Must See Stops 9: Exeter, NH Day 73 of 83
Introduction: John and I had plans to travel. We had plans to find a way to become full-time RVers, but in reality we knew that this would probably have to wait for retirement due to his medical conditions. When he was diagnosed with angiosarcoma cancer in May 2017, he ended up being trapped in a hospital room for 83 days. He was admitted for six different hospitalizations in four different hospitals in three different cities before unexpectedly dying in the hospital on Oct. 5, 2017. You can read about the day he died Part 1 and Part 2. I then made Big Plans to take a trip to the places we had wanted to go and see together. For months I planned the trip: an 83 day trip in my RV with my two youngest daughters, almost 14,000 miles around the United States in 83 days! Each day would take back a day that was stolen from John in the hospital. This is one of 10 stories from my “Must See” destinations.
Caregivers live a life for which they have little control. As my mother’s caregiver, my days were spent caring for her while she was in an assisted living center, and caring for my family at home. I was part of the “sandwich generation,” adults who were parenting aging parents over 65 while also parenting children under the age of 18. Each day was busy and stressful.
I needed a healthy distraction from the hours spent shopping for my mother, shopping for my own home, filling medications, making and going to appointments, in addition to the last minute emergencies that seemed to happen more and more often near the end of my mother’s life.
I learned about Ancestry.com and started a free trial. This allowed me to have distractions wherever I went. I could be waiting for lab work and checking my family history or just hanging out at my mom’s assisted living facility while she watched her shows which were of no interest to me. Because I had ancestry.com as an app on my phone, it came everywhere with me.
My father died when I was only seven years old, and we were not very close with that side of the family afterwards. Both of my father’s parents died before I was even born. My mom talked about them on occasion, but I heard only a few stories about them. I heard about how my grandfather struggled with alcoholism and lost their family home because of it, and how my grandmother was excited for red-headed grandchildren (which she didn’t get) when my red-haired mom married my dad, and I was told repeatedly that my grandmother came from a big family “out east.” My grandmother lived in my home state of Wisconsin, but she had come from a big family in the Eastern U.S.
So, not knowing a lot about my father’s side of the family, I started adding people on my genealogy app. If you have ever used ancestry.com, you will know that when you add a person to your family it connects to other potential relatives that are in “the system.” A leaf will appear after you have added a person and it will say that there are 3 or 4 or maybe 10 possible connections to the person you just entered. You then look at those people and determine if they are part of your family tree, add them, and more leaves appear. The popping up of leaves becomes quite addictive!
I added my mother and father, then my father’s father and found some of his siblings. I added aunts and uncles and looked at some of the leaves that popped up there. Then I added my grandmother. My phone seemed to lurch in my hand after she was added, and suddenly the leaf appeared with a number much higher than the typical 6 or 9 that I had seen so far. Their were 99+ potential connections to her! Talk about a big family!
I searched those connections for hours, and I was shocked by what I found. I ended up sitting on the couch until the wee hours of the morning, reading about people, adding them to my tree, and finally getting out some paper as I traced my family back to England in the 1400s! I had never known there was any British background in my family. From what I had been told growing up, we were German-Russian and nothing else! British? Well this explained my love of British television, British comedy, and British literature! Apparently, it’s in my blood!
But this wasn’t the most extraordinary thing that came up. I also found out that my ancestors were some of the first people to arrive in the USA. In 1638. John and Mary Folsom landed in Hingham, MA and later moved to Exeter, NH. John was very politically active and his descendants (Nicholas Gilman and John Taylor Gilman) later signed the constitution and became governor of New Hampshire respectively. Wow! My mom was definitely right! My grandmother DID come from a big family out east!
I researched the area of Hingham and Exeter and found that there was an American Independence Museum which included two buildings. The Ladd-Gilman house was built in 1721 and was where Nicholas Gilman, Jr. was born and lived. It also served as the state treasury during the Revolutionary War. Since 1973 it has been declared a National Historic Landmark.
Right next door was the Folsom Tavern. It had been moved from its original location downtown, where it was built in 1775. It was used for many political meetings during the American Revolution. One of its most famous visitors was George Washington. He wrote in his journal of his stop there on November 4, 1789 while on a tour of the northern states after being elected the first president of the United States. These buildings were places where owned and operated by my family!
This stop was one of three stops on my trip that was just for me. The seven other “Must See Stops” were places that my husband and I had planned to go to together, but Zion National Park, Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, and Exeter, NH were places on my trip that I planned to go for myself. My stop in Exeter became quite an amazing adventure!
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- Must See Stops Series
- Stop 1: Kansas City – Day 2 of 83
- Stop 2: Taylorsville, CA – Days 9 – 13 of 83
- Stop 3: Seattle, WA – Day 21 of 83
- Stop 4: Zion National Park – Day 36 of 83
- Stop 5: Grand Canyon South Rim – Day 42 of 83
- Stop 6: Albuquerque, NM – Day 49 of 83
- Stop 7: Philmont Boy Scout Ranch – Day 51 of 83
- Stop 8: Galveston, TX – Days 55 – 58 of 83
- Stop 9: Exeter, NH – Day 73 of 83
- Stop 10: Acadia National Park – Day 75 of 83
