USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > New London > Mirror to America : a history of New London, New Hampshire, 1900-1950 > Part 14
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A HISTORY OF NEW LONDON
Coonley, and Alexander Murchie. The two local men most active in the formation of the country club were Charles E. Shepard and Henry W. Kidder.16
Steps were rapidly taken to make blueprints come true. Mr. Donald Ross, noted golfing architect, was employed to inspect possible sites for a golf course in New London. After examining seven such sites, Mr. Ross recommended the area where the present country club is located. The new corpora- tion purchased slightly more than two hundred acres of land from five different owners; arranged for a water supply from the New London Water System precinct; at the Town Meet- ing of 1928 secured permission to close an existing Town road which ran athwart the proposed golf course; made arrange- ments for tarring a road to Mark N. Shepard's farmhouse and rebuilt the latter into the clubhouse; erected a caddy camp to house seventy boys; and, under Mr. Ross' direction, laid out a sixty-four hundred yard, eighteen-hole golf course in the shadow of Mt. Kearsarge. The first nine holes were opened for play on July 3, 1928, and the second nine were ready for use late in June, 1929. From the beginning Henry J. Homan served as golf professional at the Club. The total amount spent on the course from its incorporation in 1927 to the end of the playing season in 1929 was almost $160,000.17
Despite the crushing impact of the Great Depression of 1929 and after, which impaired the financial prospects of the Lake Sunapee Country Club, the corporation sought to make further improvements in the course. The New London Realty Association was formed in 1929, to buy or lease property adjacent to the country club, and thus retain ". .. the un- spoiled beauty of the countryside."18 After 1932, however, the efforts of this organization lapsed. In 1935 the Lake Suna- pee Country Club began a three-year program of replacing the original greens with velvet bent greens; six holes a year were thus improved over the space of three summers. The same problems which had plagued the Soo-Nipi Park and the Wil- low Farm courses troubled the Lake Sunapee Country Club in the late 1930's, and the coming of war with gasoline rationing
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and the lack of players plunged the corporation into bank- ruptcy. In 1942 it was bought by William T. Baird, Jr. of East Orange, N. J., a prominent summer resident on Lake Sunapee. Mr. Baird retained Henry J. Homan as manager, and this arrangement continued until October, 1944. At that time Homan bought full ownership of the country club, and since that date he and his wife have been the sole proprietors. Adjacent to the country club, but not connected with it there was located the turf business of William Mitchell ..
Under the Homan management the Lake Sunapee Country Club developed along many lines. In consulta- tion with turf experts from Rhode Island State College, Mr. Homan devoted all available space at the Club to the intensive culture of velvet bent turf, which found a ready sale all over the country.19 The new management planted velvet bent grass on the fairways, and filled the woods on the course with rhododendrons. Two flood-lighted putting greens were installed, and a new athletic field for the caddy camp is in prospect. The usual season was from Memorial Day to Columbus Day, and the course was patronized by several thousand players a summer. Colby Junior College used the course to instruct many of its students in golf.
4. New London's Summer Theater
As the summer theater movement spread throughout New England, it was but a question of time until some farsighted lover of the stage would see the possibilities of New London for this type of recreation. The person and the hour arrived in the spring of 1933. Mrs. Josephine Etter Holmes, then Assistant Professor of Speech and Chairman of the Department of Speech at Mount Holyoke College, was the person. The time was a cold, rainy afternoon in April. Previously to her coming to New London to examine the prospects for a sum- mer theater there, she had been in touch with certain people in the community, and upon her arrival she met with them. The committee which listened to her plans in 1933 consisted
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of Mrs. Florence Griffin, Mrs. Jane A. Tracy, the Rev. Harold W. Buker, Calvin E. Sargent, and President H. Leslie Sawyer. They heartily endorsed her proposals, and then and there she made the decision to come to New London and institute a summer theater that very season.
Mrs. Holmes presented her first play in New London in the Town Hall on July 11, 1933. The cast comprised five Mount Holyoke students and one resident of the region, Albert Gauthier of Newport. Four more plays were presented that summer of 1933. In the second of these there appeared for the first time a figure whose reappearance each succeeding season was one of the high points of the year, Charles Jobes of Newport. Townspeople acted as ushers, loaned costumes and helped in all ways possible. Mrs. Mary B. Macomber, Mrs. Horace G. McKean, Mrs. Ann Pardy, Mrs. Eliza Robbins, and Miss Hattie Burpee were especially helpful, introducing Mrs. Holmes to the community and winning many friends for the new enterprise.
In 1934 plans were carried out to move the company to permanent quarters. After a careful survey of the Town, Mrs. Holmes had become convinced that the old barn on the Robert Knight property on Main Street had excellent potentiality for a summer theater. That year Mrs. Holmes acquired the barn, and began an extensive remodelling of it. Eight plays were presented in the new theater that season, and each year there- after the company became more firmly established in its "Barn Playhouse." In the earlier period the standard summer sea- son for the New London Players was eight presentations, but in the late 1940's the number was increased to nine or even ten plays a summer. The company personnel were chosen from college students, drama school graduates, Broadway theater personnel, and local residents.
In the beginning there were four productions of each play in a week. During most of the war years, because of obvious difficulties, the number of productions was cut to two a week. But in 1946 the original schedule of four productions weekly was resumed, and in 1948 it was increased to five. At various
BOYS CLUB OF NEW LONDONE-
THE BOYS' CLUB OF NEW LONDON, 1951
First Row, left to right: Thos. Wistar, M. R. London, Maitland Shepard, G. B. Perkins, D. P. Crockett, W. M. Kidder, W. M. Beall, S. M. Best, H. L. Sawyer, W. T. Moreland, M. C. Gay, B. A. Hoban, W. P. Heald, Maurice Shepard, K. M. Rich.
Second Row, left to right: C. E. Gay, Morris Sargent, Douglas Carroll, Jr., H. B. Harris, Jr., Bradley Dewey, C. B. Granger, Melville Robbins, Murray Sargent, G. O. Draper, W. P. Clough, Norman Lovett, Frank Butler, A. S. Little, Jr., Victor Dean, Wm. Reid, L. T. Lauridsen, Jr., W. K. Wheeler.
Back Row, left to right: C. E. Shepard, H. O. Williams, Tom Jardine, E. G. Clemons, R. S. Rose, Ralph Wyman, H. C. Stanley, Nath. Groton, W. N. Hobbs, J. D. Squires, J. B. Brown, G. T. Sawyer, S. A. Lamson, J. E. Shepard, 2nd, G. D. Graves.
SWIMMING, SAILING, SKATING, SKIING
Beach on Pleasant Lake The Rink behind the Public School The New London Ski Slope
Sailboats on Little Lake Sunapee Learning to Ski Waiting for the Tow
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SOME REPRESENTATIVE PUBLIC BUILDINGS
American Legion Hall IOOF Building, and the Funeral Home Pleasant Street Helpers' Club House
Fire Hall Grange Hall and the Christian Science Chapel Masonic Hall
and Armerid of
Ủy Nhờ cẩn;
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PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL
M. Roy London, Moderator; William F. Kidder, Clerk; Forest W. Kimball. Selectman; George Cricenti, Selectman; Ervin P. Edmunds, Selectman; Walter T. Moreland, Treasurer; Dorris M. Smith, Tax Collector The New London Public School (dedicated October 14, 1942)
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times over the years the Players toured to the Lake Tarleton Club, to Sunapee Harbor, to Bristol, to Plymouth, and to Claremont. In 1948 Mrs. Holmes sold her interests in the New London Players to N. Warren Weldon, who carried on thereafter as the producer and owner of the enterprise. By the end of the season of 1949 the New London Players had presented since the first play in 1933 a total of one hundred and fifty-one different plays. Typical of the variety and selec- tivity of their offerings were the plays in the three seasons of 1947, 1948, 1949: 1947 - "Dear Ruth," "The Late George Apley," "The Apple of His Eye," "The Barretts of Wimpole Street," "Blind Alley," "State of the Union," "Joan of Lor- raine," "Years Ago," and "I Like It Here"; 1948 - "John Loves Mary," "The Hasty Heart," "The Far-Off Hills," "French Without Tears," "The Two Mrs. Carrolls," "Parlor Story," "Another Part of the Forest," "Room Service," "Phila- delphia Story," and "Life With Father"; 1949 - "Junior Miss," "The Winslow Boy," "Jenney Kissed Me," "Light up the Sky," "Hotel Universe," "Bruno and Sidney," "The Circle," "Three Men on a Horse," "The Heiress," and "Laburnum Grove."
The New London Players added much to the enjoyment of a summer in Town. Their efforts won a place on the theatrical maps published weekly throughout the season in metropolitan papers,20 and brought hundreds of visitors to the community on summer evenings in July and August. Many people bought season tickets and were regular attendants at all the performances. The company gained a deserved repute for excellence of presentation and direction. In the old barn, erected about 1820, picturesque with its hand-hewn and pegged timbers, there was wrought once again the familiar magic of the theater. Summer-time audiences laughed, and wept, and lived the tensions of the stage under the New Hamp- shire summer stars as readily as did larger audiences under the man-made glare of Broadway in the regular winter season.21
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5. Other Aspects of Summer in New London
In 1937 New London first observed Daylight Saving Time.22 Some there were who deplored its coming, and in- sisted that it was a violation of the natural order of things; but, like so many other aspects of American life, it had an inexorability about it that made most people deem resistance futile. In the same way the march of time brought an ever- increasing diversification of summer activities for the Town and its guests. Some of these many and diverse developments will be noted in this section.
New London boys and men, probably because of their proximity to Boston, have always been keenly interested in baseball. In the later 1890's Calvin E. Sargent was active in a baseball team that in many ways was the most nearly pro- fessional of any in the Town's history. A decade later an ex- cellent semi-pro team was developed in Elkins, which for several years won the championship of the neighborhood league.23 After World War I the Town had various "pick-up" teams that used local men or players from adjacent towns who enjoyed playing for the fun of the game. Among the enthu- siasts were William and Carlton Bradford of Sutton and Edwin Edmunds and Eliot G. Clemons of New London. These improvised teams played similar aggregations from neighbor- ing communities, and often challenged the baseball squads of the summer boys' camps in New London. In 1950 Sumner Woodward organized teams of school boys, which played a number of games with like groups from nearby towns. At one time the baseball field was near the cemetery in Elkins; at another time it was on an open area near the Brockelbank Hotel; for a number of years it was on The Colby Academy or Colby Junior College campus; but after 1949 the games were played on the new Memorial Athletic Field developed behind the New London Central School.
Band concerts, as mentioned in earlier chapters, have al- way appealed to New London people and have often been sub- sidized from the Town treasury. The old New London Cornet Band of 1888 became the New London Cadet Band in 1897,24
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and was led by Herman Adams until 1902. Subsequent leaders were Ralph Kiel and Chester Morgan. In 1911 it was reor- ganized by William M. Kidder.25 In the first decades of the twentieth century there was a band stand near the original Academy building on Main Street, and another one in Willow Park in Elkins. From these two structures, long since razed, concerts were given over a period of many years. In 1935 Robert Hall of Elkins revived the New London Band,26 and Fred M. Lovely raised funds to provide a movable band stand across the street from the New London Pharmacy. Here on summer evenings through 1941 concerts were frequently played. Following V-J Day the Town for a number of years used outside bands, hired for the occasion. Band instruction in the local schools was instituted in 1946, and it was hoped that gradually enough musicians would be developed so that eventually New London would again have a band of its own.
New London's first "Flower Show" was held in the Tracy Memorial Building in June, 1934.27 Sponsored by the New London Garden Club, it became an annual event looked for- ward to by many each season. Frequently it was held in the gymnasium of Colby Junior College; sometimes it took the form of a visitation to the outstanding gardens of the com- munity; but always it attracted large numbers of patrons. Oc- casional efforts were made to present a summer program of chamber music, as in the "Cremona String Quartet" series of 1939, held under private sponsorship in Colgate Hall.28 During the war and in the immediate post-war years, Colby Junior College presented a Summer Forum open to the general pub- lic; this will be discussed more fully in Chapter Ten. Begin- ning in 1947 the Gordon Research Conferences sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science were held at Colby. Deeply specialized in nature, these sessions were open to the public, but few of the laity were able to com- prehend what was being discussed. As the years passed, how- ever, hundreds of scientific men and women journeyed to New London for these A.A.A.S. meetings, and were invariably de- lighted by the Town and its environment. In 1949 Twin Lake
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Villa instituted a series of lectures during July and August, any one being welcome to attend.
In 1925, in connection with the annual observance of Hospital Day referred to in the previous chapter, there had been an elaborate "Horse Show" in Shepard's riding ring off Main Street. These were held almost every year thereafter until the coming of World War II. Following that conflict, as already noted, Charles E. Shepard and Son went out of busi- ness, and horses became more difficult to secure for local show purposes. In 1946 the "Kearsarge-Sunapee Development As- sociation" proposed a series of recreational trails through New London and surrounding towns for hiking and horseback riding, but little was accomplished in making this dream come true.29
Other organized summer events in New London would include the 4th of July Carnival sponsored by the American Legion in 1948 and thereafter; Hospital Day on the second Tuesday in August; the "Firemen's Ball" mentioned in Chap- ter Three as having begun in 1927; activities connected with the Yacht Club on Lake Sunapee; the program of organized swimming instruction for children of the Town and summer residents, carried out by the New London branch of the Franklin Chapter, American Red Cross, at Little Lake Suna- pee, beginning in 1947; the special program of guest preachers in the New London Baptist Church in July and August; after 1930 the annual meeting of the "Boys' Club of New London" at the Beall summer estate on some afternoon in August; and the special sales of home-made things sponsored annually by the Woman's Aid of the New London Baptist Church, the Hospital Aid, and other such organizations.
All the above activities, of course, were "organized" in the sense that they were promoted by some group and open to the public. In the wide areas of "unorganized" summer activities, New London offered an even larger number of possi- bilities for individual enjoyment. Swimming, sailing, fishing, picnicking, sight-seeing, berry-picking, attendance at auctions or square dances, and all variants of these and kindred recrea-
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tional doings could be indulged in to the extent of any one's interest or pocketbook. All in all, New London in the summer season well exemplified some wise words written by the late President Fred Engelhardt of the University of New Hamp- shire: 30
"For many years there has been an ever increasing recogni- tion on the part of all social-minded people that recreation in some form is a basic need in the life of every individual. Critical times intensify rather than lessen this need. Insecurity created by the changes in the economic and social structure of the world, and the tension resulting from the increased pace of modern life make it all the more important that leisure time be used not only for rest and relaxation but also for rehabilitation."
NOTES FOR CHAPTER EIGHT
The quotation at the head of this chapter is from an article by Edward I. Phillips in The New Hampshire Troubadour, May, 1948, p. 13.
1Summer Rest, August, 1887, p. 6. In the summer of 1885, Miss Ruth Cummins, daughter of Col. and Mrs. Cummins then stationed at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, came to New London for the first time. The next summer her parents built their summer house on Knight's Hill. In 1950 Mrs. Tom Jardine, the Ruth Cummins of 1885, and her husband were in the same home to which she had been coming for almost every sum- mer in more than sixty years. To the best of the writer's knowledge, Mrs. Jardine in 1950 was the senior summer resident in New London. She was the niece of the late Mrs. James J. Tracy; it was through the influence of Mrs. Cummins, sister to Mrs. Tracy, that the latter made her first visit to the Town in 1890. Information from Mrs. Jardine to the writer, July 16, 1950.
In addition to the Cummins-Jardine residence, Knight's Hill in 1950 had two other summer homes which had been in continuous use by members of the same family over the half century since 1900: the resi- dence of Mr. and Mrs. William M. Beall, and the old Edward Knight house known as "Soncy." Mrs. Jardine informed the writer that in the early days the summer residents often jokingly described Knight's Hill as "Army Hill," because so many of the visitors thereto were connected with the old 4th Artillery Regiment, U.S.A.
Other portions of the Town likewise had their long-time summer people. Burpee Hill in 1950 knew at least two families who had been coming continuously for more than half a century: the Bradley Dewey family of Cambridge, Mass., and the Stephen Phillips family from Salem. Among those with places along the Lake Sunapee shore, senior in point of summer residence in Town were Col. and Mrs. G. Bartram Woodruff of Elizabeth, N. J.
2W. C. Prime, Along New England Roads, New York, 1892, p. 134.
3Note the material assembled by Mrs. Lord, "Summer Residents and Summer Homes," History, pp. 643-663. A list of long-time summer people in New London is printed in The Speaker, February 8, 1937.
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4This point is well discussed by Rowena H. Morse, "Lake Sunapee, 'Wild Goose Waters' to Indians, Rich in Rural Lore," New York Herald Tribune, August 4, 1935. A similar observation appears in a feature article in the Manchester Morning Union, July 31, 1947.
5F. J-T., November 22, 1901.
6 Recreation Property in New Hampshire, Concord, N. H., 1948, pp. 7, 9, 13, 17, 19, 29. This document is summarized in the Manchester Morning Union, March 25, 1948. The Monthly Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, May, 1949, gives additional data on the economic value of summer recreation to New England in general, and to New Hampshire in particular.
7In 1949 New Hampshire had 199 summer camps for youth, housing in all upwards of 16,000 young people. Of these, 88 were for boys; 65 were for girls; and 46 were co-educational; Reid O. Besserer, The New Hamp- shire Troubadour, July, 1949, p. 15.
8On the approaching completion of Camp Sunapee, see F. J-T., June 16, 1927; on other camping details consult B. A. Hoban, "Camping in New London," The Speaker, August 9, 1937.
9The announcement of the opening of the 11th year of the Colby- town Camp stated that New Hampshire 4-H Clubs had contributed some much-needed equipment for the arts and crafts program; Manchester Morning Union, June 28, 1950.
10R. O. Besserer, New Hampshire Troubadour Year Book, Concord, N. H., 1950, p. 16. During the middle 1940's, B. A. Hoban brought to Camp Wallula several Mexican boys. These young men enriched the experiences of American youth at the camp, and in turn, were bene- fited by their contacts with their hosts. It was a practical application in New London of the nation's "Good Neighbor" policy.
11 American Guide Series, New Hampshire, Boston, 1938, p. 521, asserts that the Beaver Meadow Country Club in Concord, opened in 1897, was the first attempt at a golf course in the Granite State. The first round of golf ever played in New England was over an improvised layout in Franklin Park, Boston, on December 10, 1890; Boston Herald, Dec. 10, 1950.
12Information from Mary B. Macomber to the writer, June 6, 1950.
13Information from B. A. Hoban to the writer, June 6, 1950.
14T. C. Records, Vol. 6, pp. 628-633. The abandoned right-of-way for this old Town road was still visible in 1950, swinging off from the King Hill Road near the former West Part School, and running northwesterly toward the West Part cemetery.
15"A syndicate of golf players is looking at several farms in order to make a golf course," F. J-T., April 28, 1927.
16From a bulletin published by the corporation, entitled Lake Sunapee Country Club, New London, 1939, pp. 6, 8-10.
17Treasurer's Report of the Lake Sunapee Country Club, The High- lander, October 1, 1929, p. 7. The bulletin referred to in. Note 16 contains a complete list of the original members of the Lake Sunapee Country Club, pp. 17-23, and a list of the corporation's stockholders, pp. 37-43.
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NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1900-1950
18From a bulletin entitled New London Realty Association, New London, 1929. All documents referring to the Lake Sunapee Country Club in its early years were made available to the writer by Herbert D. Swift.
19In 1949 the Twin Lake Villa five-hole golf course was opened. Its greens were made of velvet-bent from the Lake Sunapee Country Club. Other New London hotels also had short courses or putting greens for the pleasure of their guests, and in 1929-1930 Charles E. Shepard briefly experimented with "peewee" golf.
20The New London Players were one of thirteen summer stock com- panies in New Hampshire, listed on the theatrical page of the New York Times, June 18, 1950.
21 Historical data on the New London Players from the beginning of the company to 1947 are based on a memorandum prepared for the writer by Mrs. Josephine E. Holmes in the spring of 1947. In the sum- mer of 1950, Mrs. Holmes' successor, N. Warren Weldon, with the assist- ance of two New London women, Mrs. Emerson Greenaway and Mrs. William Foster Kidder, sponsored the Children's Theater Group of the New London Players; Neighborhood Exchange, July 3, 1950.
22 The Speaker, May 8, 1937.
23In 1912 the Elkins team was "tops" in west central New Hampshire baseball. Among the players on that year's nine were Fred Everett, later Highway Commissioner of New Hampshire for thirty years, and Bert West, in 1950 an employee of Edwin Edmunds in the latter's service station business. For a contemporary account of the prowess of the 1912 Elkins team, see F. J-T., August 1, 1912.
24Lord, History, p. 727. The original band in New London was or- ganized in 1839; ibid, p. 725.
25F. J-T., August 31, 1911.
26The Speaker, October, 1935.
27Ibid., July, 1937.
28Ibid., August, 1939.
29The "KESDA" published a map in 1946, showing their proposed trails.
30Public Recreation in New Hampshire, Concord, N. H., 1943, p. 7.
Part Three: The Spirit and the Mind
9
A Half Century in New London's Churches
"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the progress of the suns." - Alfred Lord Tennyson
1
For decades after its founding in 1779 New London had little or no organized religious activity other than the Baptist Church established in 1788. One of the noteworthy Town developments of the twentieth century so far as things of religion are concerned was the widening of local thought and interest in church matters. This led to the formation of several organized religious groups apart from the Baptist Church had seven pastors: the Rev. George Bullen, 1900-1906; the chief trends in the Baptist parish since 1900, and then summarize the proliferation of religious interest just men- tioned.
1. The New London Baptist Church
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