New Hampshire Farm Museum
Mark Foynes, who has 20 years’ experience in management and development in both museums and community-based/educational non-profits, has been named executive director of the New Hampshire Farm Museum in Milton.
Expressing enthusiasm at the opportunity “to fuse [his] deep-seated connection to museums with a broader understanding of non-profit management and development,” Foynes said the Farm Museum boasts many “compelling and vital stories.”
“It tells the story of how flinty and hardscrabble Yankees adapted to ever-changing circumstances from the Revolutionary era through the second half of the 20th century,” he noted.
“The house here at the Farm Museum, its connected outbuildings and great barn constitute 275 linear feet of rural history with thousands of objects that illustrate how our forebears navigated centuries of change.”
Foynes said he is also familiar with several museums on The Trail itself, including the Wright Museum of WWII in Wolfeboro.
“I served as executive director there in the wake of the museum’s founder’s passing, expanding membership base and annual giving,” he said.
For Foynes, the opportunity at the Farm Museum is to help visitors reconnect with our collective heritage and connection to the land, which is something he said has been obscured in recent years. “It is understandable and possibly even necessary as society moves forward, but the New Hampshire Farm Museum is a place where we keep traditions alive,” he said. “We embrace change as did New Hampshire farmers who constantly adapted to ever-evolving developments over the broad arc of several centuries.”
In looking ahead at the Farm Museum’s future, Foynes said he envisions telling “a unique story that connects today’s visitors with a past that binds us together through a narrative of work, determination, and perseverance.”
“Our ultimate endeavor is to connect the present generation with the stories of those who came and toiled before,” he added. “Ours is a story of the optimism that emerges out of the toil that’s borne out of challenge.”
To learn more about the New Hampshire farm Museum, visit www.farmmuseum.org. To learn more about The Trail or any museum on it, visit www.nhmuseumtrail.org.
Museums on the Trail include the Aviation Museum, Albacore Park, American Independence Museum, Castle in the Clouds, Lake Winnipesaukee Museum, Libby Museum, Millyard Museum, Museum of the White Mountains, New Hampshire Boat Museum, New Hampshire Farm Museum, Portsmouth Historical Society @ Discover Portsmouth, Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm, The Belknap Mill, Woodman Museum, and Wright Museum of WWII.