A program Thursday night at the Dover Public Library promises to be lively fun.
Hosted by Dover 400, the folks behind the year-long celebration of the town’s settlement 400 years ago, I’ll be one of three authors of new books about the community’s past. Each of us brings something different to the table, and I’m really looking forward to meeting the others, as well as an audience full of additional insights and angles.
The program will allow each of us to address some prepared questions and briefly discuss our book before turning into wider discussion and an audience Q-and-A.
Retired librarian Cathy Beaudoin, the unofficial (and unrivaled) Dover historian, will be moderating. As an aside, I do wish she’d write the big volume about the city’s textile mills and the ways they transformed the community. She’s already curated a comprehensive lode of entries you’ll find on the public library’s website.
As a handy book you can follow around town, J. Andy Galt contributes an updated set of neighborhood walks that were originally conducted by the Dover Heritage Group. As I’ve previously posted, the city is pedestrian-friendly and has quite a range of architectural styles. In many neighborhoods, every house you pass seems to possess a history, if you stop, look, and have a few tidbits of info in hand. From the directions to one of those walks, Dover Friends Meeting finally learned where our second meetinghouse, from 1720, had been moved and now sits as a private residence.
Former Woodman Institute trustee Tony McManus brings a newly published, wide-ranging collection of newspaper columns he’s written on local history, especially the people involved.
And I’ll be there looking at the early developments from the perspective of the Quakers, for decades the town’s biggest minority.
As a grand finale, there will be an opportunity to sign books we’ll have for sale and meet one-on-one with readers. I couldn’t do that with ebooks.
(The snow date is March 9.)
Jnana's Red Barn 