Bill calls for removal of Hannah Duston Memorial, the first publicly funded statue in NH

This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative .

David Nagel has always passed the looming statue of Hannah Duston at the junction of the Contoocook and Merrimack Rivers whenever he went cycling in Boscawen. One day, he decided to read the sign in front of it — and couldn’t believe what he learned.

“I kind of went into shock when I saw it,” he said, adding that he did background research and spoke to historians after his discovery. “The more I learned, the worse it got.”

Nagel, a Republican state representative from Gilmanton, recently filed a legislative request to remove the statue.

Attempts to change the park’s name — the Hannah Duston Memorial Historic Site — or install new si