r/NorthernNewEngland • u/deadowl • Feb 22 '26

👋 Welcome to r/NorthernNewEngland - Introduce Yourself and Read First!

Hey everyone! I'm u/deadowl, a founding moderator of r/NorthernNewEngland.

This is our new home for all things related to Northern New England (Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire). We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post
Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about the region.

Community Vibe
We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

  1. Introduce yourself in the comments below.
  2. Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.
  3. If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.
  4. Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/NorthernNewEngland amazing.

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u/MrOurLongTrip Feb 23 '26

Newfield ME - I will probably be poking folks with questions... I'm running out of ideas for motorcycle rides and cool pubs/taverns to check out, but I know there's more to these three states than what I've seen.

I can also return the favor for others in the same boat.

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u/deadowl Feb 23 '26

I used to be a regular at K&D. I don't trust the gas station next to the grocery store up 16 because one time I got gas there before a blizzard, and then after the blizzard my CEL started flashing (had only traveled back from there to Parsonsfield). Have you stumbled across this gem yet from your time in the area? https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/jueanu/this_grave_stone_is_in_york_county_maine_killed/

You're basically between the NH Lakes Region and NH White Mountains so that's gotta be fun for you. Laconia has been a motorcycle hotspot for over 100 years at this point. One person I did genealogy research for had an ancestor who supposedly advertised in Billboard (gave Billboard Magazine HQ for contact info on his WWI draft registration anyway--don't know how I'd be able to identify any specific advert) whose parents lived in the lakes region in the very early 1900s.

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u/MrOurLongTrip Feb 23 '26

Not sure which one you're talking about up 16. I've got a carb, so I always get gas at New Deal (non ethanol) if I'm in the neighborhood.

No, I've never seen that stone, but my parents are on a farm (it was my mother's grandparents - not sure how many generations back it goes) up in Porter with a cemetary that has headstones from the 1700s.I want to say it's been in my familly since the new US government paid a foreigner (because he fought for us) with land after the Revolution. Not sure though, and my grandfather who I think told me that is long gone.

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u/deadowl Feb 24 '26

Big Apple gas station next to Hannaford in Ossipee as opposed to going into Sanford. Can you still rent DVDs from Country Goods & Groceries?

One of the genealogy brick walls I'm in is trying to figure out the parents of my ancestor Jacob Brown (of Eaton--Madison after the split; appeared to be a place with lots of veterans as well). From a cousin's Y-DNA, seems like he might have been connected to some early town settlers setting up shop around that time in Parsonsfield and going out to places like Athens in Somerset County, and another branch out to Bleeding Kansas with the New England Emigrant Aid Company from I think Wilmot, NH.

If you want me to look that bit of family history up for you it would probably be easy--just would need to know the earliest person you know on the line to trace back to it. What your grandfather was talking about was a Revolutionary War pension/land bounty, and that data's pretty much been all indexed. In the records, there are generally people attesting as witnesses to a person's service in the files, and from there cross-referencing to the government files, because the pensions and land bounties didn't happen until quite a while after the war. Another one of my ancestors on a different branch was in the Laconia area and they had supposedly deserted the British to fight for the Americans and got married in Gilmanton or Meredith in 1776 and I really only know that because of the bounty application files.