BY DAVE CHOATE

Just five years before The Goffstown News swung into business, a mysterious man from Manchester came by the town with a camera and an unusual mission.

Arthur Blackman took hundreds of pictures of houses, roads and trees throughout the town. The only thing he left behind after his whirlwind tour of the town were yellowed typewritten pages and hundreds of black-and-white photos.

“I wish we knew more about the man and why he chose to do it,” said Eleanor Porritt, the curator at the Goffstown Historical Society.

Little is known about Arthur Blackman aside from his name and his work. Historical Society assistant curator Barbara Mace said no one seems to know his age or why he came to Goffstown.

Nonetheless, the society acquired four large binders full of black-and-white photos taken by Blackman. Also present are notes and quoted lines of poetry alongside the occasional longer letter with his thoughts on a variety of subjects.

The staggering number of photos he took seem to indicate a man interested in knowing and sharing the town he chose. Porritt said that limited anecdotal evidence suggests that Blackman simply came to the town and took photos during all four seasons in the early 1950s.

In one letter that the society has prefacing a volume filled with pictures of Main Street, Blackman writes a letter about the spirit of pioneers early in American history. Perhaps seeing himself as a 1950s version of his colonial ancestors, Blackman wrote about his own unique adventure in Goffstown: “Pioneers I tried my best.”