Rockingham Free Public Library
Board of Trustees
Historical Collections Committee
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Present: Martha Rowley (acting–chair), Don Tretler, Dwayne Whitehead, Ryan Coyne, Ian Graham (ex–
officio), John Leppman (Chair, Rockingham Historic Preservation Commission)
Absent: none
Location: In the Library’s Youth Program Room, and also online via Zoom.
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AGENDA
1. Call to Order: 4:20pm
2. Additions to Agenda for routine administrative matters and/or pressing matters that will
require ratification at a future meeting: none
3. Public Comment (3 minutes per person): none
4. Approve Minutes of January 25, 2022 meeting: moved by Tretler, seconded by Coyne;
approved unanimously
5. Discussion: Possible donation of three nineteenth–century portrait paintings: Leppman
presented information about the donation of three portrait paintings in American Primitive style
thought to be of the Divoll (alt spelling possible Duval) family of Rockingham, likely painted in
the 1830s by Aaron Dean Fletcher, an itinerant portrait painter who may have been living on
Parker Hill Road at the time. After Leppman left the meeting, the Committee discussed the
possibility of the Library receiving the donation and taking ownership of the paintings. Several
outstanding questions remain: (1) Can it be determined with a high degree of certainty that the
paintings were done by Aaron Dean Fletcher; (2) can it be determined with a high degree of
certainty that the subjects of the paintings are the Divoll (or Duval) family?; (3) can it be
determined with a high degree of certainty that the paintings were done while Fletcher lived on
Parker Hill Road? The Committee was unanimously in favor of the Library continuing
discussions with the Historical Preservation Society, especially concerning these questions. The
Committee made no specific recommendation at this time.
6. Other Business: none
7. Review Action Items and Agenda Items for next meeting
8. Adjourn: 5:20pm
Respectfully submitted, Ian Graham, Library Director