Woodrow “Woody” Thompson (left) has donated to the Meredith Historical Society an ancestral grandfather clock once owned by the Pease family of Meredith. On hand to welcome the gift at the society’s Meredith Main Street Museum are President Karen Thorndike and Rudy VanVeghten.
A major link to this town’s past is now on display at the local history museum.
Woodrow (Woody) Thompson of Wayne, Maine, and Holderness, a descendant of the Pease family that settled in Meredith over two centuries ago, has donated to the Meredith Historical Society’s Main Street Museum a grandfather clock handed down in his family through many generations.
Woody made the donation in memory of his father, George A. Thompson (1905-1983).
“This is a great addition to our collection at the Main Street Museum,” said MHS President Karen Thorndike. “It not only helps us show what life was like in earlier times, it also supplies a connection with the Pease family, who were among Meredith’s earliest settlers and public figures.”
Woody and his father are linear descendants of Benjamin and Rebecca (Pike) Pease, who settled on a farm along the Province Road in Meredith about 1779. Pease Road (a portion of the old Province Road) is named for Benjamin and his sons Joseph and Simeon Pease, whose farms were located near the present-day intersection with Route 104. Simeon was a founding deacon of the Baptist Meeting House on Oak Hill, now the society’s farm museum.
First known owner of the clock, according to Woody’s research, was Joseph Pease (1774-1862), and his wife, Hannah Folsom Pease. One of their sons, named Simeon after Joseph’s brother, went on to serve Meredith as a selectman and representative to the state legislature. The clock, however, went to another son, Robert Folsom Pease (1814-1900) and his wife Lorinda (Piper). They relocated to Ashland in 1870. Their son, Benjamin Franklin Pease, inherited the property in Ashland and established the Pease farm and hotel on the west end of Little Squam Lake.
As for the clock, it resided for a time with Loring S. Pease, son of Robert Folsom Pease’s brother Simeon (the Meredith selectman), before devolving to Benjamin Franklin Pease’s son Bret. Bret was the brother of Harl Pease, whose son Harl Pease Jr. of Plymouth was a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient for whom the Pease Air Base in Portsmouth is named. Bret and Harl Sr. were also brothers to Marion P. Pease, who married Arthur G. Thompson, and to Dorotheda Pease, who was the next caretaker of the clock.
Dorotheda’s nephew George Arthur Thompson, in whose memory the clock is given, was a self-taught sign painter in Holderness who created promotional signs for, among others, the Pinnacle Park Zoo in Meredith, as well as the Mount Washington Cog Railway and Clark’s Trading Post.
George’s son, Woody, who donated the clock, is a retired geologist with the Maine Geological Survey. After earning his bachelor’s degree in geology from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree from the University of Vermont, he was awarded his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. In addition to his numerous articles, papers and books, he was chief compiler and science editor of the glacial geologic map of Maine. Woody cherishes a childhood memory of his father winding the then still-functioning clock. He noted that, like in the old song, the clock hasn’t run or been maintained since his father’s death in 1983.
The addition of the Pease grandfather clock helps the Meredith Historical Society fulfill its mission to preserve, develop, and promote the knowledge and awareness of Meredith’s unique history.