Announcing Our Summer 2022 Partner Bookstore! Gibson’s of Concord, NH (Part One)
by Ann Kjellberg, editor
Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord, New Hampshire, takes seating seriously
In 1793 Parson Samuel Hidden gathered together thirty-six of the hardy inhabitants of the town of Tamworth, New Hampshire, to “form ourselves into a society” for the purpose “of having a library established on a safe and equitable footing.” According to Parson Hidden’s memoirs, the families of the town, at its founding twenty years before, “were few and remote from each other … the land was pathless. They found their way from one settlement to another by spotted trees, over steep hills and almost impassable swamps.” Furthermore, “they were in constant fear of ferocious beasts. The wolf prowled about their dwellings by night; the catamount watched for prey; the wild-cat lurked by the foot-path and the bear watched in the thicket.” Due to “the peculiar circumstances of the times,” they struggled to find a pastor. Parson Hidden, recently graduated from Dartmouth, where he subsisted on milk from the cow he rode to classes (which lessened his expenses and “was considered highly commendable”), took the position in 1792 after the town appeared to him in a dream. One year later he had created a library.
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