The Little Church Theater History
The Little Church Theater of Holderness and Center for Creativity, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was formed in the summer of 2004 by Austine and George Howard as a place for Holderness and the surrounding community to experience art and express themselves artistically and creatively.
The Little Church Theater:
The Little Church Theater has a rich history as a small Catholic Chapel, owned by the Manchester Diocese. Built at the end of the nineteenth century on land purchased from Arthur Johnson, The Sacred Heart Chapel was an important part of community life for almost a century.
Irene Bilodeau Leavitt was, in 1908, the first person baptized in the chapel, and used to tell wonderful stories of her time there with its congregation. She remembered several weekly masses that were often attended by boys and girls from the many summer camps in the area, as well as by the year-round residents of Holderness, Ashland and Sandwich.
The chapel was built, in part, to accommodate worshippers from the area who found water transportation easier than traveling by land. The Asquam Transportation Company (a Squam-Lakes ferry company that went out of business soon after the automobile was invented) would carry passengers to the three docks that were on the chapel's property.
The property was recently purchased by Austine and George Howard, currently of Holderness, who had a long time dream of helping to create a community arts center in the Holderness area. They have since brought together a dedicated group of people who have donated their time to turn the unused chapel into a vibrant location for participatory art. The history of the building is important to them, and changes to this historic structure have been minimal. The building exists today almost exactly as it did a century ago.
(Our thanks to Benjamin Curran, the Historical Society and the local Catholic churches for their generous help in finding this history. Much of this information was gleaned from the 1991 Sacred Heart Chapel Study, conducted by Mary Ruell, Stanley Nistler, Lumina Straw, Jean and Walter Ohnemus, Emile Plasse, Tony Raymond, Norwood Tillson, and Dan Murphy.)