When I visited my grandparents at Lucknow, the living room with its large library, card room with fireplace, and comfortable chairs, sofas, and window bench seats, was one of my favorite rooms. Most of the books in the library were novels, which did not interest me as a child. I was attracted to the leather bound volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Nana must have noticed me reading this wonderful reference work. When my grandparents sold Lucknow and returned to Plymouth, Nana took the encyclopedia with her. Before she died, ten years later, she left the encyclopedia to me. It traveled with me to graduate school, and has been the treasured heart of my own library ever since. It is the classic eleventh edition (1911) of the Encyclopedia Britannica, with twenty-nine volumes.
Lucknow, India, a center of the Mogul empire known for its architecture and a British administrative capital, was the site of a famous seige in the Indian mutiny of 1857. A British citizen, who lived in Lucknow, India, and visited our home page, commented on its splendor. We do not know whether Thomas Plant named Lucknow in Moltonborough for the Indian city. Before he chose the Ossipee Mountains in New Hampshire for the location of his retirement home, he toured the world. Possibly he visited Lucknow, India, and carried the name back with him.