Random Connection

A Historic Photo, Found

A curious moment found me the other day as I was driving out to a gas station to put some air in my tires. I drove by a place that jumped out in my memory because of a photo I saw and downloaded a week before.

The photo was old, turn of the century perhaps, a jaunty well dressed man in my home town out shoveling snow. Sometimes I’ll do that. I’ll be scrolling and a photo or article from one of the history pages or maybe from a historian I follow will pop up and I’ll grab it because it’s neat.

Often, those photos will inspire a story or reflection. But this time, something different. I recognized it!

I turned the car around, found a parking spot nearby and walked down to the spot I had just driven past.

Sure enough! The curved roof. The mill building far in the back. The pointed roof of the house next door. What a curious moment of connection!

What do you think? Do you think that’s the spot?

After finding the spot I went back and figured out where I found the photo and a little background. The photo belongs to the collection of Robert J. Girouard and was posted to the Facebook history page, New Hampshire Then and Now.

Here’s what one historian on the page wrote of the photo, which dates from around 1912: “The house was rented by Charles Whitten, a mill overseer for Amoskeag Mills. He was 56 on the 1910 census, so if this picture was taken in 1912, he would have been 58, so it's likely not him as this looks like a younger man. He didn't have any sons or any boarders, so I would guess the mill supplied a man to shovel out the mill-owned houses on McGregor Street. All the neighboring houses were rented by other overseers in their 50s. Two had sons - Herbert Butler - age 35, Scott Montgomery - age 19, and Henry Montgomery - age 23. It could be any of the three or another hired shoveler.”

We’re always walking in shadows from history folks!