Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, we'll talk about revolution right here in New Hampshire.

Then we'll go back in time to 1746 and meet some of the residents of Old Fort No.

4 in Charlestown.

And we'll travel with a group of students from Rye to the Stone Environmental School in Maine, where they experience a hands on approach to studying their natural environment.

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’s 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, delivering a world of color to you every morning.

And Upton, Sanders and Smith of Concord, New Hampshire, providing a full range of legal services throughout the state of New Hampshire since 1908.

Isn’t this just lovely?

This garden is at the home of Kit and Noele Clews in Portsmouth.

And this is one of 13 beautiful little gardens that are part of the third annual Portsmouth Pocket Garden Tour, which takes place on Saturday, July the 6th here in Portsmouth.

It's sponsored by the South Church and it's a wonderful way to spend the day.

You can walk to all of the gardens or bicycle or take your car, and this year they even have a horse- drawn carriage that will take you around.

And if you'd like more information about tickets, just get in touch with them at the South Church.

Now, with the 4th of July coming up, producer Chip Neal began feeling his patriotic oats, and that led him to do some historical research and snooping.

And that led to a look at the Declaration of Independence.

And from that he went to the New Hampshire State Constitution.

And from there he went, well, you get the idea.

Let me tell you, the early colonists were not very happy with old King George the Third, the king of Great Britain, back in 1776.

Let me just read you a few of the things that they accuse him of in the Declaration of Independence.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice.

He has imposed taxes on us without our consent.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

Why does that sound familiar, even today?

And he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

So what did they do?

They revolted.

That's what the 4th of July is.

It's about a celebration of revolution.

Now, when those colonists got around to writing the federal Constitution a couple of years later, do you think that they included the right of revolution in that Constitution?

No, of course not.

But New Hampshire did.

Along with seven other states, New Hampshire has a right of revolution in its Constitution.

And as a matter of fact, our version is really the strongest and clearest version, thanks to its chief author, John Pickering, who was a Portsmouth lawyer who lived right here on this spot.

Now, as you can see, this spot now is a sort of a shopping excursion, and they call it Commercial Alley.

John's house burned down back in 1802, but I'm sure he would have enjoyed strolling through here and browsing through the shops.

Anyway, when John wrote the New Hampshire State Constitution, what he did was include an Article 10 in there.

Now, I want to read you that Article right now.

Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government.

The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

And I'm sure they would like to include women in that as well.

Now I can understand why they put that right of revolution in the New Hampshire State Constitution.

I mean, after all, back in the 1780s, they had just unloaded a tyrant, and they certainly didn't want another one to come in and replace him.

But why is that right of revolution still in our State Constitution hundreds of years later?

Has anyone ever tried to use it?

Does anyone know it's there?

Does anyone know we have a State Constitution?

Do you know that we have a New Hampshire State Constitution?

No, I didn't know that.

Did you know we had a right of revolution in the State Constitution?

I didn't know it was actually written up, but it's good to know that it's there.

I think some people maybe wish they knew about it.

I think we should make some changes.

I don't think I'm in a great hurry to overthrow the state government, despite the fact that they need shaking up.

I think the underlying principle in Article 10 is that government exists for the common benefit, and that resort to reformation or as you use the term.

revolution, is appropriate only when existing government fails utterly.

The right of revolution is, as far as we know, it's never been tested in any hard sense of the word.

It's, it's, it's a right that's there.

And it's very interesting that they saw fit to write it in place, maybe putting it in black and white so succinctly so that everyone could read it, talk about it, think about it, and decide whether they want to believe it or not.

Always puts things in proper perspective.

I look again to the the women who walked out of the Dover textile mills in the 1830s and the first strike by women, when John Hale stood up from the Congress of the United States and called for the abolition of slavery, when they railed against the, the power of monopolies.

They talked about letting Catholics, when John Letty walked in the legislature and took his place as a representative, despite the fact that he was a Catholic.

Those actions all were part of the right of revolution.

And I don't think there's anyone who's taken a conscious political act in the state against the existing power structure over the past two centuries that hasn't known about the right of revolution, that hasn't been inspired by and felt that that was their license and privilege.

Why is it still in there, do you think?

Do you think people want it there?

Oh, I don't think there’d be any prospect of it ever being taken out.

This state would look upon that as an extremely radical move.

And how might Article 10 be used in modern times?

Hard to imagine it ever happening, but I should think anybody who would done any thinking would want to consider assembling a group of armed people and surrounding the State House while the legislature was in session and the governor when the council were there and, and, and, and advising them that you want them all to resign and you were going to blockade the State House till they did.

And and if they didn't, after a while, you're going to come in and get them.

All right.

Now, that's, I suppose that's what might be done in Ireland today, but I don't know whether it would be done in the United States.

And they could claim Article 10- Right.

- their right to do that?

Right.

If they if they could prove those conditions existed.

I, Robert Bonser of Nottingham, New Hampshire, do hereby declare and give notice under the rights given to me under the right of revolution, Article 10, Part First of the New Hampshire Bill of Rights, that I do hereby revolt against any and all so-called zoning or building ordinances now being unconstitutionally used by any or all said towns or cities, etc., etc.. So we have a revolution.

It's crazy.

Yeah, I'm registered, I, I believe I paid for publishing the paper in legal print, everything else.

No, I'm everything that, that I'm supposed to be.

Yet the courts, as usual, don't honor my rights.

Now if by some chance we have inspired you to revolt against the state government, I want you to remember that this is very tricky business.

Dangerous stuff.

I mean, just look at what's going on over there in Eastern Europe.

People are dying.

Governments do not like to be taken over.

So before we end this story, I think Richard Upton has some very good advice.

If you start a revolution, you better win.

And by the way, Chip tells me that there is another very interesting article in our State Constitution, and that is Article number seven, which gives the state of New Hampshire the right to secede from the United States of America.

How about that?

Now, we could hold a revolution and then we could secede from the Union.

And maybe that would solve our state budget woes.

What do you think?

And speaking of revolution, do you know that there is a place here in New Hampshire where the Revolutionary War is recreated throughout the year?

We traveled over to the western part of the state, over to Charlestown, where they have reconstructed the Old Fort at Number Four, and they have filled it with a living history museum, which dramatizes the day to day life of the colonists who lived there back in 1746.

(hammering on metal) Mr.

(inaudible) says Reverend Dennis is looking for feather frolics.

(loom spinning) I've seen my husband captured and taken off to Canada.

Powder up.

Ram cartridge.

Prime the piece.

Yeah, good.

Make ready!

Fire!

(cannon firing) As a holdover from Old English law, all men 16 to 65 have to show up four times a year with their appropriate weapon, whether it's a longbow in England in centuries past, or with a smoothbore musket, tomahawk, cartridge, powder, and flints here.

And so four times a year we will muster in hopes that we're ready enough so that the French do not feel that they can start another war.

This being 54, the tensions are, 1754, you know, the tensions are getting tighter and tighter.

I understand that General Washington has had some problems down in Virginia in a skirmish he had into the Ohio Valley.

Gentlemen, you were given three minutes to show up, quick improvement from this morning.

Next muster day, when the cannon fires for the morning round, you will have two minutes.

Those not showing will be riding the horse.

We will run through this once, slowly, without using a real cartridge.

And then we will run through it with a live cartridge.

We may be here for hours.

It's up to you.

Are there any questions on the drill just performed by Mr.

Fuller?

Good.

And return rammer.

Recover firelock.

Full cock firelock.

Present firelock.

Fire!

If someone tries to rush the fort, the stockade is going to stop them because they can't fit through.

But the openings are wide enough that they can't hide behind the posts.

So therefore, we can shoot out the windows, shoot between the posts and stop, and hit anyone we find hiding.

If they're all close together, as you'll see in a lot of your military forts, they could run up to that fort and hide behind the wall and try and burn it down.

Then I have to test the temperature of the oven, and that's done by putting my arm in the oven and counting.

And I can tell how hot the oven is by how far I can count before I have to take my arm out of the oven.

A count to ten is a hot oven, that's probably a good temperature for the bread that I've got today.

A 20-count’s a medium oven that's good for cakes or light rolls.

And a 30-count’s a slow oven.

That would be good for puddings.

I've been through a lot since I've been here.

I came in 1744, and I've seen my husband captured and taken off to Canada, and I've seen my husband killed and stripped of his clothes and scalped in his cornfield.

And I think if I've survived that, I can survive whatever's coming.

And I think probably my children are strong enough to survive whatever is coming.

I have three: Lois, who's married to the blacksmith Micah Fuller, and I have a daughter, Esther, and I have another daughter, Rachel.

And they all help.

And they've all learned.

(clicking noises) My father in law, Obadiah had has been killed by the by the Indians.

And, his wife, Widow Sartwell, has taken us into her house, you know, at this point.

So, you know, we're living with her, right inside the fort, makes a little easier.

(clicking noises) Back after the the war was over in 49, people realized that it's a long haul going down to Northfield, Massachusetts, to get their ax repaired or even a horse shoed.

So, they decided at their town meeting to raise a sum of money, 14 pounds, you know, a new currency to try to get a blacksmith to come up here.

So my father in law, Obadiah Sartwell, happened to, was one of the settlers here.

And my wife and I, living down in Upton, Mass, decided to come up here and settle.

14 pounds is a good, good piece of money, you know, good enticement.

I was able to buy this land here and build a shop.

Music Did you bring a pack of beer?

(inaudible) You can’t (inaudible)?

Around the clock.

I lost my shoes last week in the middle of Northfield, up the river.

Really?

Yes.

Music (hammering on metal) Incidentally, the colonists are played by volunteers who have done extensive research on their characters, and each one of those characters was an actual resident at the Old Fort at Number Four.

And they have some wonderful things coming up this summer.

Things for the whole family and for the kids, including at one time, a birthday party for King George the Second.

And if you'd like more information about the Old Fort at Number Four, get in touch with us here at New Hampshire Crossroads.

If you were one of those students who hated the daily science lecture and longed to be out in the woods or the beaches instead of stuck behind a textbook, have we got a story for you?

Producer Jim Gilmore traveled north with a group of students from the Seacoast area as they explored the marshes and the beaches, the woods, and the wildlife up at the Stone Environmental School up at Ocean Park, Maine.

It's a long and a dusty road hot and a heavy load Folks you meet ain't always kind Some are bad, some are good Some have done the best they could Some have tried to ease my troublin’ mind And I can't help but wonder where I'm bound, where I’m bound, can't help but wonder where I’m bound Well, I always enjoyed working with kids.

That was my primary goal here, that I wanted to teach children, and I thought working out of doors would be interesting.

And I majored in theater and that helped a lot, but I didn't think I would end up staying in environmental education.

But it's just become, the ocean is beautiful and it's become a passion.

Sherry Christie first came to the Stone Environmental School in 1981 as an intern member of the teaching staff.

Today, she helps run the entire program.

It looks similar to a slipper shell.

This also could be right where the muscle goes of a very large surf clam or a quahog.

Well, it's unique because it's hands on.

Textbooks are fine in many instances, and they're good in the classroom, but the kids need to see how it relates to them, how this natural environment relates to them, and what they do every day that affects it.

Cher, what do you think?

This is probably a seagull bone?

Yeah, it's probably some sort of, you know how you can tell, they're hollow - Right - bird bones, most of them.

The loons - Yeah, I can hear sand in it.

The loons and the cormorants are the only two that don't have hollow bones.

This program started 30 years ago in New Hampshire, in Greenfield, New Hampshire.

Wally Stone is the original founder.

And he began the program to get kids out of the classroom and into the woods.

It's also, look at the soil here.

We are anticipating that the kids will come here and spend a week and become much more aware about the natural environment, and have much more of a concern.

Duane Bond is the executive director of the Stone Environmental School.

He has been with the program for the last 18 years, starting as a freshman in college and working with the Stone family.

Right now, we have three centers that teach approximately 4000 kids.

We will be between 4000 and 4500 kids this year.

That's another thing, they can all regenerate.

The groups are primarily from the New Hampshire area, anywhere from Concord or Holderness down to the Nashua area.

This week's group comes from Rye Junior High in Rye, New Hampshire, along with some other students from schools in Greenland and New Castle.

We are studying seaweed and I'm eating kelp out of a, off What's it taste like?

Oh, yeah, it just tastes like garlic.

That’s really all.

Do you ever think you’d be eating kelp before?

I found out it's in toothpaste and ice cream, so.

How's this different from regular school?

Well, this is all based on one purpose: the seashore.

In regular school, you have Science and English and overall and this is all surrounded together in one basic point.

We don't usually, like, learn about the sea.

Instead, we learn, we're learning about nature and learning about, about sea animals and stuff, and you don't learn about that in school unless you go down to the ocean or something.

You usually do that at school.

So that's how it’s different.

You go down to the ocean, you get to go in the ocean and get to find things.

It’s really neat, it’s fun.

You see, like everybody see like where it was attached.

See?

Oh my God.

I was going to say it looks like it's part of the holdfast of this, of this seaweed.

But you're right.

All around it.

You're right.

That's great.

That's huge.

We’re able to take them right there, let them touch it and smell it and taste it in some instances.

Again, it's very hands on.

We use a lot of theater.

We use a lot of teach, sneaky teaching techniques.

We do skits and songs with the kids, where they're learning, but they don't realize it.

They think they're being entertained.

This (inaudible) is acid-squirting.

Yes, I can hear it.

And then I take this and I kind of drill it a bit and drills right through the shell.

Makes a a nice little hole.

Yeah.

But let me get this right, Mr.

Moon Snail.

Yes.

Spray acid on a shell.

Yeah.

And you drill it with, what is that thing called?

It is called a radula.

Can everyone say that: radula.

Thank you very much.

But you don't have to say it with that silly accent.

That was very good.

Anyways, so - Now let's talk about that, that scene we just saw.

What were the, what were the characters that we saw right here?

Lobster?

A clam.

A clam, starfish.?

Sea star.

We call those sea stars because they're not actually fish.

So we like to start using the term sea star.

Okay?

So try and use that today, okay?

Try and get away from using starfish.

So we got a crab, sea star, right.

A seagull and?

Moon snail.

And a moon snail.

Okay.

Those are the four suspects.

How how did each of those eat?

It’s small groups.

We work with small groups of students, which I can't afford to do in a large classroom.

Sheila Adams is a science teacher at Rye Junior High.

She helps the students prepare for their week at Stone Environmental School and notices some changes after they return to the classroom.

They are very interested in plastics.

They found out from here that plastic lasts forever.

It's not biodegradable, so they decided that they want to try to do something about not using styrofoam trays at lunch at school.

So they wrote a letter to the school board, and the school board asked them for information, and they got some information, and they're in the process of trying to work something out.

How about if you took this tail off the lobster, right?

Yeah.

And you widen that.

Isn’t that almost look like a crab?

Yeah, but the body is too long.

Yeah, but it’s too long.

They use water for blood.

That's why they have to be in the water.

They always have to be moist.

Kids go away, and teachers say to me, we don't see the benefits, they see the benefit when they're in the classroom.

And the kids know more.

They remember when they touch things and taste them, and they see them in person rather than in the textbook, they remember those things.

A big part of the kids’ week here is social growth.

Some of these kids have never been away from home before.

This is their first time overnight.

Not at grandma's house, not at a friend's house.

And they spend four nights here.

And it's hard for some of them.

And so we do a lot of group dynamics with the kids.

We try to get them to have confidence in themselves and to feel that they can challenge themselves, and that's a part of this week too.

I've been wandering through this land trying to do the best I can Trying to find what I was meant to do But the people that I see look as worried as can be, and it looks like they are wandering, too And I can't help but wonder where I'm bound, where I’m bound Can’t help but wonder where I’m bound And I can't help but wonder where I'm bound, where I’m bound Can’t help by wonder where I’m bound You guys are going to be scientists someday, you know.

I'm serious.

The Stone Environmental School will present its programs again next fall with the opening of the regular school year.

And if you would like more information about this, just get in touch with us here at New Hampshire Crossroads.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Next week, we will travel up to Canaan, New Hampshire, to learn the story of the Noyes Academy, one of the first schools in America to actively solicit both black and white students.

And what happened to it is truly a shame.

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

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Shaw’s 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, delivering a world of color to you every morning.

And Upton, Sanders and Smith of Concord, New Hampshire, providing a full range of legal services throughout the state of New Hampshire since 1908.

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