John D. Harrigan

COLEBROOK - John Dennis Harrigan, 75, of Colebrook, died on December 26, 2022 at the Upper Connecticut Valley Hospital in Colebrook, with his family by his side and following a brief illness. Born in Littleton on April 22, 1947, John was the second of Frederick J. and Esther Belle (White) Harrigan’s four children. He grew up on Park Street in Colebrook and at Clarksville Pond with his second family, Rudy and Joan Shatney, going to help them run their full-service sporting camp at the age of thirteen. The combination of a newspaper family and an outdoorsman’s livelihood in his early years combined to mold the life of a man who would become integral to the protection and celebration of the Granite State’s traditions and lands throughout his life. After high school John attended college in New Mexico for less than a year, returning to New Hampshire with his then-wife Belinda Ramirez, the mother of his three children. After several years in Nashua at the Telegraph and in Manchester at the Sunday News, in 1976 John moved his family back to the North Country. They resided in Colebrook until John purchased the Coös County Democrat two years later, and settled into a big old Victorian on North Main Street in Lancaster. John encouraged his children to roam freely, play outside in the rain and respect all things wild. His parenting style is perhaps best summed up in this note for his eldest daughter’s fifth grade teacher: “Please excuse Karen from school today. Her assistance is needed on a survey of the trout population in the upper Connecticut River watershed.” His ridiculous sense of humor was also a mainstay of his parenting, most memorably on rides in a variety of vehicles over the years that included his faithful Scout, the tank-like Toyota Land Cruiser, and a succession of old Ford pickups. On a downhill grade he would pretend the brakes had gone out, screaming, “Noooo braaaakes!” while waving his hands in the air and sending young Mike into a panic. He and Belinda kept the kids engaged on long rides with a litany of corny old songs that still haunt them to this day. He provided his children with countless memories of hikes, canoe trips, hunting and fishing experiences, adventures at his favorite camps on Clarksville Pond. He always encouraged his kids and was proud of them, never exerting pressure to join the family business but pushing them to explore their own paths. After his parents died in the early 1990s, John moved to the family homestead on South Hill and continued to run both his newspaper and theirs, The News and Sentinel. Ultimately, John would sell the Democrat to Salmon Press and the Sentinel to his daughter Karen, who remains the publisher and editor of the three-generation weekly to this day. During his years in Lancaster he was involved in the Rotary and the Chamber of Commerce, and in Colebrook was an active participant and supporter of the Dixville Races and a member of the Kiwanis Club. John was a passionate advocate for the North Country and collected legions of friends in both the newspaper and conservation worlds, who remained friends his entire life. He was as equally comfortable in the deep woods as he was jogging with a newly nominated president in Washington, and had an innate ability to have meaningful conversations with all he met. A lauded writer and journalist, he was also a deeply protective and caring son, brother, father, uncle and friend, and still and always a supremely difficult man to quantify adequately. John was ultimately a strong keeper of family, a champion and defender from both near and far, and a strong patriarch after the passing of his father in 1991. Sister Mary remembers his support at age six, when a neighborhood boy was gleefully pelting snowball-encased rocks at her, and John placed him unceremoniously head-first into a six-foot snowdrift. In her adult years he would unexpectedly show up, sometimes with brother Peter in tow, to both cheer on and embarrass her at horse show events around the country. They were blessed to make a number of trips together, including an off-grid fishing trip up into the northern reaches of Canada. His nieces were frequent visitors at South Hill, where John, alongside Esther and Fred, gifted them with a love and appreciation for the family’s northern roots and the homestead that he treasured as much as his parents had. He leaves behind his three children, Karen Jay Doolan, her husband Mitch and children Sawyer and Kamryn of Lancaster, John Michael Harrigan and fiancée Alison Klooster of St. Louis, Mo., and Kathryn Elba Harrigan, Walter Greenwood and their son John Greenwood of Derry; his sisters, Susan and her husband Peter Benjaminson of New York City, and Mary and her husband Pat Trowbridge of Bridgewater, Conn.; and his beloved nieces Sarah (Harrigan) Livnat, Anne (Benjaminson) Naarden and Rachel Harrigan and their families. He was predeceased by his brother, Peter Harrigan. Calling hours were held on Friday afternoon, December 30 at the Jenkins & Newman Funeral Home in Colebrook, followed by a social gathering at the Black Bear Tavern. The family will gather in the summer to spread John’s ashes at South Hill and other places he held dear around the North Country. Donations in John’s memory may be made to Barry Conservation Camp for youth in care of the Wildlife Heritage Foundation of New Hampshire, 54 Portsmouth Street, Concord, NH 03301, specifying that the gift is for the Barry Camp Fund; New Hampshire Public Radio, NHPR, PO Box 9645, Manchester, NH 03108-9645 or www.nhpr.org; The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, Attn. Anne Truslow, 54 Portsmouth St., Concord, NH 03301 or www.forestsociety.org.

John D. Harrigan

April 22, 1947 - December 26, 2022