Andover NH Historical Society

10/16/2026

If you have driven through the historic Potter Place Village in recent weeks, you may have noticed some exciting changes. As part of an ongoing capital campaign to preserve the historic Potter Place Station railroad complex, owned and maintained by the Andover Historical Society, the Northern Railroad Freight House is receiving much needed preservation. The building was scraped and sanded over the summer and the beautiful fall weather allowed perfect conditions for a fresh coat of paint on the exterior. The work should be completed in the next few weeks. At the same time, a maintenance project to repair the decking on the entry dock and loading platform is almost complete. A big thank you to our dedicated volunteers and two generous grants from the Mass Bay Railroad Enthusiasts Railroad Preservation Fund and the NH Preservation Society in partnership with the 1772 Foundation. Enjoy these before and after progress pictures.

Built in the early 1900's for the Boston and Maine Northern Railroad, the Potter Place Northern Railroad Freight House is located a short distance east along the tracks from the passenger station. It retains almost all of its original features and appearance. It was served by a still-existing spur from the main railroad line. The freight shed is believed to have served the railroad until 1982 when freight shipments stopped. The building was then owned by the R.P. Johnson family until it was donated by the Johnson family to the Andover Historical Society in 2003 and is one of our five historic properties.

10/10/2026

There is a lot happening today at Potter Place! We have the station and Emons store open until 2:00. The Rail Trail has a tent up with information and swag. There is also a great display of some Vietnam War memorabilia and dressed up soldiers!

08/30/2026

08/29/2026

Part of Andover was ceded to the new town of Franklin, too. Here are some details from our neighbors in Salisbury:

Salisbury and Franklin did not simply “swap” a small boundary strip in a later adjustment. The main change occurred when the New Hampshire legislature created the new Town of Franklin from parts of four existing towns—including Salisbury—in 1828. Franklin was incorporated on December 24, 1828.

Before Franklin existed, Salisbury was much larger: it extended eastward to the Merrimack River. The river junction area—then called Pemigewasset Village—was developing as a mill and commercial center because of the Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee rivers. Local business interests wanted the taxes generated by that growing industrial area to stay local and to be administered by a new town centered there. Franklin was formed from portions of:
Salisbury, Andover, Northfield, Sanbornton.
That removed roughly one-quarter of Salisbury and created the present general Salisbury–Franklin boundary.

Franklin, New Hampshire, was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin—the Founding Father, statesman, scientist, and writer, it adopted the name Franklin in 1820.

08/27/2026

Selling ice was a profitable industry in NH, too.

In the 1830s a man from Boston was shipping frozen New England pond water to Calcutta, and getting rich doing it. 🧊

Frederic Tudor started trying to sell ice in 1806 and was mocked for it. He went deep into debt and spent years dodging creditors. The business only worked once the harvest got industrialized. Nathaniel Wyeth, who ran the Fresh Pond ice fields, invented a horse drawn two bladed ice cutter that scored a lake into a grid and produced standardized blocks. Standardized blocks stack tight, and tight stacks melt slowly. That was the whole unlock.

The ice came off Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Spy Pond in Arlington, Walden Pond in Concord, Horn Pond in Woburn, Spot Pond in Stoneham and Wenham Lake in Wenham, among others. Tudor marketed Wenham Lake ice as the purest in the world and it became a status item in London, where shops would prop a newspaper behind a block in the window to prove you could read straight through it.

In May 1833 the brig Tuscany sailed from Boston for Calcutta with 180 tons of ice, roughly 16,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope. It arrived about four months later with 100 tons still frozen. Calcutta went on to become his most profitable market.

An entire global industry, built on New England winter. Did you grow up hearing about the old ice houses around here? ❄️

08/23/2026

A small workshop in Concord, New Hampshire once built the vehicle that became one of the most recognizable symbols of the American West, and most people have no idea it came from New England at all. The Abbot-Downing Company manufactured the Concord Coach, a rugged stagecoach known for its innovative leather thoroughbrace suspension that made long distance travel across rough terrain far more bearable than earlier designs. These coaches were shipped across the country and even internationally, carrying passengers, mail, and payroll shipments through the American frontier, and were famously used by Wells Fargo and countless western stage lines. Despite building a vehicle so closely associated with the Wild West in popular imagination, Abbot-Downing remained a proudly local New Hampshire operation, and the Concord Coach's origins in a quiet New England workshop have largely been forgotten by the very culture that romanticizes it. Did you know the classic stagecoach of the American West was actually built in a small New Hampshire workshop? 🐎🛠️

08/16/2026

What brought you to Andover?

08/16/2026

Remember this from four years ago?

In this episode of Minuteman Tales we visit the famous Potter Place...