Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, we'll profile the lower Cocheco River, visit with someone who spent his whole life on the river.

Then we go north to Berlin to meet with one of New Hampshire's living treasures, artist Bob Hughes.

And we meet some high school students from the New Hampshire Conservation Corps, a challenging summer job few of us have ever imagined.

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.

Today we're in Concord, up at the Pierce Manse, and this beautiful house was the home of the 14th president of the United States, the only president to come from New Hampshire, Franklin Pierce.

He lived here from 1844 until 1848, which is before he was president.

He was a lawyer at that time here in Concord, and this house was almost torn down due to urban renewal.

But in 1971 they moved it to this new location, and it is operated by the Pierce Brigade.

It's open to the public any weekday from 11:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, now through Labor Day, and I'd recommend a trip here any time.

Our first story also has to do with history, one of the richest historical areas in the state.

In fact, it is about the original highway where the first settlers came to New Hampshire.

Producer Chip Neal gives us this profile of the Cocheco River.

Back in 1623, a group of English fishermen were financed by some London businessmen to come over here and set up an outpost to fish and trade with the Indians.

They came to what is now Portsmouth Harbor and traveled up the Piscataqua River to a point we now call Dover Point.

William Hilton, one of the leaders of the expedition, described the point this way.

We could hardly have found a more inviting place than the Point, either for fishing or planting or trading with the Indians.

And for safety, no resort could have been better than this narrow neck of land, from which, by our boats, there is such immediate means of escape.

If escape should at any time be necessary.

These fishermen formed New Hampshire's first permanent white settlement, Dover.

Hunting, fishing, and trading with the local Pennacook Indians.

The settlement began to thrive and exploit opportunities further up the Cocheco River.

One of the earliest businesses was a sawmill built in 1642 here at the Lower Falls of the Cocheco, now downtown Dover.

About ten miles from the ocean, these Falls marked the upper limit of navigable tidal water, thus allowing access by gundalows and later schooners and packet ships to service the businesses here at the Falls, which also supplied power for the sawmills, shipbuilding operations, and later the giant textile mills of Dover.

So the Cocheco River provided the power, transportation, and food for the earliest white settlement in New Hampshire, a landmark event for the white settlers.

But maybe not so great for the Indians.

In any case, by 1800, the area just below the Falls had developed into a busy port known as the landing area, and the center of town moved northward to centering around this landing area.

So, with more than three centuries of partnership with the Cocheco River, Dover has a rich river history and tradition which has not been forgotten by many of its citizens.

George Maglaras, for instance, grew up on the banks of the Cocheco and now runs a marina, which his father started on the same site of the old landing area, which faded out some 80 or 90 years ago.

George is well steeped in the history of the river.

Music As ships came to Dover, when they got into the river about this far, the river would shallow up, and they had the lighter, make the boat lighter and they would unload those ballasts by hand and, and stack them up on the side of the shore.

And then when they would leave on a flood tide, they would load them back in by hand as they made their way back to sea.

There are a number of areas up and down the river where you'll see ballast rocks of this nature just stacked alongside the shoreline.

And as you can see by the size of them, they used to load and unload them by hand.

So I guess those were the days of wooden ships and iron men, I guess.

I guess so.

And this area of the Rawlins estate here, prior to the Rawlins family owning this was, it was a halfway point or halfway station, if you will, for all the sailors and the gundalow men that were coming from Portsmouth to Dover.

And, years ago, there was a general store there, and they did minor hull repairs and, and repairs to sails and so on and so forth.

But it also has a somewhat of a colorful past.

And right off here in front of the, the area where the general store was is a small island.

This island, right off to my right here, is name is Hog Island.

And, when the schooners and gundalow men would come up and have minor hull repairs done to their boat, so they'd visit the general store.

There was also a bordello, if you will, located here at this point on this island.

And, there's an interesting story that goes along with that bordello.

One day there was a double decker excursion boat called the Alice Howard that was, that traveled between Dover and Portsmouth on a daily run.

And one Sunday afternoon, they were coming from Dover to Portsmouth with a church group aboard the vessel.

And the girls from the bordello were out here skinny dipping out in the, on the water here.

Well, the ladies from the church was so incensed that they ordered the captain of the, of that boat, which was Captain Shirley Holt, the owner of the boat back around.

They went back to back to Dover and got a hold of the sheriff, and they came down and they arrested all the girls, and they and they and they closed the bordello now.

So I guess that was probably the first industry to die along the Cocheco River.

(sound of boat motor) This is the site of the Gage Brickyard.

We had a number of brick yards here along the Cocheco River that were active years ago.

And the Gage family had several brickyards, not only here on the Cocheco River, but on the Bellamy River and on the Piscataqua River as well.

And one of the things that it's not commonly known is that the city of Boston, majority of the city of Boston, was built on brick that came from the Great Bay estuary.

Not only from Dover, but from Newmarket and Exeter as well.

Actually, over here on this left hand side, in the late 1930s, a whale came up from the ocean and beached herself here.

And there was a, a gentleman that lived in town named Tim Flint.

And he took out a little shotgun.

He put about 40 racks of shotgun shells into the whale here, and she eventually died, and it was towed out to sea by the Coast Guard.

And that would be, like, ten miles away from the ocean.

Absolutely.

Yeah, about ten miles from the ocean.

A period in Dover’s day called Dover's Black Day, which was a flood of 1896.

And and during that flood, the water level rose in the river and there were lime sheds here, and the lime mixed with the water and caused a chemical reaction and it burnt most of the waterfront, or the landing as they knew it then, down.

Had massive fire and put a lot of the people out of business.

At the same time during that flood, it had silted in several sections of the channel that the community had spent the last 40 years dredging over a period of time.

And at the same time, during that time, the railroad was coming to town.

So the mode of transportation shipped from ships to trains and kind of the center of town moved in that direction towards the B&M Railroad.

And, eventually that's where the center of town is now.

So Dover began to ignore the river and used it as a dumping ground.

Industrial waste and sewage were discharged right into the river for the next 70 years or so, until people like George's father and others began to resurrect the rich history Dover has with its river, the Cocheco River.

Music With Dover's wastewater treatment coming online this summer, George Maglaras and others feel that the Cocheco River is on the mend and is well on its way to becoming a source of pride to the community once again.

And speaking of pride, our next story is about just that: pride.

Pride of a community for one of its own who makes beautiful things, and pride of the artist himself for his work and his accomplishments.

In this story, producer Jim Gilmore introduces us to Robert Hughes, one of New Hampshire's living treasures.

Music You work up a little rhythm.

I haven't been doing this for a year or so.

So it'll take me a while to get going.

And you try to let the weight of the mallet do the work for you.

Don't push.

If you push, you’ll be exhausted in no time at all.

But if you let the mallet do the work, let it freely swing, you can go on all day.

I graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1939, and I had several job offers.

Nine in all.

And Berlin, New Hampshire was the furthest away from Providence.

And that's how I came to Berlin, New Hampshire, because it was the furthest away.

I didn't know where it was.

I'd never heard of it before.

All I knew about New Hampshire was that there was something called The Old Man on the Mountain up there somewhere.

I came here to teach high school art.

I was the first art teacher, and there was quite a bit of opposition at that time, because an artist was considered to be a rather light item.

And I had a few difficulties and, it sometimes got even got physical.

But I've worked those all out very nicely.

And, and art now is a respected, one of the respected subjects and, I'm not sure it's enthusiastically received, but at least it's tolerated.

Music The human form is such a subtle thing.

It's the supreme challenge, really, is how do you treat the human form so that it doesn't look like everybody else's human form?

And the human form hasn't changed over the course of the centuries.

And yet the way we look at it has changed, and the way we treat it has changed.

For example, I have a tendency to stylize.

One thing I do is you notice I bring everything down into a plane, and I like to see angles, reducing an arm to a series of flat planes.

And, for one thing, it brings out the beauty of the of the stone very nicely.

Somebody gave a definition of a good piece of sculpture is one that you can roll down the stairs and nothing breaks.

And, I try to - That's not exactly the best definition of sculpture, but it does point out one thing, that there shouldn't be any salient features that are likely to break off.

Now, of course, you immediately say that Michelangelo has things sticking out on his, but generally speaking, they're pretty chunky.

They stay right into the block.

And, so I tried to keep to the block as close as I could, and I did make a clay sketch for us.

As a matter of fact, it's up there.

It's in wax up there, and you can see it's nothing at all like this, because the nature of clay lends itself to a certain treatment.

And the nature of stone lends itself to another treatment.

And so in the transition, things are going to change and are going to be quite different.

Music This is a piece that I'm polishing right now.

I finished carving it.

It's a piece of Sicilian stone.

And, it's a lovely gray.

If you notice, the gray will come out even more.

It'll look a little bit more like that when it's completely polished.

And, the basic carving in anything is done with the, with a tool that is most widely used, which is a point, and a point is, just as its name implies, a tool that comes to a point like this.

And this is the tool that you do the, the basic work.

This cuts a furrow and then another furrow, and then you with a third furrow, you dig out what you've already done and it'll flake off big, big chunks.

However, when you're first starting a piece, you use what is known as a bull set.

And it's a big, broad tool like this.

And you use a massive mallet like this, and this knocks off big chunks.

You notice that a sculptor never, never looks at this point when he's working.

What you do is you you'll always watch the point here and depend on that sixth sense, that kinesthetic sense to always find the right place to hit.

That sixth sense, most people don't realize they have it, is that sense that enables you to pick your nose in the dark and not put your finger in your ear.

And, very helpful to depend on that, and that way you'll never mash your fingers.

Music You do it for your own amazement.

Yeah.

And that's it.

It'd be nice if somebody buys things, that's always welcome.

It always keeps whiskey on the shelf.

Yes.

That's good, but, if you don't sell it, I don't expect to sell it.

So.

Music I think sculptors have to be practical, because when you start in a piece like this, you've committed yourself in the first place.

You committed yourself to many hundreds of dollars worth of steel.

And if you lay an egg, it's an expensive egg.

And so it's better not to start laying eggs.

So you better plan what you're going to do.

And if you're doing sculpture, you jolly well better know what you're doing before you start.

Now, I know, I know, the sculptors that hang up old tires and pieces of beams and stuff like that.

And, but it's such, it's so ephemeral.

Dartmouth had a big piece by Richard Serra, who - salute Richard Serra - who does these terrible things.

They paid, I think it was $25,000 for it.

It lasted a year, and at the end of the year, there was so many complaints from the faculty, from students that this was a, was really mucking up the, the campus, and they tore it down.

And I suspect it's in a junkyard somewhere right now.

Or better still, in a dump.

Music Does, does your art have a, have a greater purpose?

Do you have a, have a mission with your art?

Is that, what's behind it?

What's behind your your work in art?

Well, what's behind my work on that piece over there is I have this piece of marble, and I've got to do something with that piece of marble.

And I don't think of any great mission.

It's a great mission is to get the Jesus-less thing done and get on with the next one.

And as simple as that, may.

Well, we introduced that story by saying that Robert Hughes was a living treasure.

That turns out to be an actual fact.

As a matter of fact, directly after our producer Jim Gilmore finished taping that piece, Governor Judd Gregg officially proclaimed Robert Hughes to be an official New Hampshire Living Treasure.

What an honor.

You know, all of us, from time to time, are asked to push ourselves to the limit, that is, to go beyond what we think we are capable of doing.

This summer, producer Andrea Melville met a group of students, high school students from around New Hampshire, who are asked to push themselves to the limit every day.

This one's going to go over, the one.

(chainsaw noises) Just perfect.

All right.

Let's see.

Okay.

All right.

Step number two.

(chopping sounds) Yeah.

You don't get a whole lot of it, but you just sort of go along there, all right?

No, that's pretty good.

We have a lot of (inaudible) over here.

Little water bugs.

Yeah.

Wow, we have tons of stuff in here.

Okay.

This is one of four crews working this summer throughout New Hampshire in the Mountains and Trails Program with the New Hampshire Conservation Corps.

On this particular day, the rain has been coming down all morning, and by lunchtime, everyone is soaked to the bone.

Because of the weather, work is suspended for the day, but there is still plenty to do.

Plenty to learn, that is, about the environment around them.

Jaws are not big enough to hurt you.

Nothing in here is going to bite you, by the way.

So if you if you pull something out and you're afraid to touch it, don't worry about it.

I’m gonna get some more.

I mean, unless you come across a huge crayfish.

And then I'd use a little bit more caution, but.

The New Hampshire Conservation Corps is a division of the Student Conservation Association, a New Hampshire-based nonprofit organization which has been a national leader in conservation, environmental protection, and natural resource management since 1957.

Chris Hayden is this summer's roving Environmental Educator.

It's pretty much a challenge, you know, that, that they're getting out of it.

The, they're they're being challenged to work in the rain.

Many, although they've lived here all their lives, have never climbed a mountain before.

And that happens, you know, and it's to, to to push oneself a little bit further than you think you can go and, I guess that's, that's the work aspect.

The educational aspect is to get out of the classroom, to get, you know, close the textbooks, get get out of school and get out and actually touch what you've been studying in school.

You know, out here, it's more of an experiential learning, you know?

You touch it, you catch it, you scoop it out of the pond, you climb on it.

And yeah, yeah.

I can just sort of let the bugs speak for themselves, if you will, you know?

(bird sounds) All right.

(inaudible) on my head.

Oh, postcards.

Casey, Elena, Todd.

Another Todd.

Oh, beautiful.

Another Stacey.

That’s Shelley.

Another Stacey.

Who's that one for?

That’s - And this one's for Chris.

NHCC is made possible by funding from the New Hampshire Job Training Council.

This council funds programs throughout the state and provides job training for young people who are financially and educationally disadvantaged.

Students are paid minimum wage for 240 hours of work over the summer.

Since 1987, this program has taught over 150 students not only skills, but it has taught them how to live with the challenges that extended camping in the wilderness can bring.

Will Trombley is one of NHCC's wilderness instructors.

What attracted me more to this program was that you were dealing with kids that wanted to be here, and that were going to be paid to be here.

I think it's important for me to be outdoors, and I think the most successful programs I've worked in have been oriented towards the outdoors.

I think it's, it's therapeutic sort of thing all in its own, just to be outside and in the trees and just living with the natural consequences of your own behaviors and nature will teach you.

(inaudible) It’s not even (inaudible) on the edge.

Sorry, the stove’s here.

Yeah, I know it is.

(inaudible) sat shoulders to shoulder, each silently grateful for touch of the other.

Anybody have anything else to say?

You may go to bed.

Night.

Night.

Well, in the morning!

Lights (inaudible) Homeboy.

(river and bird sounds) (inaudible talking) Anybody else want a bagel?

I know this one doesn't because I had Jason’s.

What a (inaudible), that can get caught on somebody’s (inaudible) About eight hours a week are devoted to academics, reading and writing.

Most of these lessons are directly involved with their surroundings.

Practical lessons for their everyday life.

I want everybody to think back to the examples that you came up with at the beginning of this discussion, and I want you to think back on a situation of hypothermia, either of a friend or yourself, or a family member.

And write down how either you would prevent that from happening again, or once it's happened, how you would treat it.

Who's plate is NHTC?

That's Stacey’s.

Stacey, your plate has hamburger fat all over it.

We're going to have bears crawling around this place.

Each morning, the van is loaded with gear, workers, and lunch, and they set off for the eight mile drive to the worksite.

This crew is building bog bridges on a trail that leads to Church Pond, just off the Kancamagus.

My name’s Jason (inaudible) and I live in Merrimack, New Hampshire, and I go to West High School in Manchester.

Towards the end of the school year, I wanted to get into this program because my Skills Improvement teacher told me about it and I was glad I made it up here because I like it up here.

why is that?

I like the up north.

I like the woods, like camping, hiking.

I don't like being cooped up in houses that much.

I'm Stacey, I'm from Berlin High, Berlin, New Hampshire, way up in the White Mountains, We work pretty good together.

We work as a team, that is.

You do this, you do that.

You ask for help, they'll help you.

I want them to notice how hard we worked on this thing, because we put a lot of time into this.

I mean, these probably don't look much, but, I mean, we worked hard, and I want them to see who did this, what, how we did it.

Maybe we'll get a lot of responses and maybe it will help us get a bigger, more kids to come work for us, so.

Get more friends.

If these students learn to care for the environment, that also teaches them to care for themselves and other people too.

And I think that's one of the most important elements of this program.

We deal with bog bridges and trails that essentially we're trying to take care of something and make it a better place.

This year, Governor Judd Gregg proclaimed June the 24th through June the 30th as New Hampshire Conservation Corps Week and work on the bog bridges out at Church Pond is due to be completed by August the 2nd, and after that all four NHCC groups are going to get together for a one week canoe trip on the Androscoggin.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Before we go this week, I have a little humble pie to eat.

A couple of weeks ago, I got the area that is the town for Pawtuckaway State Park wrong.

Pawtuckaway State Park is in Nottingham.

And if you wrote me letters about that, thank you very much.

Next week, producer Chip Neal goes down to the Nashua airport for the International Helicopter and Experimental Aircraft Exposition.

Can you imagine an entire show with nothing but helicopters?

Woah.

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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