Mayor’s Recognition of Alan Rumrill – July 18, 2024
Alan F. Rumrill, executive director of the Historical Society of Cheshire County, announced that he will retire on November 1, 2024, after forty-one years on the job. For many Cheshire County residents, Alan is the scholar in residence and the voice of history in the Monadnock region. He has written and recorded more than 1,500 Monadnock Moment radio spots at WKBK radio since 1985. Alan writes weekly newspaper columns called “Moments in (Local) History” in the Keene Sentinel, and he submits weekly “mystery photos” to the Monadnock Shopper News.
Alan has taught hundreds of classes on local history and museum management topics, he has worked with more than 100 student interns and volunteers, and he has responded to more than 1,000 invitations from organizations to present public programs on local topics. He has developed and installed more than 50 feature exhibits on themes ranging from industrial history to immigration history to art, archaeology, agriculture, advertising, baseball, the Civil War, civil rights, conservation, and more. He has authored many articles and is the author of ten books.
Following his graduation from Keene State College with a major in history Alan Rumrill became the first paid employee at the previously all-volunteer Historical Society of Cheshire County, New Hampshire in 1983. Under his stewardship, the Historical Society of Cheshire County has grown to six staff members, 130 volunteers, three buildings, 150+ programs annually, an annual budget of over $500,000, and an endowment over $4 million.
The value of Alan’s efforts is demonstrated in the recently released BIPOCMonadnock.org website. Jenna Carroll the project’s co-director recently announced access to these historical records gathered through The Historical Society of Cheshire County (Keene) and Monadnock Center for History and Culture (Peterborough). BIPOC Monadnock explores a diverse history of New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region between the 1730s and 1930s. I’ve been going through many of the hundreds of biographical records fascinated by the stories they tell. Through the story on Rueben Jittem, a story written by Alan, one finds how a slave acquired by a Massachusetts man, who likely won his freedom by serving for his owner in the MA militia fighting for our nation’s independence, thereby gaining his freedom then settling in Richmond, NH where he resided until his death in 1820. That is US history told through the life of local people documented by pouring over many historical records, which is the type of work Alan will continue after he steps down as Executive Director and is succeeded by Jenna Carroll in November.
In the months leading up to his retirement, Alan Rumrill has been honored with several career awards: the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance’s 2023 Preservation Achievement Award for outstanding leadership in research, public outreach, and stewardship; the American Association for State and Local History’s 2023 Leadership in History Award; and a Rotary Paul Harris Fellow award.
Alan deserves to be recognized many times more for his contributions to documenting the history of New Hampshire and its communities. And before that happens and before his retirement on November 1st, I want to formally recognize and thank Alan Rumrill for the irreplaceable value he has contributed to Keene and the Monadnock Region. Alan please accept, as a token of the City of Keene’s appreciation, this symbolic key to the City.