November 12, 2025

1 Lecture: Bricks That Built Amoskeag

2 2025 Holiday Open House

3 A Feast for the Holidays: American Girl Tea Party

4 Christmas at the Manning House

5 2025-26 Annual Appeal Campaign

6 Now on Exhibit: Amoskeag Revisited

7 Special Exhibit: Mentioning the Unmentionables

8 2025 Manchester Holiday Ornament

9 2026 Historic Preservation Award Nominations

10 America's Tapestry Project

11 Manchester Trivia Questions

Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to You and Your Family

from the Manchester Historic Association

Please note: 

The Millyard Museum will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27

The Museum and Museum Shop will be OPEN

Friday & Saturday, November 28-29

The Research Center will be CLOSED November 29



Lecture:

Bricks that Built Amoskeag and Beyond

THIS SATURDAY!
November 15, 2025

11:00 a.m.

Millyard Museum

included with regular admission

Did you ever wonder where all those bricks came from that built the mill buildings in the Manchester millyard? Do you know how red bricks were made 175 years ago?

A presentation on the topic with the answers to those questions will be held on November 15, at 11 AM in the Discovery Gallery of the Millyard Museum. 

The presentation will cover the discovery of clay, the raw materials for the bricks, the process of making the bricks, the people who made the bricks, where they were made and the transportation of the bricks to Manchester. 

Learn about the fascinating connection to Hooksett as part of the entire process and how their contribution was so significant to Manchester’s history. Presented by Jeffrey Myrdek, historian.

Please RSVP by calling 603-622-7531 or emailing history@manchesterhistoric.org

2025 Holiday Open House

Saturday, December 6, 2025

10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Millyard Museum

FREE Admission

Visit with Santa Claus from noon to 1:00!

Enjoy time spent with your neighbors, family and friends on this festive day of fun family activities and shopping at the Millyard Museum!

Enjoy children's holiday crafts, cookies and cider, and shop for the holidays in the Museum Shop, featuring historical books, locally made products, our 2025 historic Manchester calendar and unique collectible brass ornaments.

Members of the Manchester Historic Association receive an extra 10% discount this day only (at least 20% off all shop items).

Book signing with author Robert Perreault at 2:00

At 2:00pm, attend a book signing by local author and historian Robert B. Perreault. Robert will be speaking about his new novel, “Courtship in Purgatory” that takes place in a fictional Franco-American New Hampshire neighborhood.

A Feast for the Holidays: American Girl Tea Party

Saturday, December 6, 2025

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Join us at the Millyard Museum for a very special program: A Feast for the Holidays: An American Girl Tea Party.

Guests and their dolls will enjoy exclusive programming and crafts featuring your favorite American Girl doll's holiday traditions. Enjoy authentic food and crafts from many eras gone by. Sample Kirstens' saffron buns and Kit's impossible pie and much more.

The cost is $20 per guest, and all children must be accompanied by a ticketed adult. Space is limited, and this event will sell out! Book today.

Click here to purchase tickets.

Christmas at the Manning House

We are excited to be partnering with Brookside Church this year with "Christmas at the Manning House." Experience Christmas 100 years ago at this historic Manchester landmark!

Click here to learn more or purchase tickets. 

2025-26 Annual Appeal Campaign

This Thanksgiving, we are thankful for all of our members and supporters who are a part of our community. 

We are proud to play a part in preserving and sharing Manchester’s unique history and your support makes it possible: from operating the Millyard Museum and Research Center, providing educational programs to school groups in Manchester and beyond, continuing to offer fresh new exhibits, and caring for the Association's important collection of artifacts and documents pertaining to the city's history.

In this season of giving, please consider a gift to the Manchester Historic Association to help us continue our important work.

Please click here or mail your gift to the Manchester Historic Association Millyard Museum, 200 Bedford Street, Manchester, NH 03101. Thank you!



Now on Exhibit:

Amoskeag Revisited: A Fifty Year Retrospective

The year 1975 was a turning point for Manchester’s Millyard. The urban renewal project had recently been completed with the filling in of the canals and demolition of about 25% of the mill space, and many of the businesses that came into the Millyard in the 1930s and 1940s had left, including the Chicopee Manufacturing Company, which shut down that year.

In September 1975, a special exhibit opened at the Currier Gallery of Art called “Amoskeag, A Sense of Place, A Way of Life”. The exhibit was designed by Randolph Langenbach, an architectural historian, and featured historic images of the mills, along with contemporary photographs taken by Langenbach before and during the urban renewal project. Also featured in the exhibit were machinery and architectural components of the mill buildings that had been salvaged by Langenbach, as well as recollections of former millworkers who told what it was like to work in the mills and live in corporation housing.

The exhibit was very successful, attracting double the number of visitors to the Currier than any previous exhibit. It also served to instill in the city and its citizens a deeper appreciation for the mills and the legacy of the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, as well as for the remaining mill buildings.

In the fifty years since the Amoskeag exhibit opened at the Currier, Manchester has grown to have a deeper appreciation of the history of the Amoskeag mills. This exhibit at the Millyard Museum examines the lasting impact that the mills have had on Manchester and feature elements of the original 1975 exhibit as well as never-before-seen photographs taken by Langenbach.

Included with Regular Admission. On exhibit through March 7, 2026

Special Exhibit: 


"Mentioning the Unmentionables"

Now on Display in the Millyard Museum's Discovery Gallery: "Mentioning the Unmentionables: A Brief History of… Briefs and other Underthings"

Come and see this unique exhibit, displaying a variety of undergarments worn by women throughout Manchester's history, spanning two centuries. See how styles changed in this rare look at everyday, familiar pieces of clothing. As we mention the unmentionables, we hope you enjoy a peak into a personal history. 

Included with Regular Admission

2025 Manchester Holiday Ornament

The Manchester Historic Association is pleased to announce this year’s holiday ornament featuring Amoskeag Corporation Housing.

The ornament features a colorized depiction of the corporation housing - a distinct feature of the Amoskeag Millyard. The corporation housing district between Elm, Canal, Hollis, and Pleasant Streets was built by the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company between 1838 and 1916 to provide homes for their workers. 

For over 20 years, the Manchester Historic Association has produced original, limited edition brass-plated ornaments that celebrate Manchester’s history. These unique, detailed ornaments are handcrafted in the United States and make perfect Christmas tree decorations or gifts for the holidays and for many other occasions. Each comes in a decorative box.

These ornaments are available for $30.00 in the Millyard Museum Shop as well as at the MHA Research Center. The 2025 ornaments, as well as a limited number of ornaments from past years, can also be purchased online.

2026 Historic Preservation Award Nominations



The Historic Preservation Committee is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Historic Preservation Awards.  

The Historic Preservation Awards program recognizes and supports the efforts of individuals, businesses and organizations who have made significant contributions to the preservation of buildings, neighborhoods, traditions and other historic resources in the Queen City.

Over 30 years, more than 250 recipients have been recognized for a wide variety of preservation efforts in 40 different categories. The annual event is the MHA's largest fundraiser to support its non-profit mission of collecting, preserving and sharing the history of Manchester.

If you are interested in nominating a person, organization or business for a Historic Preservation Award, please complete the HPA 2026 Nomination Form by November 30.

Details about the 2026 Historic Preservation Awards will be announced in the coming months.

America's Tapestry Project

Fridays and Saturdays throughout 2025

Millyard Museum

included with regular admission

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Manchester Historic Association is excited to announce a partnership with America's Tapestry.

America's Tapestry is a unique exhibition that will feature 13 hand-embroidered panels, one for each of the original colonies. The embroidery is being conducted by talented artisans from New Hampshire to Georgia and each panel illustrates the diverse stories of individual contributions–many overlooked–that reveal each colony's struggle for Independence.

Museums from across the states have volunteered to collaborate on the panels' historical imagery and host the stitchers as they work.

The Millyard Museum is pleased to be hosting the stitchers of the New Hampshire panel as they create this artwork that celebrates the state's pioneering revolutionary spirit. Visitors to the Millyard Museum are invited to come and watch the stitchers as they work every Friday and Saturday (excluding major holidays) in the museum's Elm Street gallery until the work is completed, likely in early 2026.

Following the completion of all 13 panels, "America's Tapestry" will tour a number of venues throughout the East Coast, including the Millyard Museum in 2027.

To learn more about America's Tapestry, visit their website: americastapestry.com

To learn more about the design of the New Hampshire panel, click here.

Last Month's Trivia Question:

What property surrounding Long Pond in Manchester, just south of Lake Massabesic on the Auburn line, was purchased in 1936 by philanthropist Frank P. Carpenter?

ANSWER:

Camp Carpenter

Frank Carpenter purchased the property, seeing a need for good camping facilities for Boy Scouts in Manchester who could not afford camping opportunities outside of the city. In addition to purchasing 135 acres, a recreation hall, boat house, swimming docks, and caretaker’s cottage were built through Carpenter’s generosity. 

Camp Carpenter still operates today as a camping facility for Cub Scouts throughout New Hampshire. 

It is notable that this was the same year that the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company went bankrupt and Carpenter was heavily involved in efforts to form Amoskeag Industries that purchased the Amoskeag property for $5 million. 

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This Month's Trivia Question: Who was the only U.S. Vice President to be born in New Hampshire, for whom a former Manchester school was named?

The answer will appear in the next newsletter.