Explore the crucially important, but often-forgotten history of African-Americans in the Granite State; the Black Heritage Trail of NH offers you and your family various ways to do so. They offer virtual, private, self-guided, or public tours; each comprised of information selected from primary sources! Tours of historic landmarks can be found in Portsmouth, Exeter, Milford, Kittery ME, and Hancock. Plaques/Markers can also be found in Andover, Warner, and Windham.
And now, Holman Stadium in Nashua has joined this ever-growing list of historical landmarks featured throughout New Hampshire!
Although Ebbets Field, home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, no longer stands, Nashua's Historic Holman Stadium still remains. Due to the stadium's place in African American history and the history of New Hampshire, the City of Nashua and the Black Heritage Trail have erected a monument in honor of the stadium and the individuals that helped it become what it is!
Brooklyn Dodgers President and General Manager Branch Rickey, a leader in the integration of baseball in the States, made the decision to send his two prized prospects to Nashua. These two players were Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe. The move made the Nashua Dodgers the first integrated Major League-affiliated pro baseball team in the 20th century!
Campanella and Newcombe were great successes in Nashua, leading the Dodgers farm team to the 1946 New England League championship. Roy Campanella was named the NEL’s Most Valuable Player in his first year. He would go on to a Hall of Fame career, crafting his own legend as one of Major League Baseball’s greatest catchers. Despite a career shortened at the beginning by racism and at the end by a tragic car wreck, Campanella became the second African American enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, along with his fellow Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson.
Karen Newcombe, the widow of Don, visited Holman Stadium for the monumental unveiling, in which she was given the key to the city by Mayor Jim Donchess of Nashua, showing the significance of the occasion.
“This is such an honor to be here representing Don,” she said. “He loved this city, and he felt so safe and so loved. That’s something he didn’t have anywhere else he went..." She would go on to tell a story about Don's first moments in Nashua, "He stayed with a family that just asked him to come live with them and he couldn’t believe that. And somebody gave him a car. He never knew this could happen.”
------------
SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE!
Love this article? Want more like it and to get the latest on local Greater Derry area events? Subscribe HERE to receive our free, weekly Macaroni KID Derry newsletter in your inbox every Thursday morning. Our goal is to bring you all of the best family-friendly events, activities, and businesses in our area. We proudly serve the towns of Derry, Londonderry, Hampstead, East Hampstead, Windham, Salem, Chester, Candia, Atkinson, Auburn, Sandown, Pelham and Plaistow! Contact us anytime (karynm@macaronikid.com) with your ideas, event listings, and suggestions. Have a small business and want to reach thousands of local families? Advertise with us!
