Dean Shalhoup

Most everyone in Nashua, it seemed, knew the tallish, slim, soft-spoken man with a ready smile they often saw walking along a residential street – or at least knew who he was.

Depending on their level of familiarity with the pleasant-looking gent, folks may have called him “the minister,” “the preacher,” “the pastor” or “the bishop,” all of which would be at least partially accurate.

“He’s trying to collect money to build his church … he’s been doing it for years,” moms and dads told inquisitive youngsters who saw him for the first time.

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Editor’s note: In conjunction with Black History Month, this week’s column is the third of three that focuses on the history and experiences, including housing and societal discrimination, faced by members of Nashua’s tiny, but growing, African-American community in the second half of the 20th century.

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“He’s a nice man … even if you can’t give him any money, he still smiles, says thank you and God bless you,” our parents told more than a few of us baby boomers.

Today, memories of the late Rev. Estee J. Newman, and later, Bishop Estee J. Newman, hold a special place for longtime Nashuans who had the pleasure of meeting, or better, befriending, Bishop Newman, who, quite fittingly, lived to see his long dreamed-of church become a reality.

It came in the form of a 600-seat church in Pelham, into which the church’s congregation of 350, by then named the New England Pentecostal Ministries, moved in May 1987 under the leadership of Bishop Stanley Choate and his wife, Ruth – one of Bishop Newman’s eight daughters who had joined the ministry some years before.

Meanwhile, any observance of Black History Month in Nashua would fall woefully incomplete without a comprehensive look-back at the life and service of Bishop Estee Joseph Newman Sr., a Nashua icon whose family, upon its arrival in 1941, found itself one of few African-American families living in Nashua at the time.

A number of those families lived in a small village of mostly rickety dwellings on the property of the former Koppers Company, a large-scale wood preserving operation commonly known as “the tie plant.”

Koppers allowed the workers and their families to live there rent-free, an attractive perk for folks of modest means trying to raise a family.

The village, dubbed “Shantytown” by the media, is where the Estee Newman family landed and set up housekeeping when Koppers hired the family patriarch.

Being the spiritual, benevolent man he was, Newman, within a year of taking up residence at the tie plant, organized a home prayer group in his little house.

Several of Newman’s co-workers began attending his prayer sessions, among them Mark and Laura Sommerville, Elenora Perry and Florence Quarles, who, according to a history of the Newman family and the New England Pentecostal Ministries posted on the NEP’s website, became the first Church Mother.

“This was the root of what was later to become New England Pentecostal Ministries,” the post states.

It didn’t take long for the prayer groups to outgrow the small space in the Newman family’s home. But whether it was a case of divine intervention or a lucky coincidence, a solution promptly presented itself: Koppers allowed the prayer group to meet in an unused wood-frame building on the property – at no cost.

Over the next decade or so, at least two fires struck Shantytown, drawing the attention of the fire department’s fire prevention bureau, that era’s version of today’s Fire Marshal’s office.

“‘Shantytown’ to be Condemned” was the headline on the top story on the front page of the May 2, 1957 Nashua Telegraph, in which Capt. Herbert Duprey, the head of the fire prevention bureau, told the newspaper that the buildings that housed a number of Koppers employees and their families for a dozen or so years were deemed “unsuitable for habitation, and unsafe.”

That they were, but the solution to the problem, although necessary in the name of safety, created a daunting challenge for the families, almost all of whom were African-American: Finding an apartment or small house to rent in a city where virtually all owners of rental property were loathe to accept people of color as tenants.

No stranger to adversity – they lost a 6-month-old son to pneumonia, then another son, age 12, drowned in the Merrimack River near the tie plant – the Newman family, guided by their patient, yet persistent patriarch whose deep faith sustained him and his family through thick and thin, were among the first Shantytown “refugees” to find new quarters, thanks to a friend who helped them acquire a place on West Pearl Street that also accommodated the mission.

Not long afterward, Newman, according to historical accounts of him, his family and his mission, became Nashua’s first African-American property owner when he purchased a three-story, multiple family house at 12 Tolles St.

It’s also believed that one of his sons, Charles, was the first African-American baby born at Nashua’s St. Joseph Hospital.

Newman and some of his children went to work on much-needed renovations, turning the former variety store on the first floor into a mission with room for about 60 people and creating living space on the second and third floors.

There, Newman conducted services and ministered to folks whether they were members of his flock or complete strangers who found themselves down on their luck, perhaps in need of a spiritual boost.

It was shortly after the family settled in to the combination home and chapel that Newman began dividing his time between hosting services and walking door-to-door soliciting donations, funds on which his mission depended to keep the lights on.

But while it may seem odd to folks who didn’t know Bishop Newman, he not only collected funds on those sometimes lengthy journeys, but he also re-distributed some of those funds when he saw a need, so ingrained was his sense of generosity and desire to help those less fortunate than he.

Bishop Estee Newman was 88 when he passed in December 1994, leaving a legacy that personified spirituality, compassion, and the power of faith, and set an example that inspired several family members to become clergy men and women to carry on his spiritual work.

John Stylianos, the late Telegraph managing editor who penned a column that appeared regularly in the paper, wrote a segment on Nashua’s faith leaders in a January 1981 column.

Of Bishop Newman, Stylianos wrote, “Bishop Newman’s fund-raising activities for his church are more arduous than other clergymen.

“He canvasses most of the city’s homes by foot, and he gracefully accepts whatever is donated.

“This parish survived because of his zeal and drive.”

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.