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Abstract Paintings & Tribal Masks Exhibition At New Hampshire Antique Co-Op
Now on view through May 31, 2020
Congregational Church Stays Connected
During the suspension of in-person activities in light of the Covid-19 situation, the Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC has a variety of ways for members and others to connect with church programs. This is especially important during April as Holy Week and Easter are on the horizon.
The most up-to-date information about church activities can be found on the church’s website (ccamherst.org) or by calling the church office at 673-3231. Sunday services are broadcast on FacebookLive and recorded for later on-line viewing. Services are followed by a Virtual Fellowship Hour. Links for these and other events can be found on the website.
The church’s Facebook page is another source of information, including updates and video messages from the pastors. Pastors Maureen Frescott and Kate Kennedy are available to provide pastoral care during this time, and the church welcomes community members to connect with this loving, serving, open and affirming community of faith.
Lorraine Alice Hamilton
AMHERST – Lorraine Alice Hamilton of Amherst, New Hampshire, Beach Haven, New Jersey and Rancho Mirage, California died June 14, 2020 from pancreatic cancer at her home in California. She was 73 years old and a participant in the trial of a new cancer drug at NYU Langone in New York City since April 2019. She hoped that results from the trial would improve care for other patients who develop this cancer. She was with her family when she died and was
Donald Richard Haaker
Donald Richard Haaker, 80, born June 2, 1940, son of Carl E Haaker and Jeanne LaRochelle Haaker of Fitchburg, MA, son, brother, father, grandfather, and great grandfather, peacefully passed away on Sunday, June 7, 2020 at Saint Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, MA.
Don, as he was affectionately referred to by friends, and Dad or Grandpa by family, was a proud veteran, avid fisherman, former business owner, collector of “As Seen On TV” gadgets, and
Historic Amherst
Peach Farmers in 19th-Century Amherst CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Another private Village garden – “with strawberry and grape vines, apple, peach and plum trees, in bearing, [and] shade trees, evergreens, roses” – was at 94 Boston Post Road, described thus in April 1852 by Edward D. Boylston (1814-1895), newspaper-man, who had lived there for four years in house (called Ephraim Blanchard House after earlier owner) “with ten rooms” on half-acre lot that also held three sheds and a large barn.
In the Village on Sunset next to Meadowview cemetery, when Levi Cummings, a laborer, offered for sale his two-story house and shop “standing a few rods west of the Iron Foundry” (house and foundry both now gone), the 3/4 acre lot contained “about 20 Apple Trees of selected fruit with Cherries, Plums, Peach, Currants, &c.” (Jan. 1859.) (He moved to Iowa.)
In the Village at 8 Foundry Street, when Sylvester Colby (1809-1887), foundry worker, in April 1870 offered for sale the “Cottage House” containing seven rooms (which he had built in 1850), there were on the half-acre lot “about 30 apple trees of different varieties, all in good bearing condition; also peach, pear and cherry trees, and a variety of small fruit [berries].” Colby lived there until his death.
Did you notice a geographical distribution for peaches? One section of town is clearly missing – the southern part.
Southern Competition
In the 1870s through the end of the 19th century, peaches from the Chesapeake Del-Mar-Va peninsula made their way to Boston and on to New Hampshire. (At that time, New Jersey too produced a good quantity of peaches but they were gobbled up by New York City markets.) In August 1872, Amherst’s newspaper reported on the “peach trade”: “Last week the peach dealers of Wilmington, Del. sent north 218,000 baskets of peaches. … The headquarters for peach canning is in Maryland and Delaware.”
(The grocery store in Amherst Village did at that time carry canned peaches, although its advert did not give their source.) In late July 1880: “The advance guard of the peaches has been in New England now for some weeks, and the peach trains will very soon begin the distribution of the Delaware peninsula’s 4,000,000 baskets among the Northern States.” In the 1880s, on that Del-Mar-Va peninsula there were reportedly about 6 million peach trees, producing more peaches than any other territory of the same area in the world. A rail line ran right through the orchards in Delaware and once the cars were loaded up with fruit baskets, a train ran through to Boston without a stop, four days a week. By 1888, California peaches were coming into New England, “but though they are large and fine they are so expensive when compared with the Delaware fruit that they do not sell so well.”(Farmers’ Cabinet, 25 Aug 1882, p. 1; 16 Aug. 1888, p. 3.) In July 1888, C. L. Wilkins & Co. advertised California peaches and apricots among the canned goods offered at “The Old Corner Store” (now gone) in Amherst Village.
At the end of the 18th century, eastern American farmers were advised: “The Peach is
the most delicious fruit that can be produced in this or any other country, and is at the same time most wholesome. … but so precious a fruit is forbid[d]en to the slothful, the negligent, and the ignorant: for they can neither be obtained nor preserved without some care.” (“Advice to Farmers from Poulton’s Town and Country Almanack,” published in New Hampshire Journal, or, the Farmer’s Weekly Museum of Walpole, N.H., 18 October 1796. Much of the same was recycled verbatim as “Rural Economy: The Peach Tree,” attributed to “A Maryland Farmer” in July 1810 in the Farmer’s Cabinet of Amherst, N.H. ) Not quite a century later, an agricultural advisor grumbled: “There is not fruit more neglected and ill-treated than the beautiful and delicious peach. The trees are very cheap, usually costing but a few cents each; they are bought by the thousand from careless dealers, planted with scarcely the attention given to a cabbage plant, and too often allowed to bear themselves to death.” (Farmers’ Cabinet, 2 July 1886.)
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Katrina Holman welcomes comments to HistoricAmherstNH@juno.com
