Who We Are
The Society of New Concord [SNC] was founded by local New Concord families to help promote and recognize the Hamlet as a historic and unified community. To this end, the organization fosters local historical preservation, neighborhood cohesion and social enjoyment. We make a difference in the district by rehabilitating historic buildings and cemeteries, promoting awareness of New Concord’s historical character, and building community with social events, educational gatherings and civic projects.
Aspirations
The Society was conceived by its initiators as a symbolic bridge to join the New Concord of yesteryear with the New Concord of today. From its earliest days, the Society has had a historical perspective. And those historical underpinnings have continued to inform its activities and projects.
The Society was also meant to promote or preserve a sense of community in the small locality, and to foster social interaction and enjoyment.
What We Do
SNC continues to be a social and community nexus for New Concord, and strives to be a promoter of local historical preservation, community cohesion, and social enjoyment.
Society activity—and community participation in it—has waxed and waned over the years, but in the past 2 decades, there has been a resurgence of neighbors' involvement that has been reflected in increasing participation in events, and an overall expanded sense of community at large.
As delineated in our bylaws , the Society holds at least four events a year. These gatherings serve as pretexts for all kinds of social interactions—from chats with neighbors to business arrangements to gossipfests to plotting further SNC events—and can be enjoyed as simple country entertainments as well as ways to keep contact with other New Concord denizens.
The Society also deliberately fosters historical education and preservation projects—mostly with the impetus of our Historians. We have sponsored historical skits at our social events, have held scholarship competitions for local high school students to review facets of New Concord history, and have been participants in restoration and preservation efforts for local cemeteries of archival interest. A House and Garden Tour, for example, highlighted the historical houses of New Concord and environs. A previous Fall Frolic included a self-guided tour of the Mountain View cemetery, providing background information about graves of individuals who played pivotal roles in New Concord history.
Formation of
The Society
On December 13, 1982, the Society of New Concord was formed at a meeting convened in the Grabow home, adjacent to the green. Initiated by Maurice Arrighi and Frances and Paul Veillette, the resulting organization was titled to resurrect the original name of our hamlet, "The Society of New Concord"—a designation for the settlement used in its earliest records.
The Society's first Board of Directors consisted of Lewis Grabow, Carol Keith, Maurice Arrighi, Marjorie Epstein, Frederick Finck and Frances Veillette. Its first officers were Lewis Grabow (president), Maurice Arrighi (vice-president), Patricia Keating (treasurer), and Paul Veillette (secretary and historian).
During the Society's organizing period, December 1982 through February 1983, ninety-five charter members were recruited.
In this way, the Society was born in the home built by Hosea Beebe, grandson of the founding patriarch of New Concord.
We Are
Non-Profit
We are a truly non-profit organization, with dues and other contributions just covering the expenses of our ongoing activities. The largest part of what we accomplish is based on the enormously-valuable contributed time of a very talented core of our members. We are chartered as an educational corporation by the New York State Board of Regents and a non-profit by the IRS under section 501(c)(3).
Historical District
Through Society efforts, New Concord was designated a Historic District by the state and federal governments in 2010. The New Concord Reformed Church [now The Society of New Concord Meeting House] was among the handful of historic buildings on which this placement on the National Register of Historic Places was based.
