It Happened In New Hampshire

From the tragic tale of young Lizzie Bourne's death on Mount Washington to the unsuccessful one hundred-year effort to save the Old Man of the Mountain, It Happened in New Hampshire takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the fascinating characters and episodes that mark the Granite State's eventful past. Here you'll read about the bizarre demise of the Willey family in a Crawford Notch avalanche and Abijah Larned's bungled bank robbery in Charlestown. You'll learn of the mysterious death of Dr. William Dean in Jaffrey and the friendship between World War II prisoners of war and the villagers of Stark. And you'll find out about the daring sea rescue of submariners aboard the Squalus, which sank off the Isles of Shoals. In an easy-to-read style that is entertaining and informative, Stillman Rogers recounts thirty-one of the most captivating moments from New Hampshire's history.

A tiny American town's plans for radical self-government overlooked one hairy detail: no one told the bears. Once upon a time, a group of libertarians got together and hatched the Free Town Project, a plan to take over an American town and completely eliminate its government. In 2004, they set their sights on Grafton, NH, a barely populated settlement with one paved road. When they descended on Grafton, public funding for pretty much everything shrank: the fire department, the library, the schoolhouse. State and federal laws became meek suggestions, scarcely heard in the town's thick wilderness. The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton's neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. They built a tent city in an effort to get off the grid. The bears smelled food and opportunity. A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear is the sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying tale of what happens when a government disappears into the woods. Complete with gunplay, adventure, and backstabbing politicians, this is the ultimate story of a quintessential American experiment -- to live free or die, perhaps from a bear.

The New York Times bestselling saga of a most unusual family from the award-winning author of The World According to Garp. “The first of my father’s illusions was that bears could survive the life lived by human beings, and the second was that human beings could survive a life led in hotels.” So says John Berry, son of a hapless dreamer, brother to a cadre of eccentric siblings, and chronicler of the lives lived, the loves experienced, the deaths met, and the myriad strange and wonderful times encountered by the family Berry. Hoteliers, pet-bear owners, friends of Freud (the animal trainer and vaudevillian, that is), and playthings of mad fate, they “dream on” in a funny, sad, outrageous, and moving novel by the remarkable author of A Prayer for Owen Meany and Last Night in Twisted River.

The New Hampshire Seacoast has a wealth of overlooked history. Some remnants are hidden in plain sight, and others are just plain hidden. Meet the minister and early religious founder who was involved in an armed confrontation in Dover with another preacher in 1640. Find out how a onetime high school assistant principal in Rochester became a world-famous business leader and ended up meeting President Grover Cleveland. Discover the story of "ghost" racetracks in Somersworth before they disappear, as well as the "pile of rocks" that stopped a multimillion-dollar building project in Windham. Author Terry Nelson reveals some of New England's most fascinating history, from Durham and Madbury to North Hampton and Portsmouth.

The most comprehensive guide to the Granite State. From summit to sea, this guide provides trusted travel advice for every taste, interest, and budget.

A historical journey through the headstones and hauntings of the Granite State—includes photos. New Hampshire’s historic graveyards, from Portsmouth to North Conway, have bizarre and eerie stories to offer their visitors. Graveyards often invoke fear and superstition among the living, but the dead who rest within them may have more to communicate to the world they left behind. The sands of Pine Grove Cemetery in Hampton once concealed the tombstone of Susanna Smith, but now its message—which reads simply “Slaine with thunder”—and her story have risen from beneath the soil. The Point of Graves Cemetery in Portsmouth is home to the spirit of Elizabeth Pierce, who beckons departing guests back to her grave. Along the state’s southern border in Jaffrey, tombstones at Philips-Heil Cemetery caution the living to cherish life. Here, Roxie Zwicker tours the Granite State’s oldest burial grounds, exploring the stones, stories, and folklore of these hallowed places.

From Portsmouth's historic Black Heritage Trail to a roadside museum called the Foolish Frog in the North Country, discover New Hampshire's little-known but fascinating attractions with this engagingly written guide.