Franklin Historical Society-- Franklin, New Hampshire
Franklin Historical Society
January 2026
These donations, as are every such gift to the Society, are deeply appreciated as invaluable additions to the informational and educational collections the Society scrupulously maintains.
This calendar year (and beyond),the hope remains constant that everyone’s New Year’s Resolution will be to extend the warmth and caring, so prevalent during the holidays, throughout each month ahead. May 2026 be the best year ever for all.
January is undoubtedly the slowest month for the Society, with no meetings and the occasional visit to monitor the building’s wellbeing, keep an eye on the level of the propane tanks, and try to catch up with cataloging recent donations. With the maintained temperature of only 45 degrees (to keep the pipes from freezing), inventorying is limited somewhat by comfort, or more precisely, the lack of it. The small space heater in the office is only good to warm the closest leg and, if you put them right in front, your hands. Not true for Thompson Hall, which was genuinely warm and welcoming for the annual holiday pot-luck. So many contributed to make it a belly expanding success: Glenn Morrill for making the building open to the Society and for managing the kitchen and slicing the turkeys, Carolyn Morrill, Annette Andreozzi, and Elizabeth Jewell for setting up, as well as joining the following in cleaning up afterwards: Annette Cain, Belinda Aylward, and Sally Bussiere. THANK YOU ALL! The food was fabulous and plentiful, and the socializing, warm and lively. No one went home disappointed.
and photos of the 1970 dedication parade for the fire station, and a file folder with clippings about the event and other fire department-related news, a copy of the 1983 tax assessments, a copy of a July 2006 Concord Monitor and a copy of the November 12, 1988 Journal Transcript;
Frank Genus, for two 1874 letters from Wesley Sawyer, superintendent of the Franklin Woolen Mill and on that stationery (perks of his office), to his seeming misbehaving son Alfred enrolled at a private school. Wesley Sawyer appears in the Franklin Directory for 1874, but neither he nor his son are noted in subsequent editions in the Society’s archive. An online search however revealed that Mr. Sawyer was also an inventor of sorts, and had been a longtime resident (note the dates on the notice) of Franklin prior to the letters (see below).
Current Newsletter
Found online and not part of the Society’s collection
Society News: Coming up on January 9th at 1 pm (unless the flu makes an untimely appearance), the Society will host a gathering at Peabody Place for residents to enjoy a program of “Franklin Then and Now”, and a showing of photos from the original Peabody Home. There will also be a meeting in February for the officers and directors to determine an agenda for the 2026 season and a slate for the annual election. Anyone wishing to run for any position on the board should either reply to this newsletter, or contact Leigh Webb directly. Date, time, and place (usually Thompson Hall on a weekend) will be confirmed later.
Curator’s Corner: The Society is once again exceedingly grateful to the following donors for their gifts:
Annette Cain, for assorted business ephemera, two sesquicentennial goblets, a large “glass bulb” fire extinguisher (now outlawed because of the toxic chemicals used within) and a small hand-held brass extinguisher, an 8 x 10 of the FHS graduating class of 1935 in cap and gown in front of the library, several snapshots of the Beaupre Farm fire (1950s?), the Firefighters Museum, negatives of the construction of the new fire station (see below),