NH Statehouse chicken, unlikely 2019 star, done crowing after untimely demise

It was a brief but welcome summer interruption – a chicken left outside the New Hampshire State House last year the day before the Fourth of July.

Now, the same chicken that surprised a team of State House aides – delighting passing reporters and gracing the Monitor pages with a full-page photo spread – has met its demise. It was killed by a weasel sometime this winter, according to a Senate source. 

“E. Maude Chickenson” was first discovered by staffers at the Department of Administration on the morning of July 3, 2019, in the slow summer weeks after the end of the legislative session. The bird, a rooster and likely a New Hampshire Red – the state’s official poultry – had been left outside the Capitol with a bag of feed, no instructions and no clear owner. The bird was quickly taken inside. 

Aides to the state senate named the chicken “E. Maude,” after E. Maude Fowler, New Hampshire’s first female state senator, elected in 1931. With lawmakers departed for the summer and legislative business slowed to a crawl, E. Maude had the run of the joint.

E. Maude Fowler posed for photos with visitors and staff. It stopped by the press room and hovered over a reporter’s desk plant. It wandered the inner courtyard before being scooped up and placed in cardboard box outside the Senate President’s office.

Finally, E. Maude found a loving home. It was taken home to Hopkinton that afternoon by Senate Policy and Communications Director Sara Persechino, and later settled in at a family member’s farm. E. Maude enjoyed a brief day of stardom in the news pages of the >italicres< He turned out to be a boy and lived out his days in comfort.

Sometime this winter, he lost his life in an attack that left him and five other hens dead. Weasels are known to attack chickens in the throat, often killing many more than they can eat and leaving them behind. 

As the news broke Wednesday, the tributes poured in. 

“This actually makes me sad,” wrote Rep. Wendy Thomas, a Merrimack Democrat in a post on Twitter. “Fly high our little State House chicken, your life it turns out was just a flash in the pan.”

Dover Democratic Sen. David Watters called on the Joint Legislative Historical Committee to commission an official portrait. 

Others took it as a reflection of bleak times.

“The hits just keep coming,” said Rep. Katherine Prudhomme O’Brien, a Derry Republican.

Two-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Marchand kept it brief.

“2020,” he mused in response.