Progress Reports

The Brookline History Committee (BHC) was formed in May 2003, for the sole purpose of updating the existing text “History of Brookline New Hampshire” by Edward E. Parker, dated 1914. The committee members consist of Laura Murphy, Lynne Abt, Clarence Farwell, Marcia Farwell, Ellen Winters, Eric Jensen, Nancy Howard, and Benjamin Sacks.

During 2003, the committee met three times. These meetings were used to establish short-term goals for 2003, as well as long-term schedule for the overall project of updating the “History”. The short-term goals for 2003, which were all successfully completed, were:

Generate a list of possible resources of information. This list includes, but is not limited to, local, state, and federal sources (such as libraries, repositories, town offices, churches, police, fire department, etc.), local citizens, and publications (such as Hollis-Brookline Journal, Brookliner, etc.)
Draft a potential Table of Contents for the continuation of the “History”
Have groups members read appropriate sections of the existing “History” to make recommendations about what to include in or exclude from the next edition of the “History”.

The long-term schedule anticipates that this project of updating the “History” will take approximately ten years to complete, hopefully coming to completion in 2013. During these ten years, the committee has proposed the following schedule for researching events during each of the following 10-year periods:

2004 – research 1913-1925
2005 – research 1926-1935
2006 – research 1936-1945
2007 – research 1946-1955
2008 – research 1956-1965
2009 – research 1966-1975
2010 – research 1976-1985
2011 – research 1986-1995
2012 – research 1996-2005
2013 – research 2006-2013

The committee also created a BHC website for the main purpose of making all relevant scheduling/organizational materials easily available to the committee members. This site is available at www.shadywood.net/BHC and is maintained by Laura Murphy. The two documents (resources of information, potential table of contents) produced as a result of the 2003 short-term goals are available online at this site.