Small Towns: Cheshire County New Hampshire

 

In Southern New Hampshire nearly every settlement from Keene in the east to Manchester 69 miles westward is small. Keene is a vibrant college town of roughly 23,000 people, which makes it a metropolis by the standards of Route 101. The next biggest place is Peterborough, which has 6,400 residents. It's famous for a folk music venue that has operated for many years and for the MacDowell residency program where visual artists, writers, architects, and other creative people gather in the woods to collaborate and work on their projects. MacDowell was where Thornton Wilder wrote “Our Town” with Peterborough as his model. However, I would like to concentrate on three smaller towns: Dublin, Harrisville, and Hancock. 

 

 

 

Perhaps you’ve heard of Dublin population 1,500 and can't recall why. If you have ever picked up Yankee Magazine or the Farmer's Almanac, they are published in Dublin. The center of town is a classic New England white village, the exceptions being the fieldstone library and the red Yankee Magazine building. Dublin is in the middle of the Monadnock region, a region in which to enjoy nature and then kick back in a town dotted with small inns and restaurants. There are three large lakes within the town limits, the largest being Dublin Pond. It's also home to the genteel Dublin School, a private college prep institution of just 170 students spread across more than 500 acres–roughly three per student! Dublin has long been an unconventional town for New Hampshire–more crunchy and arty than sawdust- and plaid-covered. It has quite a few devotees of the Baha'i faith, courtesy of a 1912 visit from Abdu’l-Bahá, the Persian-born son of the founder of Baha'i. In the summertime it hosts the Walden Music School.

 

 

 

If you drive up the hill by the parking lot of Yankee Magazine Publishing and travel about 5 miles you will come to Harrisville. It has a special place in my heart, because when I was an undergraduate at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, the very first book I read in a labor history class  (my eventual graduate school specialty) was Factory under the Elms by John Borden Armstrong. It profiled Harrisville and taught me a lot about then-alien concepts: macroeconomics, the immigrant cycle, demographics, and ethnographic history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harrisville was–and is–a textiles village. It was named for Milan Harris who opened the first woolen mill there. It is a picturesque village of just 984 people and much of it looks as it might have appeared in the 19th century. There are old brick and stone factories, mill ponds, canals, and raceways that provided water power to run the machines. Think Lowell, Massachusetts in miniature. Much of the town has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and Harrisville Designs still produces yarns and cloth for purchase at the factory store. Harrisville is a friendly place, but because it is so small it depends on a few people doing a lot of things. I struck up a conversation with Frederick, who was repairing windows sills and pointing bricks and blocks. He is one of just two people who oversee the historical complex. His partner Cat, a graphics design artist, was gracious enough to put aside her work preparing upper stories of factories for housing and business conversion to show Emily and me around the old mills. “Old,” though, is a bit of an oxymoron. There are historic photos to be viewed and a relatively large weaving and twisting room still using classic textile machinery, but much of the post-industrial space has been beautifully renovated. Bringing retrofitted buildings into the 21st century has required removing walls, installing modern furnishings, and replacing inefficient energy sources with solar power, heat pumps, and up-to-date furnaces. Harrisville is a fascinating place just to walk around and imagine yourself in a different time period. It even has a general store that pretty much takes care of all local needs from crackers to coffee.

 

 

 

Hancock was actually our primary goal for the day because it is home to the Farm at Wolf Pine Hollow. Every May it becomes a riot of color because its 118 acres are planted in more than a half million tulip bulbs. The village proper has 1700 people but they are spread out and the center looks as if there couldn't contain more than a few hundred. Hancock is quiet and operates at a casual pace. There are several cafes, but don't expect fast service. Somewhere it has a bell fashioned by Paul Revere, but that didn't seem exciting enough to seek out. Like most of the towns in Cheshire County it’s located in watersheds of the Ashuelot and Contoocook rivers, hence there are lakes dotting the landscape, including extensive Nabanusit Lake.

 

Cheshire County New Hampshire is a place where you go to operate in slow gear. That is unless you wish to climb the Monadnock ridges or burn energy paddling in the ponds. We opted for taking our time to poke about, stop, and enjoy the views.

 

Rob Weir