Artillery and Armour in the USA: New Hampshire: Amherst, Antrim, Bedford, Bristol, Chester, Chichester, Claremont, Concord, Dover, Exeter, Franklin, Greenland, Hampton, Hookset, Kensington, Loodon, Lyndeborough, Lafayette Artillery Company

Armour and Artillery in New Hampshire

ne of the aims of this website is to locate, identify and document every historical piece of artillery and all armoured fighting vehicles preserved in New England.  Many contributors have assisted in the hunt for these tangible pieces of our military history and the list you see here is constantly being revised as new finds are discovered and the data is updated.  The photos have come from various contributors, but the author likes to "ground truth" the reports, so a good number of the photos are by the author unless otherwise credited.  Any errors found here are by the author.   It often happens that military monuments that are relatively mobile, have been moved for restoration or scrapped, sometimes they are repainted with different markings and serial numbers, or they are replaced with a different piece of kit.  For those reasons, any additions, deletions, corrections or amendments that you may be able to add to this list of Artillery and AFVs in New England would be most welcome and may be e-mailed to the author at [email protected].  The primary aim is preserve our military history and to keep the record accurate.

Amherst

(Alex Ashlock Photo)

32-pounder 57-cwt gun, a.k.a. the long 32, with a Millar pattern breeching ring, mounted on a concrete cradle in the triangular-shaped town central green formed by Church Street, School Street, and Middle Street, No. 1 of 2.

32-pounder 57-cwt gun, a.k.a. the long 32, with a Millar pattern breeching ring, mounted on a concrete cradle in the triangular-shaped town central green formed by Church Street, School Street, and Middle Street, No. 2 of 2.

Antrim

(Library of Congress Photo)

100-pounder Parrot Rifle mounted on an iron barbette carriage at Fort Totten, part of the Defenses of Washington, D.C. (known as Washington City at the time), with the officers of Companies A and B, 3rd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, and crew.

(Scott Barrow Photo)

(Allen Tanner Photos)

100-pounder Parrott rifle (Parrott, 6.4-inch, rifle, seacoast, Model 1861), weight 9,672-lbs, 9747, Serial No. 148, 1863, T.E. 6.4, W.P.F. on the muzzle, resting on concrete blocks in the Town Square, off Hwy 62, Route 31.

Designed by Robert Parker Parrott at the outbreak of the Civil War, the Parrott Rifle became one of the most used rifled artillery pieces during the war.  With shells that exploded on impact, rifled guns such as the Parrott Rifle spelled the end of masonry fortifications.

Bedford

(Heather Wilkinson Rojo Photo)

USN Mk. VI 1-pounder AA gun, converted c1916 from the Maxim-Nordenfelt Mk. I 1-pounder automatic gun, originally adopted to defend against fast motor torpedo boats.  This gun is located in a park on the corner of the Bedford Center Road and Meetinghouse Road.

Bristol

(Library of Congress Photo)

13-inch Model 1861 Seacoast Mortars,weighing more than 17,000-lbs, Battery No. 4, Yorktown, Virginia, May 1862.

(Library of Congress Photo)

13-inch Model 1861 Seacoast Mortars,weighing more than 17,000-lbs, Battery No. 4, facing the Confederate Lines in May 1862.  The Battery held ten of these 13-inch Mortars, manned by the First Connecticut and Second New York Artillery.

(Ken Gallagher Photo)

 (silverquill Photo)

13-inch Model 1861 Seacoast Mortar, Reg. No. 1036, Fdy No. 1036, 1862, weight 17,198-lbs, mounted on original carriage. Town Square.

(silverquill Photos)

This Civil War memorial includes a mortar that was used aboard the ship USS Orvetta.  There is a plaque on the face of the mortar that lists Civil War veterans from Bristol, and in the center a list of the bombardments in which the Orvetta engaged dating from 1862 to 1865.  This mortar stands in the Bristol Town Square, and is dedicated to the Nelson Post No. 40 GAR 1898.  In November 1897 this mortar was shipped to Bristol from the Charleston, SC Navy Yard.  The monument was dedicated on 4 November 1898.

The USS Orvetta was one of 21 schooners fitted out with mortars for a bomb flotilla organized by Comdr. David Dixon Porter to support Flag Officer David Farragut’s deep draft ships in their attack on New Orleans, Orvetta sailed down the Atlantic coast, across the Gulf of Mexico, and into the Mississippi through Pass a l'Outre below Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson, 18 April 1862.  Orvetta and her sister schooners opened fire and maintained the barrage on the Confederate fortifications until the 24th when Farragut’s salt water ships passed the forts.  The next day New Orleans, Louisiana, surrendered.  The schooner subsequently supported operations in the Mississippi River, especially against Vicksburg and served in the Gulf of Mexico.  After the war she decommissioned at New York City 3 July 1865 and was sold at auction on 15 August 1865.  Her mortar is now a memorial in Bristol, New Hampshire.  (Wikipedia)

Chester

(Allen Tanner Photos)

3-inch Rifle, 500 lbs, breech-loading Naval boat howitzer, cast by the Washington Navy Yard in 1886, (Serial No. 28), mounted on a wheeled wood gun carriage, No. 1 of 2.  Corner of Route 21 and Derry Road.

3-inch Rifle, 500 lbs, breech-loading Naval boat howitzer, cast by the Washington Navy Yard in 1886, (Serial No. 29, mounted on a wheeled wood gun carriage, No. 2 of  2.  Corner of Route 21 and Derry Road.

Chichester

M60A3 Main Battle Tank (Serial No. 1377M), American Legion Post 112, 44 Short Falls Rd.

Claremont

(Santee1821 Photo)

The Soldiers' Memorial in Claremont, New Hampshire was originally dedicated in 1869.  The early date of the monument.

(Nelson Lawry Photo)

(Santee1821 Photos)

32-pounder M1864 (6.2-inch) Bureau of Ordnance Gun, No. 238, 4,536 lbs, (Shell Gun), mounted on an iron display stand at Broad Street Park in the town center, No. 1 of 2.

(Santee1821 Photo)

32-pounder M1864 (6.2-inch) Bureau of Ordnance Gun, No. 242, 4,536 lbs, (Shell Gun), mounted on an iron display stand at Broad Street Park in the town center, No. 2 of 2.

(Allen Tanner Photos)

German 7.5-cm Pak 40 Anti-tank gun, standing in a small park on the corner of North Street and Lincoln Heights.

Concord

(Richard Marsh Photo)

Cast-iron 3-pounder smoothbore muzzle-loading Gun, weight 11-1-26 (1,286 lbs), Serial No. (613) on the left trunnion, (L12) on the right trunnion, Z, King George III cypher, British broad arrow, c. late 1700’s, mounted on a wood reproduction gun carriage.  This gun was captured at the Battle of Bennington.

(Eugene Zelenko Photo)

75-mm M1987 Field Gun, located at the confluence of Loudon Road (State Route 9) and Blodgett Street, east of Concord near the NH National Guard reservation.  Similar to this 75-mm M1897 Field Gun in Benicia, California.  There were 480 American 75-mm field gun batteries (over 1,900 guns) on the battlefields of France in November 1918.

Dover

(Nelson Lawry Photos)

3-inch/23 cal US Naval deck gun, in front of the American Legion post on Central Avenue.

Two similar 3-inch/23cal pieces each on special dual-purpose mounts constituted the main armament of the two smallest USN Yangtze River gunboats, designed to patrol the very upper reaches of the Yangtze, USS Guam (later renamed USS Wake) and USS Tutuilla.  Most of the old four-stack flushdeck destroyers (DD) that served with the USN Asiatic Fleet carried a single 3-inch/23 cal deck gun as their largest AA defense.  After HMS Exeter and HMS Encounter were sunk in the Java Sea, USS Pope attempted to escape the overwhelming force of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN), firing about 80 rounds from its 3-inch/23 at attacking float planes, with the gun seizing up after shooting about 80 rounds.   All three warships were sunk in the second battle of the Java Sea on 1 March 1942.  One such gun was the main armament of USS San Pablo in the 1966 Steve McQueen movie "The Sand Pebbles", and fired on the cross-river barrier of junks and sampans near the film’s end. The USN 3-inch/23 cal deck gun is not common, but two are preserved in New Hampshire, (the second example stands in Portsmouth).

(Nelson Lawry Photos)

British 24-pounder carronade with a Blomefield pattern breeching ring, (CARRON) on the left trunnion, (24P) on the right trunnion, captured by a Yankee privateer during the War of 1812, and jury-mounted on a USN 30-pounder Parrott naval gun carriage.

There are two small Parrott guns mounted on ornamental carriages, located in the Pine Hill Cemetery.

Exeter

(USN Photo)

XI-inch Dahlgren Shell Gun on board the USS Kearsarge during the Civil War era.

(Santee1821 Photos)

XI-inch Dahlgren Shell Gun (Serial No. 384), the only one of its kind in New Hampshire, mounted on a concrete cradle, located in Gilman Park next to the river.  This cannon has a couple features which show it to be an unmodified example - the trunnions are longer for use on wooden carriages rather than post-war iron carriages, and the cannon has mounting points for firing hammers. The 8-Inch Rifle used a friction primer for firing.

(Santee1821 Photos)

11-Inch Dahlgren (Serial No. 348) and 32-Pounder 57-cwt (Serial No. 231) displayed at Gilman Park in Exeter, New Hampshire.

The XI inch Dahlgren shell gun was manufactured for the U.S. Navy.  It was named for Rear Admiral John Dahlgren. The XI-inch shell guns served with the Union Navy, fighting in every major engagement of the Civil War. An XI-inch shell gun aboard the USS Kearsarge sank the CSS Alabama in the Battle of Cherbourg, France in June of 1864.  465 XI-inch Dahlgren guns were cast at Alger; Builders; Fort Pitt; Hinkley, Williams & Co.; Portland Locomotive Works; Seyfert, McManus & Co.; Trenton Iron Works; and West Point foundries between 1856 and 1864. This is the only Dahlgren gun to have been designed both with and without a muzzle swell.  The gun was typically mounted on a pivot or in a turret on a monitor.  When mounted in a turret, the crew for an XI-inch Dahlgren was seven including powdermen.  The crew for the gun when mounted on a pivot was 24 men and a powderman. XI-inch Dahlgrens were carried on many US Navy ships.

(Santee1821 Photos)

32-pounder 57-cwt gun (Serial No. 231) a.k.a. the long 32, with a Millar pattern breeching ring, mounted on a concrete cradle.  This gun is also located in Gilman Park next to the river.  (A second 32-pounder 57-cwt, a.k.a. the long 32, was blown up years ago by vandals).  These two guns stand overlooking the confluence of the Exeter and Little Rivers.  (Past Exeter, the river becomes the Squamscott).

(Santee1821 Photo)

32-pounder M1864 (6.2-inch) Bureau of Or,dnance Gun, 4,500 lbs, (Shell Gun), mounted on an ornament carriage, on the lawn of the American Independence Museum on Water Street, No. 1 of 2. The 32-Pounder of 57-cwt, Registry Number 587, was cast by West Point Foundry in 1850.  It’s weight is marked 57-0-20 (6,404 pounds).

(Santee1821 Photo)

32-pounder M1864 (6.2-inch) Bureau of Ordnance Gun, 4,500 lbs, (Shell Gun), mounted on an ornament carriage, on the lawn of the American Independence Museum on Water Street, No. 2 of 2.

The 32-pounder M1864 is shorter than the long 32 and is different in four ways: (i) Although constructed in a manner identical to the famed Dahlgren shell gun, this cannon was the brainchild of the USN Bureau of Ordnance and thus is not legitimately termed a Dahlgren gun. (ii) It incorporated two obsolete features: an old-fashioned quoin in lieu of an elevating mechanism and the old pattern breeching jaws, with the pinched (narrowed) neck which was that part’s Achilles heel. (iii) That late in the war, it was too small and lacked sufficient range for ocean-going warships that fought hostile warships. (iv) Except for a handful produced during the very last part of the war, the remaining guns were completed after the war’s end (for a total of 379), whereupon they became obsolete.  The gun angered Admiral John Dahlgren, both for taking his design and construction, apparently without consulting him, and then using two obsolete features that would reflect badly on his design.  He was still angry about this gun three years after the war ended.   The 32-pounder 4500 lb SBML is therefore not a Dahlgren shell gun, but a Bureau of Ordnance Gun (technically, it was a shell gun, but that was not specified in its formal designation).  (Nelson Lawry)

(Roger W. Sinnott Photo)

5"/51 calibre Simm Naval Gun, 23,000-lbs.  These guns initially served as the secondary battery of United States Navy battleships built from 1907 through the 1920s, also serving on other vessels.  United States naval gun terminology indicates the gun fired a projectile 5 inches (127-mm) in diameter, and the barrel was 51 calibers long (barrel length is 5" × 51 = 255" or 6.4 meters).  This gun is located beside the Captain George Leonard Smith War Memorial.

Franklin

(Allen Tanner Photos)

German 7.5-cm Pak 40 Anti-tank gun, standing in a park on West Bow Street.

Greenland

(Allen Tanner Photos)

Replica cast-iron 3-pounder smoothbore muzzle-loading British Naval Gun, No. 1 of 2 in a town park.

(Allan Tanner Photo)

Replica cast-iron 3-pounder smoothbore muzzle-loading British Naval Gun, No. 2 of 2 in a town park.

(Allen Tanner Photos)

57-mm M1 anti-tank gun, corner of Route 33 and Portsmouth Ave.

Hampton

(Author Photo)

Ferret Scout Car, Hampton Motor Company, 611 Lafayette Rd.  Similar to this one with the Prince Edward Island Regiment Museum, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

(Allen Tanner Photos)

4-inch Slide Mk. VII Model 4 Naval Deck Gun, Serial No. 154, weight 1,312 lbs, 1907, US Naval Gun Factory, NY, standing near Pillsbury Road.

Hookset

(Allen Tanner Photos)

Cast-iron 3-pounder smoothbore muzzle-loading Gun, weight 11-1-26 (1,286 lbs), broad arrow over King George III cypher, M No. 611, mounted on a concrete stand.

(Allen Tanner Photos)

75-mm M1A1 Pack Howitzer (M116), on display at the Merrill-Follansbee American Legion Post.

Kensington

(USMC Archives Photo)

M76 Otter Amphibious cargo carrier used by the USMC.

(Robert Cassin Photo)

M76 Otter Amphibious cargo carrier.

Loudon

M60A3 Main Battle Tank (Serial No. 3676A), American Legion Post 88, 55 S Village Rd.

Lyndeborough

(naturebunny1 Photo)

(naturebunny1 Photo)

4.2-inch (30-pounder) Naval Parrot Rifle, 4,200 lbs, mounted on a concrete stand beside the war memorials on the South Lyndeborough village common.

The Hartshorn Memorial Cannon is a decommissioned American Civil War Naval Gun that forms the centerpiece of the South Lyndeborough Village Common.  The gun is named for John Alonzo Hartshorn, the town's second Civil War casualty and a former member of the town's Lafayette Artillery Company.  Prior to 1900, the Hartshorn Cannon saw service as a naval piece during the Civil War at Fort Constitution in New Castle, New Hampshire, and is believed to have remained there until substantial changes were made to the fort in the late 1890s.  The black thirty-pounder Parrot Rifle is approximately 102-inches (2,60-cm) long, weighs 3,495 pounds (1,585 kg), and was made at West Point Foundry in New York.  Currently it sits on a low granite base which probably dates from about 1902.  When in use, it was capable of firing 29-pound (13 kg) shells with a munition charge of 3.25 pounds (1.47 kg) a maximum distance of 6,700 yards (6,100 m), with a flight time of 27 seconds.  Typically, nine people were required to operate it.

The Hartshorn Cannon's use as a naval gun is suggested by an anchor insignia inscribed near the base of its barrel.  Inscribed on the gun is the letter-number combination "R.P.P. No. 140 3495 LBS," probably indicating the inventor (New Hampshire native Robert Parker Parrott), order of manufacture, and weight of the cannon.  Additionally, the year of manufacture (1862) and classification ("30 PDR") are indicated on one side of the gun, and the initial "P" is engraved on the other.  (S.A. Roper and S.C. Roper, Citizen Soldiers: New Hampshire's Lafayette Artillery Company, 1804-2004 (Portsmouth NH: Peter E. Randall, 2004)

Lafayette Artillery Company

The Lafayette Artillery Company was founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1804 as the Artillery Company of the 22nd Regiment.  It was part of the State of New Hampshire's artillery system, a forerunner to the National Guard.  The group has continued to operate continuously since its founding, and since 1833 it has been headquartered at Lyndeborough, New Hampshire.  Since the 1980s, it has been primarily an educational service organization, and participates in Civil War reenactments throughout the northeastern USA.  (Stephanie Abbot Roper and Scott C. Roper. 2004. Citizen Soldiers: New Hampshire's Lafayette Artillery Company, 1804–2004. Portsmouth, NH: Peter E. Randall, Publisher.)

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