Web Requests
Leonard Schwab, John Hirtle, Alison Mann, and Karen Mason respond as we volunteers are able. We appreciate the interest shown in this site. The rebooted Greenland Historical Society obtained a 501(c)(3) status in March 2019 upon registration with the Secretary of State of New Hampshire as a NH Nonprofit Corporation.
Greenland Historical Society
GHS officers are Karen Mason, President; James Rolston, Treasurer; Donna Fitts, Assistant Treasurer; Jane Shartzer, Corresponding Secretary. Historians and Advisors are Alison Mann and Mark Willis. Programs and Events for the 2026 observance of the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence are being organized by Alison Brackett, John Hirtle, Alison Mann, Amanda Nelson, and the Officers.
Supporters and Sponsors in Greenland
Greenland Veterans Association, Bluebird Storage, Community Congregational Church Parish House, and Bird Dog Farm & Cidery at 150 Bayside Road in Greenland. GHS has no building and no endowment. We do have archives, documents GHS received in 2018 as a bequest from the Hughes Family. These were stored temporarily in units at Bluebird Storage, Greenland and then in filing cabinets at the Parish House. Greenland Veterans Association has donated generously. Bird Dog Farm & Cidery has partnered with GHS to host public events.
Back Story, GHS-2
In May 2017, Leonard Schwab, in the process of writing a proposal for the Common Heritage Grant offered by the NH: National Endowment for the Humanities, contacted Karen Mason for assistance. The rest is … history. The first public organizational meeting of what is essentially, GHS-2, was held October 12, 2017. It was fitting that Paul F. Hughes, one of the principals of the first GHS, was our featured speaker.
Years of Research by the Hughes Family
Paul passed away suddenly on May 8, 2018. His cousin, Robin C. Hughes, executor of Paul’s estate, donated 51 boxes of documents to GHS, as Paul had wished. The boxes included many copies of work in various stages of completion and some original research produced by the Hughes family, including the multi-volume history of Greenland, A Pleasant Abiding Place: a History of Greenland, N.H. 1635-2000, written by the father and son team, Paul C. and Paul F. Hughes. The son’s “voice” is uppermost. Footnotes and an index remain to be done. General archiving of the Hughes Papers became an instant job and digitizing all of it continues to be a priority.
In these boxes, the first GHS (founded in 1966, dissolved in 2015) left behind a wealth of research material on Greenland, NH: pamphlets, photographs, town and church records, sermons, diaries and letters of Greenland families, as well as the unfinished, multi-volume, typescript, history. In fact, organizing the boxes effectively sidelined–and formed the working purpose of the current GHS.
What People Say
It was the wish of the Hughes Family that their collected papers stay with the Greenland Historical Society.
Robin Hughes
Executor to Hughes Family Estate
If anyone came to the library with a question about family genealogy or town history, in search of any information having to do with Greenland, NH, Paul Hughes could help them find the answers.
Bonnie Gardner
Past Director of Weeks Public Library
GREENLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY 