Weathervane Wednesday ~ Brought to you by the Letter "A"

Weathervane Wednesday is an on-going series of photographs I post weekly, usually of weather vanes in the Nutfield, New Hampshire area, but sometimes they can be from anywhere. Occasionally they are elsewhere in New England, or very historical weather vanes from anywhere else. Sometimes my weather vanes are whimsical, but all are interesting. Often, my readers tip me off to some very unique and unusual weathervanes, too!  Today's weathervane is from Derry, New Hampshire.

Do you know the location of weather vane #89? Scroll down to the bottom to see the answer!

Today's weather vane was found on a private residence on East Broadway, Derry, New Hampshire.  It is a bright, gilded banner flaunting a large letter A on the cupola of a Victorian style carriage house.  The weather vane is easy to view if you pull into the parking lot of the Church of the Transfiguration, on a hill above the carriage house.  According to the Derry Town Historian Richard Holmes, "It was built by Charles Abbott of the Abbott Downing Carriage Co. in 1895."

The Abbott Downing Carriage Company made the stage coaches you see in Western movies.  Between 1847 and 1899 they built over 3000 stagecoaches and shipped them West by rail.  An earlier Abbott Downing Company built over 700 coaches between 1827 and 1847.  These types of coaches were sometimes known as "Concord Coaches" because the factory was in Concord, New Hampshire.

A "Concord Coach" photographed at the
New Hampshire Historical Society Museum
(note the Old Man of the Mountains painted on the door!)

Charles Wheeler Abbott (1863 - 1930), son of Thomas Burpee Abbott and Mehitable Kidder.  He is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery, in Derry. He married Emma Hudson Perkins (1864 -1952), daughter of Washington Perkins of Londonderry.  He was a New Hampshire State Senator 1905 -1906.  Abbott Street, on the corner of East Broadway where his house was built, was named for Charles W. Abbott.

Click here to see the entire collection of Weathervane Wednesday posts!

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Weathervane Wednesday ~ Brought to you by the Letter 'A'", Nutfield Genealogy, posted April 3, 2013, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/04/weathervane-wednesday-brought-to-you-by.html: accessed [access date]).