by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, August 12, 2022.

Betty Kreger began the month of August in 1945 canning beans. Her husband, Bob, was working day shifts doing war work. She tended the victory garden and taught piano lessons. The war was coming to a close—everyone knew that. The European theater had ended in April. Roosevelt was dead, Hitler was dead, Churchill was voted out of power. Everything felt somehow different, yet still the same. Middle-aged Betty and Bob had grown accustomed to life during wartime. It was not easy, but at least they were used to the rhythms of rationing, making do, casualty lists and worry. The future seemed to hold long battles, and more losses, in the final push to take the Japanese mainland.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, July 29, 2022.

In 1933, with the end of prohibition in sight, Exeter braced itself for the return of dry versus wet political battles. New Hampshire had been dry since 1917, when wartime restrictions were placed on alcohol. Even before the war, the state had limited access to the public by creating ‘licensing laws,’ which allowed individual towns to decide whether to authorize alcohol sales. Before national prohibition in 1920, Exeter, like most New Hampshire towns, held a citizens vote every two years to decide the issue – and these elections were sometimes heated.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, July 15, 2022.

When, in 1866, Frank Hervey installed a soda fountain in his restaurant on Front Street, he was bucking the trend. Most soda fountains were found in drugstores. The water cure craze that swept the United States in the 1850s involved not only plunging into hot and cold baths but drinking naturally sourced mineral water to improve health. Some of this water tasted very unpleasant, particularly if it was from a sulfur spring, but if the level of carbon dioxide in the water was high, there was a pleasant fizzy quality. Surely this was beneficial to the body.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, July 1, 2022.

It’s July and every Monday evening members of the Exeter Brass Band can be heard playing their hearts out at the bandstand in the center of town. Now celebrating 175 organized years, the band has been part of Exeter’s history since 1847. While poking through the archives with Garrett Pray of Exeter TV, we came across a handwritten musical score for a piece called The Exeter Grand March. Intrigued, Garrett took copies to bring to the band while the Exeter Historical Society took on the task of researching the piece.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 17, 2022.

Charles and Eliza Hervey had a knack for cooking. They arrived in Exeter shortly after their 1836 wedding in Salisbury, Massachusetts. The location of their first restaurant in town is unknown, but by 1845 they were running a saloon and confectionary shop on Front Street next to the Squamscott Hotel. The Herveys are credited with being the first to sell ice cream in town, although this may simply be a local legend. Certainly, Ernest Templeton, writing under the moniker, “Rockingham Rambles,” gave them credit, writing in 1943: “In the Brooks house 100 years ago Mrs. Eliza Hervey established a restaurant and became the first person to sell ice cream in Exeter. At that time a few of the town’s exclusive hostesses had endeavored to make their own ice cream, getting the ice from the Adams icehouse in the rear of what is now the Kennedy house on Center Street, and mixing it with lemon and cream, but compared with the modern product it was a sorry article.”

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, June 3, 2022.

When former president Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Exeter by helicopter in 1962, he landed at the Phillips Exeter Academy playing fields and not the Exeter airport. Logistically, it made sense to place his arrival on Academy grounds (he was visiting his grandson who was attending the school) rather than the airport on Linden Street. It also made sense because there wasn’t an airport on Linden Street, even though there had been proposals to build one there since the 1940s.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, May 20, 2022.

“Probably for the first time in the history of Exeter a child of Chinese parentage has been born in Exeter.” So wrote a notice in the Exeter News-Letter announcing the birth of Priscilla Ung in 1937. Her family lived on Water Street above their laundry business in a building that no longer exists. Her parents, Hung Yum and Hom Ung, arrived in the United States in the 1920s when it was difficult for Chinese immigrants to gain entry in the country, particularly for women. The Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882, had effectively shut down immigration for Chinese nationals. Men had to prove that they were merchants, or sons of merchants, and not unskilled laborers. Single women were presumed to be sex workers unless they could somehow prove that they were daughters of merchants or wives of merchants. Chinese immigrants were not allowed to become naturalized citizens, having been deemed “unassimilable” to the general population.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, July 25, 2008

In the postcard collection of the Exeter Historical Society there are a few depicting the Trade and Carnival Week parade in 1914. Behind the happy throngs of people on Water Street, standing on a lot that is today populated by coffee-sipping patrons of Me & Ollie’s bakery, is the laundry shop of Chin Lee, a Chinese immigrant.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, April, 29, 2022.

1938 was Exeter’s Tercentenary year – 300 years as an organized town. People lined the streets in February to watch dog sled races and they lined up again in July for the mammoth anniversary parade. In September, mother nature unleashed the great Hurricane of ’38, bringing down most of the trees on Front Street. People would certainly remember 1938 as a great rush of excitement, and as a time before the reality of World War II set in.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, April 8, 2022.

What was a town to do when money was tight, but roads needed to be upgraded? In the past (specifically the Colonial and post-colonial period) it was common to raise funds through a lottery. The first lottery in America was organized in Boston in 1745 to pay off military debt. It may seem odd that stoic Puritanical New Englanders would resort to (gasp) gambling to pay the bills, but lotteries became common methods to finance all sorts of things.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, March 25, 2022.

In early March of 1882, George E. Lane, a businessman in Exeter was riding high. A native of Stratham, he’d opened a prosperous book and stationary store on Water Street in Exeter in 1866. Throughout the 1870s, Lane gained overwhelming trust from the public. On the board of the Union Five Cents Savings bank, he was elected as treasurer in 1872, a position he kept until 1881, when he resigned to become the bank president. The voters of Rockingham County elected him as county treasurer in 1875, and in 1881, the NH State legislature elected him “Commissary General of the State, with the rank of Brigadier General on Governor Bell’s Staff.” He was so well trusted that the Exeter News-Letter wrote, “In 1879, at the request of several of his friends he started in a private banking business, and through the universal confidence he enjoyed his deposits have always been large.”

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, March 11, 2022.

In 1907, the trustees of the Robinson Female Seminary found themselves searching for a new French and German language teacher. Harlan Bisbee, the school principal, was pleased with the choice of Miss Fannie Perley and said of her, “Miss Perley has had the advantage of advanced study in modern languages in this country, in Germany and in France. She is, moreover, an experienced teacher, and conducts her classes in French and German in the vernacular.” She was also, at 37 years old, hardly a young whippersnapper. Born in Enfield, NH, in 1870, the first third of her life found her living with her parents and teaching. Her education after attending Enfield public schools is sparce. She earned no college degree and didn’t complete any teacher training at a state normal school. Year after year, the list of Robinson Seminary’s corps of teachers – which listed the academic degrees of teachers – would simply say “Fannie Perley – French & German.” Despite this, she was a dependable teacher at the school for 26 years.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, February 25, 2022.

In researching Exeter’s Black heritage, one of the most consistent frustrations is that we do not often hear the words of the people we’re researching. White families not only leave a paper trail of registered births, baptisms, marriages, land deeds, census records and death (with marked graves), but also letters, diaries, and obituaries. The social status of Black New England families left most of the paper trail blank. Exeter’s 1800 census, for instance, only the first names of all but two Black residents – leaving us to guess whether “Hannah, ditto (negro)” is Hannah Merrill or another woman named Hannah. Sometimes, we must look in awkward places to hear the voices of the past.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, February 11, 2022.

Stargazers in Exeter were excited to greet 1910 – Halley’s Comet was due to arrive in the Spring. In her diary, 12-year-old Helen Tufts noted, “And we all saw the comet. Thea, Jim, Henry and all of us.” Her entry was for January 26th – four full months before Halley’s comet was visible in New Hampshire– leading the historical society’s transcriber to flag it for verification. Another diary in the collections, that of Marion Louise Tyler, had a similar entry for January 26th, 1910: “Saw a comet about six o’clock.” How could both girls have been so utterly wrong?

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, January 28, 2022.

When John Wheelwright arrived in Exeter in the late winter of 1638, he was most likely wearing woolen socks. Europeans used two basic fiber sources for their clothing – linen and wool. Both of these were produced in the temperate climate they came from and both could be cultivated in New England. But until the time of the American Revolution, most textiles were imported from Britain. The first Englishmen in our area put most of their effort into basic survival. Considering sheep can provide both food and clothing, it would seem like they’d be perfect. But, in fact, sheep are nothing but trouble. They prefer open cleared land, cannot defend themselves against even small predators and are hell-bent on getting lost and injured. They’re the toddlers of the livestock world. For the first hundred or so years, Exeter folks depended on imported textiles. John Giddings’ account book lists numerous types of fabric that he transported and sold in town: serge, kersey, baize, tammy, durant, osnaburg, flannels, garlix, kalt, broadcloth, shaloon and even a bit of cotton and silk. All were either produced in the British Isles or imported from Europe, India or China. There were some small-scale local producers of cloth, but no large manufacturers.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, January 14, 2022.

As the cold settles in and creeps under the floorboards, give a thought to the days Dr. William Perry described as, “a house heated only by fireplaces without furnace or stoves; bedrooms with fires only when there was sickness.” The heat he mentions, was produced with firewood. When Perry was born in Exeter in 1823, wood was the only way to keep warm. Firewood could be collected from the forest by gathering fallen limbs or cracking off the lower branches of trees, but this would not be sufficient to heat a colonial home.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, December 31, 2021.

If anything can be said of 1921 in Exeter, it is that it was a year of calm. There was no war, no pandemic, no divisive political movements. The year began with news that Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the revered former president, had gifted $10,000.00 to the Phillips Exeter Academy endowment (in 2021, that would be worth $155,300.00). It was an immense gift that reminded people of Lincoln’s affection for the school and town he’d known back in 1860 when he lived here.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, December 17, 2021.

In the spring of 2010, students from Exeter High School partnered with the Exeter Historical Society to create a presentation called, “Exeter Eats: The Intriguing History of Exeter Cuisine.” Capably guided by their teacher, Molly Stevenson, who also served on the Society’s Board of Trustees, the kids were interested in how foodways changed from the colonial period to modern times. Part of the project looked at how people ate when they were not at home – those times when taverns and restaurants had to pick up the slack for Mom’s home cooking. The students tasked with the rise of takeaway and fast food were quite surprised to find that one of their favorites – Chinese Food – was a relatively recent addition to Exeter’s restaurant scene.

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, December 3, 2021.

Here’s a headline you’re not likely come across in today’s world: “Good Sport at Smoker Held by Knights of Columbus.” The article that followed, in the January 6th, 1933, edition of the Portsmouth Herald, explained, “the smoker held by Exeter Council, Knights of Columbus, on Wednesday night furnished plenty of good sport for an audience of about 220 men, which filled the K of C hall to capacity.” A ‘smoker’ was a party or event for men only, or at least considered suitable for men only. The entertainment might include a speaker, some music, a few exhibition boxing or wrestling matches and a novelty event. The humorous highlight of the evening for this smoker was a boxing match with, “three youngsters in the ring, each blindfolded and with a spoon in one hand and a boxing glove on the other hand. Each was required to tap his spoon on the floor, and each located his opponents by the sound alone, swinging for that spot where he judged him to be.”

by Barbara Rimkunas

This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, November 19, 2021.

Exeter’s first commercial district was the town square on Water and Front Street. The second was on Lincoln Street. The arrival of the Boston & Maine railroad in 1841 brought both freight and visitors to town. The subsequent decades found the industrial center drifting from the river to the railroad. The population in town began to drift westward as well. New neighborhoods developed around the factories as immigrants arrived to fill the workforce.