The cracker jack collection

By Stephanie Abbot Roper, Scott C. Roper

Subjects: Baseball players, Baseball cards, Collectors and collecting

Description: In 1804, James Wilson of Peterborough organized that town's first artillery company, the Artillery Company of the Twenty-Second Regiment. Two hundred years later, the organization still exists as the Lafayette Artillery Company, an institution that has been based in Lyndeborough since 1833 and is now New Hampshire's oldest remaining local militia group. Through the years, the citizen-soldiers of the Lafayette Artillery have served their state and their nation with honor. They were present at the defense of Portsmouth during the War of 1812, and served again at Newcastle's Fort Constitution in 1864. They were called upon to suppress a riot during the infamous Amherst Muster of 1850, but were denied their request to serve the United States in the Spanish-American War. Along the way, the artillery has sponsored its own baseball team, prompted the construction of Lyndeborough's Citizens' Hall in 1888 and its renovation in the late 1990s, organized Memorial Day observances and other patriotic celebrations, and hosted the most anticipated social event in Lyndeborough--the annual Washington's Birthday ball. Today, the artillery--which is dedicated primarily to education and community service, participates in Civil War reenactments with its 1844 six-pounder brass cannon, originally issued to the group in 1845. Researched from state and local documents, town histories, newspapers, interviews, and the Lafayette Artillery Company's own archives, this study traves the evolution of the organization from a local militia unit to a social group, and finally to a Civil War reenactment/social-service organization.