Auburn Historical Association

08/23/2026

The Auburn Historical Association would like to thank the 2026 Auburn Day and 33rd Annual Duck Race Sponsors! Thank you for all that you do to help make this event possible for our community to enjoy!
If you would like to view the 2026 sponsors on our website, click here: https://www.auburnhistorical.org/2026-sponsors.html

Platinum Quacker Sponsors:
Jim Trombly Plumbing, Heating and Cooling has been the plumbing and heating contractor that customers turn to repeatedly for top value and high-quality plumbing service. https://tromblyplumbing.com/ Phone (603) 668-5468

Heritage Home Service provides NH and MA homeowners with Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electric services from expert professionals who conduct themselves like true advisors. A family-owned company that's been in business since 1986, Heritage provides punctual, high-quality work that will get you back to enjoying the part of your home that matters most, the life you live in it. https://justcallheritage.com/ Phone: (603) 601-3955

RachNH Realty Group Rachael Farley is a 15-year Auburn resident and life-long to the state of NH. She's been an agent since 2005 and earned an MBA in Marketing from SNHU. Her team is in the top 1% of all NH real estate agents and they've sold more than 500 homes! She is a highly experienced marketing professional with entrepreneurial background and exceptional attention to detail. She comprehends the full breadth of buying and selling homes in NH and MA. https://rachnh.com/ Phone (978) 494-4989

Tower Hill Church has been honored to be a part of the Auburn Community for 18 years. We exist to “Love People to Life”. We would love to have you come check out what happens in “the big building behind the gas station”. We have services at 9:00am and 10:45am on Sunday Mornings. We offer live contemporary worship, a practical message and excellent kid’s programs. So please be our guest, receive a free gift and an excellent cup of Mill City Coffee one Sunday morning. If you want to learn more about Tower Hill Church, please visit www.th.church or contact Pastor Matt: [email protected]. Phone: (603)483-2272.

The Auburn Tavern Food & Drink: The Auburn Tavern is the place to go whether it’s date night or you have family and friends in town. Auburn Tavern should be your choice for phenomenal seafood, pasta and Greek dishes. Seafood is naturally good for you and it’s a smart choice for healthy eating. We make it easy to enjoy a delicious meal that fits into your healthy lifestyle. The Auburn Tavern takes pride in providing the best dining experience for our patrons. https://www.auburntavern.com/ Phone (603) 587-2057

Spindel Eye Associates: As one of Southern New Hampshire’s leading ophthalmologic and optometric practices, Spindel Eye Associates has been caring for your eye care needs for over 35 years. We have specialists in Derry, Windham, Londonderry, Raymond, and Bedford who provide everything from routine eye exams to advanced treatment of complex ocular diseases, as well as specialized oculoplastic and cosmetic procedures. Our on-site Optical Shop provides a wide selection of high-quality eyewear to suit your lifestyle. Our experienced eye doctors are board-certified and highly trained. Using the most advanced technology and highest quality standards, we ensure every patient receives the safest eye care treatment. Schedule an appointment with us today at the location nearest you! https://www.spindeleye.com/ Phone: (603) 552-5653

North Point Outdoors: North Point Outdoors is one of New Hampshire's Finest Landscape and Snow Management service providers. Founded in 2009 by a pair of 22-year-olds, Andrew Pelkey and David Fairburn, our team, service area, and capabilities have grown significantly. As of 2024, we are proud to have become one of the largest and most respected Landscape service providers in New Hampshire with over 100 Team Members, and the facility, equipment, and processes to support them. Our success as a team has outpaced and outperformed industry average development, we are excited to show you why. https://www.northpointoutdoors.com/. Phone: (603) 289-8000.

Rolfe Construction Co.

Gold Quacker Sponsor:

DJ Dumpsters & Materials: Our dumpsters rentals are perfect for Derry NH and surrounding areas construction trades, residential clean outs, basement and garage cleanouts, and home remodels! Our dumpster rentals are no bigger than the size of a standard pick-up truck, allowing you to fit the dumpster in smaller areas with ease. DJ Landscaping is proud to provide the finest landscape materials for Derry NH & Surrounding Areas. https://djdumpsters.com/ Phone: (603) 490-3334

Silver Quacker Sponsors:

Anything Chimney
Auburn Family Dentistry
Mack’s Apples
Susan Tillery, Better Homes and Gardens, The Masiello Group

Bronze Quacker Sponsors:

Alliance Landscaping
N.H. Blacktop Sealers, Inc.

Lucky Duck Sponsors:

Jean Wozniak Photography
Pelmac Industries, Inc.
Auburn Pitts Bar & Grill
Tower Hill Animal Hospital

08/04/2026

Here is a story written by Dan Carpenter for the August Crier:

The Auburn Milestone Marker:

This antique Stone mile marker can be seen on the corner of Dearborn and Raymond Road. The letters and numbers let travelers know that it was "6 miles to the Chester Meeting House" and "4 miles to the Candia Meeting House".

The marker was installed by the Town of Chester before Auburn became its own town. It stands at the intersection of Dearborn and Raymond Roads and has been there since 1790. To put that date in perspective, George Washington, the first US President was in his first term of office.

Judging by the older picture of the stone, the marker was possibly spruced up for Chester’s Bicentennial in 1922. For many years since, it has remained quietly on its corner. Ray Racicot first became aware of the stone in the 1970’s when he worked for Road Agent Joe Stacy who was making repairs to Raymond Rd between Dearborn Rd and the Chester town line. Over the years, Ray spoke about returning the stone to a place of prominence.

Granite markers were expensive to make and difficult to install using only brute strength and oxen power. But, once installed, the granite marker had a life expectancy of hundreds of years.

One hundred years ago, the Town was purchasing sign boards. Road names were painted on a board and the sign attached to a post or nearby tree. Life expectancy was reduced to years or less if kids fancied the name and removed them. Today, with everyone carrying a map of everywhere in their hand, has the roadside sign become a thing of the past?

In 2022, the Auburn Historical Association (AHA) approached the Board of Selectmen about cleaning the site of the milestone. Chairman Keith LeClair and the Board endorsed the plan. Road Agent Mike Dross, Mickey Rolfe, and Scott Rolfe moved the stone to the Town Shed for cleaning and provided base materials.

Dot Carpenter painted in the letters. Ray Racicot spent a day with his machinery preparing the site and standing up the stone. Joe Mancini and Dan Carpenter provided manual labor. Deb Mancini took the photos. Jessica Traynor from the Massabesic Garden Club planted flowers around the base. The AHA installed a plaque "interpreting" Auburn's oldest sign. We appreciate everyone who participated in this project!

06/05/2026

Here is a story written by Dan Carpenter for the June/July Auburn Village Crier:

The Auburn Village School - Now and Then

It’s always nice when others, outsiders recognize, appreciate, and value the things that happen right in our community. In case you missed it, the Auburn Village School was recently honored as NH elementary school of the year for its “collaborative professional culture, thoughtful use of data and strong community partnerships .” AVS was credited with “clear learning targets, differentiated
instruction and meaningful student engagement.” Sounds pretty good!

On a personal level, 8th grader Scott Merrow used a 3D printer to make himself a video game controller. What started out as a class project is now entered in Invention Convention’s National competition held in Dearborn, Michigan. Congratulations to Scott, Principal Collins, the teachers, staff, and entire student body at AVS.

Francis Wayland Parker (1837-1902) would have been very excited about these accomplishments. He grew up on a farm in West Manchester. After teaching for a year in Boscawen, NH, 16-year-old Parker was hired to teach at Auburn Village Schoolhouse No 3 (that was once on the land opposite of AVS on Eaton Hill Rd). He was paid $18 a month and he boarded around town (student families provided him room and meals). Parker was an enthusiastic, hands-on educator who believed that every student could succeed and that busy engaged students would not require corporal discipline.

After Auburn, Parker worked briefly in Manchester and then accepted a school principal job in Illinois. When Civil War hostilities broke out in 1861, he returned to NH and joined the 4th Regiment of NH volunteers. He served all through the war and suffered a neck wound that affected his voice. He was captured and imprisoned for a year.

After the war, Parker returned to Auburn in 1867 and held a private school in the basement of the Longmeadow Church. 15 of the 53 scholars went on to become teachers themselves. Using inherited money, Parker spent 2 years studying in Berlin, Germany with some of the leading European educators.

Returning to America in 1874, he became the Superintendent of Schools in Quincy, Mass. Working with his teachers, Parker developed the ‘Quincy Movement’. Rote memorization was abandoned for critical thinking. As Parker’s reputation grew worldwide, thousands of teachers traveled to Quincy to observe and learn these new techniques.

Francis Parker went on to head up the Boston and Chicago school systems. He meet and worked with John Dewey, the American educator and philosopher. Dewey called his friend, Francis Parker, the ‘Father of Modern Education’. And to think that he started out in the Longmeadow Church basement.

05/30/2026

05/25/2026

Hello everyone,

We are excited to announce that this week, the old Auburn Grange curtain is being restored at the Auburn Historical Association! The photo is of the Grange curtain in 2024 before it was safely stored. We can't wait to see how it will look on Friday!

The Town of Auburn received a 2026 Moose Plate Grant from the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources, State Council on the Arts. Once the restoration is completed the curtain will be displayed in the downstairs meeting room at the Auburn Historical Association.

Two restoration specialists from Curtains Without Borders in Vermont will be arriving on Wednesday (May 27th) in the afternoon. The work will be completed by Friday (May 29th) afternoon, and Chris Hadsel, the director of Curtains Without Borders, will give a talk on grange curtains at 7:00pm on Friday night. All are welcome to attend.

If you are interested in volunteering to help with the restoration process, please email us at [email protected]. We have spots open on Thursday and Friday. We need a few people and will have shifts for volunteers. Volunteers should be able to stand for periods of time (even though much of the work can be done sitting), see well and have a steady hand. The curtain work will include cleaning, mending, in-painting, attaching the curtain to the existing roller, preparing everything to hang the curtain and packing up before Friday night's talk.

We look forward to seeing many of you on Friday night at 7:00 for the talk!

05/09/2026

Thank you to all who purchased hanging plants to support the Auburn Historical Association's fundraiser! Also, a thumbs up for the amazing volunteers who helped deliver them on Friday!

05/02/2026

Here is a story written by Dan Carpenter for the May 2026 Auburn Village Crier.

The Underhill Homestead

In the 1700’s, the first Chester farmers were living on a frontier, striving to make a living on isolated farms surrounded by deep woods. The Hezekiah Underhill (1727-1800) family purchased a 100-acre lot just west of Chester Street (Chester) and started to clear the land. Turning virgin woodland into ariable fields was arduous work. The trees were cut, brush stacked and burned. The wood ash created became fertilizer. Stumps were pulled and surface rock removed to fence in new fields. Hezekiah’s son, Josiah, built the Underhill house in 1785.

For most frontier families, the first dwellings were log cabins. As they became established and sawmills prevalent, many replaced the log cabins with Cape Cod style homes, 3 rooms with a loft overhead . In 1785, Hezekiah, age 58, and his son, Josiah, age 27, cut out heavy timbers with an axe and adz. They framed up a large two-story colonial style house. It was put together on the ground and neighbors helped stand up the sections. The cellar timbers are composed of various type trees, only squared on the top side, and some still retain their bark. There are interior twin chimneys on opposite ends of the house. The chimneys act as heat sumps. They put heat back into the house and at the same time, reduce the danger of creosote. As wood smoke cools, it creates creosote which is highly flammable and prone to chimney fires. A warm chimney is less likely to produce creosote below the roof line. This is a big house and getting up on the roof to access the chimneys, especially in the winter, would be difficult. They solved this problem but putting a trap door in the peak of the roof. It could be accessed by a ladder in the attic.

The first floor is divided into four equal rooms with a center hall and stairway. Each room has a fireplace. The second floor is much the same but only one fireplace still exists. The Underhill homestead is now 240 years old. Over the decades, generations, and owners, it has undergone many changes and renovations. At the end of the 1700’s, Count Rumford published his findings on the proper measurements of fireplaces based on scientific experiments. The Underhills probably made these improvements in the early 1800’s. The first wood stoves appeared in Chester in the 1830’s.

There are other clues that date this house. Coming up the cellar stairs, wide pine boards cut on an up-and -down sawmill are still visible. Some door latches date back to the early 1800’s. They were cut out by hand and driven into the door frame. The pounding peened over the end of the soft steel available at that time.

A barn was built flanking Chester Rd and backed up to the stonewall property line. The gable end faced Chester Village. It disappeared in the 1970’s.

Hezekiah Underhill purchased land in Chester, NH to support his family. Four generations later, the family relied on the edge tool blacksmithing industry for sustenance. They had also outgrown the neighborhood. They manufactured tools in Manchester, Nashua, and Boston and sold them around the world. In 1848, the decision was made to sell the Chester farm. Since then, there have been many owners and stewards of the Underhill homestead. The latest, Diane and Mark Ramming, are up to the challenge of maintaining this charming colonial home.

Thank you to Diane and Mark for showing us around their beautiful historic home!

04/24/2026

On April 23, the Auburn Village School's 5th grade class visited the Auburn Historical Association. They all went on a bus tour around the town to see historic landmarks and also got to visit the museum, the Dockham Store and the barn. It was a pleasure to spend time with this great group of students and teachers!

Thank you to those who volunteered to help at this event: Pat Clement and Cindy Berling - Dockham Store; Dan Carpenter - Bus Trip; Gary Domurad - Assistant on bus trip, Joe Mancini - Barn; Deb Mancini - photos; Rick Davis - retired Auburnite and Deb Asquith - retired pre-school teacher who both assisted inside the museum. We appreciate you all!

04/13/2026

Thank you to everyone who came to the Auburn Historical Association last Thursday to listen to speaker Stephen Taylor talk about New Hampshire's one room rural schools. The event was well attended and Mr. Taylor told some great stories!

04/02/2026

Here is a story written by Dan Carpenter for the April 2026 Auburn Village Crier:

Back Roads

The Dirt Road - As long as the countryside was dominated by farmers who depended on animal power and had little reason to go anywhere, there was little demand for paved roads. The State of NH started paving roads and they pressured Auburn into purchasing its first snowplow in 1927. It looked like a small road grader. Until then, all roads were rolled. Oxen or horses pulled a six-foot diameter roller that compacted the snow for horse drawn sleighs. By Spring, this frozen mass would be feet thick and as it melted made mud season unbearable. Farmers who maintained their road frontage could write off part or all of their real estate taxes. They often took rocks off their own stone walls to fill potholes. When Spring planting arrived, they knew that a new crop of rock would repair the damaged wall.

The Naming of Pond View and Lilak Drive - Harold Towne and a partner built this development in the 1980’s. Take a ride around the loop and it becomes obvious how Pond View got its name. Lilak is a little tougher to figure out. LILAC is the NH state flower. But in this case, Lilak was Harold’s partner’s name spelled backwards- Kalil.

Manchester Rd - Chester Rd - I met a man who stuck out his hand and said, “ODA Motors, 32 Manchester Rd.” He spoke with great confidence, but I stared at him blankly, thinking “In Auburn?” “Where is Manchester Rd?” And then I remembered. They renamed the section of Chester Rd from St Peter’s Church to the 4 corners in downtown Auburn. That was done in 1990- 35 years ago. Back then, the unofficial name for that road was “Crooked Rd” or “Snake Rd” which sometimes got confused with Rattlesnake Rd. My brain could process those old nicknames quicker than the official name which was probably done before Mr. ODA was born.

2. David Griffin, who grew up in Auburn Village, was stationed in England during World War II. In a letter, he said the English roads reminded him of home, of “Snake Rd”. (Watching British drama on PBS, roads in England haven’t changed much.)

3. In the 1950’s, 60’s, automobiles were not aeronautical. They had high centers of gravity, small tires, and weak suspension. Kids would drive the “Crooked Rd” too fast just because…. Carol Peterson remembered that at the last bend coming into Auburn Village (across from Trombly’s) Sherman the rock lay dead ahead. It was a boulder that was flat on top and looked like a Sherman tank. No one wanted to kiss Sherman. A few years ago, NHDOT blasted Sherman ruining his tank-like appearance. Be careful, they left enough so he can still mess you up.

Road Sign Wars - For ever and ever, kids have taken road signs to decorate their bedroom walls. Back in the 1980’s, Road Agent Joe Stacy had problems keeping “Lover’s Lane” signs. He solved the problem by painting an old board and then used the loader to put the sign 15 feet up in a tree. The sign stayed put for years but provided little help for folks who never thought to look that high.

2. At the Hill Haven- Rattlesnake bus stop, bored teenagers pulled the Stop Sign out of the ground. Road Agent Mike Dross put it back up. The kids took it down… The Road Agent greased the pole. End of problem. How do you explain that grease smear to your mother?

White-Out Short Cut - James Drive is a cul-de-sac off Maple Farm Rd. Maple Farm Rd goes up a hill and then plateaus off. When the wind blows, drifting snow can create white out conditions. Stacy plowing for the Town got caught in one of these storms and ended up losing himself. He plowed right across the middle of the loop. Soon after, the paper lady came along and took the new short cut right over both ditch lines. Did she ever find the paper boxes?

A Short Cut to Raymond - If by chance you were at the 4 Corners in Auburn Village and a passerby asked for the quickest route to Raymond…. Send them down the dirt Raymond Rd to the Stone Mileage Marker at Dearborn Rd. Go right to Buttonwood, when it dead ends, go left on Birch Rd into Chester. Cross Candia Road and down Shatagee to the Raymond Townline - under 20 minutes. Of course, this is part of Raymond never seen before. About as far from civilization as one can get in Southern New Hampshire.

The Stone Mileage Stone at Dearborn-Raymond Rd. - Chester set up a dozen or so mileage stones in the 1790’s. But it wasn’t until the 1840’s that Auburn, Chester, and Raymond agreed to construct Raymond Rd. This was pretty much all woods and wilderness in the 1790’s. Was locating the stone here a mistake? It would seem to make more sense if the stone was on Candia Road in Chester. Right to Candia – Left to downtown Chester. Whatever – We’re keeping it.