A Little Local History

Due to effective and efficient whining, I am omitting the THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY image link at the beginning of the blog. This does not mean that you should not participate in THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY, because in fact, you should stand still and watch the original movie on December 10th, (because not standing still while watching a movie is annoying) which is only 14 days away. This of course means that THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY is only two weeks away. There’s not much time left, so click THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY and watch the original movie. And just in case you weren’t paying attention, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL TO WATCH THE ORIGINAL MOVIE DAY is December 10th.

I will, however, still retain housekeeping information at the beginning of the blog – to whit: MORE stories and authors have been added to the literature section of the Classic Science Fiction Channel, as has an alphabetical listing of all the authors you can find represented there. And yes, Sturgeon and Chandler, as well as those darned astericks, are now present.

I’ve also put the magazine graph up on the site. For those of you who complained of failing eyesight, this ought to work.

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I live in Hillsboro New Hampshire. It’s a picturesque down located along the banks of the Coontookok river. (I’m not a native, so am not sure of the spelling of any of the oookoooks around here.)

The house I’m renting hails from 1792. The woods are filled with cellar holes, indian burial mounds, moose, fishercats, bobcats too (like the one that ran across the road in front of me a couple of weeks ago) and endless stonewalls.

Right next door is Henniker New Hampshire – “The Only Henniker On Earth” as they like to say. In fact, there are no other towns, anywhere on the planet, named Henniker.

Rt 202/89 is the main artery that runs between Hillsboro and Henniker (unless you count the original river road). It’s also the route to Concord, which is the main shopping outlet for the region and therefore a road that the wife and I frequently travel.

Since we arrived in town in February, we’ve been driving past some kind of historical marker up on a hillside along Rt 202/89. Despite her nativeness, Karen was unable to tell me what it was for. Depsite my best intentions, we never managed to stop to check it out. Until the other day, that is.

I grabbed Karen’s new Iphone (she’s in love, but I’ve learned to tolerate the infatuation with consumer electronics, and she always comes home anyways) and snapped a couple of pictures:

In case you’re one of those readers who needed a larger version of the graph, the marker says “Site Where First Settler Resided in Henniker 1761″

“Back, and to the left, back, and to the left” of the marker (yes, I did just watch Stone’s movie the other day) is a cellar hole. I presume the cellar of the original house where the original settler settled. How much settling could an original settler settle, if an original settler could settle settling?

Cellar holes are a big thing around here if you’re a metal-detector kind of person. According to local lore, many of the original inhabitants were fond of hiding valuables in walls, in and around cellars. Back then, ’silverware’ really was made out of silver.

If, for some obscure and bizarre reason you wish to learn more about Henniker, and why the original settlers no longer live in their original settle place (which is ‘back, and to the left’, above) you can visit the Henniker Historial Society here. Unfortunately, they have NO information about Henniker’s other claim to fame: it was the host town for the first formal game of paintball ever played.