Armstrong, Dinah

Dinah Armstrong (1812)

Surry, NH

Written by Alan Rumrill for the Keene Sentinel’s “A Moment in Local History”, Feb. 5, 2024.

History has recorded very little about many of the women who helped shape the early years of our region. One early female resident who is still remembered, however, is Dinah Armstrong, a Native American woman who lived in Surry before the Revolutionary War.

The first record of Armstrong in the town was in 1769 when a son, Warren, was born to Dinah Armstrong and Jacob Starling. Jacob was probably a relative of John Starling who owned land in Surry at the time. John sold his land in 1771, however, and there is no further record of Jacob or of Warren in Surry.

Armstrong remained in Surry for many years, however. She lived in a log house in the south part of town. The town supported her for many years. She often walked into the village and visited several families where she would receive substantial meals and a cup of tea. Armstrong was often seen sitting on a large flat rock beside the road south of the village where she always rested as she walked home from the village. She was a friendly woman who chatted with all those who passed by her resting place.

Kingsbury, Frank B. History of the town of Surry, Cheshire County, New Hampshire : from date of severance from Gilsum and Westmoreland, 1769-1922, p.334.

Armstrong passed away in 1812 at the age of 73 years. She was buried in Surry’s South Cemetery. Two months later the town paid John Thayer for making Armstrong’s coffin and reimbursed Nathan Hayward for caring for her in her last illness. Her clothing and other belongings were sold to help cover the town’s expenses.

The townspeople never forgot Armstrong, and her favorite resting spot on the large flat rock. They called it Dinah’s Rock. Those two words were carved into the rock by Surry native William Wallace Wilcox in 1884, more than 70 years after Armstrong’s death.

Even today, more than 200 years after her death, the townspeople of Surry remember this cheerful woman and some still refer to her resting place as “Dinah’s Rock.”

SOURCE MATERIALS

Find-a-Grave- findagrave.com/memorial/63334460

New Hampshire Vital Records, Births, Surry, 1769—- ancestry.com

Rumrill, Alan. “A moment in local history: The story of Dinah Armstrong.” Keene Sentinel, Dec 30, 2023, Updated Feb 5, 2024.

Kingsbury, Frank B. History of the town of Surry, Cheshire County, New Hampshire : from date of severance from Gilsum and Westmoreland, 1769-1922.