The Berry family, Jacob E. and his two sons Jacob H. and Horace W., constructed several bridges in the Mount Washington Valley between 1850 and 1885; a handful of which remain today. The patriarch of the Berry family was Jacob Emerson Berry. He was born on September 10, 1802, in Denmark, Maine; a small...
Much of my covered bridge research has been what you might expect it would be. Lots of reading. Lots of scouring town records, rifling through vertical files at historical societies, reading books in libraries, deciphering engineering reports, and corresponding with stakeholders via email. Lots of documents. Lots of sitting around. Visiting a covered bridge...
Peter Paddleford and his son, Philip Henry, left an indelible impact on covered bridge building in New England, particularly in New Hampshire. Peter H. Paddleford was born in 1785 in the Upper Valley town of Enfield, New Hampshire, about fifteen miles from the Connecticut River. Peter was the fourth of ten children born to...
Hello covered bridge people! Yes, I know I just published a 288 page book about New Hampshire’s covered bridges. But believe me when I tell you that everything I learned didn’t fit in the book! My journey to research these covered bridges put me in contact with so many interesting members of the bridge...
The second chapter in Covered Bridges of New Hampshire, following the table of contents and my rambling preface, is a chapter entitled simply, Gratitude. My publisher and I had several back and forth conversations about both the length and the placement of this chapter. Some books feature a gratitude section tucked away in the...
I saw my actual book today. Not a Word doc. Not a printer’s proof. Not loose pages with edits. Not a PDF. The real book. The truck from the midwest was scheduled to arrive on Thursday. On that day, I felt like Navin R. Johnson when the phone books came out. “I’m somebody now!...
As I write this, Covered Bridges of New Hampshire is being printed. Somewhere in middle America, my words and photographs are being superimposed onto 288 full-color pages and bound together. In a few weeks, the boxes will arrive and it will be time to celebrate. I’m excited to share that the book launch event...
Excerpt from Covered Bridges of New Hampshire, © Kim Varney Chandler, 2022 My love of history began by chance, really, in a college course that I selected to fulfill a general education requirement. Professor Charles Clark’s New Hampshire History course sparked a lifelong desire to research the places I live and the people who...
It’s official. Covered Bridges of New Hampshire is scheduled to be released on November 15, 2022. It feels a little surreal to say I wrote a book. I have always had a reverence for books. Books are a ubiquitous part of our culture – bookstores, book swaps, book clubs, bookshelves, bookends, notebooks, cookbooks, playbooks,...
Every year since 2003 my husband and I have taken posed photos for our annual Christmas card. Merry Christmas from the Chandlers! (Note: There is no apostrophe after Chandler. You’re welcome.) The first year of our photoshoot we had two kids and three dogs in the shot. Getting seven beings to cooperate was challenging...
