Eddie Ithier (right) and Lou Catano have been mentoring children at Manchester’s Webster House, collectively, for more than three decades. (Photo: David Lazar)

Hooksett’s Eddie Ithier was a basketball player at Southern New Hampshire University, fresh out of high school in the Bronx, when a sponsor brought him and his teammates to a dinner at Manchester’s Webster House, the city’s long-venerated home for children in need.

“When I first heard about this place, I thought it would be a bunch of bad kids,” Ithier, 44, recalls. “People have misconceptions. What I ended up seeing were good kids; kids who were polite and trying to do well. A lot of them just hadn’t received the stability or direction they needed. You saw the energy and respect they had, and then you looked at the staff and could see this wasn’t just a job – it was their life.”

The experience stayed with Ithier, who in 1994 made Webster House his first visit as a young professional looking for volunteer opportunities. Fifteen years later, the center’s leadership affectionately refers to Ithier as “the volunteer that never left.” For more than a decade, Ithier, a sales manager for Xerox, would visit Webster House twice a week, acting as a Big Brother for kids who’d often never received an open ear, much less a helping hand. The connection was personal. “I grew up in a not-so-great neighborhood,” Ithier says. “I had a number of friends who didn’t make it out. I was fortunate, however, to have some great parents. I want these kids to know that they’re not alone in whatever they’re dealing with; that there is a way out. I want them to come away appreciating the people who are here to help them and to hopefully appreciate themselves.”

Webster House in 2009 marked 125 years of service assisting children, 8-18, through some of their most difficult times – from abuse and neglect to broken families and discipline issues. The goal has always been two-fold: to provide a caring, stable setting for kids to receive critical life skills, and to also learn to give back. The center houses roughly 18 students at a time, providing independent living courses, homework help and counseling sessions, as well as an active recreation and volunteer program. “We try to show them that there’s more to life than playing a video game,” center director Lou Catano says. “We also try to give them good shared memories.”

Those memories are mutual, says Ithier, now a board member for the nonprofit and a father of two young daughters. “If one of these kids has a better life because of their time here, it’s a great thing,” he says. For more information, visit www.websterhouse.org.

As this New Year rolls in, it is a time when many across our state are working hard to plant their own seeds for happiness, security and renewal for their families. Indeed, 2009 brought its share of continued challenge, with few communities – from the North Country to the Seacoast – immune to the pressures of a struggling economy.

As a businessman who has devoted a good number of years to identifying innovative solutions to everyday problems, I am a deep believer in our state’s greatest resource, its people, and their unwavering self-reliance, entrepreneurial spirit, and ability to create their own solutions – and to do so in a very New Hampshire way. We’re seeing many of these stories already beginning to take shape, from the high-tech startups and small businesses sprouting across the southern part of the state, to the prospect of a film industry and cultural renaissance taking root in Coos County.

None of this will, of course, happen overnight. It will require all of us to take a collective deep breath, take stock of our situations, and ultimately take some chances. As Granite State residents, we know no other way. From Gen. John Stark to astronaut Alan Shepard, New Hampshire folks have never been shy about charting their own independent course. And 2010 is no time to stop.

As with the original NH Troubadour, which launched in 1931 as New Hampshire and the nation faced another era of hardship, we have published this little magazine to always remind you – regardless of circumstance – of the miracle of the state we call home, from our mountains, water and majestic backdrops to our timeless traditions and unrivaled volunteer spirit. As with that original publication, we look forward to seeing this period through, to hopefully providing you with an additional reason to smile each month, and to many, many bright years ahead.

THE WHISPER OF THE SOFT RAIN

BRUSHED ACROSS THE SASH AND PANE

PILLOWS FORMED OF INTIMACY LAIN

AS THE FRANTIC RIVULETS RUSHED FROM THE SILL

LOVE GROWN DEEP REFUSING ALL WANE

LIFE EDGED ALONG A RUSHING RILL

AS A CRADLING SPOON RESPONSE COMFORTS ALL PAIN

RESTING BACK AGAINST RAW WILL

THE STUBBLED SCRATCH OF CHIN TO SKIN

GOOSE BUMPS RISE TO CHILL OR THRILL

FRAILLY WE SEEK OR FADE FROM NATURE’S FIERY RUSH

GLIMPSING THE END DARE WE BEGIN

FOR LOVE IS BLIND

That’s because it is!

Sixty-five miles north in Warren, smack in the middle of the town square, sits a Redstone missile, which also looks a lot like a rocket. Because it is! Nicknamed Old Reliable, a Redstone missile boosted Alan Shepard’s capsule 116 miles up, up and up for his fifteen-minute ride of fame.

Ted Asselin, with the towns blessing, transported the retired Redstone to town in 1971, all the way from a field in Alabama. It was a long trip on a flatbed hauled by a semi. In a brochure called, “Why Here in Warren?”, Asselin wrote: It should be noted that the welcoming committee in Warren had a false start. When informed that the Redstone was approaching Wentworth, they jumped into vehicles, and racing south they soon discovered that the Redstone sighting was a local septic tank pumper! I knew at that point that I had indeed been correct in bringing America’s space program a little closer to Warren.

New Hampshire has long been fascinated by space and objects in the night sky, including UFOs. Many UFO sightings and encounters have been described over the years, mostly famously the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in 1961 near Groveton, which inspired several books and a made-for-television movie. After luring the Hills from their stalled vehicle, the aliens purportedly transported them to their ship, examined them and then returned them to the car. Betty and Barney drove home to Portsmouth, having misplaced a few hours. They never got over it.

In 2000, a group of UFOlogists along with Betty Hill herself, returned to the scene of the abduction for a look-see. The gang was standing beside the road where the UFO had landed when a local in a pickup pulled over and called out, “Did ya see a moose?”

“Nope,” the UFOlogists replied, “Looking for UFOs.”

“Okay,” the local said, and drove on.

Pond Hockey

Pond Hockey

by Melissa Rossetti

Crisp, cold and sunny, perfect.
Shovels and skates at the ready.
Solid and choppy but clear.
Piles of sticks,
Sorted.
Strangers now teammates,
Buckets become nets.
Blades carving brisk patterns in pursuit of the puck.
Wind-chapped cheeks,
Skating, shooting, scoring!
Sun dips, dinner calls.
Sore legs and soggy pants.
Skates in hand,
Sticks resting on shoulders,
High fives and waves goodbye.
The pond suddenly clear and quiet,
until tomorrow.

(Melissa Rossetti is a Troubadour reader from Chester, NH)

January Storm

January Storm

By Rose Kowaliw

Leaden clouds lying low,
sheeting winds blasting cold
and swirling, swirling snow.

New Hampshire Valentine

New Hampshire Valentine

I research the meaning of love
at our computer
on a lazy Sunday.

You interrupt, asking me to move
because the outlet may combust
at any moment.

After the lights go out
I hear you curse
As you rewire the fading sun.

When finished,
you apologize,
and blame it on the fragility of electricity.

At dusk I hear your familiar whistle,
reminding me of the day you gave me
a Lydia Pinkham bottle
you found behind the barn.

Over 30 years
in our Kitchen window
the blue bottle still reflects on
the fragility of light.

(B.P. Duncan is a Troubadour reader from Derry, NH)

30 Year Snow

30 Year Snow

by Barbara Mabbs Robinson

Permutations of whiteness surround me. Contrasting darks; mauves, greens, blacks, and burnt embers etch out the landscape from the hidden sky. The horizon is lost in nature’s mirage, but emerges subtly as I focus there.
This moment is my original encounter with what New Hampshire natives call “snow-the-way-it-used-to-be.” Fluffy-white-hip-high-delight meant for strong men and snowplows, sleighs and work horses, snow angels and snow men, giggly-children and hot chocolate…and me. The air is crisp and I breathe in the abundance.
Quite pervades. It is 7:00 am. Even the birds remain silent. Nothing stirs within the confines of the forest’s cathedral except my unholy intrusion. Several inches of snow grace the curved buttresses of the ethereal pines which arch over the trail. My space is profoundly sacred. I am blessed.
The sun usually rises at this time, but not today. I pause to be present in this moment and discover the vast arrays of clouds within the graying sky. Nature’s photograph of quiet meditation changes colors in my mind, but remains monochromatic to my eyes. Except for the minimal blush-infusion of photo-painter artistry, I am transported to a century before: before Kodak, before Polaroid, before the digital age.
The sounds, like colors, which began the day subdued, begin to emerge in my revelry. The branches breathe and move; exhaling snow-dust which tumbles down upon me and the path ahead.
I notice a downy woodpecker travel the bark of a beech tree nearby, seeking life and nourishment and a dog barking in the distance. Colors and sound emerge and awaken my consciousness. I walk back to my house, hungry for more. I’m ready for breakfast and a New Hampshire snow day.

(Barbara Mabbs Robinson is a Troubadour reader from Ellsworth, NH)

Hope

Hope

by Christina O’Donnell

May wounds be healed
In future times
Let forgiveness be revealed
By our troublesome kind

May life be steady as a rock or a boat
Because either way
You sink or you float

May paths be uncovered
To lead us through life
By the beauty of our hearts
Our souls and minds

Beliefs be given chances
Open-mindedness brings better days
To all who live and have been shunned
May hope be alive in everyone

May voices be handed out
To those who must break free
May light finally shine
On those who need to see

(Christina O’Donnell is a Troubadour reader and 8th grade student at Epping Middle School in Epping, NH)

I Am

I Am

by Isaac Ladd

I am from outdoors
From hot summers
And cold winters
I am woodpiles
And tree houses
Made with bare hands
I am from warm houses
And grassy fields of hay
I am from a nearly perfect place

(Isaac Ladd is a Troubadour reader from Loudon, NH)

The NH Troubadour, January 1937

A Middle-Aged Convert to Skiing

by E.S. Anderson

The New Hampshire Ski Map came in a day or so ago, and I promptly put it in my desk—I didn’t dare look at it because I knew it would spoil the day for me.

This morning in comes the December Troubadour. Being somewhat of an idiot, I looked at it—and today sure is spoiled.

When I turned to page 1 and saw that letter to a fifty-two-year-old grandfather, whom the opening thought accused of being huddled over the steam pipes, my ire rose. However, after reading the article I felt better—Peggy evidently is trying to coax the old gentleman out.

I think the reason that my ire went up is because I am not a whale of a long way from the half century mark, and I don’t want to be accused of huddling over a steam pipe. I have just completed the purchase of an honest-to-gosh ski outfit, and I am going to be one of the old grandpops on skis for the first time this year.

The NH Troubadour, January 1951

Kearsarge In Winter

By Emma M. Patch

The wind blows thru rusty oboes on the northeast
wall of night,
And holds a haunted tempo for the screaming
snow in flight.
A thousand icy legions march on its mighty
shouldered side,
Where a thousand million winters have ground,
and growled and died.

The NH Troubadour, February 1932

He Used His Own Judgment

John Hay, Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, had a summer place at Sunapee. He went there during the Russo-Japanese Peace Conference and left word with the ticket and freight agent, baggage man, and telegraph operator (for matters of economy and convenience these offices were merged in one man) that all telegrams be sent up to his house immediately.
Three days passed without any messages having come to him, and, becoming nervous, Mr. Hay drove down to the station to inquire whether some messages hadn’t come in. Thereupon the general factotum answered yes, that several had arrived but they didn’t make any sense so he hadn’t bothered to write them down or send any word about them.
The messages were all from the Department of State and, naturally, were in code.

The NH Troubadour, February 1941

Indian Pudding

by Belinda Moulton Blaisdell (born 1836, Meredith Bridge, NH)

Scald one quart of milk, stir in one-half cup of meal, one cup of molasses, one-half cup of sugar, one quart of cold milk, two eggs, little salt, one tablespoon butter and one-half cup of raisins. Bake four hours in moderate oven.

One of New Hampshire’s earliest towns and named for its counterpart in Suffolk, England, Newmarket began as a parish of Exeter and was incorporated in 1727 at the end King George I’s reign. For more than a century, Newmarket quietly flourished through fishing, shipbuilding, lumber and agriculture. Then, in 1823, merchants from Massachusetts visited and showed interest in a nondescript sawmill along the Lamprey. The prospectors purchased not only the sawmill, but the entire downtown of Newmarket, using locally quarried granite to construct the series of immense mills that made up the Newmarket Manufacturing Company. For 106 years the Newmarket Manufacturing Company was among the region’s largest suppliers of fabric, employing one in three Newmarket residents, weaving 300,000 yards of cloth per month, and hosting a silk-weaving shed (for the linings of men’s hats, fur capes and caskets) that was once the largest room in the world. With the Great Depression sadly came the shuttering of the massive mill complex. In the decades ahead, industry came in fits and starts, from shoemakers to a tiny upstart outerwear and footwear company in the 1970s called Timberland.

Today, the mills along the Lamprey remain, several converted to upscale condominiums, with others slated for redevelopment as homes to light industry. Visitors to Newmarket will find a waterfront that time has left largely untouched, from the smiles that greet you at Marelli’s Fruit and Real Estate, which last year celebrated its 100th anniversary purveying all manner of household goodies, to the well-trod parquet of the Rockingham Ballroom, the state’s oldest continually operating dancehall, having hosted 75 years of talent from the Dorsey Brothers to Count Basie and the Artie Shaw Orchestra.

As for history, no visit to Newmarket is complete without a stop by the circa 1843 Old Stone Schoolhouse Museum, the Wentworth Cheswell cemetery (dutifully restored by local historian Rich Alperin), commemorating the state’s – and nation’s – first African American elected official, or a call to Mike Provost (603-659-5713), Newmarket’s resident host to history, to arrange an unforgettably colorful tour of the town’s mill district.

Town Facts

• Population of 9,485 (est. 2007)
• The Lamprey River, which runs through the town, takes its name from a Saxon word for “a woodland enclosure where peace is to be found.”
• Newmarket was once a center of the New England shipping trade with the West Indies.
• The summit of Bald Hill, near the town’s southwest corner, is Newmarket’s highest point, at 281 feet above sea level.
• For the past 12 years the Newmarket Heritage Festival has celebrated the arts, culture, history and community spirit rooted in this small New England mill town. The event, held each September, has grown from a one-tent festival to a full weekend of multi-cultural music and dance, artisan demonstrations, historic walking tours, narrated boat tours, kayak excursions, a model railway, hands-on children’s activities, fine arts and crafts, strolling performers, vendor booths, a classic car exhibit, and more.
• Notable residents of Newmarket have included: Emma Lenora Borden, eldest sister of Lizzie Borden (who remains notorious in American folklore); Henry Tufts, an infamous 18th century thief; U.S. Congressmen John Brodhead, George W. Kittredge and William B. Small; Runner Lynn Jennings a three-time U.S. Olympian; Grammy-nominated folk singer/songwriter Bill Morrissey.

Classrooms throughout the school were broadcasting live network television footage, but for those, like me, in the cafeteria at the time of the launch, it was the grim announcement from our school principal moments after liftoff that will forever remain. This month we offer you not only a reminder of the endless possibilities that McAuliffe embraced with an enthusiastic smile that could brighten any horizon, but also a glimpse into the role Granite Staters have played in space exploration (“Small State, Giant Leap for Mankind,” pgs. 4-11).

Ever since he first set foot in New Hampshire more than two decades ago, Eddie Ithier has been sharing his own smile and so much more with every person he meets. To know Eddie is to immediately feel at ease. As a college basketball player, he first made his mark welcoming fans – none more so than the hundreds of youngsters cheering him on,  with an almost shy, ear-to-ear grin, comforting handshake and kind words after a game. And, he has never stopped reaching out to kids in the community (“Troubadour Trumpets,” pg. 23).

It is the hope that individuals like McAuliffe and Ithier give to all of us that makes each day special. It is a testimony to the power and will of the human spirit to conceive the inconceivable and then accomplish it.

It is a testament to the soul of this great state that whenever it seems darker, or a bit colder, we can find inspiration in the strength and kindness of a neighbor to light the way and warm us up. Yes, in New Hampshire, we are an especially lucky lot.

McAuliffe, who taught social studies at Concord High School, won national admiration for her everwoman appeal, infectious enthusiasm, and out- of-the-ordinary field trips with her students. (Photo: David Lazar)

CONCORD – Bob Veilleux looked up at the crisp, cobalt sky and knew something was wrong well before the voice on the loudspeaker confirmed it so.

The date was January 28, 1986, and Veilleux, a popular veteran science instructor at Manchester’s Central High School, was among dozens of educators on hand to view history from the bleachers at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL. For Veilleux, the moment was to be especially proud. This, after a national competition named him New Hampshire’s alternate for Concord High School social studies teacher Christa McAuliffe as the first educator to go into space.

Seventy three seconds into the launch of the Challenger space shuttle, Veilleux’s heart and that of the state and nation leapt from its collective chest. “Several of us science people in the audience knew the sequencing wasn’t right – the separation wasn’t supposed to happen that early,” Veilleux says of the eventual explosion that turned the blue morning sky into a cascading umbrella of white and orange. “You saw cheers turn quickly to tears… That’s when the voice came over speaker announcing, ‘There appears to have been a major malfunction.’

“There are tragedies that occur in all of our lifetimes – moments we live with for the rest of our lives,” he continues. “This was certainly one of them.”

Derry’s Alan Shepard caught the world’s attention in 1961 as the first American in space, and ten years later as the oldest man on the moon at age 47. (Photos courtesy of McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center)

Next January will mark a quarter century since the Challenger disaster; 25 years since Americans and Granite Staters of every generation and background united in grief after investing unprecedented hope and emotion in the first private citizen – someone just like one of them –selected for what was billed as “the ultimate field trip.”

For Veilleux, now a part-time educator at the newly expanded McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, January 2011 will be a time for him, fellow educators, and visitors to reflect and pay special tribute to McAuliffe’s memory and legacy.

It will also be a time, they hope, for visitors to see, realize and appreciate one tiny state’s unexpectedly immense role in the history of spaceflight.

With less than a quarter of the population of the Houston metro area alone – dubbed the nation’s Space City because of the Johnson Space Center – New Hampshire residents have never let their state’s small stature keep them from looking to the heavens and thinking big.

From a series of trailblazing astronauts to the region’s only aerospace museum and companies that have changed the way NASA engineers approached exploration of the stars, the Granite State has enjoyed a long and, at times, unlikely connection with the cosmos.

No exploration, of course, can begin without citing McAuliffe’s fellow namesake on the Discovery Center entryway – the first American in space, Derry’s Alan Shepard.

Born in 1923 to a prominent banking family on East Derry Road, Shepard had grown up inspired by the adventure and daring of Charles Lindbergh – the first to cross the Atlantic by air – and a desire to one day pilot his own aircraft and make history. “Nothing could stop Alan from flight,” says Richard Holmes, Director of the Derry Heritage Museum, where an entire room chock-a-block with photos, street signs, dolls, documents, literature and life-size cutouts is dedicated to Shepard. “He just had this sense of adventure from the time he was young, whether it was kite flying or sailing on Beaver Lake. He had a newspaper route just so he

(Photos courtesy of McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center)

could save money for a bicycle to ride over to Grenier Field.”

At Grenier Field in Manchester, Shepard would earn money sweeping floors, so he could pay the pilots there for flying lessons. He’d go on to serve his country during WWII aboard a naval destroyer and earn his pilot’s wings in 1947, flying several tours from aircraft carriers. Twelve years later, Shepard was among the nation’s top 110 test pilots invited by the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration to join the space program. On May 5, 1961, as church bells rang and fire sirens sounded down Broadway in Derry to mark the occasion, Shepard launched into orbit, helming the Freedom 7 mission.

“It was a huge thing,” Holmes says. “America in 1961 was space crazy. We had this competition with the Russians, and there was just this feeling that communism would take over because they were the first in space. But Alan turned out better than Yuri Gagarin… He even made the cover of Archie Comics – if that’s not success, I don’t know what is!”

Indeed, to visit Derry today is to see a witness shrine to its favorite son, from the stretch of I-93 that passes Derry,

dedicated in 1963 as the Alan Shepard Highway, to the Pinkerton Academy high school football team – the Astros – and the state legislature’s eventual decision to proclaim Derry the state’s official ‘Space Town.’ “There’s a certain pride in a small town like ours of letting the world know that we exist,” Holmes says. “This was an incredibly important moment for us as a community.”

Derry Heritage Museum Director Rick Holmes dedicated special room at the museum to Alan Shepard’s historic accomplishments. (Photo: David Lazar)

In the years after his first historic flight, Shepard would overcome Meniere’s Disease, a debilitating condition afflicting the inner ear, before walking on the moon for the Apollo 14 mission in 1971 at age 47, the oldest man to do so. While he spent much of his remaining years in Houston, locals say Shepard’s true home never changed, evidenced by his frequent flights into Grenier Field to visit his mother and his practice of tipping his wings as he flew over Derry.

Twenty five years after Shepard’s inaugural orbit, another New Hampshire resident, Concord’s Christa Auliffe, would make history of her own, winning a national competition among 11,500 teachers to become the first educator in space. McAuliffe’s feat came at a time when public support for funding the space program was in decline, and NASA needed a way both to humanize and spark new interest in its efforts. McAuliffe – who’d herself grown up watching John Glenn’s historic flight and dreamed of going to space – would do just that, with her everywoman appeal, unflagging enthusiasm, easy smile, and penchant for out-of-the-ordinary field trips with her students. “Just having me fly is a very clear message that space is accessible,” she would say. “You’re taking an everyday, ordinary person on board the space shuttle and flying her. It means something because we are teachers, and teachers are approachable people.”

Concord High School social studies teacher Christa McAuliffe helped revive national enthusiasm for NASA, before her tragic death in the Challenger disaster in 1986. (Photos courtesy of McAuliffe- Shepard Discovery Center)

“For her to make the selection from tiny New Hampshire was a huge deal,” says Dave McDonald, educational director at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. “One thing that keeps coming through is that she was a super educator. She was a person who just loved people, and people loved her back. Her thing was that she was just an ordinary citizen – and of course, she was anything but ordinary – and that she was taking the ‘ultimate field trip.’”

McAuliffe was selected in July 1985, and soon underwent a battery of training in Houston to prepare for the Challenger mission. From the Challenger, McAuliffe, one of seven astronauts aboard the mission, was to conduct several lesson plans for her class and thousands of others across the nation via satellite. “The hope for NASA was to get the average person interested in space, and Christa’s natural charisma managed to generate tremendous appeal both nationally and internationally,” Veilleux recalls.

Veilleux, an astronomy teacher who’d developed a close collegial relationship with McAuliffe in the months leading to the launch, was sitting behind her family the morning of January 28, 1986. Investigators in the months and years following the disaster would determine that a faulty O-ring – a piece of rubber designed to prevent leaks – failed in the frigid air that morning. “That shuttle should have never taken off that morning,” Veilleux says. “It was way too cold outside.” Veilleux watched as shock turned to intense grief – a feeling echoed in classrooms and millions of households – as much of the world witnessed the event live on television.

(Photo courtesy of McAuliffe- Shepard Discovery Center)

“The mood up here in New Hampshire when we returned was utter disbelief,” he recalls. “There was so much pride in Christa being the teacher to represent all of us. There was an incredible amount of hurt. The city and the state seemed to just shudder and hold it in.” On the Thursday morning after the disaster, a memorial service was held in front of the State House, where

Veilleux read a prepared message from teachers. McAuliffe’s remains would be laid to rest in Blossom Hill Cemetery in Concord. In the years following the Challenger tragedy, her name would grace some 40 schools around the world, while every year since 1986, the Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference in Nashua has devoted itself to the use of technology in all aspects of education.

In Concord, meanwhile, what began in 1990 as the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium dramatically grew last year with a 33,000-square-foot, $15-million expansion to become the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. Today, the center features the only interactive, hands-on exhibition of its kind in the world on black holes. “The Discovery Center is the perfect memorial to honor Christa, because it has, in fact, become New Hampshire’s premier field trip destination,” McDonald says. “If there is something we want children to leave with, it is a little more insight about each of these American heroes… We also want them to leave feeling good about their home state. Christa and Alan were extraordinary firsts in our history, and should be points of proper pride for New Hampshire.”

Built as a lasting memorial to her work, the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord was expanded last year to become New England’s only aerospace science center. (Photo: David Lazar)

As, he adds, should several other notable New Hampshire residents whose encounters with the stars are chronicled at the center – astronauts like Manchester’s Lee Morin, a medical doctor and Captain in the U.S. Navy, who in 2002 embarked on the 13th Shuttle mission to the International Space Station; astronauts like Hanover’s Jay Buckey, Pelham’s Rick Linnehan, and Portsmouth’s Rick Searfoss, who in 1998 took part in NASA’s 16-day Neurolab mission to study the effects of gravity-loss on the brain and nervous system – a mission informally known as “the New Hampshire flight.”

“To say we had three people from a tiny state with just 1.5 million people was quite a feat,” says Buckey, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School who served as a payload specialist aboard Neurolab. “I think it’s safe to say we had the highest per capita representation for one state on one flight. All of us had very different connections to New Hampshire. And all of us were extremely honored to represent our home state.”

Searfoss, an aeronautical engineer who logged more than 39 days in space, has since retired from NASA service, while Linnehan, a veterinarian, continues to serve, having now logged more than 59 days in space, including six spacewalks. Buckey, who returned to medicine, helps to lead the Discovery Center’s public education efforts, including an annual statewide astronomy bowl.

Just as Granite State residents have taken giant leaps for mankind, so too have several of its companies, whose inventions have enhanced the way NASA engineers approach space travel – companies like Keene’s Timken, whose split ball bearings are now used on the space shuttle’s main engine; like BAE systems of Nashua which created the computers for the Mars Rover in 2004; and like Hanover’s Creare, Inc. which created the cryocooler for the Hubbell space telescope in 2002.

And then there’s Shepard himself, whose time spent training for his inaugural spaceflight yielded an unlikely invention. Often locked in a capsule for several hours on end without the ability to exit, duty was not the only thing that called for Shepard. Nature did, as well. And so was invented the modern diaper,

Pelham’s Rick Linnehan, Portsmouth’s Rick Searfoss, and Hanover’s Jay Buckey with NH-shaped maple candies aboard NASA’s 1998 Neurolab mission, believed to be the largest concentration from one state ever on one spaceflight. (Photo courtesy of Jay Buckey)

which replaced the standard cotton filling with a polymer called sodium polyacrylate – a crystal that could absorb up to 300 times its weight in water. It’s a feat Veilleux demonstrates almost daily to schoolchildren, filling up one plastic cup with water, another with crystals, combining the two, and then suspending the mixed product upside down over one brave volunteer’s head. The head remains dry, since the water has become a gelled solid.

“It’s funny to see all of the New Hampshire connections,” Veilleux says. “Even the one true scientist who went to the moon and the last man to walk on it, Harrison Schmitt – I had an opportunity to meet him and found out tha

t his grandparents…. were from Claremont!

“Each of these things gives you a little bit of pride to be from this state,” he continues. “We may be small in some ways, but we’re mighty in a lot of others. There’s a lot of Yankee spirit up here, and people aren’t afraid of taking chances, rolling up their sleeves, and doing big things.”

Thanks to McAuliffe’s and Shepard’s sacrifices and the education efforts still under way, it is a legacy likely to last a very long time.

Special thanks to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, the Derry Heritage Museum, and Dr. Jay Buckey for their generosity and assistance with this story.

Retired science teacher Bob Veilleux, a part- time educator at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, was chosen as McAuliffe’s NH alternate for the ill-fated 1986 Challenger flight. (Photo: David Lazar)

PITTSBURG – Richard Blanchard was a young dad still adjusting to his duties as a newly deputized sheriff in the Great North Woods when he awoke one crisp October morning in 1835 to a rap on his farmhouse door and a warrant for his arrest.

The men waiting outside had come from just across the Canadian border in the town of Hereford, an act of retaliation for Blanchard’s arrest late that summer of a Canadian man who’d owed debts to a nearby general store. While that same Canadian—who’d managed to escape following an ambush on Blanchard’s deputies—watched on, Blanchard finished his chores, bid his wife and children farewell, and took just enough time for word of his arrest to trickle out before heading off into the autumn woods with his captors.

Signs announcing Pittsburg as the site of the Indian Stream Republic are among the first things visitors see as they drive into town, and among the last remaining reminders of the tiny democracy. (Photo: David Lazar)

For Blanchard the events of the next 24 hours in the surrounding, unforgiving patchwork of lakes and tree-lined hills would make for the ride of his life. They would also mark the beginning of the end of one of New Hampshire’s and the nation’s more interesting historical footnotes—a shortlived experiment in democracy known as the Indian Stream Republic.

So-named for the Connecticut River tributary that formed its southeastern border, the Indian Stream Republic was a nation within a nation—an independent state that resulted from, of all things, a surveying slipup, as British and American negotiators in 1783 scrambled to draw up a truce to the Revolutionary War and draw firm borders dividing U.S. and British territories. The 1783 Treaty of Paris would define this particular section along the Canadian-U.S. border as coming at the “northwesternmost headwaters” of the Connecticut River. There was just one problem: those headwaters had any number of tributaries, from Indian Stream to Perry and Hall streams, making that northwesternmost point a debate among settlers and local leaders on both sides who sought to claim the land as their own.

(Photo: David Lazar)

The result was a nearly 300-square-mile patch of remote, rugged and pristine wilderness, an undefined area atop New Hampshire roughly the size of New York City’s five boroughs and whose population density even today (at 3.1 people per square mile) is dwarfed by the world’s least densely populated nation, Mongolia. For 40-plus years after the Treaty of Paris, the Indian Stream territory existed as a sort of legal no-man’s-land, a place where Canadian and U.S. authorities had little if any jurisdiction or taxing power and where new settlers—including a handful of debtors seeking escape from obligation—arrived each year with little more on their backs than an axe, a few sacks of provisions and the hope of finding new opportunity in the virgin forest.

“Like the Gold Rush where people left everything they had on the east coast for the chance at something better, people came here with nothing but the want and wish of better living,” says lifelong Pittsburg resident Roy Amey, a descendant of one of the Indian Stream Republic’s first leaders, John Haynes. “For a time, it was very hard. One summer, there was actually four or five feet of snow. There was no food, no grain, their animals starved. Overall, it was a pretty bleak outlook when these folks moved up here. I think when you look around today, though, we did all right.”

The Indian Stream Republic comprised a nearly 300-square mile patch of rugged, pristine wilderness, noted for its tree-lined hills and the Connecticut Lakes. (Photo: Raymond Mazalewski)

Indeed, to drive today through the lush and still largely raw forestland and lake country that make up modern day Pittsburg is to witness the handiwork of those early settlers—a hardscrabble lot who made a living clearing trees and building roads, cultivating farms and raising livestock, logging and burning wood for potash fertilizer (the chief industry—in fact, a large overturned iron potash kettle for a time served as the territory’s jail), and constructing schoolhouses and public buildings through volunteer labor. Now, as then, it remains a place of proud self-sufficiency; a place where life can be hard in the cold season, but where neighbors feel a sense of obligation to pitch in and do things themselves as a community rather than having it done for them.

In the decades following the Treaty of Paris, the Indian Stream territory quietly prospered, as more families moved in and settled. Crime was relatively rare and most of the necessities of life were produced at home, with bartering common, payment of debts a matter of honor, and methods of commercial and financial transactions little known. As the 1820s drew to a close, however, local officials both in Canada and New Hampshire—seeking to boost revenue and authority —began to test their limits in the territory. Both would impose taxes on Indian Stream inhabitants, with Canadians going so far as to charge duties on goods brought into the territory and to attempt conscripting residents into the Canadian army. For all of this, the residents—or Streamers as they were known —received little in return.

A surveying slipup by British and U.S. negotiators following the Revolutionary War would leave an area roughly the size of New York City’s five boroughs in limbo. Confusion came from where a small patch of the U.S.-Canadian border was to be. (Images courtesy of the NH Historical Society Library and Wikipedia Commons)

By 1832, with no sign of relief, the 60 or so families living in Indian Stream came to a decision. At a meeting held on July 9 of that year, dozens of Streamers—still in their work clothes—packed the Center School House, demanding change and ultimately approving a declaration of independence and constitution by a 56-3 vote for what was to become one of the world’s tiniest nations. The hope: that such a compact could last until the British and the Americans finally resolved their border dispute over the territory. The constitution for this new, tiny nation atop New Hampshire would look remarkably similar to that of the United States, guaranteeing Streamers the right to self-governance, religious freedom, life, property and happiness. Later amendments guaranteed the right to free speech, election and debate; a swift and fair trial; and protection from double jeopardy, cruel and unusual punishment, and unwarranted searches and seizures. From that meeting also sprung a simple three-branch government, consisting of: an elected five member executive council; a general assembly consisting of all males over 21 years of age with three months residence in the republic, which could overturn a council decision on a 2/3 vote; and a judiciary whose decisions could ultimately be appealed to the executive council.

“If you look at this from a historical standpoint, the people of this territory were working, perhaps subconsciously, within the bounds of precedent set by the American Revolution to declare their independence,” says Jere Daniell, a retired Dartmouth historian who helped author and edit perhaps the most definitive history of the Indian Stream Republic. “And for a while, it worked. It should be noted that this was never intended to be a permanent arrangement.” And it wasn’t. For a little more than three years, the Indian Stream Republic churned as a tiny engine of democracy. Elections for executive council were held regularly each March. By 1835, Indian Stream had 69 families and 414 inhabitants living in relative prosperity, with each head of family possessing 100 acres of land and more than 1,500 acres under cultivation.

Little, however, could stop the winds of unrest building along the Republic’s northern and southern borders, as Canadian and New Hampshire authorities began to tire of an independent nation living in their midst and made concerted attempts to establish jurisdiction within the territory. A fracture would develop within the Republic. Some Streamers—including one of its first councilors, Luther Parker—urged their government to align with New Hampshire and the protection and stability it offered. Others sided with Lower Canada, as chief magistrate from Hereford, Alexander Rea, appeared frequently to try and drum up local support for incorporation into Canada. It would be a series of cross-border raids and arrests in 1835, beginning with Parker’s apprehension for allegedly threatening a Canadian debtor in his general store, and culminating in Blanchard’s, that would spell the Indian Stream Republic’s unceremonious end.

Officers would bring Parker to Canada and then release him from custody almost immediately—the arrest, more than anything, a symbolic attempt by Rea to assert Canadian authority within the Republic’s borders. For Blanchard, the story would be different. For in the time it took him to say goodbye to his family and finish his chores on that crisp October morning, word would spread to friends and later allies in the neighboring NH towns of Colebrook and Stewartstown. A posse of more than a dozen men gathered, tracking Blanchard’s captors down that evening just beyond the Canadian border on horseback, ambushing them and securing the young deputy sheriff’s release. The following day, members of that same posse, fueled by rum and retribution, appeared at Magistrate Rea’s house in Hereford with their own arrest warrants for him and Blanchard’s captors. A street brawl ensued. One overzealous member would split Rea’s straw hat with his saber and another would fire a pistol in his direction, before the mob took the magistrate into custody and brought him back across the border to Canaan, VT.

As the group arrived in Canaan and the effects of the alcohol began to wear off, the men quickly realized the magnitude of what they’d done, having assaulted a magistrate in the exercise of his functions and carried him into captivity in a foreign country. Rea was immediately released back to Canada. A line, however, had been crossed. As word spread in the days following of an insurrection brewing in Indian Stream between pro-Canadian and pro-NH inhabitants and a possible incursion by Canadian forces, NH Governor William Badger decided to disregard ongoing U.S.-British border negotiations and dispatch the 24th regiment of the state’s militia into the Indian Stream Republic to restore order.

So fell the curtain on one of the world’s tiniest democracies, as Streamers, seeking the protection NH offered, ceded authority to the state. Five years later, Indian Stream would be incorporated as Pittsburg, today New England’s largest town in land area. In 1842, the British, seeking to rid themselves of any more headaches along the disputed border, would give up millions of acres of territory—including Pittsburg—to U.S. negotiators in the Ashburton Treaty.

How history judges the Indian Stream Republic rests in the eyes of each storyteller. For some, like bestselling author Jeffrey Lent, who used Indian Stream as the setting for his 2002 landmark novel Lost Nation, it is a fable of man’s imperfection. “I think it is ultimately a story of a people who are urged to change something and take authority into their own hands, in the hopes of achieving societal order,” says Lent, who recently moved with his family to Pittsburg to film the motion picture version of Lost Nation. “It is a story of great aspirations and potential. It is also a story of human failing. Not failure in a negative sense, but as with so much of human experience, a situation that, despite best intentions and efforts, was altered by uncontrollable events.”

Author Jeffrey Lent (left) and film producer Chris Alexander are now in production of Lent’s Indian Stream-based novel, Lost Nation. The pair hopes to use the film to launch an annual Coos Film Festival and movie studio in nearby Colebrook. (Photo: David Lazar)

As for Roy Amey, who has committed much of his life to preserving Pittsburg history, he just wants to make sure the story continues to be told. “I think it goes to show what people can accomplish when they are left alone because they know they have to do it themselves,” he says. “They didn’t need a big government. They got off the trail by the Connecticut and all they had were the woods. And for a time, they made it work. “The legacy question I can’t answer,” Amey continues. “But I do think everyone needs to know where Pittsburg came from. When Lost Nation came out, it opened the eyes of the whole town. People came from far and wide to learn more about it… Someone’s got to keep talking about it and reading it and making sure the younger people coming along know about it, too. Because this is a major part of who we are.”

Thanks to Lent and veteran film producer Chris Alexander, it is a story that will live on through the silver screen, and may indeed stretch far beyond, as the pair enters serious talks to launch an annual Coos Film Festival at the Balsams in nearby Dixville Notch and a movie studio in Colebrook. “We’re not just coming in to shoot a movie, we’re coming in to build a new template or model for industry in the North Country,” Alexander says. “We believe there’s an entire population up here of people with the interest, the knowledge, and the talent to make a contribution and really help to rebuild this region.” And, in the process, keep an important piece of history alive for future generations.

Special thanks to Jeffrey Lent, Chris Alexander, Roy Amey, Jere Daniell, the Balsams, the NH State Archives and the NH Historical Society Library for their generosity and assistance with this story.