Exeter World War Memorial
Exeter, Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Marker Inscription
With / Veneration for those who died / Gratitude to those who live / Trust in the patriotism of those who come after / The Town of Exeter dedicates this memorial / To her sons and daughters of the World War
The Story
In the years after 1918, towns across America raised monuments to the local men and women who had served in what that generation simply called "the World War" — the global conflict we now know as World War I. Exeter, a New Hampshire town whose roots reach back to the colonial era, joined that wave of civic remembrance, honoring not only its sons but explicitly its daughters, a nod to the nurses and volunteers who served alongside soldiers. The memorial's language moves deliberately from grief for the dead, to gratitude for the survivors, to a charge laid upon future generations.
Why it matters
Memorials like Exeter's mark the moment a small American town measured itself against a world war for the first time, binding local sacrifice to a national and global story and asking each rising generation to carry that patriotism forward.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · World War I
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
World War 1 Honor Roll
Winchendon, MA
When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, small mill towns across New England like Winchendon sent a remarkable share of their young people into service abroad. Known then as 'the Toy Town' for its woodenware and toy factories, Winchendon watched its sons and daughters answer the national mobilization that ultimately drew some four million Americans into uniform. This honor roll gathers their names as a permanent civic tribute to that generation's service.
World War 1 Memorial
Gardner, MA
In the years after the First World War, towns and cities across America raised monuments like this one to reckon with a conflict of unprecedented scale — the first in which the United States sent millions of its young people overseas. Gardner, a small Massachusetts furniture-manufacturing city, joined that wave of civic mourning and pride, dedicating this memorial to the local men and women who answered the call between 1917 and 1918. The inscription's notice of both sons and daughters reflects how the war drew women into service as nurses and support personnel, widening who a community counted among its heroes.
The Gold Star Mother
Southbridge, MA
Gold Star monuments carry forward a tradition born in World War I, when families hung a service flag with a blue star for each member in uniform — a star that turned gold if that son or daughter died in the war. The image gave a name to the grieving mothers left behind, and by the late 1920s they had organized into a national movement that lobbied for remembrance and even sailed to visit their children's graves overseas. In a Worcester County mill town like Southbridge, whose factories and immigrant families sent many young men to the nation's wars, a memorial to the Gold Star Mother turned private loss into public honor.
Clara E. Kimabll
Exeter, NH
In the late 1890s, small New England towns like Exeter, New Hampshire, ran on the quiet labor of local schoolteachers—often women who anchored a community's one- or two-room schoolhouses and shaped generations of children. This modest marker fixes the name of Clara E. Kimball to that work, dated 1897, when public education across the Gilded Age Northeast was expanding and professionalizing. Exeter itself was already a town proud of its learning, home to the venerable Phillips Exeter Academy, so a marker honoring a local teacher speaks to how deeply the place valued schooling.