by the Maine and New Hampshire Granite Company, which operated a quarry on the side of this mountain. During its boom years, Redstone had a boarding house, schoolhouse, church, poolroom, dance hall, company store, railroad station and some 20 houses for the employees.

The village had its own post office and boasted a population of about 300 people. Most residents were employed at the quarry or in an occupation that directly supported the quarry laborers or their families.

The quarry operated from the late 1800s

to about 1948 and produced granite desired for its unique red-brown color, which resulted in both the quarry and village being named Redstone. An adjacent part of the quarry produced a stone with a green tint, meaning clients could also get green stone from Redstone.

Besides the two sought-after colors, the stone was uniform in composition, split easily and was soft enough for carving and etching, but hard enough to be durable and long-lasting. A railroad spur line ran into the quarry making it possible to transport Redstone granite anywhere reachable by railroad. In the late 1800s, Redstone flourished as granite was in great demand for block buildings, foundations, paving stones, memorials, carved statues, bridge abutments and railroad culverts.

As I rounded a corner in the trail, I came upon the first clue that I was getting close to the old quarry site. On the side of the trail, there was a large round granite column about 20 feet long and big enough in circumference that two people holding hands would have to stretch to reach around it.

Someone had polished the column as smooth as glass, and it looked like it should be holding up the dome of some capital building instead of laying discarded alone in the woods. Looking at the craftsmanship and guessing the size and weight of this

column, I wondered about the process it must have gone through to become “rounded” out of a cubic block chunked from the earth.

The encroaching forest had overgrown everything left behind when the quarry ceased operating, but I was easily able to find remnants. Giant wooden derrick masts still reach to the sky, supported by thick cable guy wires running like a spider web in every direction. A few deteriorating buildings still stand, vandalized and rotted beyond salvation.

Air compressors the size of automobiles remain, rusting away. The coal-fired steam boiler that once powered these compressors is now falling apart, but the compressors look like they could again provide the air needed to power jackhammers and stone drills. Tramway tracks still lead up the mountain to where they once ferried heavy granite blocks out of the pit and rolled them down into the stone-cutting sheds.

The answer to my question about converting a rectangular granite block into a circular column is revealed as I move through the ghost town. The answer is giant lathes, portions of which remain. The magnitude, horsepower and durability required of a lathe capable of rotating large chunks of granite at high speeds while chisels grind away at it is mind-boggling. The torque

This lathe that dwarfs Marshall Hudson was capable of rotating large chunks of granite at high speeds.

This granite column is among the remains of the Redstone quarry, which ceased operations in 1948.

required to rotate tons of granite must have been enormous.

Whereas sawdust shavings spun off a woodworking lathe are generally harmless, the stone dust, chips and chunks of rock flying off this spinning granite would sandblast anyone nearby, and the noise must have been ear-piercing. Lifting tons of raw granite onto the lathe must have placed immense strain on the cables and wooden derricks. Lifting the finished column off the lathe must have been stressful, as a drop, break or crack in the column would mean starting all over.

Granite from this quarry was used in constructing many early railroad stations. Some, including the Laconia Passenger Station, remain standing today. Redstone granite was also used in buildings in Concord, Portland, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and as far away as Denver and Havana, Cuba. Grant’s Tomb in New York and the National Archives building in Washington, D. C., are among the many buildings containing granite quarried here.

Redstone felt the economic downturn of the Great Depression, but government contracts allowed production to continue, although on a reduced scale. World War II further interrupted the demand for granite. After the war, concrete began to replace granite as the preferred building material due to its lower cost and greater flexibility. By the early 1940s, much of the best quality rock at Redstone had played out and the outdated facility was no longer competitive.

Records indicate 1948 was the last year granite was quarried from Redstone, and it was used to build a criminal court building in New York City. After completing the project, the quarry and entire Redstone village were sold. Residents living in com-

pany houses were given the first option to purchase their homes. Most of the valuable machinery was sold. The remaining equipment, rails, cables and outdated machinery that didn’t sell or that was too cumbersome to move for scrap was left where it lay.

The Nature Conservancy and state of New Hampshire now own the property, and it is managed by the Conway Conservation

Commission. Hiking trails leading into the quarry have been developed that include some interpretive signs featuring old photos of the once-thriving quarry.

If you decide to hike up there and explore the site, keep an eye out for these interesting and informative signs. Probably wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for rattlesnakes, either. NH

John Nelson stands on the smaller of the two lathes used to spin granite at the Redstone quarry.

This derrick was used to extract granite at Redstone.

The Laconia railroad station and the Concord Law Library were constructed with Redstone granite.

of FACES NEW HAMPSHIRE 2024

New Hampshire’s entrepreneurs and leading professionals bring experience, expertise and heart to their jobs and run organizations with a personal touch.

Meet these standout individuals who represent their companies and their fields, making New Hampshire a great place to live and do business face to face.

noted.

Photography is by Kendal J. Bush unless otherwise

The FACE of CONCIERGE MEDICAL AESTHETICS

About Face Medical Aesthetics has established itself as New Hampshire’s premier luxury medical aesthetic practice since 2011. Under the leadership of Ericka McCarron, RN and owner, the practice has gained recognition as a trusted leader in the field of medical aesthetics. The providers at About Face take a proactive approach to aging, integrating treatments that focus on longevity and optimizing overall health with the latest non-invasive techniques and advanced aesthetic technologies. Their comprehensive range of safe and innovative services include anti-aging skin renewal, facial rejuvenation, collagen stimulating treatments, at-home medical grade skin care, hormone replacement therapy, medical weight loss, body contouring, fat reduction, and hair restoration. The dedicated and highly trained clinicians and staff at About Face take pride in their patient-centered philosophy of maintaining long-lasting patient and provider relationships. The cornerstone values of About Face include the ability to consistently deliver its patients an elevated aesthetic experience while providing treatment in a discreet, safe clinical environment. Ericka is a co-founding member of AMPNH, the Aesthetic Medical Providers of NH, a nonprofit organization comprised of multidisciplinary providers. She and AMPNH members are dedicated to supporting fellow providers, educating the public and assisting lawmakers to shape the highest standard of care within the industry, ensuring patient safety throughout New Hampshire.

Left to right: Jennifer Leblanc LNA, Ericka McCarron RN, Delaney Grant RN

Not pictured: Christine Michelson APRN & Medical Director.

The FACES of FAMILY TRADITION

CHANG THAI CAFE

Littleton restauranteur and entrepreneur Emshika Alberini continues to celebrate family stories, values and warmth passed down through generations. “Our family’s culinary journey is steeped in a legacy of traditions that continue to inspire our dishes at Chang Thai Cafe, enriched by the loving memory of my late sister, Ann,” Emshika says. “I have the privilege of capturing beautiful moments with my mom, who once cooked dinner for Thai Queen Sirikit during my dad’s 45 years of service to the Thai King.” After immigrating to the U.S., she earned a master’s degree in organizational management and worked in the corporate world. Though her grandmother, mother and sister worked in restaurants, Emshika never thought she would be a chef. But, the passing of her sister propelled her to open Chang Thai Café in 2008, where she works with her mother. Since then, she has accumulated many accolades. Emshika was featured at the Taste of New England and on the Food Network, and she was recognized as a top business leader by multiple outlets, including the New Hampshire 200 and Cherry Bombe. New to her portfolio is her seafood restaurant, The Catch, managed by executive chef Sam Nutting. “If it takes you back to a time in your memory or brings you closer to your loved ones, your food has fulfilled its mission,” Emshika says. “I love what I do and how it honors my sister’s spirit. She gifted me wonderful opportunities I could never have planned for.”

Left to right: Phisanee Ketsatin and Emshika Alberini

The FACES of REGISTERED APPRENTICESHIP

COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM OF NH

Since 2017, ApprenticeshipNH has been instrumental in enhancing workforce training in New Hampshire. As a workforce training program of the Community College System of NH (CCSNH), we promote high-quality Registered Apprenticeship and Pre-apprenticeship programs in leading industries throughout the state.

Funded by U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration grants, we provide technical assistance to employers to establish programs and connect NH residents with opportunities to advance their careers. With a full team within each of CCSNH’s seven colleges, ApprenticeshipNH is prepared to support the unique workforce needs and career seekers of each region.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

The FACE of PEDIATRIC WELLNESS

KEITH LOUD, MD

DARTMOUTH HEALTH CHILDREN’S

Keith Loud, MD isn’t one bit quiet about his commitment to improving the lives of children. As chair of pediatrics and physician-in-chief at Dartmouth Health Children’s, he’s very vocal about efforts to contribute to the health and well-being of young people. “I get to help teams of passionate pediatric health professionals achieve their goals, all aimed at our shared goal of helping all children live their happiest and healthiest lives,” says Dr. Loud. This type of enthusiasm for the future has led Dr. Loud to develop a more systematic regional approach that expands reach and accessibility to our most precious resource: children. With the widest breadth of pediatric services in the region, including CHaD, New Hampshire’s only full-service children’s hospital, Dartmouth Health Children’s offers comprehensive, integrated and inclusive care across its many locations. Leading a pediatric system of care in a dispersed rural region is a mission requiring creativity and innovative approaches to patient care, and Dr. Loud makes the overall objective loud and clear: “Whether we are treating inpatient children with heart conditions or promoting childhood obesity prevention and safe teen driving, our goal is to make a positive and lasting impact on the lives of young people.”

The FACE of LOCAL HEALTH PLANS

KATHRYN (KATE) SKOUTERIS

HARVARD PILGRIM HEALTH CARE

In the heart of New Hampshire, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, a Point32Health company, is making significant strides in supporting rural health and enhancing community well-being. Under the leadership of Kathryn (Kate) Skouteris, Vice President of Regional Commercial Markets, and her team, the organization has been at the forefront of initiatives to improve access to care for both physical and mental health services.

Harvard Pilgrim’s commitment to New Hampshire is evident through collaborations with local providers to address health disparities by increasing health awareness and education, making healthcare more accessible in rural communities. They offer specialized health plans tailored to New Hampshire residents, providing access to a network of local health professionals and hospitals, often featuring lower cost-sharing for services within the network. “We are committed to supporting our members’ health and access to care, which includes addressing the unique challenges faced by rural communities,” says Skouteris. These efforts are part of Harvard Pilgrim’s broader commitment to improving health outcomes and ensuring that all residents, regardless of location, have access to quality healthcare.

The dedication to rural health extends beyond basic health services. The organization actively collaborates with local health providers to enhance the availability and quality of healthcare in underserved and lower populated areas. By investing in community health programs and supporting local health initiatives, Harvard Pilgrim is making a tangible difference in the lives of New Hampshire residents.

The FACES of FIREARM SAFETY & EDUCATION

JAKE

AND TERRYANN BOWEN MANCHESTER FIRING LINE

This is the eigth consecutive year that Manchester Firing Line has been named the Faces of Firearm Safety and Education. It’s far more than just a place to shoot — it’s a welcoming family business filled with friendly faces on a mission to educate and raise awareness of firearms and the responsibility that comes with ownership. This veteran-owned company run by husband-and-wife team, Jake and TerryAnn Bowen, offers an impressive array of educational classes, events, custom cerakote services and a full service gun store. It is the exclusive home of the Iron Rose Women’s Shooting Club, designed for women of all shooting abilities to learn and grow in a comfortable environment. From youth and beginner classes to advanced instruction, educators offer you confidence and knowledge on and off the range. You’ll be in good hands with a staff of prior law enforcement, military, NRA & USCCA certified professionals who have been carefully selected for their commitment to service, knowledge, and professionalism. Discover the difference at Manchester Firing Line, where education, customer service, and empowerment all come together at this multiple award-winning, state of the art range.

The FACE of COSMETIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE DENTISTRY

BRYAN HOERTDOERFER, D.D.S. HOERTDOERFER DENTISTRY

I’m in the business of creating vibrant and beautiful smiles,” says Dr. Bryan Hoertdoerfer. “My patients want to look their best, and I have the privilege of providing cosmetic and reconstructive dentistry that restores teeth and boosts confidence.”

Hoertdoerfer Dentistry provides family-friendly dental care to the greater Manchester, New Hampshire area. Along with his experienced dental team, Dr. Hoertdoerfer and his staff proudly offer same-day, precision-based Cerec crowns, ZOOM whitening, veneers, bridges, partials, dentures, fillings and general hygiene care. Each visit includes the use of state-of-the-art technology and adherence to the strictest safety protocols to best serve the needs of their patients.

For sports fans, knowing that Dr. Hoertdoerfer has served as the cosmetic and reconstructive dentist to the Boston Bruins, and continues to create custom-fitted mouth guards for several Bruins and other NHL players gives you one more thing to smile about!

of FACES

The FACES of JUSTICE

MCLANE MIDDLETON

For over a century, McLane Middleton has been a trusted leader in providing legal guidance and advocacy at the highest levels. The firm is proud to have three former attorneys general — Gregory H. Smith (19801984), Michael A. Delaney (2009-2013), and Joseph A. Foster (2013-2017) — among its ranks, each bringing a wealth of experience and unparalleled insight to the practice. Whether advising clients on complex regulatory matters, defending businesses in high-stakes litigation, or guiding public and private entities through their legal challenges, these distinguished attorneys offer the deep understanding of the law and government that comes only from serving as an attorney general. Their collective knowledge and leadership underscore McLane Middleton’s commitment to justice, ensuring that the firm’s clients benefit from the range of their public service and experience.

Left to right: Mike Delaney, Greg Smith, Joe Foster

The FACES of ORTHODONTICS

DR. WILLIAM MEHAN & DR. PAUL JOHNSON III MEHAN AND JOHNSON ORTHODONTIC

The office of Mehan and Johnson Orthodontics has been serving the Greater Manchester community since 1977. Dr. Paul Johnson III joined Dr. Mehan in practice in April 2013, bringing with him a drive for excellence, beautiful smiles and happy patients.

Known for his affable, down-to-earth southern nature and gentle care, Dr. Johnson’s “greatest pride is becoming part of a great family in and out of the office by serving wonderful patients, friends and colleagues in the Greater Manchester community.” He has built a reputation for kind, gentle care, and taking his time to obtain optimal treatment outcomes and beautiful smiles that his patients deserve.

Dr. Johnson has served as president of the Greater Manchester Dental Society and president of the New Hampshire Association of Orthodontists. Initial consultations are always complimentary, and Dr. Johnson will give patients the opportunity to meet the team, learn more about orthodontics, receive a complete initial exam, and find out which treatment options will best meet your needs.

The FACES of DENTAL IMPLANT EXPERTS

NEW HAMPSHIRE ORAL & MAXILLOFACIAL SURGERY

As the leading experts in dental implants and wisdom teeth in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, doctors Moavenian, Reich, Schonfield, Fahmy, Bean, Dyrkacz, Courtney, Ahson, Keyser and Kim are committed to providing safe and compassionate care to our patients. Our early adoption of 3D digital imaging and computeraided planning software allows us to reduce the number of appointments and treatment time needed for dental implants. We can often place dental implants at the time a non-savable tooth is removed. We pride ourselves on availability and are always happy to accept new patients. Oral surgery problems are often urgent, and we go the extra mile to accommodate emergencies. We are also certified to provide your choice of local or general anesthesia. The doctors of NHOMS are Diplomates of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and on staff at hospitals in Nashua, Manchester, Exeter and Beverly, Massachusetts.

The FACES of WATER TREATMENT

SECONDWIND WATER SYSTEMS, INC.

For more than 30 years, Secondwind Water Systems Inc. has been the region’s go-to, full-service water treatment company. They invest significant time and energy into researching water contaminants found in New Hampshire wells in order to apply the very best treatment applications. The team has advanced training and certifications from the Water Quality Association and an extraordinarily high commitment to education, integrity and customer service. There’s a reason why they consistently receive 5-star reviews and have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. They do the work until your water is the best it can be — safe, clean, clear and odor-free. Secondwind Water Systems has residential and commercial solutions for drinking water, recycling water and more, with exceptional experience in treating PFAS, arsenic, radon, bacteria and more.

The FACES of EMPLOYMENT LAW

SHEEHAN PHINNEY

Sheehan Phinney’s Labor, Employment & Employee Benefits Group represents private, public sector and not for profit clients throughout New England. Our team of experienced attorneys regularly assists clients with compliance issues and guidance on how to manage a wide variety of workplace problems before they become lawsuits or claims. And when claims arise, our lawyers handle the defense before administrative agencies and courts at all levels. Examples of the employment law, labor relations and employee benefits we handle include compliance with state and federal leave laws, guidance on wage and hour matters, conducting internal investigations, responding to harassment and discrimination complaints, counseling on discipline and discharge issues, providing management training, defending employers against whistleblower and retaliation claims, providing guidance on OSHA and workplace safety issues, offering legislative and regulatory updates, drafting policies and contracts, assisting with data breach and privacy protections, and handling union negotiations and grievances. Our experienced attorneys have been consistently recognized by rating publications including Chambers USA, Band 1; Best Lawyers in America®; and New England Super Lawyers®.

Back row left to right: Karen A. Whitley, Mark J. Ventola (co-chair), Jennifer Moeckel, Brian J. Bouchard, Elizabeth A. Bailey, Autumn D. Klick, James P. Harris, James P. Reidy (co-chair)

Front row left to right: Abbygale M. Dow, Andrea G. Chatfield, Cassandra O. Rodgers, David W. McGrath

Not pictured: Peter T. Beach

The FACES of LABOR AND DELIVERY

THE BIRTH PLACE AT SOUTHERN NH MEDICAL CENTER

You and your loved ones envision your baby’s birth as a special experience. When you choose The Birth Place at Southern New Hampshire Medical Center, you can be assured of a warm and caring environment, where you will feel at ease. We prioritize your peace of mind and comfort with our spacious, private birthing suites and our dedicated 24/7 team of experienced obstetrician-gynecologists (OB/GYN physicians), certified nurse midwives, nurse practitioners and experienced specialty nurses, at your bedside when you need us. From the start, we partner with you to understand your unique needs and birthing plan goals. When it’s time to deliver, you’ll stay in the same room — filled with natural light and all the comforts of home — for your labor, delivery, recovery, after-birth and rooming-in with your baby. Your OB/ GYN physician and team already will be on-site, including a one-on-one dedicated nurse who will stay with you throughout your active labor. Should your birth experience require a Cesarean section, The Birth Place has the advanced technology and specialized operating rooms you’d expect, while including your support person every step of the way. For premature babies, or those who have unexpected challenges, our Level II Specialty Care Nursery and team are right down the hall. Best of all, every day we pioneer a collaborative team approach. Experienced professionals — pediatricians, neonatologists, certified lactation consultants, social service providers, nutritionists and childbirth and parenting educators — all working together to ensure you’ll have the exceptional experience you’re looking for in welcoming your new little one.

The FACES of CARDIOLOGY

ELLIOT CARDIOVASCULAR CONSULTANTS, THE ELLIOT

You can count on our experienced cardiovascular team at Elliot Cardiovascular Consultants for personalized, advanced care when you have a sudden heart event or a chronic cardiac or vascular condition. Our board-certified cardiologists, interventional cardiologists and electrophysiologists — collaborating with our highly skilled nurse practitioners, nurses, technicians and staff — diagnose and offer a wide variety of complex treatments for all types of heart and vascular disease, including heart failure, valve disease, rhythm abnormalities and high blood pressure. Using the most sophisticated diagnostic testing and interventions, our exceptional interdisciplinary team is expert at creating compassionate care plans for you, built on open communication, continuous support and trust. Focused on successful outcomes, our highly respected specialists are skilled in performing the latest procedures with state-of-the-art technology, including advanced cardiac imaging, advanced heart failure monitoring, interventional cardiology, cardiac rehabilitation, electrophysiology, nuclear cardiology, cardio-oncology and more. As an integral part of the nonprofit Elliot Health System, rooted in the Manchester community since 1890, our patients are always connected to a growing number of exemplary health care services and resources for seamless, integrated and proven care. When you or a loved one is looking for compassionate, comprehensive cardiac care closer to home, you can rely on Elliot Cardiovascular Consultants.

The FACES of TITLE PROFESSIONALS

ROSELYN J. LANGIANESE

SUMMIT TITLE

Summit Title has been providing residential and commercial title, escrow and real estate closing services in NH, Massachusetts, and southern Maine for 15 years under the direction of Roselyn Langianese. Well-known and highly respected in the industry, Roselyn focuses on strategic planning and positioning Summit Title for long-term success. The heart of our business relies on the commitment of our dedicated team. Enthusiastic and results-oriented Shannon Kennedy provides guidance and support to the Business Development division. The business development team fosters relationships and creates professional, pleasant closing experiences. Cheryl Megan oversees Summit Title’s operational functions and specializes in strategies harmonizing cuttingedge technology with streamlined processes. The operations team works tirelessly behind the scenes and takes immense pride in providing superior service with personalized one-on-one attention to offer smooth closings for our business partners, buyers and sellers. With a reputation for integrity, quality, professionalism and exceptional customer service, we are proud to be “Your Closing Resource.”

Taylor Community has been caring for seniors in the Lakes Region for 117 years. What started as a small care home has evolved into the premier life plan community in New Hampshire, offering independent living, assisted living, memory care and nursing. Even as Taylor has grown into one of the largest charitable organizations in the state, they have remained steadfast in their mission — to provide extraordinary care and service to seniors in the Lakes Region. From resident life to dining, wellness to facilities, social services to clinical — across all departments, the Taylor Community team excels every day in providing a community in which residents will thrive. It is the people who live and work at Taylor that make it truly exceptional. There is no better place to live, work, play and retire than at Taylor Community in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region.

The FACE of ORAL SURGERY

DR. DANIEL CAMERON BRAASCH

BRAASCH ORAL SURGERY

Whether your mouth is being crowded by wisdom teeth or you have damaged teeth that need removal, you can expect Dr. Daniel Braasch, DMD, to provide excellent care while soothing any concerns you might feel about undergoing dental surgery. Dr. Braasch has been practicing oral maxillofacial surgery in southern New Hampshire since 2013 and launched his own practice in 2023.

His dedication to the highest-quality oral surgery care provides patients with personalized care in a comfortable environment. He specializes in third molar extraction, dental implant placement and complex bone grafting, as well as office-based anesthesia.

Dr. Braasch completed a master’s degree in biology at the College of William & Mary and then earned a Doctorate of Dental Medicine degree from Boston University in 2009, where he was valedictorian and class president. His passion for education led him to complete a four-year residency training program in oral and maxillofacial surgery at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

Kindness, Compassion & Special People

Assisted living at Windham Terrace is an

and an engaging alternative to living on one’s

“My humblest thanks for the exemplary care you offered my mother during her stay at Windham Terrace. Although I never believed it possible for her to accept home as any other than her residence, she quickly embraced Windham Terrace. As a resident of Windham Terrace, Mom became a much happier individual and was able to embrace the quality of life she deserved.”

Timeless

Local Looks Inspired by Nature’s Palette

Palazzo-style pants by Chanel ($379) from Lilise Designer Resale, nordic sweater in neutral by Aventura ($139) from Gondwanna & Divine Clothing Co., and white cloche hat ($24) from Indigo Blues. Arizona big buckle gold and white Birkenstocks ($170) are from Simply Birkenstock.

Amid the sprawling wilderness surrounding Lake Winnipesaukee sits Castle in the Clouds, a beautiful historic mansion that offers a perfect setting to showcase local fashions inspired by the changing seasons. Presenting timeless looks that honor femininity at any age, Taylor Heath reminds us that we don’t need permission to express ourselves through the garments we wear. As Yves Saint Laurent famously said, “Fashion fades, style is eternal.”

STYLING, HAIR & MAKEUP BY CHLOE BARCELOU

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JENN BAKOS MODELED BY TAYLOR HEATH OF MAGGIE

Dutton skirt in denim flower ($208) by Krista Larson. Knitted cuff waffle thermal by Free People ($78) from Gondwanna & Divine Clothing Co., layered under an upcycled plaid and denim shirt ($46) and fuzzy Bandanna jacket by Miss Sparkling ($66), both from Achromatic. Cotton, woven Birkenstock socks ($18) from Simply Birkenstock, Chelsea boot in agate beach by Pendleton ($120) from Joe King’s Shoe Shop, and Mountains Are Calling trucker hat by Natural Life ($22) from Indigo Blues. Birchbark and copper earrings made by local designer Mizmargi Designs ($48) from She’s A Lady.

The deep-green tweed jacket by St. John ($189), chartreuse and houndstooth vintage silk scarf by Echo ($45), J. Crew costume green and gold chunky bracelet ($16) and vintage leopard faux fur kitten heels ($44) are all from Lilise Designer Resale paired together. The black boa by Mother Plucker ($42) is from Zoe & Co. Professional Bra Fitters and chartreuse crepe silk skirt by Van Klee ($135) is from She’s A Lady. Black velvet rhinestone bralette top by Doe & Be ($36) from Achromatic.

Cotton voile lace bloomers ($105) and cotton voile skirt with thick lace hem ($162) both by Krista Larson. Cozy cropped cardigan in camel by M. Rena ($68) and fuzzy houndstooth jacket by Kut ($109), both from Indigo Blues. Felted wool fingerless gloves ($60) and handknit cowl ($45), both by Go Lightly. Carmel wool beret ($18) from Lilise Designer Resale. Washed metallic silver Sydney Birkenstocks ($99) from Simply Birkenstock.

Taylor lounges in the Stiletto corset by Simone Perele ($299) from Zoe & Co. Professional Bra Fitters, layered with the black sheer duster adorned with pearls by Nash Grey ($54) from Achromatic. Cotton organdy Parachute slip dress in oat ($276) layered over the Basic Pant in violet flower ($179), both by Krista Larson. Leather bootie Sina shoe by Rieke in rose silver ($125) from Joe King’s Shoe Shop. Silver leaf pendant necklace ($24) and pastel foliage necklace and earrings set ($32), both by Rain from She’s A Lady.

Printed silk organza over cotton voile Fairy skirt in black fern ($195) by Krista Larson. Vintage purple bustier ($36) and vintage black vegan-leather, embroidered jacket with roses ($36), both from Lilise Designer Resale. ChiChi cross-body tapestry bag handmade in a fairtrade workshop in Guatemala ($68) from Gondwana & Divine Clothing Co.

Cotton voile printed Parachute slip dress in peach bird ($254) by Krista Larson. Layered underneath is the pink tulle sequin crop top by Bear and Dance ($36) from Achromatic. Golden Karo plunge balconette bra ($229) from Zoe & Co. Professional Bra Fitters. Seamist brocade reversible jacket ($138) from Gondwanna & Divine Clothing Co. and Kanken Laptop bag in sky blue ($120) by Fjallraven from Simply Birkenstock. Embroidered boot in Sophie by Sofft in havanah brown ($169) from Joe King’s Shoe Shop. Green amethyst pendant necklace handmade by local artist Molly Brandt ($46) from Indigo Blues.

Black Pippa silk slip gown with roses by Fantasie ($119) from Zoe & Co.

Professional Bra Fitters. Printed fleece Darnahte robe ($260) by Johnny Was. Sherpa-lined Arizona Birkenstocks ($160) from Simply Birkenstock.

Vintage black-and-white, checkered sequin dress by Laundry ($69) and black wool motorcycle hat ($18), both from Lilise Designer Resale, layered over the Alp’N’Rock Allison mockneck embroidered shirt ($198) from Indigo Blues. Felted wool black and red leopard shawl by Go Lightly ($235) from She’s A Lady. Graphite Karen boots ($279) by Frye from Joe King’s Shoe Store.

Find it. Buy it. Wear it.

A special thanks to Castle in the Clouds for the location of all the photos in this story, along with the shops that provided clothing and accessories that made our winter fashion feature happen. Participating retailers are all located in Concord.

• Gondwanna & Divine Clothing Co., gondwanaclothing.com

• Joe King’s, joekings.com

• Simply Birkenstock, simplybirkenstock.com

• She’s A Lady Boutique, nhladyboutique.com

• Achromatic, shopachromatic.com

• Lilise Designer Resale, liliseresale.com

• Indigo Blues and Co., indigobluesandco.com

• Zoe & Co. Professional Bra Fitters, zoeandcompany.com

• Krista Larson Designs, kristalarson.com

High

DRAMATIC TALES FROM PORTSMOUTH’S ICONIC NORTH CHURCH

Aspirations

The story of North Church is the story of New Hampshire’s only seaport. In a city without skyscrapers, its iconic white steeple still marks the very heart of Market Square and points the way to heaven.

Twice each week, a city employee climbs a series of ladders inside the wooden spire and grasps an ancient brass handle. The handle winds the mighty mainspring that fuels a nest of metal gears and keeps the great pendulum swinging. The church tower is, after all, one giant grandfather clock.

The oldest item in the North Church archive is from 1640, just 10 years after a ragtag cluster of settlers arrived at Strawbery Banke, later renamed Portsmouth, 3 miles upstream from the mouth of the Piscataqua River. The voluminous records in the North Church collection fill 12½ linear feet of shelf space in the climate-controlled Athenaeum vault just across Congress Street. It is a priceless cache for researchers.

Here Come the Puritans

According to a 1907 church historian, “The Old North Church has had a happy history ... No schisms have arisen.” Really? As we’ll see, Portsmouth’s oldest institution split the city in half twice.

Two centuries ago, Nathaniel Adams made it clear that New Hampshire was not Massachusetts.

Our English founders, he wrote in 1825, “came not here on account of their religion, but to fish and trade.” That’s not entirely true. The 50 English men and 22 women who founded the Strawbery Banke colony were instructed to mine for precious metals and to set up a profitable fur trade with the Natives. When neither effort panned out, the disgruntled investors back in England shut the company down in 1635, stranding the colonists in a frightening wilderness 3,000 miles from home.

The Strawbery Bankers were a loose collection of God-fearing, self-governing, commercially minded survivors. Most were members of the Church of England — Anglicans, not Puritans. Their drafty chapel, likely built of sawn logs, stood at the base of modern-day Pleasant Street by the South Mill Pond. It operated with one Bible, 12 service books, one pewter flagon and a single communion cup.

Meanwhile, beginning in 1630, up to 20,000 Puritans were flooding into what would become Greater Boston. Back in England, King Charles I was beheaded as Puritans under Oliver Cromwell took over the government. New Hampshire’s

BY J. DENNIS ROBINSON

founding towns of Hampton, Dover and Durham fell under Puritan control, while the rowdy residents of Strawbery Banke resisted. Massachusetts governor John Winthrop complained that the people of “Pascataquack” openly defied Puritan justice by sheltering outlaws and heathens.

Although it never gave up its Anglican roots, by 1657 Portsmouth, too, had a Puritan minister. A young Harvard graduate named Joshua Moody would become the rock on which the Congregational North Church we know was founded. Ordained in 1671, Moody is remembered as a popular preacher who drew large crowds to the modest meetinghouse.

With Cromwell dead and the monarchy restored, King Charles II declared New Hampshire to be a royal colony. His appointed governor, Edward Cranfield, lived on Great Island (now New Castle), an Anglican stronghold. Cranfield proved to be hot-tempered and focused on enriching himself. A showdown was inevitable.

“I found Mr. Moody and his party so troublesome that I believed myself unsafe to continue longer among them,” Cranfield reported to the king. In 1684, the unpopular governor locked horns with the popular preacher. Moody was arrested, jailed at Great Island and banished to Boston. Moody later returned, but times were tough. Smallpox, brutal weather, Native reprisals and restrictive shipping laws battered the little seaport. Having delivered 4,070 sermons, Reverend Moody died in 1697.

North vs. South

From 1699 until 1741, New Hampshire was once more under the harsh control of Massachusetts Puritans. Originally dependent on harvesting fish and timber, Portsmouth was becoming a thriving shipbuilding and commercial seaport. In 1704, tragedy struck Nathaniel Rogers, the town’s second ordained minister. A fire at the minister’s house killed Rogers’ mother, his infant daughter and an enslaved African servant. The fire would also change Portsmouth's history.

A bigger house of worship and a new parsonage were required. Back in 1640, town leaders — all property-owning white men — had set aside a large chunk of land for a future church, almshouse, courthouse and burying ground. Leasing the land,

This rare ambrotype photograph was taken by Carl Meinerth in 1854, the year the brick building was completed. After the installation of the new city clock, the building was dedicated on Nov. 1, 1855.

Opposite: The North Church has been a Portsmouth institution for over 350 years. A $1.4 million renovation of the building interior is now underway.

PHOTO BY CARL MEINERTH / RIGHT PHOTO BY ANNIE ROY

known as a “glebe,” would provide income for the minister.

“Great disorders and tumults ensued” over a plan to move the church inland from the river to what is now Market Square. But when the wooden church opened in 1714, a stalwart group of parishioners refused to move. This first schism split the membership. Rogers, a strict Calvinist, preached at North Church, while Reverend John

Emerson took over at “Old South.”

Neither congregation was safe from the fire and brimstone sermons of the era. On Oct. 29, 1727, for example, an earthquake scattered farm animals, cracked buildings and toppled chimneys. Jabez Fitch, then pastor at North Church, blamed his parishioners. The quake, Fitch explained, was God’s reaction to their heavy drinking, sexual deviancy and poor church attendance.

Revolutionary Voices

By the mid-1700s, “a spirit of discord began to appear,” Nathaniel Adams later wrote. Portsmouth citizens rioted against the Stamp Act. They stole 100 kegs of gunpowder from the king’s fort at New Castle and drove royal governor John Wentworth out of town. Just when North Church needed a calming leader, its next minister, Samuel Langdon, quit to become president of Harvard College. Next up, Reverend Ezra Stiles railed against “the great inhumanity and cruelty” of slavery. Yet, Stiles purchased an enslaved boy he named Newport. In 1778, Stiles also left the Portsmouth pulpit to become president of Yale University.

Enslaving Africans as servants, a symbol of social status, was as common among Protestant ministers in the Seacoast region as it was with wealthy merchant aristocrats. Historian Valerie Cunningham, founder of the Black Heritage Trail of NH, estimates the statewide African population in 1775 was 656, with most enslaved people located in and around Portsmouth.

A Healing Break

Handsome, raven-haired Joseph Buckminster is arguably the most beloved pastor in North Church history. His silvery, belllike singing voice floated above the choir. According to his daughter Eliza, “He could interest people not normally interested in preaching.” Twice a widower and raising two disabled children, Buckminster was a man “of much domestic grief,” Eliza reported.

During the 1798 yellow fever plague — when 156 died in a town of 5,000 — Buckminster spent entire days and nights at the bedside of his dying parishioners. With few newspapers or public reading rooms available, it was typical for the minister to educate his flock about current events. Twenty-five of his printed sermons survive, six of them focused on his hero, George Washington. On Nov. 1, 1789, the pastor was thrilled to welcome the first President of the United States, who attended a packed service at Old North Church in Portsmouth.

Reverend Buckminster and Samuel Haven, the popular South Parish minister, were close friends. But their deaths, the War of 1812, three devastating downtown

This image is a detail from a stained-glass window added to North Church in 1890.

PHOTO BY J. DENNIS ROBINSON

Enslaving Africans as servants, a symbol of social status, was as common among Protestant ministers in the Seacoast region as it was with wealthy merchant aristocrats.

fires and a plunging maritime economy took their toll. Young Portsmouthites began moving to bigger cities and westward in search of income and opportunity.

The Brick Church

Israel Putnam inherited the North Church pulpit in 1812. His hardline views led many parishioners to “migrate south” to the more liberal congregation of Nathan Parker. Then in 1819, Parker crossed the line when he introduced “Unitarian Christianity” at Old South Church. Unitarians openly questioned the Calvinist view of Original Sin, the Fall of Man, the Holy Trinity and the duality of Jesus Christ as both man and God.

It was a holy war and a second schism. With his membership waning, Reverend Putnam labeled Parker an “infidel” and a “subversive.” Adding fuel to the fire, Parker’s crowded congregation voted to leave their church by the river and move downtown. They built a Greek Revival church from sturdy Rockport granite barely a block behind the aging wooden North Church.

Putnam saw the future. His deteriorating wooden North Church, he said, was “exceedingly repulsive to the minds of the young and strangers.” Besides the loss of members to Unitarianism, Putnam’s congregation was now competing with local Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians and a Sandemanian Society.

When 40 more members broke off to create a separate Congregational group, unable to raise funds for a new building, Putnam resigned in 1835. Lacking money to rebuild North Church, Pastor Edwin Holt, a pro-slavery advocate, then raised $5,800 for

a major renovation. His successor, Henry D. Morgan, finally banked the $24,000 needed to start over.

Spectators packed Market Square as a rigger tied a rope to the peak of Old North. “Many willing hands,” the newspaper

reported, hauled on the line as the spire, the clock having been removed, crashed to the street below. Construction of a new brick building took two years.

In the interim, North Church members met at “The Temple,” a former Baptist church and today the site of the historic Music Hall. The costly wooden spire was funded by the city to house a new downtown clock. “Do this as cheap as you can,” the mayor of Portsmouth requested. The building we know today was dedicated on Nov. 1, 1855.

Victorian Portsmouth

Finding funds to pay any minister was a constant struggle. Ironically, a large swath of downtown real estate had once belonged to the church. Early renters leased land in the North Church “glebe” for 999 years. But payments faded after the Revolution. Too bad, Charles Brewster wrote. As a

This engraving of Joseph Buckminster, the beloved North Church pastor, was adapted from a portrait attributed to John Trumbell.

Esther Mullinaux, daughter of the enslaved Prince and Dinah Whipple, joined the North Church in 1801.

19th-century editor of the “Portsmouth Journal” and a North Church member, Brewster calculated the loss. Downtown businesses, he joked, would owe the church billions of dollars in overdue rent.

The lack of funds for a settled minister, however, never slowed the outpouring of charitable work. Over a dozen North Church groups, led almost entirely by women, served the community well.

Volunteers ran a school for girls, youth groups, missionary societies, Bible study, support systems for mothers and more. The Ladies Box Club raised funds to build a nearby parish house, later the Salvation

Army, and today a hotel.

“The Old Town by the Sea,” meanwhile, was becoming a popular summer tourist destination. Trains, trolleys and ferries whisked visitors from hot and polluted cities to the breezy seaside resorts of nearby Rye, New Castle, Kittery, York and the Isles of Shoals.

Through the 20th Century

Looking back, the arrival of Rev. Lucius Thayer in 1890 seems providential. His 38-year tenure anchored the North Church community for the first time since the days of Joseph Buckminster. “He spoke quietly,

but with conviction,” a parishioner recalled, “obtaining power not through external fireworks but through the substance of his teaching.”

A massive pipe organ, a new town clock and stained-glass windows arrived during this era. Thayer provided comfort during World War I, welcomed the city’s first Jewish temple and reached out to immigrants from “Little Italy” in the nearby North End.

He seemed to befriend everyone in town. By his retirement, Thayer had presided over 1,059 funerals and counseled 678 couples.

From tall ships to nuclear submarines, Portsmouth had become a blue-collar military town. The North Church congregation swelled with the arrival of Pease Air Force Base in 1954. The city center, meanwhile, was battered by urban renewal, clogged by motor traffic and drained of commerce by encroaching shopping malls.

In 1962, Rev. John Feaster dedicated a new parish campus a mile and a half from the brick church in Market Square. The alternate site offered a nursery, expansive kitchen, reliable heating, sunny windowed rooms and parking for 150 cars. Locals called the modern design “Father Feaster’s ski lodge.”

Save Our Steeple

As North Church members settled into their new parish house, the city center began a period of growth not seen since George Washington’s visit. The revival included Theatre by the Sea, Strawbery Banke Museum, trendy restaurants, a tourist-friendly streetscape, annual festivals and tall ship parades. Portsmouth became a “must-see” heritage destination. Travel ads inevitably featured the gleaming white North Church steeple.

In 2003, church caretakers spotted water stains at the rear of the sanctuary. The “lantern room” above the belfry, built in 1863, was leaking badly during storms. Creeping damage had taken a heavy toll. “The steeple is our Eiffel Tower, our Big Ben,” the Portsmouth Herald editorialized. “One cannot imagine the horizon without it.”

The 330-church members, led by Rev. Dawn Shippee, raised $500,000 to launch a herculean repair job. Community volunteers raised a million dollars more. Soon a metal framework encircled the nearly 200-foottall structure. Then in July, during a severe thunderstorm with high winds, portions

Like a giant grandfather clock, the massive pendulum swings inside the North Church steeple.

PHOTO BY WILLIAM S. ROY

of the worn and rotted spire, along with its surrounding metal scaffolding, plummeted to the street below. Miraculously, no one was harmed. By 2007, free of its metal frame and freshly repainted, the beloved church tower was back, topped by its restored 18th-century weathervane. Portsmouth was Portsmouth once more.

Future Tense

In 2015, Reverend Shippee reflected on her career at North Church. “In terms of worship,” she said, “it’s a beautiful space. It’s a fairy-tale church. But church is about people, not about buildings.” The most impressive part of restoring the steeple, she said, was watching the community come together. An even more dramatic event, Shippee said, was allowing the United Church of Christ (UCC) to open its doors even wider.

Today the organization’s website declares: “We embrace people of any race, creed, color, age, gender identity and gender

expression, sexual orientation, economic status, marital status, physical, emotional, mental capacity and those in relationships recognized under God’s law.”

Congregational church membership, however, has declined across the nation. Portsmouth hovers at around 120 members, predominantly senior citizens. Following COVID-19, the decision to sell the parish house complex did not come easily. In 2022, the Islamic Society of the Seacoast Area purchased the Spinney Road site for $2.7 million. Funds from the sale are being used to provide the historic downtown church with office space, a meeting room and kitchenette, restrooms, energy and accessibility upgrades and more.

Today, Reverend Jennifer Mazur finds beauty in the congregation’s courageous return to Market Square. Sunday attendance is up 50%. Two couples with young children have joined.

“When churches shrink, they’re forced to think about what life to take on next,”

Mazur says. “What future is waiting for them? North Church is making a courageous choice to be where the people are and to use their resources to benefit the community. I don’t see us diminished. I see us as being changed. What is there to do now but to be a voice for love and justice?”

It’s been a long journey from the Bay Psalm Book to Zoomed church services. A century from now, we can only hope that a city worker will still make the biweekly trek up the steeple stairs to wind the town clock by hand. A bell will chime. An ancient weathervane will shift in the sea breeze. The doors will open and a small congregation with a big heart and a rich history will gather in love and faith once more. NH

J. Dennis Robinson is the author of 20 history books, including “A Brief History of North Church.” His latest work includes “1623: Pilgrims, Pipe Dreams, Politics and the Founding of New Hampshire.” His new history mystery novel, “Lucy’s Voice,” centers around the Lincoln assassination. For updates, visit jdennisrobinson.com.

The 19th-century mechanical clock in the North Church is wound by hand twice per week by a Portsmouth city employee.

Our curated selection of New Hampshire shops and gift ideas for (almost) everyone on your list

Compiled by Elisa Gonzales Verdi, Emily Heidt & Emily Reily

Save when you shop through New Hampshire Magazine’s Holiday Gift Guide Storefront. Visit nhmagazine.com/ gift-and-shopping-guide or scan the QR code →

“I can’t eat anything.” Gifts for the person who has ALL of the food allergies Veggie plates are great, but celery can only go so far next to the table of Christmas cookies and Chex Mix. Thanks to these local sweets and snacks, your gluten- and even dairy-free and vegan friends and family members can go home from your holiday party with full stomachs (and hearts), too.

Loon Chocolate: Dairy Free and Vegan Chocolate Bars

Taste the subtle, savory and sweet differences in these made-in-Manchester, small-batch bars that celebrate chocolate from around the world, one bar at a time. Maine Sea Salt is rich and creamy, made with 70% dark chocolate from globally sourced cacao beans and solar-dried Maine sea salt for the perfect combination of salty and sweet. If you’re interested in a bit of a kick (medium to hot salsa level), The Ghost & Sea bar has the same blend of dark chocolate and Maine sea salt with chocolate ghost peppers for a fun play on your senses. Receive 10% off your Loon Chocolate order when you order through New Hampshire Magazine’s Holiday Gift Guide Storefront.

Homefree: Holiday Cookie Collection

Free of the top 14 allergens and known as “the treats you can trust,” the Windam-based Homefree ginger snap, chocolate mint and mini sugar cookies are perfect for gifts, decorating and entertaining. Each has just the right amount of flavor and crunch, so much so that you’d never know they are free of so much. Receive 10% off your Homefree order now through Dec. 16 when you order through New Hampshire Magazine’s Holiday Gift Guide Storefront and use code 10HOMEFREE24 at checkout.

You can’t go wrong with any of this Swanzey company’s paleo granolas, but this one is a hearty and satisfying mix of blueberries, walnuts and seeds with a twist of maple and vanilla. Perfect for snacking on the trail or over milk with cereal.

Hope Bars: Peanut Butter Chocolate

Hope Bars are “good for your body and good for somebody.”

These peanut butter chocolate superfood quinoa bars are the Brookline-made company’s original and most popular bar as everyone’s favorite combination of peanut butter and chocolate. It’s loaded with powerful antioxidants, essential vitamins and minerals, and packed with protein and fiber — ideal for a go-to breakfast bar. Use code NHMAG15 at checkout for 15% off your order.

Maple Nut Kitchen: Northern Berry Harvest Granola

“So what are kids into these days?”

Gifts for the youth in your life (under 14, toys, fidgets)

That old saying “kids these days” couldn’t be truer than during the holiday season. With myriad choices, who even knows what presents to get your kids or grandkids? Thankfully, gift guides like this exist to help you narrow down the endless options, and maybe even spark a new hobby or talent. This season, our focus has turned to off-screen gifts.

Nahamsha Gifts, Gilford: Appalachian Trail-Opoly Board Game

Hike the Appalachian Trail without ever leaving your living room. This game, modeled after Monopoly, has a local twist. The entire Appalachian Trail and its important landmarks, privies and shelters have all been included on the game board. Each state along the way (including New Hampshire, of course) is represented. Get enough money to afford to stay in a lodge on this grueling track or see how many trails you can master. Use code HOLIDAY2024 at checkout for $5 off Appalachian Trail-Opoly.

Toy City, Keene: Deblockle, The Game of Tips and Turns

The suggested age for this two-player strategy game is 8 and older, but adults will have just as much fun with Deblockle. Move around the board by tipping your wooden blocks into empty squares. If you can remove all of your blocks, you win. The game comes from Project Genius, a woman-owned company in Austin, Texas. With simple rules, Deblockle is diabolically easy to learn but purely fun to play.

Tabletop Tycoon, Manchester: Welcome to Everdell Welcome to Everdell is just one in the Everdell series of games and expansions. The board game made a splash upon its introduction in 2018 and has been a big seller ever since. Use your meeples (tiny, colorful, human-shaped game pieces) to find resources and buy cards, gaining points along the way. And at around $25, the game is a steal.

Josh’s Toys and Games, Nashua: Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty

Once you’ve opened a tin of Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty, you’ll be hooked. These piles of putty are a little more flexible than Silly Putty, with just the right amount of pull. Aaron’s Thinking Putty has reinvented itself by adding tiny, unconventional items into the mix, including sparkles, little pieces of tinsel, puppy faces and so many more. These are great as fidget tools. With dozens of choices, keep your hands busy and think more creatively with these power-packed putties.

Toy Chest, North Conway and White Mountain Puzzle Company, Jackson: Pinball Machine Maker, Gumball Rally

“If all else fails, break open a puzzle” should be the mantra this winter when you’re looking for a way to unwind. Putting a puzzle together, or even just starting one, is the perfect weekend activity when you want to tune out the noise and focus in. For your screen-free enjoyment, Toy Chest in North Conway recommends products made by White Mountain Puzzle Company. They say the Jackson business makes top-notch puzzles, and many of their titles are New Hampshirethemed. For kids who enjoy science in action, the Pinball Machine Maker: Gumball Rally by Thames & Kosmos will make for an exciting gift. The build-yourown pinball machine uses gumballs as pinballs, and lets kids explore physics and chemistry while playing pinball. Use code NHMGIFTGUIDE at checkout for 10% off The Pinball Machine Maker: Gumball Rally.

Visit nhmagazine.com/ gift-and-shopping-guide or scan the QR code →

“Where’s

your cat

(or

dog)?” Gifts for the person who goes to the party for the animals

We all have that friend who can usually be found giving scritches to the family dog at a get-together or party, and why not? Pets keep us centered, and offer enduring patience, companionship and most of all, unconditional love. Pets add meaning to our lives and can even be beneficial to our health.

They deserve the best.

North Woods Animal Treats, Keene: Jingle All the Way Gift Boxes and Bags

North Woods Animal Treats has been giving your pets the best because they know they deserve it, and this holiday season is no exception. Their Nibbles dog treats are made with human-grade ingredients so you know exactly what they’re getting. Their cookies are molded in dreamy, whimsical shapes like Christmas trees, moose and squirrels. These nibbles come in delectable flavors including peppermint, bacon and eggs, peanut butter, squash and trail mix. For cats, North Woods Animal Treats sells a “Cat Nip n’ Toy” — a ball with a sticky surface that’s perfect for catnip to stick to and that your cat will eagerly fawn over.

Pets Choice, Merrimack: Self-service dog wash

Bath time can be a stressful time, but it doesn’t have to be.

Pets Choice in Merrimack, a locally owned pet supply and professional grooming resource, has the solution. Dogs of all sizes, from Saint Bernards to chihuahuas, can fit in their raised tubs, which can also give your back a much-needed break. Pets Choice also provides the shampoo, towels and a dryer, making the strenuous task a breeze. Skip the stress and make it easy on you to get your pet squeaky clean.

Newfound Pet Center, Bristol and Franklin: Savage Brand Raw Frozen Food for Dogs and Cats

Pet owners have been digging into the new raw food movement as a healthy way for animals to get back to the diet they once had when they roamed free. Raw food has higher amounts of vitamins and moisture, is beneficial for higher energy levels, and is easier to digest. The American Veterinary Medical Association notes that caution must be taken with raw diets. Not to worry: The trained staff at Newfound Pet Center in Bristol and Franklin has years of experience to help guide you in your quest for a better diet for your pet.

Henniker Farm and Country Store, Henniker: Calming Treats and Calming Coats

These days, pets can get stressed about nearly anything — just like us! Thankfully, there’s a wide variety of tools to consider when soothing your pet. Henniker Farm and Country Store in Henniker may have just what you need. The calming treats and coats offered at their pet supply store can put your pooch in the mellow zone, which will give owners some relief as well.

Pet Stop, Nashua: Kozy Pet Tents

The Pet Stop, an online store based in Nashua, has been treating pets right since 2003. They’ve expanded from primarily offering bird supplies, and now stock items for dogs, cats and other small animals. When thinking about what to get your pet this holiday season, consider the Kozy Pet Tent from The Pet Stop. These small, portable huts come in many sizes and in bright, tropical colors of varying designs. Kozy Pet’s soft fabrics can help your pampered pet get comfy and nap in style.

“Let’s hear it for the boys.” Gifts for the guys in your life

Are you stumped on what to gift the men in your life? We get it. If you’re looking to get creative with your gift-giving this holiday season, you’ve come to the right place. Here are our picks for gifts that every guy will love (that also are perfect for everyone).

Full Circle Vinyl: Vintage Record Bowl

Know a music lover? Treat them to one of Full Circle Vinyl’s Vintage Record Bowls. The Meredith record shop turns actual 12-inch albums into decorative bowls. Available in several genres, these unique bowls are the perfect piece to spruce up any space, while showing off your music taste.

Burgeon Outdoor: Ski NH Backcountry Tee

Whether you’re hitting the slopes and shredding the gnar, who doesn’t love a cool graphic tee? Burgeon Outdoor has several Ski NH tees (long and short sleeve) that are perfect for a layered look, or on their own. Plus, by wearing their shirts and apparel, you’re supporting Burgeon’s mission to sustainability and building a better tomorrow for White Mountain communities.

Prime Roast Coffee: Coffee Subscription

If you know a coffee lover, this gift is an absolute must. With Prime Roast Coffee’s Coffee Subscription, the beloved Keene coffee shop sends the blends you love directly to your door. You can choose from three subscription options (three, six or 12 months), and enjoy a bag of coffee selected by Prime Roast’s dedicated team every month.

Deerfield Leather: Men’s Deerskin Ski Glove 64T

We don’t need to remind you about how cold winter in New Hampshire can get — a nice, sturdy glove can really make all the difference. While it’s called a Ski Glove, this glove will keep your hands nice and warm in the coldest of conditions. An added bonus? It’s lined with insulation that traps in body heat, and it won’t absorb water.

“Oh, I don’t

need anything.” Gifts for the person who has it all

We know there’s at least one person on your holiday shopping list who says they don’t need anything when you sneakily ask them what they might want for the holidays this year. We all know someone who has everything and needs nothing. This year, we’re making it easier than ever to give a gift you can feel good about to those you love.

Shadow and Soul Emporium: Animal Cups

These cups have a surprise inside that’s only revealed with the last sip — at the bottom of each mug lies an animal of your choosing! Choose from a variety of animals, ranging from a lobster to a hedgehog to a spider to a T. rex, and bring some fun to your morning coffee or tea by watching your animal slowly emerge from your cup.

Bailey Works: Zip Tote

Talk about versatility! This Zip Tote by Bailey Works truly does it all. At its core, it’s sturdy and causal enough to withstand everyday life, yet can easily be dressed up (or dressed down) for almost any occasion. The Zip Tote is fully customizable, so you can make it perfectly suited for your everyday needs.

Loon Chocolate: Chocolate-infused Elixir Kit

Who doesn’t love a little chocolate? This Chocolate-infused Elixir Kit by Loon Chocolate comes with step-by-step instructions to help you turn your favorite spirit into a delicious chocolate-infused cocktail.

Receive 10% off when you order through the New Hampshire Magazine Holiday Gift Guide Digital Storefront.

Portsmouth Soap Co.: Portsmouth Soap Gift Sampler

Made exclusively for New Hampshire Magazine readers, this gift set is perfect for the person who has everything. The versatile and luxurious set includes Portsmouth Soap Co.’s cuticle oil brush, peppermint hand and body scrub and three of their most popular winter soaps (peppermint, white birch and balsam) on a wooden soap deck. Use code NHsoapdeal at checkout for $10 off your order of $75 or more.

Molly Mundy: Mount Washington Five Panel Hat

Wearable fine art? Sign us up! Molly is a watercolor painter based out of the White Mountains who transfers her stunning landscape paintings onto trucker hats that are perfect for everyday wear, no matter what lies ahead. Her Mount Washington Five Panel Hat features a beautiful watercolor depiction of the highest peak in the Northeast, and is the perfect gift for nature lovers and fashionistas alike. Use code SNOW24 at checkout for 10% off your order.

“I need a day off.” Gifts for people who need to take a breather We all need a day off here and there, but sometimes we don’t have the time or are even aware that we need stress relief. Bring the spa day to you with a few of these products perfect for at-home rest or visit a spot or two that will do all the work for you.

janegee: Aromatherapy Bath Soak Gift Set and Aromatherapy Shower Bath Bomb Set

Pamper someone special (or yourself) with this aromatherapy bath soak sampler that includes salts like rose geranium bath salt and lavender bath soak. If a long, luxurious soak doesn’t sound relaxing, try the aromatherapy shower bomb gift set. Place one bomb on the shower floor or shelf where the water will activate it and release beautiful spa-like scents. Now through Dec. 31, use code NHHOLIDAY15 for 15% off your order at janegee.com.

Float above your stresses and worries, literally, with this 60-minute float therapy session, also known as sensory deprivation. Float tanks are filled with 10 inches of water and over 900 pounds of Epsom salts that allow you to float effortlessly in an environment designed to reduce environmental stimuli, resulting in a state of deep relaxation.

Visit nhmagazine.com/ gift-and-shopping-guide or scan the QR code →

Meredith Whole Living Center: 60-Minute Float

Soleil’s Salt Cave: Cave of Calm Private Session

Book a private session in the “Cave of Calm” at Soleil’s Salt Cave in Exeter, where you can recline in an anti-gravity chair or lie directly on the Himalayan salt with a blanket while you let the salty air do its work. The salt caves boost the clearing of congestion and inflammation throughout the body and help with everything from allergies to stress to skin conditions and even arthritis.

Badger Balm: Sleep Balm

Badger Balm has been “cultivating good” in Gilsum since 1995, and so has one of their most well-loved products: sleep balm. Apply to lips, chest, temples or hands and breathe deep as you naturally drift off to sleep. Check out any of their other wellness and aromatherapy products for extra help working some magic on your body and mind.

“I’m

an hour and a half north of Boston.” Gifts for people who need more NH pride in their life

We’re biased, but we think that everyone deserves a little more New Hampshire in their lives. How might you ask? We’ve got your clothes, food, cocktails and more — everything you need to make your Granite State pride shine.

Maeve’s Mobile Cocktail Hour, based in Portsmouth, has given cocktails a new twist by going mobile. The catering company has created a Hibiscus Cosmo to set your night off right. All you need to do is add vodka and ice, and Maeve’s Mobile Cocktail Kit will do the rest. Kits come with five tea bags, a cocktail spoon and a leather coaster. The whole kit can be stashed in its own tin for maximum portability, so that you can truly travel, and celebrate, in style.

Backyard Peanut Butter: Rainbow Sprinkle Peanut Butter

Say goodbye to boring lunches. The cooks at the Stratham-based Backyard, part of the nonprofit NH Made organization, believe it’s time for peanut butter to go glam, and we think they’re right. Backyard has reinvented this staple item by incorporating fun additions, like multicolored sprinkles and even everything-bagel seasonings. For those with a sweet tooth, try their Salted Caramel Pretzel peanut butter for an added crunch. More daring foodies should try their buffalo crunch peanut butter, which incorporates buffalo-seasoned peanuts into the creamy mix.

Granite State Apparel:

NH Patch Cap

Granite State

Apparel is inspired by our state’s history, landscape and “Live Free or Die” attitude, and their NH Patch Cap is the perfect reflection of that. The embroidered New Hampshire patch, snapback closure, slightly curved brim visor and mid-height crown make it the ideal accessory to show off your Granite State pride. Use code NHMAG at checkout for 10% off your order.

New Hampshire Bowl & Board: Moose Board

New Hampshire Bowl & Board makes personalized gifts at their Contoocook location ranging from wood salad, fruit and serving bowls, wooden spoons and utensils. Our favorite? Their moose cutting board. Inspired by many treks to camps and lodges in the Shire, this wood cutting board is crafted from locally sourced maple with a pine tree ornament for hanging and display.

NH Mag Storefront:

Old Hancock Suncatchers

Here comes the shameless plug! Our New Hampshire Magazine store has an abundance of New Hampshirethemed gifts, including this suncatcher. Hand-pressed from recycled glass and made in southern New Hampshire, this symbolic suncatcher comes alive with the dance of sunlight and becomes an ever-changing piece of art. NH

Maeve’s Mobile Cocktail Kits: Hibiscus Cosmo

2O25

22 AWARD CATEGORIES. Whether you’ve designed or built a spectacular kitchen, a beautiful bath, a unique outdoor space or a fabulous home, we want to see your most impressive work from the past year. For up-to-date event details and a complete list of award categories, judging criteria and the submission process,visit nhhomemagazine.com/design-awards.

The Design Awards returns to The Venues at the Factory in Manchester for the home design event of the year! Save the Date: Thursday, April 17, 2025

FOR SPONSORSHIP INFORMATION contact Jessica Schooley: 603-345-2752 or jessicas@yankeepub.com

COCKTAILSHolidays

FOR THE

FESTIVE DRINKS TO CELEBRATE THE SEASON

COCKTAILS FOR THE Holidays

Perfect Manhattan

Ingredients:

2 par ts A Overholt® Rye Whiskey

½ par t sweet vermouth

½ par t dry vermouth

Dash of bit ters

Garnish:

Lemon t wist

Add all liquors to a shaker with ice and shake until well chilled. Strain into a cocktail glass over ice.

Garnish with lemon twist.

Rye Old-Fashioned

Ingredients:

2 ounces Jim Beam® Rye Whiskey

1 ounce dr y vermouth

¼ ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed

1–2 dashes grenadine

1 dash orange bitters

Add whiskey, vermouth, lemon juice, grenadine and orange bitters to a shaker with ice and shake until well chilled.

Strain into a chilled rocks glass.

Naughty But Nice

Ingredients:

4 par ts Maker’s Mark® Bourbon

2 par ts orange juice

2 par ts ginger syrup

4 par ts cranberry juice

4 par ts club soda

Garnish:

Orange slices and fresh cranberries

Fill cocktail shaker with ice, add Maker’s Mark® Bourbon, juices and syrup. Shake well.

Divide evenly between two glasses and add extra ice if needed.

Top with club soda.

Garnish with an orange wedge and fresh cranberries.

Ginger Syrup: ¼ pound ginger, peeled and thinly sliced (about ¾ cup), 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup water

White Cranberry Margarita

Ingredients:

¾ par t Hornitos Plata® Tequila

1¼ par t white cranberry juice

1 par t freshly squeezed lime juice

½ par t orange liqueur

1 tablespoon agave nectar

Garnish:

Equal parts fine sugar and salt, for rimming the glasses. Extra lime wedges, for garnish. Fresh or frozen cranberries, for garnish.

Add cranberry juice, lime juice, orange liqueur and tequila to a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously for 20–30 seconds.

Rim glass with sugar and salt.

Fill the glasses with ice, and strain mix into the glass. Garnish with lime wedges and cranberries.

Spiced Cranberry Old-Fashioned

Ingredients:

2 par ts Knob Creek® Bourbon (or Rye)

¼ par t cinnamon syrup

3–4 fresh cranberries

1 orange wedge

2 dashes angostura bitters

2 dashes cranberry bitters

Garnish:

Orange peel, cranberries

Combine syrup, cranberries and orange in glass and gently muddle. Add Knob Creek, bitters and ice. Stir until chilled.

Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice or a large cube. Garnish with an orange peel and skewered cranberries.

Bourbon Honey French 75

Ingredients:

1 par t Basil Hayden® Kentucky Straight

Bourbon Whiskey

1 par t fresh orange juice

¾ par t honey syrup (or simple syrup)

½ par t fresh lemon juice

4 dashes orange bitters

1 par t fresh orange juice

Champagne or prosecco

Garnish:

Orange twist

Combine all ingredients except for sparkling wine in a cocktail shaker with ice.

Shake and strain into a champagne glass. Top with sparkling wine and garnish with an orange twist.

Honey Syrup: In a saucepan, mix honey and water. Heat about 2 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until honey is dissolved. Remove from heat, and set aside 1 hour to cool. Refrigerate until ready for use. Makes about ½ cup.

COCKTAILS FOR THE Holidays

OZ TITO’S HANDMADE VODKA

1 OZ COFFEE LIQUEUR

½ OZ SIMPLE SYRUP ½ OZ CREAMER, OPTIONAL

St. Elder Classic Espresso Martini

1 OZ ESPRESSO

3 ESPRESSO BEANS, GARNISH

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with espresso beans.

Ingredients:

2 ounces Tito's® Handmade Vodka

1 ounce cof fee liqueur

1 ounce espresso

½ ounce simple syrup

½ ounce creamer, optional

3 espresso beans, garnish

Garnish: Espresso beans

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake.

Strain into a martini glass.

Garnish with espresso beans.

Ingredients:

1 ounce St. Elder® Natural Elderflower Liqueur Prosecco

Garnish: Lemon t wist

Pour St. Elder in champagne glass and top with your favorite Prosecco. Float lemon twist to garnish.

Fireside Fashioned

Ingredients:

1.5 ounces Flag Hill® Maple Bourbon Whiskey

¼ ounce toasted marshmallow syrup

3 ounces chocolate bitters

Garnish:

Toasted marshmallow

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until fully chilled and diluted (about 20 seconds). Strain over one large ice cube and garnish with a toasted marshmallow.

Spicy Orange Mimosa

Ingredients:

1 ounce Casamigas® Jalapeño Tequila

1 ounce fresh blood orange juice

¼ ounce simple syrup

1 jalapeño slice

½ thick rim equal par ts salt/sugar chile and lime

Top off with chilled Prosecco

Garnish: Blood orange peel

Wet ½ rim of glass with orange wedge and dip into salt mixture. Combine all ingredients, except Prosecco in a shaker. (Muddle jalapeño if using.)

Add ice and shake.

Strain into a rimmed champagne flute.

Top off with chilled prosecco and garnish.

Sparkling Holiday Punch

Ingredients:

2 Three Olives® Vodka

2 ounces cranberry juice

4 ounces sparkling apple cider

Garnish: Rosemary sprig, orange slice, and 3 fresh cranberries. Add all ingredients to a glass with ice. Gently stir and garnish with a rosemary sprig, orange slice and three fresh cranberries.

Ingredients:

2 ounces Bushmills® Original Irish Whiskey

1 ounce cof fee liquer

1 ounce fresh espresso

½ ounce cinnamon syrup

2 dashes walnut bitters

Garnish: Cof fee beans

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker full of ice.

Shake well. Strain cocktail into a separate glass and allow to settle for 1 minute. Garnish with coffee beans.

603 Living

Warm Up Your Winter with Wassail

The spiced holiday beverage celebrates the harvest and blesses the apple orchards

BY EMILY REILY

For centuries, the holidays have been synonymous with revelry, gift-giving and well-wishes.

Naturally, festive food often matched the joyous spirit and warmed the soul.

In times past, Christmas and New Year’s revelers would drink generously from the wassail bowl, a large ornate punch bowl filled with wassail — a warm, spiced beverage made with ale, mulled wine or cider.

Some early recipes called for beaten egg whites to be tempered into the heated beverage. This created soft peaks, earning the drink the name “lambswool” in some corners of England. As the wassail bowl was passed around, people wished each other good health.

Wassailing, which is pronounced more like “waffling” rather than “sailing,” was derived from the Old English word “was hál,” which means to be in “good health,” according to the National Trust, a conservation charity based in England.

Maddie Beihl, a camp coordinator at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, says wassail and the act of “wassailing” took place in England in the mid-17th century through the late 18th century.

“It’s a way of almost making an offering to ensure that you have a really good harvest of apples or barley for the coming year,” Beihl says.

During “wassailing,” people went doorto-door, petitioning the home’s owner (or whoever would listen) to hear their carols. They would ask for a bit of mead or beer, some bread, or the chance to warm up by a roaring fire, before heading back out into the snow to do it all over again.

In the apple orchards around England, people made a “hullabaloo” by banging pots and pans together, and hung pieces of bread from the branches to “bless” the orchards and make an offering of cider to the gods for a good harvest next year. Even the wassail bowl had meaning. Some were made from

This wassail celebration image was engraved by John Tenniel in 1888.

WASSAIL RECIPE

(courtesy of The Williamsburg Cookbook)

1 cup sugar

4 cinnamon sticks

3 lemon slices

2 cups pineapple juice

2 cups orange juice

6 cups dry red wine

½ cup lemon juice

1 cup dry sherry

2 lemons, sliced

Boil the sugar, cinnamon sticks and 3 lemon slices in a ½ cup of water for 5 minutes and strain. Discard the cinnamon sticks and lemon slices.

Heat, but do not boil, the remaining ingredients. Combine with the syrup, garnish with the lemon slices and serve hot.

Serves: 20

lignum vitae, a dense hardwood with dark, reddish colors.

Wassail, which paired pagan and religious symbolism, also came with its own lore full of fantastical characters. One folktale speaks of an “Apple Tree Man,” a spirit who revealed a stash of gold treasure to the person who offers him a mulled drink.

As people walked through the orchards, a wassail “king” would lead a processional in traditional English carols like “Gloucester Wassail” and “Here We Come A-wassailing.” Then the wassail queen would be lifted into the apple trees to hang her cider-soaked toast (known as sop) from its branches.

This ongoing celebration began at Christmas and usually ended 12 nights later on the Christian holiday of Epiphany, usually around Jan. 6. But the partying may have gone on longer than that.

“Christmas celebrations could last until mid-January. That’s typically when you see wassailing happening in England,” Beihl says.

Did Colonial settlers in New England wassail? Yes and no.

“Most of the original settlers in New Hampshire came from southern England, where this same custom of wassailing originated. It wouldn’t be crazy to imagine that a lot of those customs came with them,” Beihl says.

But the pagan tradition of making an offering to the trees wasn’t always welcome in the new, Puritan world, Beihl says.

“What we run into in the colonial era is this divide between Puritans and the Church of England. Giving an offering to the apple orchards is a pretty pagan ritual. That’s where it gets really hard to find concrete evidence that people are definitively wassailing in New Hampshire,” Beihl says.

So, examples of wassailing around here are slight.

“There was so much Puritan influence, historically, that a lot of these more traditional, English customs don’t show up in the ways that we expect them to in the historical record. We have to rely on the connections that are there,” Beihl says.

There was no doubt that things could get rowdy during Wassail, especially as Twelfth Night nears, she says.

“You throw some big parties, and when you start to have the wassail drink, I think that becomes a little bit less about blessing apples in your crops and (more) about wishing each other good health. So, the more you drink, the more you’re going to have good health for the next year. It could get a little raucous,” Beihl says.

In fact, historians have proof that Christmas revelry was “banned” in parts of New Hampshire.

“There are some articles in Portsmouth newspapers from the late 18th century that talk about the temporary ban of Christmas reveling. Christmas isn’t illegal; you can go to church on Christmas. (But) anything that brings disruption, which would be a lot of the drinking and the partying (that’s) traditionally associated with an Old English custom of celebrating Christmas … which is more like a feast, as opposed to like a religious observance, (would be banned),” Beihl says.

Regardless, New Englanders have certainly carried on with the biggest component of wassail: the apples, which weren’t native to North America until colonists arrived, Beihl says. It’s so ingrained in New Hampshire’s culture that apple cider is the official state beverage.

“We, historically in New England, have drunk a whole lot of hard cider as opposed to water or milk as a daily beverage. It’s the most common beverage in the early colonial era,” Beihl says.

You can make wassail from apple cider, mulled wine or ale, and add spices like clove and allspice. Slices of citrus fruits like oranges and cinnamon sticks might be thrown in the pot, too.

Or you can grab a can of Wassail Ale. Since 1996, Woodstock Inn Brewery in North Woodstock has been busy making

PHOTOS BY ELLE TORRES

its Wassail Ale, which is only offered during the holidays but remains a hot seller.

Made in the style of a classic English Strong Ale, Wassail Ale isn’t made with spices, instead getting its flavor from grains.

Either way, fans flock to the brewery to get a taste of 17th-century England, say sales manager Garrett Smith and brewery manager Peter Dodenhoff.

“It’s deep ruby red in color, very smooth and malty. It’s one of those beers that can warm you up on a cold winter’s night,” Dodenhoff says.

Wassail Ale can be used to make your own at-home wassail — or if you like, you can use darker, hoppier beers.

“Traditionally, wassail is almost served as a mulled wine kind of vibe, where you warm it up, add some cinnamon and clove. If you want to get the full wintery experience, then you can add whatever you want to it,” Dodenhoff says.

Smith and Dodenhoff suggest warming your beer slightly, then adding spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, clove or allspice.

“It’s a choose-your-own-adventure sort of thing. You could do a little orange peel, if you’re so inclined,” Dodenhoff says.

“It changes the way you feel real fast. It makes your face warm. It’s a great food beer too,” Smith adds.

About 600 to 900 gallons of the limited seasonal release is being produced at the brewery for the holidays. But once January hits, demand for Wassail Ale drops significantly.

Whichever way you wassail, its history continues. You don’t have to be British or create an overly complicated drink to enjoy wassail. A simple “boozy punch” might just do the trick — though alcohol is optional.

Just follow the recipe seen at left and make some noise to celebrate the season, or visit a nearby wassail festival to really get into the mood. NH

DECEMBER 7

Winter Wassail

Stonewall Farm, 242 Chesterfield Road, Keene. Music by 1800s carolers, cocoa bar, wassail, wagon rides, crafts. stonewallfarm.org/events/ winter-wassail-2

DECEMBER 13-15

40th Annual Wassail Weekend

Woodstock, Vermont. Activities like book sales, craft fairs, wassail parade, a yule log and more. woodstockvt.com/the-town/blog/ wassail-weekend-in-woodstock-2024

New Hampshire News By Locals, For Locals

Rick Ganley and Julia Furukawa Hosts of Morning Edition and All Things Considered

Calendar

HAPPENINGS FOR DECEMBER

FEATURED EVENT

Through December 29

6th Annual Jingle Bells Winery Tour > The NH Jingle Bells Winery Tour is back for a sixth season! Experience the wonders of the holiday season while touring through 15 festive wineries. On this self-guided tour through NH wine country, tasters will receive a unique holiday ornament from each location, and enjoy a wine or spirit, along with a light bite on weekends. Attendees will also have the opportunity to win a gift basket full of assorted presents by following the Jingle Bell Winery Tour’s Facebook page and sharing, posting and commenting throughout their tour. Make sure to include @NHJingleBellsWineryTour and #NHJBWT2024 to be entered. Wear your festive holiday attire, as photos are encouraged! Your ticket includes admission to the 12 participating wineries: Alpine Garden Winery, Appolo Vineyard, Averill House Vineyard, Black Bear Vineyard, Cabana Falls Winery, Crazy Cat Winery, Flag Hill Distillery & Winery, Front Four Cellars, Gilmanton Winery, Hermit Woods Winery, LaBelle Winery (choose from one of two LaBelle Winery locations, Amherst or Derry, to visit), Seven Birches Winery, The Summit Winery, Sweet Baby Vineyard, and White Mountain Winery. $65-$130. Weekends from noon-5 p.m. Locations vary. (603) 659-2949; Facebook. New Hampshire Magazine is a proud sponsor of this event.

November 16 - December 22

Cats > Experience CATS as you’ve never imagined, now with a dash of grand Christmas extravaganza! Celebrating over 40 years of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s timeless classic, this dazzling production continues to enchant audiences with its mesmerizing musical adventures of Jellicle Cats in the moonlight. Inspired by T.S. Eliot’s whimsical “Book of Practical Cats,” Webber’s magical spectacle unfurls with acrobatic dance, breathtaking costumes, intricate puppetry and unforgettable surprises. Both

witty and wonderfully entertaining, CATS is the ideal holiday indulgence for all ages. Ticket prices and times vary. The Seacoast Repertory Theatre, 125 Bow St., Portsmouth; seacoastrep.org

November 29 - December 7

9th Annual RSVP Festival of Trees > Sponsored by the Carroll County Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (CCRSVP) this annual holiday celebration will be held again this year at Settlers Green. Enjoy a holiday tradition featuring over 125 beautifully and

creatively decorated trees, mini-trees and wreaths created by community organizations, businesses, school children, families and individuals. The festival also includes cocktail parties, live performances, a silent auction, a holiday gift shop, a children’s scavenger hunt and, of course, a visit with Santa and Mrs. Claus. Kick off your holiday season with excitement and cheer and, if you’re lucky, you might even take home one of their trees for your Christmas holiday. 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Settlers Green Outlets, North Conway; nhfestivaloftrees.com

FEATURED EVENT

November 12 - January 19

LaBelle Lights > There’s a festive feel in the air with the magical display of lights in Derry. More than 500,000 twinkling lights light up the night at LaBelle Winery. The outdoor light display is a walking tour along designated paths through the golf course. Visitors will enjoy a totally different theme each week of the event. Ticket prices and times vary., LaBelle Winery, 14 Route 111, Derry. labellewinery.com

Weekends in December

Candlelight Stroll at Strawbery Banke > The Candlelight Stroll invites visitors to step into the past and experience 350+ years of seasonal and holiday traditions in the Puddle Dock neighborhood. The Museum’s furnished historic houses are adorned with handmade decorations created from greens and dried flowers from the Museum’s heir-

FEATURED EVENT

loom gardens. Visitors call upon the many families who once lived in the waterfront neighborhood — portrayed by costumed role players — who share stories, customs and seasonal traditions. Additionally, enjoy hot apple cider, a warming bonfire and Ice Dance International’s Currier and Ives Vintage Christmas Skaters for several performances each night of this treasured event. Ticket prices and

Through December 15

“The Nutcracker” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” > Safe Haven Ballet is thrilled to bring their spirited, full-length ballet of “The Nutcracker” and their more contemporary and interactive “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” to the Portsmouth Music Hall, the Colonial Theatre, the Nashua Center for the Arts, the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, Cary Hall and the Capital Center for the Arts. SHB is a trauma-informed touring professional ballet company and pre-professional school located in beautiful Portsmouth, and it exists to offer free trauma-sensitive classes to survivors of sexual/domestic violence and trauma. Many of these brave survivors will be in the production as they help bring the magic of the season to you. Ticket prices, location and times vary; safehavenballet.org/events.

times vary. Strawbery Banke Museum, 17 Hancock St., Portsmouth; strawberybanke.org

December 1, 7 and 8

Christmas with the Cows > Come celebrate the holiday season at Brookford Farm! Join us for a funfilled day of festivities with our adorable cows. Get into the holiday spirit with family-friendly DIY’s and delicious farm-fresh foods. This is the perfect event for families looking for a unique Christmas experience. Don’t miss out on this special opportunity to create lasting memories with the cows this holiday season! $7-$17, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Brookford Farm, 250 West Road, Canterbury; brookfordfarm.com

December 6-7

Festival of Trees and Holiday Market > The Bedford Women’s Club Festival of Trees and Holiday Market is back for another year! Dozens of fully decorated trees with various and interesting themes will be on display to win in the raffle, along with holiday merchandise from local vendors and musical entertainment by local performers. Santa will listen to wishes and pose for you to take photos. There is also a craft area for children, door prizes and more. Raffle tickets for the trees will be on sale at the door, and anyone who donates canned or boxed food items for the Bedford Food Pantry will receive a free raffle ticket. Proceeds benefit the BWC scholarship and charitable donations fund. The annual holiday tree lighting by the Bedford Garden Club on the church property at the corner of Church and Bedford Center roads will be at approximately 4 p.m. on Saturday, followed by refreshments in the church hall, as part of the

celebration of the church’s 275th anniversary. Friday, 4 - 7 p.m. and Saturday 1 - 5 p.m. Bedford Presbyterian Church, 4 Church Road, Bedford; bedfordwomensclub.org

December 7

Illuminated Holiday Parade and Tree Lighting > Head to Market Square for music and a tree lighting, followed by a hometown holiday-themed parade. This event will illuminate your night and ignite your Christmas spirit with a visit from the jolly star himself, Santa. To help others and spread holiday cheer, bring a nonperishable food item to donate to volunteers walking through the parade with shopping carts for the city’s annual food drive. This event is a part of Vintage Christmas. 5:30 p.m., Downtown Portsmouth; cityofportsmouth.com

December 8

New Hampshire Gay Men’s Chorus > Celebrate the winter and the holidays with the New Hampshire Gay Men’s Chorus’ Winter 2024 Holiday Concert, Joyful! This upbeat celebration embraces the spirit of Christmas, Hanukkah and the winter season, featuring classics such as “Joy to the World!,” “Mele Kalikimaka,” and “Carol of the Bells,” along with catchy soon-to-be favorites like “Ding-a Ding-a Ding” and “Jubilate Deo.” $30.75, 3 p.m.; The BNH Stage, The Capitol Center for the Arts, 16S Main St., Concord; ccanh.com

December 8

Capital Jazz Orchestra Holiday Pops > Ring in the holiday season with the annual yuletide program featuring the Capital Jazz Orchestra and guest vocalists CJ & Laura Poole, along with narrator Laura Knoy, formerly of NHPR, who will be reciting two world-premiere pieces based on “Silent Night” and “The Little Drummer Boy” as composed by CJO arranger and former leader of the U.S. Navy Commodores Jazz Band, Jerry Ascione. Please join us as the stockings will be brimming with musical chestnuts, an audience sing-along and additional special surprises that are sure to leave everybody in the holiday spirit! $46-61, 4 p.m.; The Chubb Theater, The Capitol Center for the Arts, 44S Main St., Concord; ccanh.com

December 13

Scott Bradlees’s Post Modern Jukebox - The 10th Year Anniversary Tour > Famed “pop music in a time machine” concert act Postmodern Jukebox has announced a new World Tour, dubbed The “10” Tour, to celebrate the dual milestone of their 10th anniversary of touring and their 1,000th show in 2024. Concertgoers can expect a dazzling, inspiring trip through the PMJ Universe — where modern-day earworms and iconic pop hits alike are reimagined in classic genres like 1920s jazz, swing, doo-wop and Motown, and brought to life by a cast of some of the world’s best singers, dancers and instrumentalists. Think “The Great Gatsby” meets “Sinatra at the Sands” meets “Back! … To The Future.” $45 -79, 8 p.m., The Colonial Performing Arts Center, 95 Main St., Keene; thecolonial.org

December 14

Holiday Pops Concert > The Boston Esplanade Orchestra visits SNHU Arena for their cherished Holiday Pops concert. The magical music will be the highlight of your holiday season by capturing the special winter charms of New England. Listen and delight to their signature “Sleigh Ride,” as well as other holiday classics and new seasonal arrangements, joined by Metropolitan Chorale and an appearance from the Man in Red during the finale. Prices vary. 7:30 p.m., SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St., Manchester. (603) 644-5000; snhuarena.com

December 14

The 19th Annual Currier and Ives Cookie Tour > Join the businesses, B&B’s, inns and restaurants of the Monadnock Region for a cookie tour like no other! Stop into participating businesses to enjoy holiday cookies and revel in the season. On the tour, you’ll also receive recipes for the cookies you sample and additional refreshments while you support your favorite local businesses. If you stop at 10 locations on the tour, you’ll be entered to win a gift certificate that can be redeemed at any participating tour location. Locations vary. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; currierandivescookiestour.com

December 14- 15

Inn to Inn Cookie Tour > Participants in this beloved White Mountains tradition will not only tour inns decked in all their holiday finery while offering signature holiday cookies and candies, but will receive recipes from each inn in a Holiday Recipe Cookbook to take home and a chance to win a $250 gift certificate for a getaway at the inn of their choice. Stay at one of the participating inns and you’ll also receive a keepsake ornament. Chosen by

editors of New Hampshire Magazine as “The Best Sugar High,” $1,000 of the proceeds from the event will benefit End 68 Hours of Hunger, a weekend program that puts nourishing food in the hands of schoolchildren to carry them through the weekend. The tour stretches from Jackson to Madison, with eight inns opening their doors to those in search of fabulous holiday treats, recipes and decorating ideas. No inn is more than 15 minutes from the next. Ticket prices vary. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; countryinnsinthewhitemountains.com

December 31

Hampton Beach Fireworks > The New Year’s Eve fireworks show at Hampton Beach will take place at 8 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 31. The fireworks will be set off on the beach at the top of B and C streets, in front of the Seashell Stage on Sand 169 Ocean Blvd. The fireworks are weather permitting, and any cancellations will be announced on the Hampton Beach Facebook page. It’s recommended to dress warmly. hamptonbeach.org

Find additional events at nhmagazine.com/ calendar. Submit events eight weeks in advance to Elisa Gonzales Verdi (egonzalesverdi@nhmagazine.com) or enter your own at nhmagazine.com/calendar. Not all events are guaranteed to be published either online or in the print calendar. Event submissions will be reviewed and, if deemed appropriate, approved by a New Hampshire Magazine editor.

Off to the Races

George Krikorian Jr. has a knack for real estate, movie theaters and thoroughbred horses

BY LYNNE SNIERSON

George Krikorian Jr. is a movie theater mogul, construction and real estate magnate, and an owner and breeder of world-class thoroughbred racehorses. It all started at the old Rockingham Park in Salem when he was just a child.

“My grandparents immigrated to this country in the early 1900s from Armenia. At that time, there was a genocide of the Turks killing the Armenians, but fortunately they were able to get to this country, and they settled in Salem,” says the 79-year-old entrepreneur who lives in Palos Verdes, California, but still speaks with a slight accent that authenticates his New Hampshire roots.

“They bought a property on Policy Road called Fairmont Manor. It had 12 or 14 bedrooms which they rented out to jockeys and trainers from the racetrack in the 1940s and

1950s. It was right at the intersection with Pelham Road where it heads up to Canobie Lake Park, and people would stop there every five minutes of every day and say, ‘How do I get to Canobie Lake Park?’”

His father, George Krikorian Sr., had no interest in the amusement park. He heard the siren song of the other Salem landmark.

It called George Sr. to the track and sparked his lifelong passion for Thoroughbred racing. Eventually, the father began his career as a trainer, and the son came of age in the stable area.

“As a kid, I worked in his barn. I used to walk horses (by hand on a shank before morning exercise or to cool them down after their races) for my dad. In the mornings, I would go out in the fields near the track and pick alfalfa for the horses,” he recalls.

Nonetheless, he spent more time on the fronts ide of the track than the back side. The defunct-Rockingham Park, now the site of the sprawling multi-mixed-use development Tuscan Village, was where he developed his entrepreneurial spirit and business acumen.

“I used to hang around the track when I was 10 or 11. I’d stand outside the gate during the races, and as people were leaving, I would ask them for their programs and racing forms. Then I’d resell them to people coming in to bet on the races. I made a lot of money doing that,” he says with a laugh.

“I also made a deal with a guy who was selling ice cream out in the parking lot. He couldn’t get inside the track because Harry M. Stevens was the concessionaire.

George Krikorian’s Just FYI wins the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships Juvenile Fillies division under jockey Junior Alvarado.

It’s said that it’s better to be lucky than good. It’s even better to be both.

George Krikorian bred the filly Just FYI, a daughter of 2018 Triple Crown-winner Justify, although she was never supposed to stay in his stable. She was set to be auctioned at the prestigious Keeneland Yearling September Sale in Kentucky in 2022, but an inflamed wound in her shoulder made her unpresentable to buyers so she never went through the ring. Instead, she went home to his farm and, after she turned 2 years old, she was ready to join the racetrack stable of Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott.

In 2023, Just FYI carried Krikorian’s silks to victory in an undefeated season that culminated with a win in the Breeders’ Cup World Thoroughbred Championships division for 2-year-old fillies, which is a Grade 1 race with a $2 million purse. At year’s end, she earned the prestigious Eclipse Award as North America’s champion horse of her gender and age. She gave Krikorian his first Breeders’ Cup win in 13 tries, and his first Eclipse Award in almost a quarter century of owning and breeding quality Thoroughbreds.

“I’ve had some good luck. There is so much more that can go wrong than go right in this business. I’ve been very fortunate,” he says. “Just FYI is so very special. Her grandmother, Starrer, was a multiple Grade 1 winner for me, but she’s my first Breeders’ Cup winner and my first Eclipse Award winner. I’m very attached to all my horses, but she holds a very special place in my heart. She’s an incredible horse.”

He would load me up with a big case of ice cream and sneak me inside the gate where the railroad train platform was right inside the racetrack. As people were getting off the train (from Boston), I’d run out, and I’d sell all my ice cream in five minutes to that group. And then the guy would load me up again, and I’d go sell more.”

After graduating from Woodbury High School (now Salem High School) in 1964, he wasn’t sure about college or keen on being drafted into the military, so he enlisted in the Navy, served in the Vietnam War and came home to Salem.

Lutza Smith, the wife of Rockingham’s then-owner Lou Smith, always liked him and got him a job at the track selling tickets for the New Hampshire Sweepstakes, now known as the state lottery. But when September rolled around and the weather

turned, he heeded the proverbial phrase “Go west, young man” in the late 1960s.

“I woke up one day and thought I’ll go to California and see if I can maybe go to school and study real estate. I went to Los Angeles City College and got my A.A. degree and my real estate certificate. I started my real estate career as a salesman, then became the manager of an office, and then I created my own brokerage. Then I got into construction and development and kept moving,” he says.

Along with his booming business in real estate and commercial development, he founded Krikorian Premiere Theaters in 1984. He opened the first chain of more than 100 movie theaters in Southern California, which he eventually sold to Regal Cinemas in 1996 for $28 million plus stock options. By 2000, he had created a new

chain of more upscale and commercially viable metroplex theatres with an emphasis on old Hollywood quality and glamour, and he became the president and CEO of Krikorian Premier Theatres.

In 2000, he returned to his roots and ventured into the Thoroughbred racing business as an owner and breeder, and his Starwood Farm near Lexington, Kentucky, competed at the top echelon of the sport. In October 2023, his mare War Like Goddess and homebred filly Just FYI, a daughter of 2018 Triple Crown-winner Justify, won back-to-back prestigious Grade 1 races in New York. Even winning a single Grade 1 race in this sport is an enormous accomplishment, so this is a rarity indeed.

“There is so much more that can go wrong than go right in this business. I’ve been very fortunate.”

“That is very exciting, very special, for sure. I had flown in from L.A. to watch my horses run, and my daughter was with me. It was amazing,” says the father of two and grandfather of four.

George Krikorian Sr. retired from his training career in New England in 1986 and moved with his wife to Southern California. He never had a stakes winner in his barn, let alone a Grade 3, Grade 2, or top-level stakes winner.

“Fortunately, he lived long enough to join us at the races. One of my first stakes-winning mares was Starrer, and she was a multiple Grade 1 winner (in 2001). My dad was alive to see her,” says Krikorian, who has about 125 broodmares, weanlings and yearlings on his Kentucky farm plus a contingent competing at the racetrack with Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott.

“I had multiple Grade 1 winner Hollywood Story, who won her first race in the (2003) Grade 1 Hollywood Starlet at the old Hollywood Park (now So-Fi Stadium),” he continues. “I’m so glad my dad, who died in 2004, was there to see that and be in the winner’s circle with her. That’s a full-circle moment.” NH

George Krikorian (center) celebrates the victory of War Like Goddess with Hall of Fame trainer Bill Mott (far left), jockey Junior Alvarado, and family. In a rare feat, his star mare and champion filly Just FYI won back-to-back Grade 1 races in New York on the same day, October 7, 2023.

Protecting

your well-being after a layoff

BY KRYSTEN GODFREY MADDOCKS / ILLUSTRATION BY ROMAN TAVANI

At age 49, Elena, a former director of sales and marketing in the staffing industry, was unemployed after 30 months of job searching. Although she had more than doubled her company’s sales and was one of its highest-paid employees, she was unexpectedly laid off.

For individuals who lose their jobs in their 40s or 50s, job loss can take a bite out of their finances — and self-worth — at a time when they need to project positivity and confidence. It’s no surprise that research shows that long-term unemployment is associated with increased rates of anxiety and depression.

“You go through cycles like mourning.

You go through stages. First, you’re shocked, then you’re angry, and then you act,” Elena told New Hampshire author Kelly Clark in Clark’s latest book, “Getting Back to Work: How to Piece Your Well-being Back Together When Unemployment Strikes at Midlife.”

“Getting Back to Work” explores Elena’s journey and the experiences of 14 other New Hampshire workers who found themselves jobless for more than six months after age 40. Published earlier this year, “Getting Back to Work” was borne from Clark’s previous doctoral research, which looked at why some people facing unemployment at midlife were better able to manage their well-being than others. She says her interest

in coping with adversity after job loss evolved out of her three decades of working as a nonprofit executive.

“I was really interested in people at the mid-career point, because what we see is that, regardless of where the economy is at — high or low unemployment — the duration of unemployment for people age 55-plus is longer,” Clark says. “They’re out of work longer at a time when they’re saving for retirement or have kids in college, and they don’t really have time to make it up.”

The unemployment rate in New Hampshire still hovers below 3%. Still, a recent analysis by ProPublica and the Urban Institute of the Health and Retirement Study reveals that 1 in 10 workers laid off in their 50s will never again earn as much as they once did. In September 2024, AARP reported that 33% of job seekers ages 55+ were long-term unemployed, compared to just 23% of job seekers ages 16 to 54.

Developing The Well-Being Framework

In 2011, Clark sent out The General Health Questionnaires, a screening tool that measures mental health, to 270 people. She then interviewed those who reported feeling positive and developed an analysis to determine what precisely led to their optimistic attitudes. Was it genetic positivity or something else? After meeting with them, she noticed that individuals in this cohort consistently reported participating in one or more activities, which included:

aintaining a structured schedule gaging in meaningful activities

• Conserving resources

• Accessing social support

• Building mental strength

Clark refers to these activities as the “Well-Being Framework,” a practical suite of strategies respondents used to buffer the negative impacts of their unemployment. This framework is not just a theoretical concept, but represents actionable steps that can be applied in real life.

“Consistently, regardless of their circumstances, they were taking some action in each area and in combination,” Clark says. “While my dissertation was very academic, in the book I wanted to make (the research) more accessible to people in a way that they can grab onto whatever works for them and apply it. Without your well-being, it’s really difficult to be able to conduct a job search or fulfill any of the other demands with fewer

resources and all of the challenges with being long-term unemployed.”

Where Are They Now?

Clark interviewed Elena and others for her dissertation more than a decade ago and then followed up to see how they fared in the job market and in their general well-being. Out of five people Clark was able to reconnect with in 2020, most had found work, including one who experienced a short bout of homelessness.

Elena ultimately reached a job search “dead-end” in New Hampshire. She moved to North Carolina, taking a job as a blackjack dealer at a casino before becoming its marketing and events director. Unsatisfied with life in North Carolina after six years, Elena and her husband looked for opportunities that would allow them to return to the Granite State — with jobs.

Elena took a role as a branch administrator at an investment company in North Carolina that had plans to open a branch in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Within months, she was able to transfer to the Lebanon branch. Today, she works as an executive assistant and contracts manager for a large Upper Valley hospital and hopes to continue to grow in her role. Elena’s story is just one of many in the book that demonstrate the resilience and determination of midlife job seekers.

“I just heard from her after I sent her a copy of the book, and she told me that she’s finally come full-circle, but it’s taken all of this time,” Clark says.

Like many others who’ve experienced long-term unemployment, Elena continues to pay a financial toll despite her perseverance.

“She said she’s not going to be retiring as soon as she anticipated and that she’s got to make up for having to drain down some of her retirement funds,” Clark says.

Yet, by following the Well-Being Framework, Elena was able to remain positive after experiencing months of rejection. She made it a rule to stick to a schedule, avoid turning on the TV, and made sure to take breaks. She maintained social connections through her book club and received support from her husband and family. She updated her computer skills and earned a project management certificate to make herself more marketable. All of these actions gave Elena the mental strength to secure the job and lifestyle she wanted.

Others in the book protected their well-being by volunteering, exercising and taking part-time jobs. These activities gave them purpose and perspective on their situations, Clark says.

Getting Back to Business:

Useful Strategies for Job Seekers

“Getting Back to Work” includes practical strategies people can use to stay focused and positive while they search for new jobs and adjust to their new normal. The book includes planners, suggested reading and actions people can take that follow the Well-Being Framework. Some of these include:

• Determine the hours you’ll focus on your job search daily and commit to this schedule.

• Seek out low or no-cost job employment counseling at your local job center, such as NH Works.

• Identify needs vs. wants and adjust your budget.

• Work part-time.

• Volunteer.

• Reassess your living arrangements.

• Take on a low-cost household project that’s been on your list for years.

• Avoid negative people.

• Make a list of three new people to connect with each week.

• Record your daily progress, however incremental.

• Learn your way forward.

Clark encourages those facing unemployment to reach out to loved ones and close friends and their local NH Works job office. NH Works provides comprehensive resources for job seekers, from training and apprenticeships to education and career information. With 12 offices across the state, NH Works gives job seekers access to computers, phones and knowledgeable staff committed to helping them find career solutions.

The absolute worst thing a frustrated job seeker can do for their job search — and mental health — is nothing at all, Clark says. “You can seize control of your situation by putting into place the five strategies to piece your well-being back together and support your mental and physical health,” she says in the closing of her book. “There are people who will help you. Be proactive and reach out. Don’t sit idle.” NH

GET YOUR GEAR

My Adventures with Grandmere

During a recent visit to Boston, I squeezed down the crowded aisle of an MBTA bus before exiting. I felt badly for the customers waiting curbside, their faces masked in resignation. Boston busses are a mode of transportation, nothing more. They aren’t fun. The other riders weren’t reveling in the experience.

What a difference 50 years can make. Then, riding the bus was pure adventure for me, made all the more enjoyable by a special traveling companion, my Grandmere Pare.

Grandmere, my maternal grandmother, introduced me to the art of bus riding before I started school. Though I grew up in New Jersey, our family often made the pilgrimage to Mom’s hometown of Manchester, NH, and my grandparents’ home on Pickering Street. Here, during the 1960s and early ’70s, I learned the fundamentals of big-city public transportation.

My grandmother got her license late in life. She was almost 70 before finally taking her driver’s test, after my grandfather suffered a heart attack. Still, Grandmere rarely drove. Taking the bus downtown — to the Queen City’s beating heart — seemed more reasonable, more practical. She let someone else do the driving.

The best bus rides came during winter,

with whispers of light snow snaking across the freshly plowed Manchester streets. Bundled in layers — it would take us forever to get dressed, with rubber buckle-up boots and heavy snow pants — Grandmere, my siblings and I would shuffle down to the bus stop on Webster Street.

At least two of us would hold tightly to Grandmere’s hands. She always wore fine black gloves that she somehow never misplaced. I remember the bright green woven cap that kept her coiffured silver hair in place, and a large black and green overcoat that brought the ensemble together.

Her cheeks, like the young faces of her entourage, turned a healthy red in the brisk winter gusts. Though well into her 60s, Grandmere had the energy of a woman a third her age, and our walk to the bus stop was more of a race. All five of us would typically tire well before she did.

Climbing aboard the bus, my stubby Irish nose barely rose above the coin box. Grandmere would converse cheerily with the driver while we fumbled for the change hidden in our mitten-covered hands.

I never questioned whether Grandmere actually knew the driver or the dozens of passengers she would greet with a crisp “Hello” as she ushered us to an available seat. I just figured she must. Her dazzling, infectious smile was always returned in

kind. The passengers probably weren’t elated about having these rambunctious youngsters interrupting the serenity of a quiet bus ride downtown, but Grandmere always won them over. Her exuberance was contagious.

Like Grandmere, I couldn’t sit still. Usually, I’d try to coax a neighboring passenger into light-hearted conversation, boasting about a new toy or inquiring about this and that as Grandmere tried to corral me back to my seat. Those were especially prized moments, when just the two of us — Grandmere and me — rode to town and back. I loved the powerful, steady hum of the bus engines, and the excitement of discovering a new city with Grandmere, with stores to explore and restaurants to sample.

In the 1980s, Grandmere still enjoyed remarkably good health. When she celebrated her 90th birthday, she didn’t look a day past 70. She eventually moved from the house that my grandfather built to an apartment complex off River Road. But she kept riding the bus, maintaining a fabulous rapport with other passengers, bringing many into her ever-expanding circle of friends.

It’s been decades — a lifetime, really — since I last rode a Manchester Transit bus. We lost Grandmere in 1994, at the age of 98. I miss the sublime sense of adventure of those wintry days on the Webster Street bus, and I cherish the memories. NH

BY BRION O’CONNOR / ILLUSTRATION BY PETER NOONAN

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