Compiled by Russell Bastedo
State Curator
1998

Nahum J. Bachelder (1903-1905). Born East Andover (NH); farmer; tenth Master of the National Grange. In state politics from 1887.

Nahum Bachelder (1854-1934) was educated at Franklin Academy and the New Hampton Institute. After a brief teaching career he devoted his life to agriculture and lived on the Bachelder family farm.

Bachelder had a great interest in the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange. He joined this farmers' political movement in 1877 with membership in the Highland Lake Grange. He became Master of the local Grange, then Secretary of the New Hampshire Grange State Fair Association (1886/96), then Secretary and Master of the State Grange (1891-1903). In 1899 he became Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Grange, and after his term as governor he became Tenth Master of the National Grange.

Bachelder first became New Hampshire's Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture in 1887. He held that post for 26 years (1887-1913), even while governor. He also began his life in state politics as Commissioner of Immigration, a position created in 1889 not to deal with the European immigrant labor force in the mills but rather with getting New Hampshire's abandoned farms resettled. The position was merged with Agriculture in 1891, but Bachelder continued to focus on this problem. In 1901 he began to publish an annual "New Hampshire Farms for Summer Homes" (published 1902/13). He was also a member of the state's Cattle Commission from 1891, and secretary of the New Hampshire Old Home Week Association. He was the state Republicans' nominee for governor in 1902 and won easily.

Governor Bachelder's pet project was improvement of the state's agricultural college, but he also sought (and got) greater appropriations for the Laconia (NH) State School for the retarded. A state armory was built at Manchester, and the sale of intoxicating liquor was allowed after fifty years' prohibition.

Location: State House, Second Floor
Portrait by Daniel Strain, 1905