UPCOMING PROGRAMS
Upcoming Programs
2025 Summer Program Series
Every summer the Society hosts a series of programs that bring history to Gilmanton. The topics may vary from individuals and groups who made a difference, to unusual books related to the region and its history. The Society also presents at least one program annually that focuses on an aspect of Gilmanton’s history. Although this series is free, the Society welcomes donations to assist with program costs, maintenance of the Museum and the continuing work on retaining Gilmanton history.
Please click here to read/download The Society’s 2025 brochure (PDF format).
Please note: For current updates please visit us on our Facebook Page or email us at info@gilmantonhistoricalsociety.org.
Robert Frost on the Farm: New Hampshire Farming in 1900 as Told by the Poet
When: Tuesday, May 27, 6:30PM
Where: Old Town Hall, Gilmanton Iron Works
Presenter: Jeffrey Zygmont
While it makes spoken words sing like sauntering music, Robert Frost’s poetry can also help us appreciate the rigor of life on a New England farm in the early 20th century. (Hint: It was hard.) In an exploration of both New Hampshire history and Frost’s poetry, author and poet Jeffrey Zygmont recites a selection of Frost’s poems about farming. Alongside each recitation, he provides background on Frost’s life, offering insight into the poem’s origins, and commentary on the work’s artistic beauty, as well as the experiences and emotions it expresses. Participants will join a lively discussion celebrating Robert Frost’s unique gift for capturing farm life in poetry.
A Walk Back in Time: The Secrets of Cellar Holes
When: Tuesday, June 24, 6:30PM
Where: Old Town Hall, Gilmanton Iron Works
Presenter: Adair Mulligan
Northern New England is full of reminders of past lives: stone walls, old foundations, a century-old lilac struggling to survive as the forest reclaims a once-sunny dooryard. What forces shaped settlement, and later abandonment, of these places? Adair Mulligan explores the rich story to be discovered in what remains behind. See how one town has set out to create an inventory of its cellar holes, piecing together the clues in the landscape. Such a project can help landowners know what to do if they have archaeological sites on their land and help stimulate interest in a town’s future through its past.
Fourth Annual Farm & Flax Day
When: Saturday, July 26, 10am-3:00pm (rain date Sunday, July 27)
Where: Farm Museum at Tom Howe Conservation Area, 245 Meetinghouse Road
Explore the beauty of the Howe Conservation Area. Come and experience Gilmanton’s agricultural heritage. During colonial times, flax was grown, retted and processed at this site. Come see members of the Flax and Linen Community demonstrate the processing of flax to linen as it was done 200 years ago.
Songs of Emigration: Storytelling Through Traditional Irish Music
When: Tuesday, August 26, 6:30PM
Where: Songs of Emigration: Storytelling Through Traditional Irish Music
Presenter: Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki
Through traditional music Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki relays some of the adventures, misadventures, and emotions experienced by Irish emigrants. The focus is on songs about leaving Ireland, sometimes focusing on the reasons for leaving (a man who is driven from his land by English persecution), sometimes revealing what happened upon arrival (an immigrant drafted into the Union army during the Civil War), and sometimes exploring the universal feeling of homesickness of a stranger in a strange land (a factory worker in London missing his home in County Clare). The presenter discusses the historical context of these songs, interspersing their stories with tunes from Ireland that made their way into New England’s musical repertoire, played on his fiddle or guitar.
Don’t Shoot, I’m the Perambulator
When: Tuesday, September 23, 6:30PM
Where: Old Town Hall, Gilmanton Iron Works
Presenter: Mark Stevens
New Hampshire law requires that all towns perambulate their boundaries once every seven years. But what does that really mean? How exactly do you “perambulate” and what does it entail? Why is it necessary? Who does it? And…what kind of trouble does your local Perambulator get into? Learn the answers to these questions and hear some quirky tales, adventures, and unexpected surprises our Perambulator has stumbled into while walking town lines all over the State of NH.
The Capital Crime of Witchcraft: What the Primary Sources Tell Us
When: Tuesday, October 28, 6:30PM
Where: Old Town Hall, Gilmanton Iron Works
Presenter: Margo Burns
On first impression, the witchcraft trials of the Colonial era may seem to have been nothing but a free-for-all, fraught with hysterics. Margo Burns explores an array of prosecutions in seventeenth century New England, using facsimiles of primary source manuscripts, from first formal complaints to arrest warrants, indictments of formal charges to death warrants, and the reversals of attainder and rescinding of excommunications years after the fact; demonstrating how methodically and logically the Salem Court worked. This program focuses on the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and 1693, when nineteen people were hanged and one crushed to death, but also examines a variety of other cases against women in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
