As we embark on this season of Thanksgiving we can’t help but be in awe of our amazing community that has led us to reach $5,000,000.00 in sales from our beginning. While this may be a number easily reached by corporations, our $5 million was sold in LOCAL products – products grown, raised, and made by people just like you, that make up our community! $5 million dollars of local money invested right back into the Monadnock Region! The best part – November 23rd marks the start of our 20th year in business! Thank you, thank you, thank you for you patronage and support throughout the past 20 years! We are looking forward to another 20 and excited to see where that takes us!
So who was Hannah Grimes anyway? Hannah Grimes was born in 1776 in Keene and moved to the Buckminster Farm in Roxbury, NH upon her marriage to William Stoddard Buckminster. What she and her family could not make or grow themselves, they bought from or bartered with friends and neighbors. Fast forward to 1997 when soap maker, Mary Ann Kristiansen, could sell her soap anywhere in the world except locally! Hannah Grimes provides an example of a traditional New Hampshire producer who participated in a thriving local economy.
The first vendors of Hannah Grimes bought into a “membership” to sell their products locally. Patti Powers, owner of Cheshire Garden, was one of the first vendors to sell her products at Hannah Grimes and you can still find Cheshire Garden mustards, jams and more at the Marketplace. Vendors of the Marketplace can often be found selling at the Farmer’s Markets, Craft Fairs, and more but appreciate that when they are not open for business or selling at a booth they can send people to the Hannah Grimes Marketplace to purchase their products. Cheshire Garden is a local business that is over 30 years old! For more information about Cheshire Garden click here.