Raymond, New Hampshire

 I completed  Maine’s bounty of Carnegies in Freeport, home of L.L. Bean.  The Carnegie was in the center of town next door to the outdoor company’s mothership surrounded by canoes and kayaks.  The modest Carnegie was the only one in the state that no longer served as a library.  Its present tenant is an organic market, which rents the building from the city. 

In most states not even half of the Carnegies continue in the capacity in which they began their existence.  Maine would have the highest percentage by far of its Carnegies still serving as libraries if it were not for Vermont and New Hampshire, which are at one hundred per cent.  Maine can still thump its chest, as it has considerably more Carnegies than its neighbors with eighteen compared to New Hampshire’s nine and Vermont’s four.

These states are also notable for not having torn down any of their Carnegies.  Only five other states can make such a claim, all with much fewer than Maine,  Eleven states have torn down more than New Hampshire has standing.  The two preeminent non-preservationists are California, which has razed fifty-eight of its one hundred and forty-two, and Texas twenty of thirty-two.  Illinois and Indiana have lost eighteen each of their more than one hundred. 

I managed to escape Freeport without succumbing to any of its many stores.  So many tourists are drawn to Freeport that Patagonia and Banana Republic and the Gap and other recognizable brands have stores.  The Main Street is lined with a multitude of shops, including the Mangy Moose Emporium, seeking to capitalize on the influx of shoppers. 

I continued down the coast on highway one thick with traffic and semi-urban sprawl for a dozen miles before turning inland as I approached the big city of Portland.  It took a few miles to escape the hubbub that will soon be my lot when I return home.  I was bearing down on New Hampshire, not quite making it before dark.  My final night in Maine was spent behind a row of old trailers in a parking lot on the fringe of a paltry forest.

The welcome to New Hampshire sign was in French and English.  The state’s motto of “Live Free or Die,” as adorns its license plates, harkened to an interview I just heard of the ever-outlandish Werner Herzog on Fresh Air, where he was promoting his memoir “Every Man for Himself and God Against  All.”  He said he’d rather die that undergo psychoanalysis and the same for wearing a toupee.  

A few miles across the border I arrived in another Rochester, where the first of a quick string of four Carnegies awaited me.  The gallant front hid an extended expansion behind it.  I had gotten an early post-dawn start, so even if it weren’t Veteran's Day I would have been more than an hour early for its opening. 

I arrived at Dover’s similarly gallant Carnegie ten miles south after it should have opened.  In my brief time there two others came by not knowing it was closed for Veteran’s Day. Members of the high school band in their uniforms were gathering in the parking lot preparing for a Veteran’s Day event.  

A plaque beside the entry to the library didn’t relate to its benefactor or status on the National Register of Historic Places, as such plaques generally do, but rather acknowledged those who occupied the land before those from the other side of the ocean came a-conquering.

The next Carnegie resided on the campus of the University of New Hampshire five miles south in Durham.  After being replaced as the library it took on the name of Hamilton Smith Hall and was converted into classrooms.  

I had to do some sleuthing to find it.  None of the students I asked knew of the former library or a Carnegie building.  Finally a student behind the counter at the Recreational Center searched on the internet and found the answer.  I should have recognized it when I bicycled past it by its stately columns, the only such building on the campus.  

I completed my quartet for the day in Raymond, turning west into a wind for twenty miles.  The small town had been granted a tiny grant of a mere $2,000 from Carnegie, barely a quarter of the next smallest grant in the state, the only other of less than $12,500. Though it is a rare Carnegie not constructed of brick or stone, it has endured over a century and is a most attractive building.  Its interior was more characteristic of a Carnegie, with a large wooden circulation desk and wooden tables and shelves and striking light fixtures.  My peek through the windows, however, did not reveal the portrait that always adds a final touch of grace.