Dunbarton’s town historian, Bud Noyes, was in the process of compiling information for his third book when he died in the early morning hours of Tuesday, Sept. 2, at the age of 84.

Noyes lived in what we now know as Dunbarton for most of his life, and prior to that lived in a part of present-day Hooksett, once part of Dunbarton, on which he was going to write a book.

“He always considered himself a Dunbartonite all the way,” said Selectman and close friend Les Hammond.

Noyes had a heart condition and had surgery about six months ago to replace a valve. He was not the same after that, Hammond said.

Noyes and his wife, Bettyann, now 77, were very active in the Dunbarton community, participating in the town’s Historical Awareness Committee, and Bettyann was a School Board member for more than 30 years.

“We shared a great many things,” said Bettyann Noyes. “He lived here basically his whole life and loved it.”

Bud Noyes worked as an architectural designer and then a home appraiser for most of his life. He was always enthralled with the history of Dunbarton, which he called his hometown, despite having lived in Hooksett until he was about 10. The part of Hooksett he was born in ceded from Dunbarton many years before his birth.

“He loved homes. He designed our first home and our second home,” Bettyann Noyes said. “He never had a college degree, but he was a very talented individual in that area.”

Bud Noyes wrote his first book for children called “A Tale of Dunbarton” in 1999. A second full-length book titled “Where Settlers Feet Have Trod” came along in 2004.

Bettyann Noyes remembers meeting her husband when she was about 25, while taking a restful vacation with her mother in Dunbarton. Noyes and her mother lived in Long Island, N.Y., and had seen an ad in the local newspaper about a woman who took in summer boarders. That woman turned out to be Bud’s mother, and the two hit it off instantly.

The Noyes’, married for almost 50 years, took car trips each year to visit historical sites and admire floral gardens, something that was Bettyann’s passion, she said. They’ve been to just about every state along the eastern seaboard and the inner coastal states.

“We had very nice times together – quiet times, but nice times,” Bettyann Noyes said.

In 2000, the couple took guardianship of their two grandchildren after hardships with their daughter caused the family to go to the brink of ruin, Bettyann Noyes said. The grandchildren came to their grandparents and asked for them to take custody of them.

The Noyes raised the teenagers as they would have their own children, getting both through their high school years.

“It’s a very difficult experience to take two teenagers into your home, but it was a marvelous one,” Bettyann Noyes said.

Donna Dunn served on the Historical Awareness Committee with Bud Noyes and worked with him on many restoration projects and collection acquisitions.

“Bud Noyes was just an absolute inspiration,” Dunn said, adding Noyes was passionate about sharing history with the community. “Bud’s just always been there. He’s literally the wallpaper of Dunbarton.”

“If you had the least bit of interest in history, he thought you were wonderful. If you didn’t have time, you better not ask a question,” Dunn joked.

Dunn said Bud Noyes helped her find the last remaining cobbler shop that used to be in Dunbarton, which a blacksmith who moved into town relocated to Goffstown in 1955. The cobbler shop is still standing in Goffstown, she said, on Main Street.

They also worked on acquiring the Hadley-Tucker historical collection, an assortment of old photographs, post cards and documentation of old buildings in town.

“It’s irreplaceable,” Dunn said of the collection.

Friends and his wife described Bud Noyes as ever-present, thoughtful, passionate and quiet.

“I’ve had some time to be introspective, and I think what I miss the most was the fact that he was a very steady person that was always very low-key,” said Bettyann Noyes. “He felt, I think, that he had a mission in life, and one of his greatest desires was the finish that mission. Unfortunately, he was not able to, but parts of it will have been done.”