Historical Commission
Princeton Historical Commission
January 25, 2024
Attendees: Tom Kokernak - chair,, Larry Todd - clerk, Gina Polewaczyk, guest Matt Lindberg
Not attending: Carl Soderberg, Joyce Anderson
Tom opened the remote meeting at 7:11 pm.
The meeting minutes of 11/16/23 were approved.
Budget: We made a deposit of $76.03 to the donations account, The balance is now $4097.81. Our annual budget from the town is $1500 plus a small amount left after paying Curry Printing for the Civil War brochures.
Mechanics Hall: Matt Lindberg reported the Friends of Mechanics Hall has not disbanded and has asked the selectboard to keep them informed of any proposals regarding the building. Matt said the town considered tearing the building down but has put this on hold. Matt asked the Princeton historical commission to contact the select board and make the same request to indicate our continuing interest and support. Tom will contact Karen Cruise to communicate this.
Civil War brochures: Gina has the printed brochures and will leave several in the commission mail slot at Bagg Hall for the rest of us to see. She asked if she can give 50 to the 5th grade to include in their history class and we said ok. She asked Tom if he could visit the school when the Civil War is presented.
Larry will draft an introduction to the brochure to relate it to the plaques we replaced at Bagg Hall and provide some background to the research that supported the project.
Sign for Paupers’ Graves: We will put this on next month’s agenda as Joyce is not present. Gina is working on how to display a QR code to accompany the sign.
Cemetery Preservation: Larry is working with the Princeton library to set up a display
of carved stone fragments from Meetinghouse cemetery. We hope this raises awareness and perhaps encourages support for future preservaion work.
Public Safety Building: Tom expects to be asked to join this group. They also meet on Thursday evenings so our future meetings will need to avoid a conflict over dates.
Other business:
Tom prepared a draft of our annual report to the town of the activities of our commission in 2023. Larry noted some minor changes which he will send to Tom for review.
Gina wanted us to know that she is also a member of the Friends of Mechanics Hall. We did not see any conflict of interest in this.
Tom will notify us of the date of our next meeting .
The meeting was adjourned at 7:44 pm.
Respectfully submitted, Larry Todd, clerk