BETHEL – The author of a new historical book that details life in Andover from 1888 to 1937 will be signing his books at the Bethel Historical Society.
Society member Robert A. Spidell of San Clemente, Calif., who edited and published “The Pynelis Journals,” will be in the Society’s Robinson House on Broad Street from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 6. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
The book is a verbatim transcription of the Pynelis Journals, three hand-written, leather-bound journals in which were recorded the daily activities of prominent Boston attorney Hales W. Suter, his descendants and guests.
“The book is spectacular!” said Randall H. Bennett, society curator. “I can’t tell you how impressed we are with it and how fantastic it looks!”
In 1887, Suter built a 5,700-square-foot summer home in Andover so he could be near the great fishing in the Richardson Lakes just north of there, according to a press release for the book.
Suter named the house “Pynelis” because it was located on a bluff covered with pine trees and overlooked the Ellis River. It is still there on the bluff.
The journals, which consist of 1,000 pages, provide a complete and consistent record of the daily life in Andover and how it changed during that 50-year period.
Among the many insights are records of hikes up Maine mountains, detailed records of fish caught, weather, and time and distances for travel by horse and trains, then automobiles.
For more information, phone 824-2908 or 824-2991.
tkarkos@sunjournal.com
“The first recorded trip from Portland to Andover in 1903 took seven hours to go 85 miles (at) a blazing 13 miles per hour. And the first recorded automobile trip from Boston to Andover took three days to drive 283 miles through rural Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine,” the release stated.
According to the release, Spidell added hundreds of footnotes, five pages of maps, 60 old Pynelis and Andover-related photos, two dozen documents and “lots of explanations to make the journals come alive; more than 470 pages in all.”
For more information, phone 824-2908 or 824-2991.
tkarkos@sunjournal.com
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