Built in 1762, the Wyman Tavern was in operation as a public house along Keene’s Main Street for 40 years.   French & Indian War veteran Isaac Wyman from Massachusetts, purchased the property that would house his tavern and his family.  Wyman served as a town selectman and the tavern served as a warm gathering place following town meetings. It housed a tap room, a parlor meeting space, a large kitchen, a ballroom, and many outbuildings

Some important New Hampshire events took place at the Wyman Tavern during its operation.  On October 22, 1770, the Trustees of Dartmouth College, under President Eleazar Wheelock, met at the Wyman Tavern to hold their first meeting.  Five years later, on the morning of April 21, 1775, Isaac Wyman was chosen to lead 29 local militia men to Lexington and Concord, MA.  Wyman and his son Isaac Wyman Jr. remained until the Battle of Bunker Hill.  Isaac Sr. then returned to Keene to tend to his tavern and farm throughout the duration of the war. Isaac Wyman died in 1792; his children carried on the family business until 1799 when the building ceased operation as a tavern forever.

The house remained residential until it was purchased and reopened as a historic house museum in 1968.  Today, the Wyman Tavern is owned by the Historical Society of Cheshire County, which offers guided tours, 18th century activities, youth camps and an annual Brew Fest.

Designed by: Jeff Lang – Old Lang Signs Pittsburgh, PA

The Trinity Cycle Manufacturing Company factory on Railroad Street in Keene was dedicated on November 11, 1897. Bicycles had become extremely popular for recreation and transportation at the time, and the Trinity Company had well over 100 employees by the time it unveiled its new models in February 1898. Business reports indicated that Trinity was a first class bicycle. The firm soon employed 150 people and increased production to 40 bicycles per day. Trinity built a strong reputation and gained a large following and the company had difficulty keeping up with the orders coming in from across the country. 

This was a time of rapid change in the transportation industry, however.  The huge demand for bicycles resulted in about 500 bicycle factories opening across the country to build them.  At the same time, demand cooled and there was immediately an oversupply. Prices were reduced and many companies, including Trinity, faced financial difficulty.  In one year’s time, the number of operating factories dropped from 500 to 60. 

The introduction of motorized carriages– first automobiles– added to Trinity’s troubles.  The company worked to manufacture a model of their own and perfected the car in the early months of 1900.  Trinity began to manufacture autos in July of that year. Seven months later, the Trinity Cycle Company was superseded by the Steamobile Company of America, and car manufacture replaced bicycle manufacture on Railroad Street in Keene.

Designed by: Cameron Bortz, Mystic Carved Signs, Pawcatuck, Connecticut

On May 16 of 1848 a large crowd gathered on Main Street in Keene. More than 5,000 people eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first train to come to Keene from Boston.  With the train’s arrival came the birth of one of Cheshire County’s most important industries and the nation’s most modern technology in the form of The Cheshire Railroad. 

The railroad made Keene what it is today – the economic and manufacturing center for the region.  Passengers could now travel to Boston in the comfort of a passenger car in 3 hours. By the 1870s, 3 lines, going out in four directions, making connections to Boston, Montreal, New York, and Concord.  Businesses and industries located right along the tracks in Keene to take advantage of this new form of transportation.   Keene was soon the manufacturing, retail, banking, educational, and social center of the region – and its only city – all of which remains true today.

Passenger service lasted 110 years, until May of 1958, and freight service survived until 1982.  The last train into Keene came in 1984. Trucks, Eisenhower interstate highway system, railroad management all combined to end the RR in Keene. The railroad is gone, but much of the rail bed still exists and inspires. The Cheshire Recreational Rail Trail, as it is known as today, is a popular attraction for historians, bicyclists, hikers, walkers, and other recreationalists.

Designed by: Mike McEvers, Sign Art Studio Indianapolis IN

Brattleboro, VT-born Jennie Powers was a humane society agent in Keene, NH, from 1903-1936, while also assisting the society in Brattleboro, VT.  Jennie was known across the country as The Woman Who Dares, cited by the Boston Post newspaper as having arrested more men than any other woman in America in 1906.   

In 1903, the Keene Humane Society hired Jennie on a trial basis. Soon the company grew to rely on her as Jennie investigated and worked to prosecute hundreds of cases of animal abuse.  She was known to march in to work sites such as logging camps, mill yards, farms, and train yards.  By 1910, the Cheshire County sheriff deputized her and Jennie Powers became the second woman in New Hampshire to serve that role.  

In the mural you will also notice an image of a mother and child.  In an age when animal cruelty laws were more defined than laws against family violence, much of Powers’ work led her to protect the rights of children and wives who were abused and neglected.

Jennie Powers died in 1936 at the age of 72 from complications from pneumonia.  In 1967, the Keene Humane Society their present 250 acre site the Jennie B. Powers Memorial Shelter in her honor.  Jennie Powers was a heroic agent of change during a time when women were just beginning to push for rights to vote, to control property and to have a legal say over the welfare of their own children. 

Designed by: Elaine Wallis, Signature Sign & Image Niagara Falls ON, Canada and Noella Cotman, Sign-It Cornwall ON, Canada

The city of Keene enjoys an impressive wealth of conserved public land. The city’s conserved spaces are due, largely, to the efforts of a few key residents.

Caroline Haskell Ingersoll (1827-1893) grew up in a wealthy family in Keene and became an accomplished musician.  In 1887, she learned a 17 acre pine grove located at the comer of Arch Street and Park Avenue in West Keene was about to be cut down for lumber. She led a local effort that saved the land, raising $1,300 from nearly 100 women in the community.  She named the land Ladies’ Wildwood Park. 

George Alexander Wheelock (1816-1906), Keene lawyer, became a naturalist–studying plants, animals, and geology–, a poet, and a landscape archivist. In 1866 he donated 25 acres of land at the old West Keene fairground (now named Wheelock Park). In 1889, he gave the 12 acres of the Children’s Wood and 17 acres in West Keene. In 1897, he donated Robin Hood Park with its 83 acres of woodland.  He was Keene’s first park commissioner when that post was created in in 1887.

Mary Boyd Dinsmoor (1839-1928).  In 1886, Mary Dinsmoor donated 13 acres along Maple Avenue for public use. Now called “Dinsmoor Woods,” it lies along both sides of Maple avenue, and now consists of eighteen acres of heavily wooded land.  

Samuel Wadsworth (1846-1931).  Born in Roxbury NH in 1846, Wadsworth served for many years as a surveyor and City Engineer of Keene.  As a surveyor, he drew detailed sketches of every street and public way for the purpose of assigning house numbers to assist postmen in the mail carrier service.  His maps show the growth of conserved land over time.

Horatio Colony The story of the Horatio Colony Nature Preserve began in 1892 when Faulkner & Colony mill owner, Horatio Colony I, bought the Japhet Parker farm which was 132 acres of abandoned sheep pasture atop West Hill in Keene. The Colony family soon built Tip-Top House on top of the north slope – a summer cabin where they spent many a Sunday afternoons enjoying the solitude and expansive view of Keene. Horatio I enjoyed the land so much that he added to it. Between 1892 and 1925 he purchased nine more lots, piecing together what today comprises the nature preserve. His grandson, Horatio Colony II, inherited the West Hill holding. Having a great respect for New England woods and wildlife, he allowed the forest to regenerate naturally.  His desire to save this unique ecological resource led him to set aside his land as a wildlife sanctuary and nature study, to be used for education and research. The nature preserve is now 645 acres, with a 5 mile trail complex that is open to the public.

Designed by: Noel Weber, Classic Design Studio Boise, Idaho

The Wilkins Toy Company was founded by James S. Wilkins in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1890. The first toys produced was a toy clothes wringer as well as cast iron toy vehicles.  In 1894, Keene resident Harry T. Kingsbury purchased the company and, within one year, produced the first toy catalog illustrating 85 iron toys.  These included 21 different trains, one of them a mechanical wind-up model, and 16 pieces of fire equipment.  Other toys included cook stoves, circus toys, steamboats, trolleys, delivery wagons, and passenger carriages and wagons of various kinds.

Kingsbury’s company soon became a leader in the American toy manufacturing industry, making and shipping toys across the country. The company made toys for boys and girls, producing some of the first toy automobiles with lady drivers.  Using clockworks-style technology in his vehicles, Kingsbury’s trains and fire trucks and other vehicles could be wound up and let go to drive across the room.

In the 1920s, an employee at Kingsbury Mfg., developed a variable speed drill that could more easily drill through the metal frames of the toys.  It became so popular that the company opened a machine tool division and began selling tools to competitors.  

During World War II, Kingsbury ceased its manufacture of toys to help with the war effort; they were making rifle bolts.  Following the war, the company never returned to the manufacture of toys, but became a world leader in the machine tool industry and a leading employer in Keene.  Changes in the industry caused decline and the company was sold to a Rochester, NY, firm in 2012. The last remnants of the business left the region in 2016.

Designed by: Michael Clark – Clark Signs Aledo, IL

In the late nineteenth century, the high quality of southern New Hampshire public grammar schools lead to a need for accomplished and well-rounded educators. New Hampshire towns vied for state dollars to create the first normal school. In 1871, Plymouth became the first to create a normal school in New England. Yet city officials in Keene still worked towards forming their own institution, raising  $19,000 in the early 1900s to support the construction of the facility on Main Street.

Keene Normal School officially opened in 1909 and began educating young women in the area in education, pedagogy, and the liberal arts and sciences. The students were also able to practice teaching in and around Keene, which lowered the taxpayers’ contribution to public education for children.

During World War I, women were away from teaching and towards the field of nursing. This created enrollment problems for the school. An educational revolt in the 1920s led to the implementation of governmental policies which insisted on limiting the liberal arts and focusing instead on trades.

From 1930 to 1939, the student body and employees of the school were diminished by fifty percent due to a hurricane, an economic collapse, and typhoid fever.  These struggles led the school to consider a rebirth, transitioning to Keene Teachers’ College in 1939.

The very formative years of the institution now known as Keene State College developed a precedent of constant change. This continued into the twentieth century and still is in existence today, as the college enters its second century.

Designed by: Joe Diaz – Diaz Sign Art Pontiac, IL

Keene traces its daily paper back to March 23, 1799, when it began publication as a weekly issue. First called the New Hampshire Sentinel, it has been published continuously since that date. It added a daily in 1890, with the inauguration of the Keene Evening Sentinel.  

John Prentiss of Leominster, MA, moved to Keene in 1799 to publish the first NH Sentinel on his 21st birthday.  His newspaper began with 70 subscribers at $1.50 a year.  The business continued to grow and purchased its own building at 55 Main Street in 1893, where it remained for 37 years before moving to a new location at 60 West Street in 1930.  In addition to his newspaper, John Prentiss became a commercial printer, publishing books including novels and textbooks well into the 19th century. 

Today, the Sentinel is the fifth-oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States . It covers Keene and 30 towns in Cheshire County. 

Designed by: Joe Diaz – Diaz Sign Art Pontiac, IL

Originally from Chicago, Dr. Albert C. Johnston was a highly respected radiologist in Keene between the 1940s and 1960s. He, his wife Thyra, and their 3 sons and 1 daughter lived on Washington Street. During World War II, Dr. Johnston’s commission as a medical officer in the Navy was rescinded by the government without .  After about two years of seeking an answer as to why, Johnston finally learned that a background check had shown that he was of mixed racial background. While other branches of the military were integrated, the Navy was not yet desegregated. 

Dr. and Mrs. Johnston were one of many African-American couples in the mid-20th century who had made the difficult decision to ‘pass’ as white.  To keep their secret safe and protect their family, the Johnstons had chosen not to discuss the issue of race with their four children– Albert Jr., Anne, Donald, and Paul.  After his disheartening rejection from the Navy, Dr. & Mrs. Johnston chose to expose their race to their friends and children. Each of the four children handled their new identities in different ways as they grew up.

While studying music theory at the University of New Hampshire, Albert Johnston Jr. (eldest son) met Hollywood film producer Louis de Rochemont to pitch an idea for a film on George Washington Carver.  What resulted was the development and creation of a bestselling novel about the Johnston family by William Lindsay White in 1948 entitled “Lost Boundaries.” A Hollywood film of the same title premiered in 1949 and was a critical success. The film of Dr. Johnston’s story, and that of Keene, is considered a groundbreaking film in the history of racial equality in the United States.  

Following the craze of Lost Boundaries, the family continued to live and work in Keene until 1966, when Dr. and Mrs. Johnston relocated to Hawaii with their sons Albert Jr and Paul.  Descendants of the Johnstons live in Massachusetts and continue to visit Keene on occasion.  

Designed by: Scott ‘Cornbred’ Lindley Mt. Pulaski Illinois

Miss Catharine Fiske was born on July 30, 1784 in Worcester MA. According to one of her contemporaries, she was different from other children—remarkably uniform in feelings and mild tempered, and she loved books, and she was exceedingly kin in her feelings toward the poor & distressed”.  Throughout her life she was of delicate health and suffered from chronic pain. 

She began her career as a teacher when she was 15 years old in Dover, Vermont, and moved to Keene in 1811 when she was 27 to teach.  Three years later (1814) she co-founded the Seminary for Young Ladies.  In 1824 Miss Fiske bought the house and Farm on Main St (now the Keene State College’s President’s House).  

Miss Fiske’s School was both a boarding school and day school for girls was the first of its kind in New Hampshire (and second in the Country) and it quickly earned a national reputation for its excellence.  The school enrolled up to 100 girls at a time from some of Keene’s leading families and from nearly every state in the Union.  The school also had boys as day students (several of them later became doctors). In its 31 years of existence, the school served 2,500 students.

The students were taught French, Italian, Latin, and English, as well as music, drawing, painting, botany, arithmetic, history, geography (with use of maps and globes) and needlework.  Some special classes were also taught for boys. Miss Fiske also promised their parents the school would “pay all possible attention to the improvement of the manners, morals, and minds” of her students.  In 1837, the cost for the Winter Term was $50.00 for 20 weeks, including board, lights, fuel & tuition for English Studies. Add-ons included Language ($6.00/quarter), Music ($10.00/quarter) and Drawing & Painting ($3/quarter).  The first pianos brought to Keene were placed at Miss Fiske’s school.

Designed by: Manfred Didier, Timber Signs Ofterschwang, Germany

Barry Faulkner (1881-1966) was born and raised in Keene, NH, and became one of the foremost mural artists in his generation.   

As a teenager, Faulkner studied with his older cousin and famed artist Abbot Thayer at Thayer’s home in Dublin, NH.  Inspired by art, he left Harvard University after one year to study and travel to Florence, Italy, with Dublin artist George de Forest Brush. Later at Cornish, N.H, Faulkner worked in the studio of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, America’s leading sculptor. In New York he studied at the Art Students League and Chase School, and in 1907 Faulkner won the Rome Prize Fellowship to the American Academy in Rome to study ancient art and architecture. Upon his return to the United States, he set up a studio in New York City where he built his career in mural painting.  

Barry Faulkner murals can be seen around the United States with many examples of his work still in Keene.

Note about the mural:  The mural on display in downtown Keene depicts Faulkner as a young muralist painting a mural about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is portrayed as a work-in-progress.  The mural’s designer, ___, conducted his own research on Faulkner and became very interested in his work as a camoufleur.  Barry Faulkner found inspiration in his cousin, famous Dublin artist and naturalist Abbott Thayer, who was famous for his studies of birds in relation to protective coloration (camouflage).  Faulkner went on to serve in the camouflage unit of the US army during World War I. 

One of Faulkner’s last murals painted,  The Advent of the Coming of the Railroad, was completed at the age of 74.  Barry Faulkner died at Keene in 1966 at the age of 85.

Designed by: Tom Siebert, Murals for Schools Huntington Beach, CA

Clarence Harrison DeMar was a U.S. marathoner, winner of seven Boston Marathons, and Bronze medalist at the 1924 Paris Olympics.  In 1910, DeMar ran his first Boston Marathon and finished second place. In 1911, DeMar found a place on the Boston Marathon starting line again.  Two hours, 21 minutes, 39 seconds later, Clarence DeMar had won.

DeMar was one of the twelve members of the U.S. marathon team in the 1912 Summer Olympics.   In June 1915 DeMar received an Associate of Arts degree from Harvard while working as a printer in the Boston area.  He served in the Army during World War I before returning to the Boston area.  He won the Boston Marathon six times during the 1920s. In addition to his Boston streak, he won a bronze medal in marathoning at the French 1924 Summer Olympics. DeMar won his last Boston Marathon in 1930 at the age of 41. 

In 1929 DeMar took a job teaching printing and industrial history at Keene Normal School (now called Keene State College).  With a famous runner on staff, the male student population of the college increased dramatically, having been a female dominated campus for twenty years prior.  In addition to teaching, DeMar trained the school’s cross-country team.  

In the fall of 1934 he earned master’s degree at Boston University. In his 1937 autobiography Marathon.  At 49, he finished seventh at Boston Marathon at the age of 54. He was 69 when he ran his last race, a 15k in 1958. In 2000 he was inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame. The Clarence DeMar Marathon has been held in Keene annually since 1978 in his honor. 

Designed by: Aaron Taylor, Brix Design Pensacola, Florida

Jonathan Daniels was born in Keene on March 20, 1939. Raised a Congregationalist, he joined St. James Episcopal Church while in high school. After high school he enrolled in Virginia Military Institute, graduating first in his class. An initial interest in the priesthood waned while Daniels was in college, but returned as a graduate student at Harvard University. The renewal of his faith led Daniels to enter Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, MA in the fall of 1963, sponsored by his home parish, St. James Episcopal Church.

On March 7, 1965, after hearing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. call on “clergy of all faiths … to join me in Selma [Alabama] for a ministers` march to the state capital of Montgomery …” He went south, participated in the march, and then stayed on in the area for a couple of months to tutor children in reading, to register voters, and to help integrate a local Episcopal Church. 

In August of 1965, Daniels returned to Alabama to continue his volunteer work.  On Saturday, August 14, he picketed a local businesses with others in Fort Deposit, AL. They were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville before being released on August 20. As the day was hot, Daniels and three others–the Rev. Richard Morrisroe (a Roman Catholic priest), Joyce Bailey, and Ruby Sales–approached a local store to buy sodas. The entrance was blocked by an off-duty deputy sheriff with a shotgun, Tom Coleman, who threatened to shoot if they tried to enter. During the confrontation, Coleman aimed the gun at Ruby Sales. Daniels pushed her out of the way and was shot in the chest, dying instantly. Father Morrisroe was shot in the back as he and Joyce Bailey ran for safety.

More than 800 people attended the funeral service at St. James Church. Sympathy messages came from President Lyndon B. Johnson, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., New Hampshire Governor John W. King, and senators and congressmen. Daniels was laid to rest in Monadnock View Cemetery in Keene. 

Tom Coleman, who fired the fatal shot from a 12-gauge shotgun, was acquitted of manslaughter on grounds of self-defense after claiming that Daniels had a knife, though no weapon was ever found. None of Daniels` companions were permitted to testify at the trial. The all-white jury deliberated less than two hours before returning the not-guilty verdict. The Alabama attorney general, quoted by the press, declared the trial “the democratic process going down the drain of irrationality, bigotry and improper enforcement of the law.”

Today, Jonathan Myrick Daniels is listed in the Memorial Book of the Chapel of Saints and Martyrs at Canterbury Cathedral in Great Britain, along with one other American martyr, Dr. King. His portrait hangs in a wing of that great cathedral. In July 1991, the Episcopal Church named Daniels a saint. In October 2015, a bust of Jonathan Daniel was consecrated at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. 

Designed by: Chris Lovelady Vital Signs Thomasville, Georgia

People in the greater Keene area have been passionate about baseball for more than 150 years.  From the 1860 Keene Base Ball Club, probably the region’s first town team, to today’s Swamp Bats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, local players and fans have demonstrated their love for our national pastime.  

By the 1890s, it seemed that everyone was playing baseball.  The town teams, school teams, and the boys on the common were joined by mill teams, store teams, church teams, and travelling barnstormers.  Keene team rivalries included the “Married Men” vs. the “Single Men” and the “Short Men” vs. the “Tall Men.” Baseball was a game that everyone could play and enjoy, from the pastures and town commons to the professional league ball parks.  

The Keene White Sox was the city’s great semi-pro team of the 1910s and 1920s.    The team was as professional as the city would see during its era, featuring several future and former major league players.  In addition to the local teams, the White Sox played many barnstorming teams during this period. The Keene Blue Jays of the semi-pro Northern League played here in the late 1940s-1950s.   Baseball has been an integral part of life in Keene for generations. 

Designed by: Wade Lambristen, Vintage Sign Shop Menomonie, WI, and Alicia Rheal, Rheal Imagination Madison, WI

The city of Keene was once part of a large glacial lake bed known as Ashuelot Lake. Today, what remains is a 64-mile river spanning through Cheshire County from northeast to southwest and emptying into the Connecticut River at Hinsdale.  “Ashuelot” is an Abenaki word meaning “place between” or “collection of many waters” or “place between the waters.” It was an important source for transportation and fishing for thousands of years.  

By the early 18th century, the river provided a natural travel route for European settlers.  Another reason that the river valleys were settled early was because they offered rich soil for farming and most of the early settlers were farmers.  This is especially true in Keene, which was originally named “Upper Ashuelot” for the river. Swanzey, NH, just south of Keene was first named “Lower Ashuelot.”  

Towns situated near the Ashuelot river, such as Keene, Swanzey, and Winchester, typically grew into regional hubs of commerce, industry and finance. Many industries of the day were dependent upon the river to power their mills.  The Faulkner & Colony textile mill (est. 1815 and depicted in the mural), once situated alongside the river at West Street, became one of the town’s largest employers, for example.

Since the mid-to-late 1800s, the river has been a source of recreational activities for townspeople including swimming, fishing, ice skating, and boating.  Marked trails wind their way along the river in Keene and the Ashuelot River Park is a popular spot for visitors.

The river is also an important wildlife habitat.  The rare dwarf wedge mussel, blue heron, raptors, bald eagle, blue-gray gnatcatcher, loon, nighthawk, and other birds are all found along the river. 

The poem seen off to the side of this mural is one that comes from a former employee of the Faulkner & Colony Mill, a woman who used to write poetry on her lunch breaks sitting out in the park.

Designed by: Lili Payne, Muralist and Scenic Artist Minneapolis, MN co-leading with Scott Gerwit

The land that currently makes up the Monadnock region is Abenaki homeland known as N’dakinna (Abenaki for ‘our land’).  Abenaki people today remain connected to the land, which stretches between Vermont and New Hampshire, north into Canada, south into parts of Massachusetts, and into eastern New York.   The word Abenaki is a combination of two words “Abena” meaning “Flickering Light” and “Ki” meaning “People.”  Together the word translates as “People of the First Light” or “People of the Dawnland.”  

Archeological evidence of Paleo-Indian activity was discovered in Keene in 2012, at an area known as Tenant Swamp (now the site of the Keene Middle School).  According to Dr. Robert Goodby, lead archaeologist on the project, Tenant Swamp acts as one of the oldest sites of human activity in North America and dates as far back as 12,600 years before present . At that point in time, the settlement would have been located along the high banks of the Ashuelot River.   Stone fishing dam and fishing sites, dating to about 9,000 years ago, have also been found along the Ashuelot River in Swanzey, NH.

The region where Keene, NH is located was known for generations as ‘Ashuelot’ (Land between place) by the Western Abenaki and was considered a major cross roads of both overland trade/travel routes as well as water ways. The main river is still known as the Ashuelot River.  Well-developed systems of trails interlaced the region.  These trading routes were later used by European-Americans as their first roads and highways. 

One of the most well-known Abenaki families in Keene history is the Sadoques family.  As with other Abenaki families of the region, the Sadoques family history stretches throughout New England and up to Odenak (St. Francis), Canada, near Montreal.  In 1880, Israel M’Sadoques and his wife Mary Watso M’Sadoques moved to Keene with their daughter and son from Odenak, Canada.  Eight more children were born to the family in Keene.  Israel, a hunter and trapper by trade, opened a tannery and ash splint business while his wife was known as a master basket maker, often making baskets for her family members.  The Sadoques family lived in the Monadnock region into the 1990s, when the last daughter Margaret passed away in 1993.  Descendants of Israel and Mary Sadoques, as well as extended family, continue to live throughout New England and Quebec.

Designed by: Sonny Franks – Sign Creation Lilburn, GA Mural co-leaders: Eric Skinner & Russell Kelly