Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Weathervane Wednesday ~ An Abandoned Town


This is part of an on-going series of photographs of weather vanes in New Hampshire.  I started by documenting the weather vanes in the Nutfield area (formerly Derry, Londonderry and Windham, New Hampshire) but I've spread out to other areas now.  Some of the weather vanes are historical, some are whimsical, and all are interesting.  Today's weather vane is located in a "ghost town" or abandoned town in Southern New Hampshire.

Do you know the location of weather vane #78?  Scroll down to see the answer!



The Joseph Gould House

Interior (photographed through the window!)

This weather vane is located on the Joseph Gould house in Monson, New Hampshire.  Monson is an abandoned town that straddles the Hollis and Milford border.  The area has stone walls, cellar holes of homes, wells and an old town pound.  It was settled in 1737 and abandoned in the 1770s.  As we walked around Monson we marveled at the fields bordered by stone walls, and discussed how the settlers must have used oxen and sledges to drag the stones out of the fields.  When we saw this weather vane it was as if the spirit of one of the settlers had left this as an answer!  However, I do not know if this weather vane is original to the building or not.

Click this link to see a previous blog post about the abandoned town of Monson, New Hampshire with lots of photos of the cellar holes and old roads:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-abandoned-town-of-monson-new.html

Click here to see the entire series of weather vane posts! 

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

3 comments:

  1. This must be the only ox on a weather vane. A spirit of one of the oxen that dragged the stones on sledges to make the stone walls. I recall Robert Frost's famous line (actually a quote from one of the characters in "Mending Wall" -- I'm not sure whether Frost agreed). The line is, "Good fences make good neighbors."

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    1. Funny you should mention that! I was walking the stone walls at the Frost Farm (down the road from me) this past fall, and we were quoting that poem!

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