Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, we go to the Deerfield Fair and find out some more about pigs and their habits.

What do people need to know about pigs that they don't know?

Excuse me?

Besides eating them, I mean, what do they need to know?

Well, they're very clean animals.

Yeah?

Cleaner than most people think, Loretta’s pretty clean.

Yeah, yeah.

Then the Locke family gathers.

People flew in all the way from Alaska and California.

It was a very special time.

It was their 100th family reunion.

And 200 years ago, George Washington paid a visit to Portsmouth.

He comes He comes.

Your songs prepare!

The matchless chief approaches here Tonight, we follow his footsteps.

Hi, I'm Fritz Wetherbee, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Shaw Supermarkets, providing quality and service at all their stores.

Located in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

The Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We’re right for New Hampshire.

And Upton, Sanders and Smith of Concord, New Hampshire, providing a full range of legal services throughout the state of New Hampshire since 1980.

Today, we're in the gardens out behind the Channel 11 studios, smack up against the College Woods, and there is a bit of bite in the air.

Fall is coming less than a month away.

And of course, when we think of fall, we think of the agricultural fairs.

I don't know if you know this or not, but New Hampshire has the distinction of having held the very first agricultural fair in America, held way back in 1722 over in Derry.

And of the fairs that we hold in this state, the most popular, and some say the best, is the Deerfield Fair.

And producer Chip Neal last year had a chance to attend the Deerfield Fair.

Chip and oh, literally a hundred thousand other people.

What do you do when you go to the fair?

You look at things.

Things that look strange.

Things you've never seen before.

Things you've never seen up close before.

Things that are interesting.

Things you've only seen on television.

(inaudible) These horses are (inaudible) Things that you shouldn't eat.

Things that you should eat.

Things that are larger than they're supposed to be.

Things that look very hard to do.

Audience cheering (announcer inaudible) (announcer inaudible) He has it.

Isn’t that wonderful?

And, things that just look like fun Audience cheering Something else you can do at the fair is talk to people.

Really, they don't mind.

I think they come there so they can talk to people.

This is David Twombly, and he is the sheep and swine superintendent.

How long have you been doing this?

You can tell by his hat.

I’ve been doing this since 76.

Yeah?

My father did it since 44.

1944.

Running the pig - Sheep and swine.

Sheep and swine.

Well, it's really been good talking to you.

You raise pigs too?

Yeah, we raise them.

Yeah?

What's your name?

Barry Demio What kind do you raise, and how many?

Well, we raise cross breeds mostly.

Which is what this is.

Look at that.

That's one of ours.

Does this have a name?

Yeah.

Yeah, that.

The name is Loretta.

Loretta?

Yeah.

Loretta, folks, Loretta.

There we are.

Now, now is Oh.

Oh.

What do people need to know about pigs that they don't know besides eating them?

I mean, what do they need to know?

Well, they're very clean animals.

Yeah.

Cleaner than most people think.

Loretta’s pretty clean.

Yeah, yeah.

They do make good pets, too.

Believe it or not.

They make good pets?

Sure.

Even after they get older?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

What do you think it is that draws people to the fairs these days?

Well, I think they, think they like the agricultural part of it.

Yeah, especially in an area like this.

I think they like the animals.

They like the animals?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thanks a lot.

Okay.

You’re welcome.

Bye, Loretta, you gotta go back in the pen.

I talked to Joanne Watson, who is a local historian and superintendent of the Fair History Building.

I think the Deerfield Fair is perhaps particularly interesting to me because it started in a centennial year, in 1876 and the 100th birthday of the country.

And I think there were a lot of fairs in New Hampshire that year, and it was such a big success that people continued for two more years.

Now, there were gaps in between.

But there were intervals at which the fair was held up until the present series began in 1923.

Music Half a minute, Skip.

Back!

Back!

Back!

Back!

Oh, that's too bad.

That black horse slipped.

Get some new shoes on him.

Too tired.

Give him a good hand.

Isn't that wonderful?

Horse 4.

(inaudible) We have one more hitch to go (inaudible) They said, by God, (inaudible) (inaudible) Oh it’s getting heavy, I'll tell you.

10,000 pounds (inaudible) So it was a thousand pounds Well they got - Well he means business, this boy.

I think you gotta (inaudible) Joe Bolduc is retiring this year as superintendent of horse pulling and draft horses.

He's going to turn it over to his son, John.

Now, where did horse pulling come I mean, I can think of the plow.

Is that where it came from?

Is that what this whole idea is based on?

No, a lot of horse pulling came from the old farmers.

I can remember my dad used to get get with the guys on the weekend and they get a talking of one thing or another.

I got a better pair of horses than you got, and and they'll turn around and say, oh no, you ain't either.

And they'll turn around and they'll chain the dump cart wheels, load it up with manure, or load it up with something a chain, chain the wheels and and see who's the winner.

And and whoever may win it, they may win a gallon of hard cider.

The fair has got to be one of the best bargains going.

We didn't even come close to seeing everything.

We missed the cattle barns, the tractor operating contest, craft buildings, the children's petting barn, live music, and even a beauty contest.

We just ran out of time.

But I was not going to leave without visiting the Midway.

Because?

Well, when it comes to the rides, I'm with these kids.

(cheering) I'm nuts over them.

Music This year, the Deerfield Fair will be held on September 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th.

And Fair President Bud Rollins tells me that they have a brand new horse barn with 60 new stalls and that this year, for the first time in the 115 year history of the fair, they will be opening with a headliner.

The Kitty Wells family will be there on Thursday night.

Perfect family entertainment for the perfect family fair.

And that leads just naturally into our next story, which is about a family reunion.

Last year, over 350 members of the Locke family traveled all the way to Rye, New Hampshire, from places like California and Alaska and Idaho.

And they were there not for just any family reunion.

They were there for their 100th family reunion.

Music The Locke family is an incorporated association that claims to be the oldest family organization in America.

They publish books on genealogical research, produce their own newsletter, and maintain their family artifacts in New Hampshire museums.

Music I've been to some of the reunions when I was a little girl, and the picture that we have out today on display of the reunion in 1940, the 50th reunion.

I'm there as a three year old and my little granddaughter is here today.

She's not quite two.

My great grandmother and my great great great grandmother, were both Lockes.

It's a good feeling to know you're connected to things, and I have the connections back, through the 1800s, back through the 1700s, into the 1600s and even before.

When I came in 1955 as a ten year old boy, what amazed me was that here's a room full of people from all over the country that I'm related to.

Members of this family have been involved in every war or every major event, peaceful or non peaceful, that has occurred in the country, just like other families can say the same thing.

So it's a microcosm of American history.

When I married my husband and realized all what the Lockes did in Rye, my husband's grandfather built the beach club.

He built the bathhouses, they had a boarding house, and there were several in Rye Beach.

They entertained presidents.

They had the first hot water salt baths north of Newport, Rhode Island.

That's very, very unusual.

Something to be proud of.

I think.

The annual reunion weekend begins with tours for its members to see various sites around Rye, including the Rye Historical Society, where many family momentos are preserved.

Circa 1887, the parson's homestead is at the left, built 1757.

House right has been moved back from the road.

It shows the house on the Point, the edge of the shore and trees beyond which, the trees express the spread of the Locke family clan to distant parts.

From the historical society, the tour continues to the Locke's original family cemetery, where we notice that there are no markings on the gravestones.

And that is because back in the 17th century, there were no gravestone cutters.

Continuing our seacoast tour, we pass the Elijah Locke House, built in 1739, and the Jeremiah Locke House, built in 1793.

This home is also known as the Cable House, because this is the site of the receiving station of the first transatlantic cable.

Just around the bend we can see Locke's Point where Captain John Locke first settled in the 1600s.

I understand that he was reaping grain of some kind out here, and the Indians who really had it in for him because of things that he had done to them before, came around a point of land and surprised him and his sons, and he was shot by the Indians.

But before he died, he managed to take the sickle and cut off the nose of one of the Indians.

And after that, whenever his sons would see an Indian with a nose that looked as though it had been even slightly cut, he’d shoot that Indian immediately Because they stand for everything we believe in.

They believe in why and how our country was established and what we fought for over the years.

You'll find the Locke family represented in every war, all the way back to and including the Revolution.

Music This year's Locke family reunion was also a big success.

Association president Don Hayes tells me 113 people showed up for the reunion.

They had a wonderful meal over at Yoken’s, and afterwards they took a tour of Portsmouth Harbor, a tour very similar to one that had been taken by George Washington 200 years before.

He had come to Portsmouth less than six months after he had been inaugurated.

He was here, he said, in order to find out what the people in this new country were thinking.

In our next story, producer Marya Danihel retraces the president's steps.

This doesn't look much like historic New England, does it?

No stone walls, no graceful colonial houses.

But this spot on the Amesbury Road in Seabrook marks the beginning of five historic days for New Hampshire.

It was here that, 200 years ago, George Washington's carriage rumbled across the Massachusetts border for his only official visit to the Granite State.

He wasn't sure that he should come at all.

This man, whose soldiers had followed him through the winter when they had no shoes or blankets, who had defeated an army four times larger than his own, was unsure of himself as the first leader of a newly created republic.

How was a president supposed to behave?

In May 1789, soon after his inauguration in New York, Washington wrote to influential Congressman James Madison seeking his advice.

Would it not be advantageous to the interests of the Union for the president to make the tour of the United States in order to become better acquainted with their principal characters and internal circumstances?

Fortunately, Mr.

Madison saw no impropriety in this.

On October 15th, George Washington set out from New York.

In his retinue was 27 year old Tobias Lear, Washington's personal secretary and a native of Portsmouth.

On October 26th, Lear rode into Portsmouth ahead of the president to smooth the way the news galvanized the citizens.

They had just four days to get ready.

On Halloween 1789, a Saturday morning, Washington and his party left Newburyport for New Hampshire.

State President John Sullivan was ready with a welcome.

Besides some of New Hampshire's most distinguished civilians, he had with him a military escort of about 700.

Here in Greenland, the president got out of his carriage and mounted his horse.

He wanted to make a commanding entrance into Portsmouth at the head of an escort that now numbered nearly a thousand.

Tobias Lear took his place in the open coach, and as the party rode into Portsmouth, some of the crowd mistook Lear for the president, even though he was 30 years younger.

So he bowed and smiled, not wishing to disappoint the spectators.

Are you ready, gentlemen?

He comes, he comes Your sons prepare!

The matchless chief approaches here he’s Now Portsmouth, you may remember, he had just four days to prepare a welcome suitable for the president.

There were speeches to be written, songs to be rehearsed, and a parade to be organized.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Antonia’s Plains (bell ringing) On the glorious day, the President rode into Portsmouth to the joyful noise of church bells, cheering, and cannon.

At the top of Congress Street he dismounted and was escorted into the old State House, which sat in the middle of Market Square.

He appeared on a balcony and was regaled with music and a formal parade.

Finally, Washington got his dinner and a well-earned rest.

Tobias Lear had arranged for him to stay at Brewster's Tavern, which stood at the corner of Pleasant and Court Streets.

After the day he had had, the President probably slept through the fireworks going off in Market Square that night in his honor.

The old State House is gone now.

The Old North Church that Washington saw was taken down in 1854, and this one was built.

But if he were here today, he'd recognize one thing anyway.

This weathervane set atop the first North Church in 1732, the year George Washington was born, looked down on all the festivities that last day of October in 1789.

Perhaps Mr.

Washington, the farmer, not the president, consulted it from time to time while he was here.

On Sunday, November 1st, the President diplomatically attended services at the Old North Church and at Queen's Chapel, now called Saint John's.

According to his diary, he spent the rest of the afternoon in his room writing letters.

But Portsmouth historian Ray Brighton believes he might have paid a quiet visit to Tobias Lear's fiancée.

I think he told a little bit of the truth, but I feel that that afternoon he probably went to the Long home, Polly Long's home, and met with Polly and her mother.

He couldn't go back to New York and tell Martha Washington that he hadn't met a young woman who was going to come and live in her house.

Could he?

Early Monday morning, the president toured Portsmouth Harbor.

Of course, he was taken past Fort William and Mary on Newcastle Island, now the Coast Guard station.

It was here that in 1774, John Sullivan and the Sons of Liberty overpowered British sentries and took five tons of gunpowder, some of which was later used in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

There were only 11 states officially in the Union then, but the forts saluted Washington with 13 cannon, expressing the hope that Rhode Island and North Carolina would join.

At the mouth of the harbor, the party stopped to do a little fishing.

He apparently hooked a fish.

The fish got loose and the hook snagged on something on the bottom.

Washington gave it a mighty tug, and it let go, and then dumped him over backward into a bucket of clams they were using for bait.

And as he was falling, he hit his eye on Langdon's three-cornered hat.

Well, I think it's kind of amusing.

He's probably the only president of the United States who got a physical black eye during his term of office.

The party disembarked at the mansion where former Royal Governor Benning Wentworth had lived, and then returned by carriage to Senator John Langdon's house to dine.

Before dinner, State Vice President John Pickering presented the town's official address of welcome.

The speech expressed Portsmouth's particular gratitude that she had avoided the fate of many other seaport towns in the Union.

That is, shelling by British ships.

The President's modest reply read, in part, I fear the full impartiality of my countrymen has too highly appreciated my past exertions.

I can claim no particular merit, gentlemen, for the preservation of your town from the devastation of the enemy.

On Tuesday morning, after sitting for a portrait, Washington set out to pay an important personal call.

He walked down Court Street, past what is now Strawberry Banke and down Hunking’s Lane to Tobias Lear's house.

The house is still here.

It's usually closed, but for the bicentennial of George Washington's visit, volunteers from the Wentworth Garden and Tobias Lear Association spruced it up and invited in the public.

Tobias had poor luck with his wives.

His first wife was Polly Long.

They treated visitors to the kind of tea Tobias Lear's mother would have served, and Doctor Dorothy Vaughan talked about the Lears and the Washingtons.

He was very, very close to the First family, and I don't think local people realize that.

I hadn't realized that until I began reading about Tobias and reading these diaries and letters and things that had been left, that there was a great connection between the Lear family on Hunking Street and the Washington family of Mount Vernon.

When Washington returned to his rooms at nine, he may have found dispatches from New York, which caused him to cut short his tour.

At 7:30 the next morning, Washington left quietly for Exeter.

Of course, Exeter planned to welcome him when he arrived near Folsom's Tavern, but it didn't come off quite the way they had planned.

Some of the party were still saddling their horses when Washington made his appearance, and their faces must have fallen when he told them that he could stay for only a short time.

However, the Exonians made the best of it and gave him a collation, a sort of brunch, it being about 10 a.m.

After about an hour, the president took his leave and drove off towards Haverhill.

The official visit was over.

The chairs that Washington sat in, the glasses he drank from, the slippers worn by ladies who danced with him.

All these have been reverently handed down in New Hampshire families, to the occasional amusement of younger generations.

But these objects represent a yearning to touch an extraordinary event: the triumphal tour of the man who had fathered the first significant democracy in thousands of years.

Back in Exeter, they celebrated through the night.

Music If you would like more information on this subject, I can recommend a couple of books.

The first is George Washington in New Hampshire by Elwyn Page.

This book was written back in the 1930s, but it has been reissued by the Portsmouth Maritime Society.

And the other book is The Checkered Career of Tobias Lear, which was written by Portsmouth historian, and old friend of ours, Ray Brighton, and both of these books are available in bookstores throughout, well, at least Seacoast area.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Next week we visit an inspired art gallery over in Hollis, and we see a show entitled Nudes and Animals.

Until then, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Fritz Wetherbee.

Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Shaws Supermarkets, providing quality and service in all their stores located in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

The Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We are right for New Hampshire.

And Upton, Sanders and Smith of Concord, New Hampshire, providing a full range of legal services throughout the state of New Hampshire since 1980.

Music