The Londonderry Celebration 1869, the 150th Anniversary

The Londonderry Celebration, 1870, pages 6 and 7

Apparently, in 1869, there was a huge commemoration of the anniversary of the founding of Nutfield, and the many speeches given by dignitaries were printed in a small book.  This book is The Londonderry Celebration: Exercises on the 150^th Anniversary of the Settlement of Old Nutfield, and you can peruse it at your leisure at Google Books, or  Archive.org at this link:  https://archive.org/details/londonderryceleb00mack   or at the Hathi Trust website at this link:  https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008651009  

This book is also available at the public libraries in Londonderry, Derry, Windham and Manchester, and at the New Hampshire Historical Society library call number 997.8b L847m 

This book was announced in newspapers, like the transcription below. 

If you are truly interested, there is a “classic reprint” of this book available for $27.30 hardcover and $9.97 at Amazon.  See this link: https://www.amazon.com/Londonderry-Celebration-Exercises-Anniversary-Settlement/dp/0267987722  

Transcribed from the newspaper, Mirror and Farmer, Saturday, August 13, 1870, Manchester, New Hampshire, page 4.

THE LONDONDERRY CELEBRATION; or

Exercises on the 150^th Anniversary of the Settlement of Old Nutfield

The Springfield Republican gives the following comprehensive notice of this work:

“’The Londonderry Celebration’ is a volume of 124 pages, containing the speeches, poems, and particulars of the celebration held last year in the old New Hampshire town of Nutfield or Londonderry, on the completion of its first century and a half. The present towns of Derry, Londonderry, and Windham, and the city of Manchester, are included within the ancient limits of Londonderry, and their citizens joined in the celebration, which took place in the lower village of Derry, June 10, 1869.  It was in April, 1719, that sixteen families from the Irish Londonderry came to Nutfield to settle, and they were followed, a few years later, by three or four times as many more, who colonized not only the New England Londonderry, but a great many other New Hampshire towns, either by themselves or their descendants.  They were Scotchmen of pure breed who had emigrated to Ulster to escape the persecution of the Stuarts in their own country, and who came to New England for a larger liberty than they found in Ireland.  Several of the early settlers, including the first two ministers, had borne arms at the famous ‘seige of Derry’ in 1689, and all of them were strict Presbyterians, fond of strong Calvinism and not averse to strong whiskey.  Among their descendants have been the Starks, Morrisons, Wilsons, Bells, Greeleys, Pattersons, Duncans, Dinsmores, Walkers, many of the Smiths, and men of other names prominent in the annals of New England.

                “The speakers at the celebration, whose remarks are here printed, were mostly either born in old Londonderry or descended from its people.  The chairman was George W. Patterson of New York, who was lieutenant-governor of that state twenty years ago, when Hamilton Fish was governor; the principal address was made by Charles H. Bell, of Exeter, a member of the distinguished Bell family, and other speeches were made by Senator Paterson, Horace Greeley, Dr. Taylor, of Andover, E. H. Derby of Boston, etc. and the volume contains beside their speeches, sketches of their lives and their engraved portraits, sketches and portraits of Chief Justice Bell, Gov. Smyth, Gen. Head, Gen. A. F. Stevens, and James A. Weston, and profile portraits of Gen. George Reid and the aged printer, John Prentice of Keene.  The work is edited by Robert C. Mack, and published in handsome style by John B. Clarke, of Manchester.”

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "The Londonderry Celebration 1869, the 150th Anniversary", Nutfield Genealogy, posted March 29, 2018, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-londonderry-celebration-1869-150th.html: accessed [access date]).