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Jonathan Daniels was born on March 20,1939 at the former Elliot Community Hospital where his father Philip practiced medicine. Eventually his father helped found the Keene Community Hospital which is now the Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital. While his father served in WWII, the family moved to the south, where he retained “with distinct clarity, more memories of the period than of any other times or place since” and thought of the South as his adopted home. 

Jonathan Daniels Born at Elliot Community Hospital

When in Keene, NH consider taking a tour of Jonathan Daniels sites around town

Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage Map

Here, a young Jonathan Daniels created a secret hideout with his friends under the house. During his mid-teenage years he snuck out of his house along a roof and down a ladder to go for a joy ride with a friend who had recently gotten his license, and a car. Jonathan fell off the roof, when returning from the ride. He tried to hide his injuries, but his father was not fooled, and he ended up spending the better part of a month in the hospital. It was during this time that he became a more serious student and started considering his future. 

Jonathan Daniels Childhood Home

Jonathan Daniels attended elementary school at Tilden School, on School Street in Keene, NH. There he made friends, including Bob Perry. Bob has spoken about a secret hideout under the house, where there was an altar (and a place to smoke tobacco!) – the beginning of Jonathan Daniels interest in religion.

The school is now the Monadnock Waldorf School.

Jonathan Daniels Elementary School

Jonathan’s family were Congregationalists, but Jonathan appreciated the pomp and circumstance of the Episcopal Church. In conversations with friends and advisors, he discussed the appeal of the High Masses of the Catholic Church. Drawings in the margins of his notebooks show a chalice and a mitre, or ceremonial headdress. 

It is now the United Church of Christ in Keene.


Jonathan Daniels Childhood Church- First Congregational Church

The year after he graduated, the Junior High School closed. During high school, Jonathan would sneak into the boarded-up building and up to the bell tower. There he would smoke and contemplate the city and his life, with friends and alone.

The school was replaced by the Cheshire County Courthouse.

Jonathan Daniels Attended Central Junior High School

Here Jonathan Daniels started writing for the Enterprise, a high school literary magazine. Jonathan wrote original stories as well as book reviews titled “Inside the Covers”. He enjoyed acting and production in school performances, played the clarinet and tuba in the band and sang in the a cappella choir. Although he was skinny he ran track and played neighborhood sports. He expanded his circle of friends to include those who enjoyed discussing philosophy, religion and theology, and the meaning of life. He had a reputation for standing up against injustices he saw, using his sometimes-biting wit. He dated one woman throughout high school, and his writing indicates he had several girlfriends during his times at home and at seminary. 

The school became the Keene Middle School and is now privately owned.

Jonathan Daniels Studied at Keene High School 

Jonathan chose to attend St. James church as a teenager, in spite of the family’s congregational background. St. James had a youth group which the Congregational church did not. In addition, his love of the dramatic was better satisfied in the pageantry of the Episcopal liturgy. Reverend J. Edison Pike was a family friend who advised Jonathan and eventually sponsored his confirmation in the Episcopal church in 1958.

After college, when Jonathan decided on his religious calling, he chose to attend seminary school. After meeting with the bishop of NH, the diocese’s Board of Examining Chaplains, and a physical and psychological tests he became a postulant for Holy Orders on April 3, 1963. He was sponsored by St. James church and had the backing of the new minister, Reverend Chandler McCarty and the diocese. He applied to the Episcopal Theology School in Cambridge MA and was accepted. He started in September, 1963. 


Jonathan Daniels Attended St. James Episcopal Church

A good writer, Jonathan spoke at a service in 1962. A recording of his talk is part of the Jonathan Daniels exhibit at the Historical Society of Cheshire County. In 1957 he was baptized into the Episcopal Church. 



Jonathan Daniels Shrine inside St. James Episcopal Church Sanctuary

One of only 255 in the state. This marker has a brief biography of Jonathan Daniels life. 

Jonathan Daniels Historical marker next to St. James 

Jonathan Daniels was killed in Hayneville Alabama on August 20, 1965. It was also his Mother’s birthday. There was a card he had written to her in his final effects. The racial tension in the “Black Belt” area of Alabama was very high after Jonathan’s murder and the near murder of a priest who was shot several times in the back by the same man who killed Jonathan. Friends in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the organization he was working with, made calls made to the hospitals and funeral homes in the area to find his body, but it took a Senator’s inquiry to find which funeral home. No other funeral home wanted to be involved. Eventually a family friend offered to fly his body back to New England, where a hearse was waiting to bring him to Keene. He was buried next to his father, and eventually his mother was also buried here. There were hundreds of mourners at the funeral, including members of SNCC. Stokely Carmichael, Ruby Sales, Joyce Bailey all drove from Alabama for the funeral. Martin Luther King Jr. said “one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels”. Connie Daniels, his mother, was sent a telegram by President Lyndon Johnson, who offered his condolences. 

Jonathan Daniels Buried on August 24, 1965

This hometown hero is remembered in many ways. The Jonathan Daniels Trail is part of the Ashuelot River Park on West Street.the entrance is across from the Colony Mill apartment complex. 

Jonathan Daniels Trail Ashuelot River Park

In 1968 one of Keene’s elementary schools was named in Jonathan’s honor. Now a pre-school, his piano, a sculpture and a frieze are all part of the schools homage to his life and death. 

Jonathan Daniels Pilgrimage Map

Jonathan Daniels Born at Elliot Community Hospital

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