I've been wanting to read this book about my town for a while! I picked it up today at the Little Free Library in Moody Point in Newmarket, NH.

This is a fascinating read for me for many reasons, not the least of which is that I live along Durham Point Road - if this deal had gone through back in the 1970s, my house wouldn't exist and the surrounding land would be underneath a huge oil refinery!

I've just reached the point (p. 3) where Nancy Sandberg, owner of the Mathes Garrison Farm on Langley Road (incidentally, the Langleys who the road was named after are some of my neighbors!), has been approached by Onassis's land scouts - and the description of her house/property sounded familiar, so I got to Google searching. Turns out that that house (where Sandberg still lives, as far as I'm aware) is one that I was obsessed with when I was younger - I coveted it from the first time that I saw it, mostly for its wide open fields. I used to confidently proclaim that I would buy it and live there someday. At least I had purer intentions than Onassis!

I took this picture on 3/18/19; it's just some of the farm's land, as seen from the road.

A stone marker with more info on a local garrison (p. 3). Photo taken by me on 3/18/19, along Langley Road.

The Newmarket mill buildings, where Phyllis Bennett's newspaper Publick Occurrences was headquartered (p. 10). Photo taken by me on 5/5/15.

Adam's Point Wildlife Management Area (p. 76) is just a few minutes' drive from my house, and I go there frequently. Everything in this section - from the parking lot next to the lab to the wooden viewing platform to the sweeping views of the bay - is so familiar to me! Here's a picture I took at Adam's Point at sunset on 2/26/17.

That brick building peeking through the trees is the Jackson Estuarine Laboratory. Picture taken by me on 6/22/17.

The view along one of the trails at Adam's Point. Picture taken by me on 6/22/17.

A lovely sunset over the bay, taken by me at Adam's Point on 2/24/17.

Finished this yesterday. It was a good, short, straight-forward read, though I do wonder if someone not from the area would find it less interesting.

Before sending it off to the person I've promised it to, I'm going to follow up with some more pictures that I've taken of the Durham Point area. If this deal had gone through, every single one of these lovely spots would bulldozed to make way for a four-square-mile oil refinery.

In the woods behind my house on Durham Point. When I was in high school, I painted and hung many wooden birdhouses (this one was done for my sister). Picture taken by me on 5/7/13.

Baby robins that grew up in this nest right next to my front door. I took pictures of them nearly every day from the time they hatched to when they flew off for good. Picture taken by me on 5/28/16.

The marsh behind my house on Durham Point. I get the most amazing sunset views! Picture taken by me on 2/5/16.

Same spot, different season. Picture taken by me on 7/13/15.

Canada geese are frequent visitors. Picture taken by me on 7/13/15.

And herons, too! Picture taken by me on 7/27/14.

I don't see the beavers themselves a lot - they don't come over to my side of the marsh very frequently - but they build lodges all over the marshland here. There are some huge ones! Picture taken by me on 3/28/19.

A little baby goat at my neighbors'. Picture taken by me on 4/21/18.

A big mud turtle! These guys are fairly common in the spring, as they cross through the woods to try to get to the water to lay their eggs. You have to watch out for them on the roads, too - though luckily, people around here are good at going around them, or even stopping to guard them and make sure that other drivers are aware of them as they cross. They can also be incredibly nasty; I stood at a distance and zoomed in to get this shot. Picture taken by me on 4/28/17.

Another great sky shot over the marsh beyond my house. Picture taken by me on 3/15/18.

A deer in the woods right next to my house. Picture taken by me on 4/12/18.

The Longmarsh Preserve, which my land borders. Picture taken by me on 2/7/17.

The Mathes Cemetery along Langley Road, with the bay in the background. Picture taken by me on 3/18/19.

Abandoned rusty old vehicles and farm equipment are not an uncommon sight in the woods here. These are along Langley Road. Picture taken by me on 3/18/19.

An abandoned building along Langley Road. Picture taken by me on 3/18/19.

A gorgeous sunset, as seen from Adam's Point. Picture taken by me on 2/24/17.

And, lastly, this is the same view that's on the cover of the book - taken by me on the rainy day of 6/6/17. This is along Durham Point Road, headed towards Newmarket.

I hope that these pictures help show readers who have never been to Durham just a part of what would have been lost if this oil refinery project had been approved back in the seventies. Sadly, the bay is still under threat even today; just last year a project was approved that will allow for the company Eversource Energy to jetplow cables underneath it, disrupting wildlife and destroying oyster farms. Portions of delicate marshland, too, were buried under concrete mattresses where the cable enters and exits the water, and huge power transformers are going to be built on land that is not zoned for them. This project (The Seacoast Reliability Project) is not nearly as wide-scale or as damaging as the refinery would have been, but reading this book, I still saw so many parallels between the two: like with the refinery, most citizens did not want the SRP (at least not in this form), but local government was reluctant to fight too hard against it because they believed that it would be rammed through regardless, and they felt that if they gave in to it willingly they would at least be in a better place to negotiate terms. Like with Olympic, Eversource was incredibly secretive about what the project would ultimately entail, lied to property owners about how land would be used, brushed aside environmental concerns and recommendations, refused to consider alternate line routes that would have been far less damaging, and blatantly disregard rules and regulations whenever they felt the desire to. Last fall, I attended a hearing about the project where I personally witnessed one of their company lawyers inform the court that he would advise his clients not to abide by any court-appointed construction stays, simply because they could afford to pay any fines that were levied at them. And like with Governor Thomson in 1973, our current Governor Sununu has been all too happy to enable whatever Eversource wants to do, granting them exceptions to state and local law whenever they ask for them.

One of the saddest parts about all of this is that it's not like we don't have anyone like Dudley Dudley, Nancy Sandberg, and Phyllis Bennett fighting for the bay today. People like Donna Heald, Regis & Greg Miller, and Vivian Miller (names that will likely never make it into books!) have fought just as hard as Dudley, Sandberg, and Bennett did - and for a much longer time, as the battle against Eversource has been going on for years. Unfortunately, this time, the multibillion-dollar corporation was the winner.

https://www.clf.org/blog/seacoast-reliability-project-threatens-public-waters-for-private-gain/
https://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20191014/judges-ruling-clears-way-for-seacoast-powerline-project

Mailed to hyphen8 as a wishlist tag! They did not ask for this book specifically, but mentioned that they were interested in books about people's hometowns, so this seemed like a good pick.

Received as a wishlist tag: thank you! And I appreciate all the bonus photos: I'm sure they will add to my experience with the book. Oh, and I love the colorful bookmark. :)

(Zoomable photo here.)

I'm posting this to originalslicey's There's No Place Like Home challenge. :D