(Additional photograph below.)
Amid calls to remove the 1874 Hannah Duston statue in GAR Park, the Haverhill City Council in 2021 decided on a compromise.
In addition to removing the hatchet from her hand and removing the word “savages” from the inscription, the proposal sent to the mayor’s office included, “That the statue remain where it is in GAR Park and also that the city provide the Abenaki an opportunity to erect their own memorial, with the city to provide land and site work in GAR Park,” Councilor Thomas J. Sullivan, who is now council president, said at the time.
Three years later, no changes to the statue or the area around it have been made. Still, chair of the Native American Commemorative Task Force Daniel Speers told WHAV “we have confidence we are on a positive track.”
Former Mayor James J. Fiorentini created the group in 2021, as WHAV reported. Failing to mention the raging controversy around the GAR Park statue, he said, “I am establishing the Native American Commemoration Commission to plan and design the proper method of honoring and commemorating those indigenous peoples who inhabited this land.”
In Speers’ view, the group was tasked with addressing complex questions people have strong feelings about—a process he said should not be rushed.
“We are proceeding apace to fulfill our mission. There are no timelines. No interim reports are required. No public funding or money is involved. We are all volunteers. Some of us have indigenous heritage, others white, and still others, mixed bloods,” said Speers, a descendant of indigenous peoples, poet, member of the city’s Historic Commission and expert on indigenous history. “We have no wish to create needless anxiety over an issue that with patience and careful consideration can be addressed both amicably and intelligently.”
Among other activities, he said the task force has consulted state and local records, hosted conferences, attended lectures, spoke with parks officials and met with Abenaki representatives about the statue, which commemorates Duston’s 17th-century escape from her Native American captors. Killing and scalping 10 people—including six children—before making her escape, some scholars have argued she was traveling with a family group not involved in the raid which caused her capture. Others say her captors killed her newborn baby.
As WHAV reported, the task force in 2022 visited the Hannah Duston statue in Boscawen, N.H., meeting with local residents and representatives of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook-Abenaki.
Given the nature of the group’s assignment, Speers said the needed historical research is wide-ranging and complex, often requiring the careful separation of reality from legend. He said, “As you might well imagine, it takes more than a fortnight to weave together a tapestry that incorporates thousands of years of indigenous history, almost three hundred years of colonial and American history, and prognostications of the future. “
Since receiving its mandate back in 2021, Speers said the group has made headway toward creating signage in the new First Nations Park, which Procopio Companies will build along with “The Beck,” a 290-unit residential and retail complex. Currently in the “research and authentication” phase, he said the next step is a meeting with Procopio in August.
One side of the Haverhill monument reads a phrase that city councilors in 2021 suggested be removed, “Her husbands’ defense of their children against the pursuing savages.” (WHAV News photograph.)