Three interpretive panels that aim to provide broader context on Hannah Duston, the Pennacook people and Commercial Street will soon be erected near the Hannah Duston monument area in Boscawen.
The panel content was created by Boscawen’s Duston Island Task Force, established in May as a response to State Rep. David Nagel’s legislative request to remove the statue in 2025. In January, Nagel drafted an amendment to his bill, proposing an advisory council to create an interpretive site rather than taking down the monument entirely.
Over the past five months, the task force worked on three panels covering five subject areas: the mills, the railroad, native presence, Hannah’s story, and Commercial Street. Each panel includes a narrative with photos, sidebars and a QR code linking to additional information.
A panel on Hannah Duston’s story was drafted by the Duston Island Task Force and will be located facing Commercial Street, the Northern Rail Trail and Duston Island. Credit: Yasmeen Saadi / Monitor Staff 
A panel on the history of Commercial Street was drafted by the Duston Island Task Force and will be located facing Commercial Street, the Northern Rail Trail and Duston Island. Credit: Yasmeen Saadi / Monitor Staff 
A panel on the indigenous presence in Boscawen was drafted by the Duston Island Task Force and will be located facing Commercial Street, the Northern Rail Trail and Duston Island. Credit: Yasmeen Saadi / Monitor Staff
Duston, a colonial woman from Haverhill, Mass., was kidnapped in 1697 by indigenous Abenaki people and killed an entire Native American family to flee. She’s depicted holding the scalps of her captors in the statue, which was erected in 1874 at the site of her escape.
Her story gained renewed prominence in the 1820s when colonists expanded westward as part of the country’s pursuit of its Manifest Destiny. Biographies, magazines, and children’s books were written, and even a mountain was dedicated to her. Another statue in her hometown of Haverhill was put up in 1902.
While the task force was born out of concerns surrounding the monument, Task Force Chair and Select Board Member Lorrie Carey said the project also created opportunities to provide broader context on Commercial Street, fulfilling the interpretive panel requirement of Boscawen’s Environmental Protection Agency’s grant, as well as the Northern Rail Trail, which sees 175,000 users per year.
The panels will sit just before the bridge to the island, on the right-hand side of Commercial Street and by the rail trail. A 1906 granite piece salvaged from the mill smokestack is proposed as a bench or platform beneath the panels.
Carey said she hopes the panels lay groundwork for a larger vision going forward. The task force had originally applied for a grant to develop the area into an interactive town park centered around its history, with added native interpretations for Boscawen land.
While they did not receive the grant, Carey posed a question to the rest of the task force at its meeting on Tuesday about reapplying.
“I think there is an opportunity for a larger project here; it’s just the matter of the funding,” Carey said.
“We’re in it for the long haul, whatever that looks like,” said Josiah Morrow, a member of the task force and president of the Duston-Dustin Garrison House Association.
The task force’s last meeting of the year was Tuesday. It plans to reconvene in January to revisit plans to place a historical marker at the site. The group had proposed language for the marker, but heard feedback from the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources that new state legislation might impact their plans.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the task force decided to hold off on further work on the marker to take into account decisions made by the legislature.
“We know it’s been a little bit of a controversy with historical markers across the state, particularly in Concord, and so that has made everybody nervous about doing anything,” Carey said. “But we shouldn’t be nervous about interpreting history and encouraging people to understand history.”
The final drafts of the panels were approved by the Boscawen Select Board on Oct. 7. They were designed by MajaDesign, a Vermont design firm recommended by the New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources. The panels, currently being manufactured, will be installed in the coming months.
