TOUR 15: From CONCORD to MASSACHUSETTS LINE (Fitchburg), 58 m., US 202.
Via Hopkinton, Henniker, Hillsborough, Antrim, Peterborough.
Limited accommodations at frequent intervals.
Paved roads; plowed in winter.
THIS route passes through the highlands of southwestern New Hampshire, following the winding Contoocook (Ind.: ‘crow place or river’), and through rural communities, including the Peterborough section, noted for its unusual beauty.
CONCORD (see CONCORD), 0 m.
US 202 leaves west on Pleasant Street, and passes the extensive grounds and buildings of the New Hampshire State Hospital, lining the road (L) for several blocks.
At 1.5 m. is (L) the Christian Science Pleasant View Home, a group of large Georgian Colonial brick buildings set in spacious and beautifully landscaped grounds. The main building is a long, rambling structure, set far back from the road. Three stories high, it has a wing on each end with a hip roof and with dormer windows. Over the main entrance is a large portico supported by Doric columns. The side entrances and some of the windows are decorated with iron balconies. Over the first story is a limestone belt course, and the corners of the wings are quoined with limestone blocks. This home for elderly Christian Scientists, built in the grounds surrounding the original home of Mary Baker Eddy, Pleasant View, was begun in March, 1926, and completed in the summer of 1927. The main building contains a large drawing- and living-room, 144 bedrooms, large sun parlors, two dining-rooms, a recreation-room, a library, and an assembly-room. Other buildings on the grounds include two summer houses and a three-room bungalow near the artificial pond that was a part of Mrs. Eddy’s estate. A rustic windmill that once pumped water to the pond still stands.
Among the interior furnishings in the main buildings is a hand-carved 16th-century English choir stall with two drop seats, having the legend, ‘He that believeth on me shall never thirst.’ On each side of the main dining-room entrance are two hand-woven tapestries made of crewel embroidery on linen.
Just across the highway from the Pleasant View Home is the Bradley Monument, commemorating the massacre, August 11, 1746, of Samuel Bradley, Jonathan Bradley, Obadiah Peters, John Bean, and John Lufkin. At the dedication of this monument (1837) was sung a hymn written for the occasion by the Rev. John Pierpont, grandfather of J. Pierpont Morgan.
A contemporary account of the massacre is given by Abner Clough in his ‘Journal’ (Collection of the New Hampshire Historical Society, Volume 4):
Capt. Ladd came up to Rumford, Concord, and that was on the tenth day (of August), and, on the eleventh day, Lieut. Jonathan Bradley took six of Capt. Ladd’s men, and was in company with one Obadiah Peters, that belonged to Capt. Melvin’s company of the Massachusetts, and was going about two miles and a half from Rumford town to a garrison; and when they had gone about a mile and a half, they were shot upon by thirty or forty Indians, if not more, as it was supposed, and killed down dead Lieut. Jonathan Bradley, John Lufkin and John Bean and this Obadiah Peters. These five men were killed down dead on the spot, and the most of them were stripped stark naked, and were very much cut, and stabbed, and disfigured; and Sergant Alexander Roberts and William Stickney were taken captive... We went up to the men, and ranged the woods awhile, after these captives, and then brought the dead to town in a cart, and buried the dead men this day.
At 2.4 m. is (L) St. Paul’s School; in 1936 it celebrated its 80th anniversary. Within its spacious elm-shaded grounds stands one of America’s most exclusive preparatory schools. The main buildings are of brick in the Georgian Colonial style, a few having gambrel roofs. Other houses interspersed among them are white framed cottages. The Chapel, of brick after the Gothic manner, occupies a central position in the campus.
Beyond the Old Chapel and the Lower School, a little bridge crosses the stream separating the Little Pond from the Big Pond, where St. Paul’s trains its famous ice hockey teams. Continuing past the Upper School, across the Sawmill Road, is the school’s 9-hole golf course. Turning east, the Sawmill Road ends at the entrance to the Farm, across the street from Coit House, an Episcopal orphanage given in memory of the school’s first rector. Northeast from here stretch hundreds of acres of fields and timber lands, owned by the school. All of its many brick buildings, even the $50,000 power house, have a simple dignity. The latter, constructed on functional principles, carries a suggestion of ecclesiastical Gothic in the pointed arches of the smokestack. On a terrace overlooking the lower pond is the Sheldon Library, a granite building with unglazed red tile roof, given by his children in memory of William C. Sheldon, a former trustee of the school. It was dedicated in 1901 and has a capacity of 70,000 volumes. A large part of the basement is filled with a collection of natural history specimens, birds, animals, fish, reptiles, minerals, and flora, mostly indigenous to this vicinity, contributed by F. B. White and others. In front of the library is a bronze Statue of a hatless, boyish soldier of the Spanish-American War, the work of Bela L. Pratt. The statue honors the memory of seven St. Paul’s boys who died and 120 others who served their country in 1898.
Long cherishing an ambition to start a school on the principle that ‘physical and moral culture can best be attained where boys live and are constantly under the supervision of their teacher and in the country,’ Dr. George C. Shattuck realized his desire in 1856. He donated 50 acres of land and his summer home (the first brick house in Concord), and there Rev. Henry A. Coit assembled the school’s first class of three boys. Under Mr. Coit’s leadership, the school developed rapidly in the first decade of its existence. Numerous additions were made, due mostly to the generosity of its founder. By 1876, the school’s territory had increased to 125 acres and to 550 by 1891. Today it owns more than 1500 acres.
The school has increased its enrollment to 449 boys, one-third of whom are sons of alumni. There is a long waiting list of applications for entrance, many of which were placed at the birth of the candidate.
At 2.8 m. the highway begins the long, steep ascent of Dimond Hill, crowned with a fine view (R) over the top of Beach Hill and, on a clear day, of Mt. Washington. From this point are visible (L) Mt. Wachusett near Fitchburg, Mass., the twin Uncanoonuc Mountains in Goffstown, and Mt. Monadnock in Peterborough.
The old Morse Tavern, 6.7 m. (R), a five-bay, hip-roofed frame structure, is now a private dwelling, but was formerly a stopping-place for stage travelers on their way from Boston to Montreal.
On the opposite side of the highway is the large white Burns House, designed in the late version of the Colonial style, joined by an ell and two sheds to a proportionately large and pretentious barn, standing almost in the center of a well-kept triangular field. This excellent set of buildings was built about 1816 and is said to have cost $2500, the money obtained by the owner through a lottery. Legend has it that a man named Phillips, dubious of his chances on an $8 Havana lottery ticket, sold it to Philip Brown for $4. Shortly before the drawing, Brown unsuccessfully tried to get rid of his ticket to a farmer for a load of hay worth about $2. When the drawing took place, Phillips was notified of the winning of his ticket and for a slight consideration made over his papers to Brown. Brown then took his check to a Concord bank and was paid his winnings, $25,000, in United States bank notes and took them home and deposited them in a bureau drawer. The possession of so much money worried him greatly, and in the middle of the third consecutive sleepless night he took a circuitous trip in the woods and hid the money in a hollow tree. The next day he tried to find the tree and was horrified to discover that he could not. Several days later, he decided to try to find it under the cover of darkness, and succeeded. Ten per cent of the money he immediately set aside to build this house, the first of several investments in homes and mill properties in Hopkinton.
In front of the house a tablet marks the Site of Kimball’s Garrison, an early fort of this section.
At 6.9 m. is (L) the Birthplace of Grace Fletcher, an early Colonial house of odd proportions, about two-thirds the usual size and lacking a front door. One room has original paneling. This was the home of Elijah Fletcher, the second minister of Hopkinton, and here his fourth daughter, Gratia, was born in 1782. Reputed to have grown into a very beautiful young lady, noted for her many accomplishments, she became the wife of the great statesman and orator Daniel Webster in 1808 at her sister’s home in Salisbury. While en route to Washington in 1827 she died.
At 6.9 m. is a junction with a paved road.
Left on this road is PAGE’S CORNER, 3 m., a small but attractive group of early houses. Among them is (R) the Caleb Page House (not open), a yellow frame house of the Revolutionary period, shaded by a row of rock maples. This was the first frame house in Dunbarton and was built by Caleb Page, one of the original grantees of the township.
At 4 m. on this road is a junction with a dirt, road. Right here 1.4 m. on this dirt road to the Stark Burying Ground, a beautifully shaded knoll overlooking a lily pond. Here are buried all the early Starks, with the exception of General John Stark and his wife Molly, who are buried in Manchester (see MANCHESTER). Caleb Stark’s grave is on the west center of the plot. Right 0.1 m. from the burying ground is (R) the Site of the Stark Mill. Here John Stark (1728–1822) built a sawmill and gristmill to serve the people of the little settlement, the town fathers having authorized this, ‘provided that the prices be equal to or less than other millers of other settlements.’ Left from the burying ground, 0.3 m., is the distinguished Stark Mansion (not open). It is a two-and-a-half-story frame gambrel-roofed house, with two large chimneys, and dormers, and a two-story ell. Above the three-inch thick main door that has two-foot strap hinges is a transom with an unusual row of bull’s-eyes of green glass. Caleb Stark, at the age of 16, ran away to join his father, General John Stark, and making his way on horseback, reached Boston just in time for the battle of Bunker Hill. He served with distinction through the war and emerged as a major. Returning from the war, he built the present mansion, and here, in 1825, he entertained Lafayette. The chamber occupied by the distinguished Frenchman is preserved in its original state. The Stark Mansion is believed to have been used by Owen Wister as part of the locale in ‘The Virginian.’
HOPKINTON (alt. 500, town pop. 1485), 7.2 m., limited accommodations, is an attractive, compact village with its wide main street shaded by century-old elms, and numerous well-kept Colonial residences.
Hopkinton was granted by the Province of Massachusetts to a group of citizens of Hopkinton, Mass., who settled it in 1735. Until the termination of the French and Indian War (1763), its development was seriously retarded by constant trouble with the Indians as evidenced by several markers telling of garrisons and massacres.
The town was incorporated as Hopkinton in 1765 and prospered until it became the shire town of Hillsborough County. The removal of the seat of county government saw the beginning of a decline in prosperity. Its present activities are confined almost entirely to those of an agricultural and residential nature.
The Long Memorial Library, Main St. (R), a red-brick building, was built in 1890 as a memorial to William H. Long, a beloved Boston schoolmaster and a native of Hopkinton. In addition to being the town library it houses the collection of the New Hampshire Antiquarian Society, which includes an old hand tub fire engine, an Indian dugout canoe, and a cell-door and a noose, grim reminders of New Hampshire’s first exaction of capital punishment.
The little St. Andrew’s Church, Main St. (R), built in 1828, is a granite copy of the Anglican churches of that period.
Next to St. Andrew’s Church a marker indicates the Site of the Lafayette Elm and the Wiggin Tavern, scene of the entertainment of Marquis Lafayette during his visit in 1825.
The Congregational Church, at the junction of the roads in the center of the town, was built in 1789. From its graceful spire a Revere bell still summons the parishioners to worship and the volunteer firemen to their duty. Across Contoocook road near the Soldier’s Monument is a marker designating the Site of the First Meeting-House, erected here in 1751.
At 10.8 m. is (R) the Dunston Country Club with 9-hole golf course (fee $1).
At 11.5 m. the Contoocook River is crossed, and now followed for 30 miles. This stream which has its source on the eastern slopes of Mt. Monadnock and flows northward, is the theme of many of the poems of Edna Dean Proctor (see below).
At the Hopkinton–Henniker town line, 11.8 m., is a view of Craney Hill directly ahead and (R) forest-encircled Keyset Pond.
The Craney Hill Reforestation Tract, 12.3 m., is a 31-acre experimental section under the control of the State Forestry Department.
At 13.5 m. is (R) a large Split Rock from which it is said was made the leap that inspired J. T. Trowbridge’s poem, ‘Darius Green and His Flying Machine.’
Another scenic viewpoint, 13.6 m., reveals Sugar Hill ahead and Bear Hills (R).
HENNIKER (alt. 440, town pop. 1266), 15.6 m., limited accommodations, is a little crossroads village, that prides itself on being ‘the only Henniker on earth.’ Its houses stretch along both sides of the crossroads. A little library, new school, antique shops, and a well-known old inn (1840) add attractiveness to the village.
Settlers came here as early as 1760, but it was not until 1768 that Governor Benning Wentworth granted the town a charter in honor of his old friend John Henniker, a wealthy merchant of London. From 1791, Henniker enjoyed its most prosperous days, continuing to increase its population, starting small industries and opening an academy; the latter was founded with a strong board of trustees, but with meager financial resources, that did not assure it a long existence. In later years it has developed into a residential center with paper and leather-board mills and factories manufacturing wooden novelties as its industries. Farming is the chief occupation on the outskirts of the village.
The Tucker Library, Main St. (L), has a small collection of Indian and other early relics.
The old double-arched Stone Bridge over the Contoocook was completed in 1835, replacing one built here about 1780.
Henniker is the birthplace of Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923) whose writings, especially those in verse, commemorate the beauties of this locale.
Left from Henniker on State 114, at 0.5 m., is a junction with the Gulf Road. Right here to the Ocean-Born Mary House (open; nominal fee), 3.2 m. This old house, which probably attracts more visitors through the summer months than any other place in the neighborhood, has a background replete with legendary incidents. That most prominently connected with it and which gives it its name is as follows:
Two hundred years ago an emigrant ship was boarded by pirates and while the ship was in their hands a baby was born. On learning this fact, the chief of the pirates requested that he be allowed to name the baby Mary for his dead wife. The parents consented and the pirates left the ship, but soon returned with presents for the baby. Among these was a piece of colored silk which the chief asked be kept for a wedding dress for Mary. The pirates then left the ship to continue its course, and in time the vessel arrived at Portsmouth, N.H. The family became early settlers of Londonderry. Years later, when Mary became the bride of James Wallace, her wedding gown was made from the silk given to her by the pirate. The young couple came to Henniker and built this house. A piece of the wedding dress silk is carefully guarded in a frame in the hall of the house. ‘Ocean-Born Mary’ (Mrs. Wallace) is buried in the Quaker Cemetery at Henniker (see below).
Left from Gulf Road and left on Quaker Meeting-House Road is the long, low, one-story frame Quaker Meeting-House (1790) with its row of horse sheds in the rear. Within are 10 pews long unused, but no pulpit. Beside the church is the little cemetery with glistening stones, polished each year. One bears on its surface, with the typical urn and weeping willow, the inscription:
In Memory of Widow Mary Wallace who died Feb’y 13.
A.D. 1814, in the 94th year of her age.
WEST HENNIKER, 17 m., a little settlement scattered along the highway, has a number of well-kept early houses.
HILLSBOROUGH, (alt. 580, town pop. 2160), 22.6 m., limited accommodations, is a busy manufacturing village, softened by tall maples that line its main street. Its houses and stores are on high land above the Contoocook River, which furnishes power to the mills. Hillsborough’s two large mills produce woolen cloth, hosiery, and underwear. Although in the midst of hills, Hillsborough’s name does not come from them, but from Colonel John Hill, one of the Masonian proprietors (see History). The town was incorporated in 1772.
On January 18, 1742, the first boy, John McColley, was born in the settlement, in a log hut erected where Marcy’s block stands; in May of the same year, the first girl, Elizabeth Gibson, was born in a hut on the Center road. When they had reached maturity, Colonel Hill offered them a hundred acres of land if they would marry and settle in the new town. Either for pecuniary reasons or from natural inclination, they accepted his offer.
The Great Bridge across the Contoocook is a successor to the first built in 1799 which was a marvel of engineering. Its memory was perpetuated in a name formerly used for the village, Hillsborough Bridge.
The Community House, School Street, castle-like with its turrets and dominating the town, was built as a residence in 1894 by John B. Smith, Governor of the State from 1893 to 1895. Large curved panes of glass, once valued at a thousand dollars each, are conspicuous features of the structure. The Fuller Public Library occupies a part of the first floor, in a room that has inlaid marble floor, mahogany woodwork, brocaded satin wall-covering, and decorated ceilings. On the second floor is the Historical Room, containing objects from all parts of the world.
The Twin Houses of the Southern type on the eastern side of the main street, set back from the highway, were built in 1880 and are alike in every detail both inside and out. They were long known as the Dutton Houses, for the family that later joined in establishing the Houghton and Dutton department store in Boston, now defunct.
Like Peterborough, Hillsborough has a musician as one of its leading inhabitants, Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, the pianist, having made her summer home here for more than 30 years. Her interest in the musical training of the children of the community led to the founding of the Beach Club 15 years ago, and junior and juvenile orchestras of young people receive the benefit of her training and inspiration. The club has a studio in the Community House.
1. Left from Hillsborough on a paved road across the big bridge is DEERING CENTER, 4.7 m., a little settlement on the hills above the large Deering Reservoir. Around the little white church and town hall and library cluster a half dozen large and well-preserved early houses.
Right from Deering Center on a dirt road is the Farm of Dr. Eleanor Campbell (see below), and the summer home of Dr. Daniel A. Poling.
The Deering Community Center, 6.1 m., is a group of 30 buildings in ample grounds covering 20 acres, including Judson Hall, the social center, a large audience hall, and many small cabins. An outdoor auditorium, Round Top, has an unusual pulpit and lectern of stone. Public services are held here on Sunday afternoons in summer. The center’s chief activity is a daily summer vacation school of eight weeks for children from neighboring towns, for whom bus transportation is provided. Both secular and religious subjects are taught by a large staff of workers. The center was founded in 1929 by Dr. Eleanor A. Campbell of New York City, long a summer resident here, as the Elizabeth Milbank Anderson Memorial in memory of Dr. Campbell’s daughter. In June, 1937, it was presented by her to Boston University.
2. Right from Hillsborough on School Street is the Caroline A. Fox Research and Demonstration Forest, 1.9 m., a 390-acre area largely of white pine, donated by Miss Fox to the State in 1922. A bequest of $200,000 from her in 1933 enables the State Forestry and Recreation Department to carry on forestry research.
Right on School Street is HILLSBOROUGH CENTER, 4 m., a little hilltop settlement, the original Hillsborough. Practically the whole of the little settlement was a part of a grant by Colonel Hill to the first minister of the township, the Rev. Jonathan Barns. On this piece of ground is now a group of 13 houses, many of them late Colonial, around a rough stone-walled Common, deeply dented by a gully. At the northern end of the Common the Site of the First Meeting-House (1794) is marked by a boulder, and 10 young maples have been planted to indicate the location of the first building.
West from the northern end of the Common, 500 feet, by a path through the woods is the Lookout, a wooden tower, from which there is a wide view of the surrounding country.
On the west side of the Common, 50 feet back among the trees, is the Old Pound (1774).
At the northeast corner of the Common is the Barns House (not open), built in 1774 by the first minister. This two-story, frame, gable-end house has been little changed since it was built. The clapboards are not butted, but are planed and lapped over each other; all the nails are hand-made; the front door has arrow-head iron hinges and double cross-panels, believed to ward away witches. In this house was organized in 1825 the Hillsborough Instrumental Band, the first incorporated band in the State, still in existence. A notable incident in its history is connected with President Andrew Jackson’s visit to New Hampshire in June, 1833, when the band was invited to play. They traveled by wagons to Concord, gay in their uniforms of gray coats with bell buttons, black leather caps with plumes, and white pants. Reaching Concord at night, they struck up a lively tune and awoke General Pierce, who stormed and raved because they had disturbed his guest. President Jackson then laughed and invited them to a feast.
Right on School Street is Loon Pond, 5.9 m., surrounded by forests. There are indications that this was an occasional meeting place of the Penacook Indians.
Today it is a growing summer resort, and a source of water supply for Hillsborough Village.
At 24 m. US 202 turns (L) over an Arched Bridge, a fine old stone structure built by Ezra Kendall and others in 1767.
ANTRIM (alt. 707, town pop. 1254), 30.8 m., limited accommodations, with a fine old brick hotel, is a compact and quiet little town. Neat churches and well-kept homes add to its attractiveness. It lies on a hillside, sloping toward the Contoocook River, from which, in earlier days, sand was taken to near-by Stoddard to be used in the making of the famous Stoddard glass (see The Arts).
Although the name was taken from a town in the north of Ireland, from which the later Scotch-Irish settlers came, the first settler was a Scotchman, who came here in 1741, and for four years lived in heroic if somewhat distressful isolation, the only inhabitant of the region. A few years later other settlers came in, bringing with them their stern Presbyterian faith, and the town was incorporated in 1777.
The Goodell Cutlery Factory (visited on application) stands near the site of an old shovel factory built in 1856, and attaining a wide market before 1867, when it burned down. A new factory was immediately built and occupied by D. H. Goodell and Company, who manufactured a device for paring apples, invented and patented by Mr. Goodell in 1864. This continued until 1875, when the present cutlery business was started. At one time more than 200 people were employed, and more than 100 kinds of cutlery made.
1. Right on a road by the cemetery is an Indian Burying Ground, from which skeletons and artifacts have been recovered. The neighboring fields were once used by the Indians for the cultivation of corn.
2. Right from the village on a hill is the gray field-stone Lodge, long a favorite summer inn, from which there is an extensive view over the surrounding country.
South of Antrim the highway follows the Contoocook River very closely as it winds through the broad intervale.
At 31.6 m., are the Monadnock Paper Company Mills, an attractive group of low brick structures on the banks of the river that pours in a turbulent flood over a dam at this point.
BENNINGTON (alt. 660, town pop. 552), 32.1 m., limited accommodations, is a little manufacturing village with a small attractive brick library and new high school building, both having been given to the town by Colonel Arthur J. Pierce. Five dams across the Contoocook provide Bennington with ample water power, much of which is used by the New Hampshire Power Company.
At one time cutlery was extensively manufactured here; powder was also produced. Of late years the manufacture of paper has been the main industry.
Formerly a part of Hancock Village, Bennington was one of the last townships to be incorporated (1842), and took its name from Governor Benning Wentworth.
The highway continues over the new bridge, past the transformer station of the New Hampshire Power Company, and again the Contoocook and its graceful windings are visible. Conelike Mt. Monadnock stands out in majestic isolation 15 miles south.
HANCOCK (alt. 850, town pop. 561), 36.4 m., limited accommodations, is an old-fashioned community, which seems unaffected by the passage of time. It once had a postmaster who served the community for half a century. It would not seem incongruous to see a stagecoach come down the highway and stop at the tavern, as it did a century ago.
John Grimes first settled in Hancock in 1764, but not until 1779 had enough settlers arrived to warrant its incorporation. It then took the name of John Hancock, who, as President of the Continental Congress, was the first to place his signature on the Declaration of Independence. Hancock was once a manufacturing center, and for some time nearly one-half of all the cotton manufactured in the State was made here. Rifles and fowling pieces were also manufactured here in the early 19th century by Jeptha Wright. Today the town is very largely a summer resort.
The Historical Building (open daily 2–5, June–Sept.; no fee) (R), corner of Main St. and Bennington Rd., is a dignified brick house, with four chimneys that pierce a hip roof, and surrounded by a white picket fence. Built in 1800, the house was for many years a tavern on the Hancock—Milford Turnpike, chartered in 1800. A notable collection of relics, the property of the Hancock Historical Society, includes a valuable set of old luster-ware, old dishes and furniture, and some paintings and etchings.
Right on Stoddard Road is the village Church (Congregational), built in 1820. The pedimented main portal, with three doors and a large Palladian window, is flanked with Ionic pilasters, a motif repeated in the corner posts of the façade. In the pediment of the portal is an oval window decorated with crossed palms. The square tower supports a square, open-arched belfry, two octagonal lanterns, and a short spire. The cornice is richly embellished with dentils and reeded trim. It is recorded that the pews were auctioned off in one day for $1700. In the belfry is a Revere Bell. Under the shadow of the meeting house is Norway Pond, a picture of serenity, and across the road the Old Cemetery, with epitaphs worth attention.
Right from Hancock on Stoddard Road is ‘Hooter’ Farm, 2.5 m., where a former officer in the Imperial Guard of the Czar of Russia raises turkeys. ‘Hooter’ is Russian for ‘one-man farm.’
The highway continues into the Monadnock region, colorful and rugged.
At 40.9 m. are visible (L) the Temple and Peterborough Mountains, a long, low range of hills, and (R) Mt. Monadnock (see Tour 15B).
PETERBOROUGH, 43.8 m. (see PETERBOROUGH).
At the foot of a steep hill in the center of Peterborough, the highway turns (L) through the pleasant Contoocook Valley.
NOONE, 45.3 m., a little mill hamlet, is one of the industrial centers of Peterborough. Using direct water-power from the Contoocook River, the Joseph Noone’s Sons Company is the sole source of supply of the felt cloths used in the printing of paper money by the United States Bureau of Printing and Engraving, and has been in continuous operation since its establishment in 1831.
Cheshire Pond, 49.8 m., is a pleasant little body of water on the outskirts of the village of East Jaffrey. Here the development of a recreational center has led to the building of a skating rink with electric lights and a refreshment booth. Many skating meets and dog-sled races are held in this vicinity. A center for both winter and summer recreation, Jaffrey has a three-day winter carnival.
EAST JAFFREY (Jaffrey Township), 50.4 m., limited accommodations, on both banks of the Contoocook River, is the industrial and business center of Jaffrey Township. Largely a product of the 19th century, it is a community of simple Victorian houses with some more modern ones on Jaffrey Road.
The first textile mill at East Jaffrey was built in 1787, although sawmills and gristmills had been in operation on the river earlier. This mill has changed hands several times, but is now incorporated as the Cheshire Mills, with denim its most important product.
In the early nineteenth century East Jaffrey had an industry followed on a small scale but having a wide reputation, the manufacture, by Hannah Davis, of gaily-colored wooden bandboxes, now valuable antiques. A collection has been made by the Village Improvement Society.
The World War Memorial, a rugged piece of sculpture entitled ‘Buddies,’ in the village center, is the work of Count Vigo Brandt Erickson. It depicts a wounded soldier in the arms of his comrade. In 1930 a large field-stone of granite, weighing between 20 and 25 tons, was brought from the foot of Mt. Monadnock, taking three weeks in transit. Under a shelter built around it, Erickson worked on this sculpture until its dedication on Armistice Day, 1931.
During the summer season the Inn Theater presents a series of plays by the Actor-Associates.
East Jaffrey is at the junction with the unmarked Troy road (see Tour 15B).
Left from East Jaffrey on a paved road is the Humiston Playground, 0.5 m., dedicated to the memory of Dr. Humiston (d. 1912) and his son John, who was killed in action in 1918.
On this same road is Contoocook Lake, 1.5 m., with many summer cottages and a municipal bathing beach. On the west bank of this lake are the former grounds of the Mediums’ Camp Meeting of the Two Worlds, a company incorporated in 1884 for the training of mediums and the promulgation of the doctrines of modern spiritualism. The first meeting of this group was held here June 21, 1885, and continued for four weeks. A speaker’s stand, an auditorium seating 1000 persons and 100 cottages were erected. The buildings are all that remain of the company today. The group called the pond Sunshine Lake, and it is sometimes still so called to the annoyance of local people.
WEST RINDGE, 55.3 m., a scattered little hamlet, is one of the three villages in the town of Rindge.
As the road rises 400 feet in the half-mile between West Rindge and Rindge, there is an excellent view of lakes and mountains in the north. Looming above the others, and completely dwarfing them is Grand Monadnock (alt. 3166).
RINDGE (alt. 1060, town pop. 610), 55.8 m., no accommodations, a wind-blown hilltop village of a church and a few houses at a crossroad, is a rural community whose natural setting of mountains and lakes have drawn many summer residents to it.
First surveyed in 1738, Rindge included part of Jaffrey and Sharon, and was called Rowley-Canada, since a number of the early settlers had come from Rowley, Mass., and had been to Canada in the expedition of 1690. When Abel Platts attempted to settle here in 1742, he remained only a short time because of the disturbances from Indians who roamed through this region. Ten years later, Ezekiel Jewett settled on the present Ware farm, and was soon followed by ten others. The first road in town was laid out in 1759 and in the following year the first sawmill was built. At its incorporation in 1768 the town took the name of Daniel Rindge, at that time a member of the Provincial Council.
Among the summer residents of Rindge are Mary Lee, author of ‘It’s a Great War.’
Baskets are made in the town by members of the New Hampshire League of Arts and Crafts.
The Congregational Church, erected in 1797, the second building on the site, contains handsome small-paned windows. The steeple with its pyramid finials is out of harmony with the rest of the building and was presumably altered during the remodelings in 1837 and 1871.
At 58 m. is the Massachusetts Line, with Lake Monomonac lying across it (L), 17 miles from Fitchburg, Mass.