APRIL 2015
nshoremag.com
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BY NANCY E. BERRY
The Andover Historical Society holds
treasures of an early 20th-century artist.
Archived legal documents, personal
letters, ephemera, photographs,
diaries, and artwork. Historical
societies' collections create a lens
into the past—offering insight into
how communities have been, over
time, shaped by their residents and
major events.
On a recent visit to the Andover
Historical Society, I had the pleas-
ure of meeting programs manager
Carrie Midura. An English litera-
ture major in college, she has al-
ways had a passion for history, and
her effusive enthusiasm permeates
the antique space.
She shared artifacts and im-
ages of various stages of Andover's
history—war paraphernalia, old
maps, and historical letters. I was
intrigued by the vast collection that
the historical society houses, which
includes historical textiles, kitchen
Notable Native
items, and farm equipment, among
a host of historical works of art.
Founded in 1911 by a small
group wanting to retain items of
historical value to the town, the
society found its permanent home
when member Caroline Under-
hill donated the Amos Blanchard
House—a handsome 1825 Federal-
style house on Main Street—as the
society's headquarters in 1929.
While I was looking over all
these wonderful decades-old items,
Midura—white gloved—produced
beautiful costume designs by a local
artist, who had lived in Andover at
the turn of the 20th century. The
watercolor style was distinctly from
a bygone era. Midura explained
that the designs were by H. Win-
throp Peirce, a painter and illus-
trator born in 1850 who lived in
Andover on Morton Street.
H. Wintrop Peirce's
costume sketches
from the early
20th century;
Right, a pen and
ink drawing of the
Andover Historical
Society by Peirce
