One of the greatest pleasures of reading the historic White Pine Monograph series is looking at photographs of how historic buildings looked nearly a century ago, when most of these explorations of Colonial architecture were written. This issue from 1918 is no exception, taking a look at the ‘picturesque village’ of Amherst, New Hampshire. Today, this small town located 15 miles southwest of Manchester is still very much characterized by its historic New England flavor.
Amherst was an even smaller town when this edition was written – the influx of residents that have swelled the town’s population to a whopping 11,000 didn’t come until after World War II. The author of this monograph describes Amherst as ‘unspoiled,’ writing “There are electric lights and the general store and garage have gasoline for sale; but the woodbine twining around the electric light poles seems to give a symbolic suggestion of its real aloofness from the world.”
The home of Colonel Robert Means stars as one of Amherst’s most noteworthy historic structures, and it’s pictured throughout this issue. A single family inhabited the home for nearly 80 years leading to a minimum of change, and no dilapidation. In the early 1900s, the home still contained the furniture that it was filled with some twenty years after the Colonel’s death in 1846.
