Photographer and photojournalist Lotte Jacobi (August 17, 1896 – May 6, 1990) was best known for portraits of Germany’s leading theater actors, artists, writers, and political figures. She also photographed the local landscape and architecture and produced stunning documentary images of cities and people in Germany and the Soviet Union. In response to the encroaching danger of the Nazi regime, Jacobi left Germany for New York in September 1935. Within weeks she was again photographing the world’s leading artists, dancers, and writers. Among her most significant works from the 1940s and 1950s were her abstract, camera less images known as “photogenics.”

Jacobi left New York for rural New Hampshire in 1955. She had grown uneasy in the city following the death of her second husband Erich Reiss in 1951, and she was eager to pursue some of her environmental interests in the woods of New England. In Deering, Jacobi continued to develop as a fine art photographer. In 1963, she opened a gallery to exhibit the work of local and international artists. In the last decades of her life, Jacobi received numerous international, national, and state honors for her artistic achievements. Lotte Jacobi died in 1990 in Concord, New Hampshire.

One of the four houses that comprise the Woodman Museum in Dover NH is the Hale House, Home of former U.S. Senator and Abolitionist John Parker Hale. Born on March 31st, 1806 in Rochester, NH, Hale would purchase the home in 1840 from the founder of the Dover Manufacturing Company, later known as the Cocheco Mill and Printworks, John Williams. Originally a Democrat in Congress, Hale was kicked out of the Democratic Party after he voted against annexation of Texas and the spread of Slavery. Hale would return later join the Free-Soil Party, a pro-abolition party, and run as a Presidential candidate in the election of 1852. He would ultimately lose to the election to his political rival in New Hampshire, Franklin Peirce. He would return to Congress in 1855 as a member of the Republican Party where we would serve until 1865.[1] Hale’s career is defined by his efforts to end the institution of Slavery in the United States, from introducing multiple legislative actions in Congress to serving as legal counsel for abolitionists and the Enslaved [2] However, there is a dark mark on the Hale family’s legacy.

Following the assassination of President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth would be shot dead by one of the soldiers that found him.[3] Among the contents of his pockets, the soldiers would find a picture of Senator Hale’s daughter, Lucy. Why would the picture of the daughter of one of the most ardent abolitionist Senators be found in the pocket of a pro- Confederacy assassin? As historian E. Lawrence Abel argued, it was because the two carried on a secret love affair. Whatever the circumstances of their meeting were, Lucy Hale received a love letter on Valentine’s Day 1862 from Booth.[4] Despite attempts to cover up the discovery of Lucy Hale’s picture, word still got out.[5] In 1878, a series of news articles would accuse Lucy of the scandal and assert that she had been in a love triangle between Booth and Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s oldest son.[6]

You can learn more about Senator Hale and Lucy Lambert Hale by visiting the Woodman Museum in Dover, NH. Click here to visit the museum’s webpage for hours and admission information.

 

[1] “Hale, John Parker (1806-1873).” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. 2019. http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=h000034 Accessed 11 DEC 2019.
[2] Sewell, Richard H. “John P. Hale and the Politics of Abolition”. 1965. Harvard University Press. Pg. 152
[3] Abel, E. Lawrence. “John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him”. 2018. Regnery History. Washington DC. Pg. 217
[4] Abel, E. Lawrence. “John Wilkes Booth and the Women Who Loved Him”. 2018. Regnery History. Washington DC. Pg. 177
[5] Abel, E. Lawrence. Pg. 219
[6] Abel, E. Lawrence. Pg. 248

For over 150 years, the Mount Washington has been cruising the waters of Lake Winnipesaukee, embodying the linked histories of lake transportation and tourism in the Lakes Region. Built by the Boston & Maine Railroad company, the SS Mt. Washington was launched in July 1872 to transport passengers and goods to key ports around the lake, as seen in early maps such as Calvert’s Map of the Lakes Region (1893). Tourism soon boomed at the Weirs transportation hub.

The Mount dominated lake transportation by the end of the 19th century, carrying more than 60,000 passengers annually. However, with the advent of automobile transportation and gradual decline of the railroad, the ship was sold in 1922 to Captain Leander Lavallee, who promoted area tourism with destinations around Lake Winnipesaukee. The original Mount burned at the Weirs landing in December 1939, where the fire also destroyed the wharf and railroad station.

Captain Lavallee then acquired the SS Chateaugay on Lake Champlain, and had that steamship cut into 20 sections and transported by train to Lakeport for reassembly. The new SS Mt. Washington II was launched in August 1940. The Mount has since undergone many changes, including lengthening and renaming as the MS Mount Washington. From a steam-powered sidewheeler to the 230-foot motorship today, the celebrated Mount endures as an icon of life on Lake Winnipesaukee.

In May of 1780, a young man named Peter Ayers met Shaker leader Ann Lee in the tiny community of Niskayuna, New York. Born in Voluntown, Connecticut in 1760, Ayers was 20 years old and a veteran of several Revolutionary War battles including Bunker Hill and Saratoga. After years of military service, Ayers was intrigued by the Shakers’ vision of a higher calling but was not ready to join the group.

In 1781, he returned to the army and served at the Battle of Yorktown. After three more visits with Shaker leadership, Ayers converted and became a missionary for the Society. In 1792, he accompanied his close friend Elder Job Bishop who was appointed to formally establish Canterbury Shaker Village. Over the next sixty-five years, Ayers proved to be an invaluable member of the community.

In August of 1840, former Governor of New Hampshire Isaac Hill published an account of the then eighty-year-old Ayers. Hill described him as “a most extraordinary man” with the energy of a person half of his age for whom “there was no scripture he could not quote in defense of his belief.”[1] Ayers died in 1857 at the age of 97.

[1] Isaac Hill, “The Shakers,” The Farmer’s Monthly Visitor 2, no. 8 (1840): 116. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/62626